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adaws12 · 3 months

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Listen.

You were one of the very first people I followed on here after starting this series and I have subsequently spent copious amounts of time consuming Joel smut trying to chase the high this story gave me and have never come close.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 🖤

i know it when i see it - part 7

series masterlist | ao3

pairing: pornstar!joel miller x fem!reader

rating: explicit 18+ minors dni

word count: 8.4k

warnings: attempted rape/non-con, non-consensual drug use, main character is roofied, hurt/comfort, descriptions of vomiting, finally some feelings talk, victim-blaming by the victim

summary: a bad night brings you and joel closer than expected.

a/n: this chapter contains the graphic description of an attempted assault against the main character. if you believe this content may be triggering for you, there is an abridged version of the chapter posted here. please be responsible and protect your peace. resources are included at the end of the chapter.

The sunlight is brutal the next morning.

Slipping through the half-drawn blinds, burning red behind your eyelids. The sheets are warm and smell heavily of your roommate’s perfume, the lavender oil she puts on her wrists to fall asleep. Your head is heavy with hangover, mouth cottoned and dry. You’re achy and sore and so fucking embarrassed you want to die.

God, Joel must think you’re pathetic. Trailing after him like that, picking a fight when it was clear he wanted to leave. Grabbing his dick through his jeans — fucking hell, basically begging him to fuck you.

You bury your face in the pillow to muffle a groan, trying to cringe away from the memory.

What the hell is wrong with you? What is it about him that makes it impossible for you to keep your shit together? You told Tess that you were a big girl, that you could handle this. A fucking lie, clearly, since you can’t keep your cool for a single evening in his presence.

You are so soft for him, so easy. Just some cock-addled idiot willing to take whatever crumb he’ll give you, and then somehow hurt when that’s all you get. Of course he left. He always leaves. It’s like getting surprised when the sun starts to set.

Even if, for a second, you felt like things were different this time. That quiet moment when you were caught together, the way you felt him laugh, the scrape of his smile against your cheek. When your heart stilled and you were sure, so fucking sure that he felt it too.

Fuck.

You groan again, cringing away from the memory, the oil-slick shame of it that clings to your skin.

A gentle hand rests on the crown of your head, stroking your hair. Your roommate shifts in the sheets beside you.

“Baby, you’re spiraling,” she says, “Go take a shower.”

You do, because you are a little bit disgusting. The stale sweat from the club, from the sex. Glitter and mascara smudged around your eyes. Joel’s dry semen flaking between your thighs. You let the hot water scald your skin and think, unwillingly, of baptism. At this point, you doubt even the holiest of water could wash away your sins.

You stare at the grout, the little specks of mold that live there.

It’s just sex.

That’s what you had said to him, the lie that spilled out of you when you realized he was leaving.

Because that’s how it is with everyone else, the revolving door of co-stars that spend a few hours with your cunt. You fuck strangers the same way that you file taxes or wait in line at the bank. Efficiently, without anything resembling real want, no jagged edge of feeling. Sweaty and soulless, all gaping mouths and shuddering gasps. Checking your nail beds and chatting about the weather between takes, coming so hard you can’t see straight and never speaking to them again.

It’s just always just sex.

It shouldn't be different just because it’s Joel.

You’re tired of smoking until your fingers burn, tired of staring at the scrawl of his phone number, tired of waiting for the other shoe to fucking drop.

You’ve survived bigger disappointments. You won’t let yourself be wasted by it, won’t shrink into some softer shape, cannibalized by your own bastard affection. You tell the gnawing ache in your belly to fuck off, let it go, maybe chew on your ribs for a while.

The phone rings just as you’re stepping out of the shower, the sound muffled through the walls. You wrap a towel around your waist and crack open the small window to let out a spill of steam. The mirror is too fogged to see your own reflection, and it feels like a small mercy. You’re not sure you can look yourself in the eye right now.

Silly, shameless girl.

The voice in your head sounds like your mother’s.

You’re slightly more human when you shuffle out into the kitchen. Your roommate is at the stove, nudging a pat of butter around a sizzling pan.

“Someone called for you,” she says, nodding at the phone.

Only one of the other girls has resurrected, sitting cross-legged on one of the mismatched dining chairs, staring bleary-eyed into a soggy bowl of cereal. You ruffle her hair as you make a bee-line for the coffee pot, and she preens like a cat.

You see Tess’s number scrawled on the pad of paper by the phone, and wince at the idea of talking to her right now. You’ll need to ask her not to book another scene with Joel, explain some version of what happened last night. That was a conversation for later, once you had some food lining your stomach, a steady drip of caffeine in your veins.

The Hustlers cover is taped to the fridge, and your own face stares at you as you take out the cream.

Well, not your face, really.

It’s all Lucky, her heavy-lidded eyes, her please come fuck me smile. The girl in the magazines, the thing you came here to become. A better version of yourself in so many ways. Radiant and unrepentant.

She watches you take a sip of your coffee. Hair still dripping around your shoulders, so hungover you can barely stand upright. The lovesick, wet rat version of the nation’s newest sex symbol.

It’s just sex.

That’s all it was. A cruel biological trick, the inconvenient compatibility of your bodies. Some fucked up animal magnetism making you think any of it meant more than it did.

You’re not heartbroken.

Obviously.

Porn stars don’t put their heads in the oven.

x x x x x

When you tell Tess that you don’t want to work with Joel again, she doesn’t argue.

She gives you a long look, her gray eyes searching. And for a second it looks like she’s going to say something else, raise some other, elusive point. But then she just shrugs.

“Whatever you want, kid.”

And you’re grateful that she doesn’t ask you to explain, that you don’t have to fess up to your stupid feelings. You’re desperate to feel less in general, to tamp down on that part of you that wants so many things you can’t have.

So instead, you focus on the shit you can control.

The work, the sex — the tangle of the two together. Business meetings and gang bangs, contract negotiations and nipple clamps. The most lurid moments of your life parsed out in frank, unfeeling conversations. Signing on the dotted line to spread your legs and smile pretty for the camera.

You sink into it, let yourself be submerged in the endless stream of smut. Every day a new set, a new scene. You’re a waitress, a dancer, a nanny, a prison warden. The ever-changing, eternally fuckable girl. So many skins you can slip into and shed the messy, inconvenient parts of yourself, just for a little while.

You avoid anything with even a whiff of cowboy in it. No more beard scruff or calloused hands, no low rolling voice, no Texas twang. Instead, only smooth-bodied bull types, oiled and hairless, who greet you with broad, dopey grins. Beautiful, lithe-limbed women, all coy smiles and conspiratory laughter, a breathless whisper in your ear before each take.

You’re not as picky when it comes to the projects. You do the rougher stuff, the longer days. Resetting over and over so the camera can get a better angle, catch the edge of a cock in your throat. Take after take after take. You leave sets sore, but usually satisfied, and so exhausted that you can't do much more than climb into bed.

Less time for thinking. For pining, God forbid.

You’re a pledge, the oh-so-reluctant prey of an older girl in some sorority flick. Knees chafing against plush carpet, your skirt hiked high on your hips as you recite the Greek alphabet. You get a playful spank for every mistaken letter, tripping over the tau and upsilon, forgetting chi altogether.

You bring your co-star off once with your hand, once with your mouth, and then again with the handle of a hairbrush. It’s a little crass, a porn cliche infecting the girlish room, but the cameras love it. After, she presses you back against the flowery bedsheets to return the favor. It’s not scripted but she coos in your ear that you’ve earned it.

When the director calls cut, you lay there for a long moment, staring up at the high rafters of the soundstage. Settling back into yourself, feeling out your body. The burn of your knees, the slight ache in your neck. But there’s a warmth low in your belly, the slow-burning embers of your arousal, a sleepy sort of satisfaction in your limbs.

Your co-star’s face appears over yours. Cheeks still flushed, eyes shining. Her hair a golden halo, blocking the too-bright light of the overheads.

“You good?” she asks.

The sheets stick to the sweat of your back, the drip of release still cooling on your thighs. You huff out a sigh.

“You fucked my brains out.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Please, that was nothing,” she says, “Imagine what I could do with a few hours.”

She winks and you laugh, finally forcing yourself up off the damp bed.

Around you, the crew has already started striking the set: taking down the frames with their posed pictures, the stray textbooks and candy bars, the pennant for a college that doesn’t exist. Echoes of a life so obviously un-lived, the man-spun fantasy of a dorm room.

The dressing room is cramped, tucked in the back corner of the sound stage and wallpapered pink to disguise its past life as a storage closet.

The mirror is fogged over with hairspray, your reflection cloudy at the edges. You look well-fucked. The blur of mascara beneath your eyes, hair frizzed from her fingers. The tacky shine of her arousal is still damp on your hairline, and you wipe it away with the edge of your robe.

Your co-star is still mostly naked, the robe draped open around her shoulders. Her breasts sway as she leans closer to the mirror, dabbing at a smudge of lipstick with her pinky finger.

“Scoot over,” she teases, bumping your elbow as she reaches for the crumpled heap of her carpet bag.

There’s an easy familiarity in your movements, your comfortable closeness. The kind of de-facto friendship you earn after an hour between her legs.

She cuts a neat line of coke on the vanity, nudging aside the bottles of cheap perfume and for her pleasure lube left out by production. She sweeps her hair to the back of her neck, gathering it at the base of her skull as she lowers her head. It’s gone on a long inhale, the excess caught on a fingertip and tucked into her gums.

She straightens and meets your gaze in the mirror.

“Come out with us tonight.”

You raise an eyebrow at her reflection, “Out?”

“There’s a party in the hills,” she says with a shrug, “A bunch of us are going.”

It takes only another half a second of hesitation to decide fuck it. The quiet ache in your hips, the tired pinch behind your eyes, the dizzying cost of the taxi you’ll have to take home at the end of the night.

It’ll be good to get out. Healthy, probably.

Lately your brain has started to eat itself if you spend too much time in the empty apartment. Something to do with the weather, probably. Or your diet, the long days of black coffees and crafty croissants. Or maybe it’s guilt, so many Catholic ghosts catching up with you.

You smile at her in the mirror and catch a glimpse of your shiny, shimmering self.

x x x x x

The taxi crawls through the winding roads towards Mulholland, the windows rolled down so your breath, that blur of backseat conversation, doesn’t fog the windshield.

There are four of you crammed together, a flask passed between you, an elbow digging into your ribs at every sharp turn. You don’t know the others well — another actress and one of the girls from wardrobe — but your co-star’s arms are wrapped around your waist in lieu of a seatbelt, and you can feel her laughter in your ribs. It’s easy to melt, lean into the warmth, listen eagerly to a story about people you’ve never met.

One of the other girls pulls out a little baggie, digs into it with the edge of her house key. She notices your gaze and offers it out to you.

“Want some?”

It’s only a little bump, but it burns at the back of your throat, that awful chemical drip.

The taxi turns into the driveway of some sprawling behemoth of a house, perched high at the top of the valley. The windows glow, all glass, and you watch the shift of silhouettes against the dark sky.

You feel light, giddy, as you make your way up the drive. Gravel crunching underneath your heels, the other girls bumping into you, their laughter carried away on the cool night air.

Someone presses a glass of champagne into your hand the second you step over the threshold, and the bubbles fizz down your throat as you take it all in. The crowd, the dizzying masses, all sequin and leather and lace. A chandelier glitters above it all, concentric circles that seem to spin if you stare at it for too long.

Your co-star keeps her elbow locked with yours, tugging you through the house, pausing occasionally to accept an air kiss or make a vague promise to catch up soon. As soon as you move on, she leans in to whisper some scrap of gossip in your ear.

Terrible flirt, never keeps his hands to himself.

Worst actress I’ve ever seen, chews the scenery like you wouldn’t believe.

Shame about the divorce, but he should have seen it coming.

You melt from one circle to the next, an endless tide of introductions. You call yourself Lucky before you have a chance to correct it, to rethink the nickname, the endless blur of brand and body. But it doesn’t matter, not really.

You can be Lucky tonight.

These days, you’re her more often than you are you.

You wander through the house, taking it all in. The ugly, expensive art. Little statues tucked away on high shelves. No family photos, no shoes by the door. Only the icy veneer of impressive, impersonal wealth. There’s music playing, but it’s shapeless, meant to be heard rather than listened to. Just sounds, really. A bloated bassline, some sluggish synth.

You think that you prefer the kinds of parties that your friends throw. Casual, comfortable. People sprawled out on the carpet, passing around a joint, or crowded together in the kitchen, trying to dance without bumping elbows. You’d kill for a night that was just dancing.

Here, it was hard not to feel watched. Observed.

Industry types lean in doorways and against railings, cool and impassive, polished in a sheen of self-importance. Around them: the aspirational drift moonish and eager, desperate to be swept into someone’s orbit. An artful hand on the hip, a precisely positioned chin. Hoping desperately to be seen, scouted.

You turn a corner and collide with someone. Champagne jumps from your glass, spilling over your fingers. A soft hand closes over your elbow, catching you before you can stumble.

“Shit, sorry about that.”

You blink up at the man attached to the hand, the apology written across his expression.

And you recognize him. At least, you think you do.

He has a face like so many men in this city. Handsome enough, half-sculpted. The better-looking boys in their high schools, bolstered by some small-town ego, buoyed by visions of distant stardom. Inevitably disappointed when their egg whites and lean cuts of protein did not grant them entry into some secret world. Chiseled but unfinished. Forgotten marble. They pour coffee, they wait tables. Their good looks became window-dressing for someone else’s story.

He offers his hand with a warm, friendly smile and says, “It’s good to see you again.”

And you think maybe you do remember him. Standing at the edge of a set, a forgettable face from some past project. A producer, you think, like most of the men here.

You smile up at him the way that you’re good at and say you too.

It’s mostly a lie. You’re trying very hard to remember his name, conjure it up from the blank spaces of your memory. Patrick, maybe. No, Patrick was the AD on the last film you shot. He must be Richard. Robert? You can’t figure out how to ask without insulting him.

“Do you know many people here?” he asks, maybe mistaking your expression for interest, romantic or otherwise.

“Only a few,” you shrug, “It’s not really my scene.”

His smile widens as he shakes his head.

“I don’t believe that,” he says, “I bet you fit in anywhere.”

He’s flirting. Leaning in the way that men tend to, like he might catch a bit of your shine if he stands close enough.

Your co-star reappears, breathless and grinning.

“Everyone is jumping in the pool!” she says, taking your hand in hers and pulling you towards the back of the house.

The man watches you go with a wistful sort of look on his face.

“Maybe I’ll see you later,” he calls after you.

It’s hopeful, almost charming.

You let your gaze linger for a moment. Let him indulge in the fantasy, however briefly. And maybe you will find him later, circle back as the night ebbs and make good on the promise of your smile.

But probably not.

It’s been less than an hour, and you already want to leave. You miss Joan Baez. You miss your bottle of wine. You miss the sound of your own name, the way it’s said without any innuendo or smirk.

But the night has barely been worth the price of a taxi, so you swallow down the rest of your champagne and try to find the fun in it. The excitement. People would kill for an invitation to a party like this, to be in a beautiful house surrounded by such beautiful things. You search for any of that in yourself, some wide-eyed awe that could gloss over the evening.

Instead, you only find the beginnings of a headache, a low throb in the base of your skull.

There’s a crowd gathering at the edge of the enormous pool, watching amused as a group of drunken guests splash around in the shallow end. Clothes on, still holding cocktails that must be half-chlorine. Lost in their own revelry, trying to playfully drown each other as the rest of the party watches.

You sip your champagne, waiting for the buzz to take hold, to soften the cold and the ache of your heels.

Guest after guest kicks off their shoes and jumps in the pool to a giddy wave of oohs and aahs. The occasional cannonball or backflip earns a scattering of applause. Suit jackets are stripped away, abandoned on deck chairs. Women’s dresses billow underwater, strange jellyfish that float up above their waists.

There’s a shout as a young actress is scooped into someone’s arms and thrown into the pool. The splash arcs high, water raining down on the skirts and shoes of those standing closest. The actress emerges after a beat, drenched and beaming, swiping her hair back from her pretty face.

That starts something. Men grabbing their dates, their girlfriends, and tossing them into the water. There are indignant cries, playful laughter. A few of them get pulled in, toppled over by their own gravity.

A hand reaches from out of nowhere, grazes along your lower back, and you shrink away instinctively.

You’re not going in the fucking pool.

Actually, you think that maybe you need to go home. The headache is getting worse, and you’re starting to feel a little dizzy. Something in the music is setting your teeth on edge, the occasional shrieks striking an uneasy nerve.

A girl standing too close to the edge loses her balance and falls in. She comes up spluttering and scared, floundering for the edge. There’s a cheer when she finds it, a few glasses raised. Her white dress has gone sheer, exposing the pink pebble of her breast to the onlookers. When she smiles, her teeth are chattering.

Your stomach twinges uncomfortably.

Shit.

You might actually be sick.

Not here. Not in front of all these people.

“I’ll be right back.”

Your co-star catches your eye, raises an eyebrow. Need company? But you shake your head and lift your glass. Just getting another drink.

You slip back into the main house, away from the noise and bodies, down a quiet hallway that stretches into the rest of the house. More terrible art lines the walls. Brutalist and obscure, void of any warmth. You pause between paintings, waiting for your stomach to settle, for the headache to recede.

But it doesn’t.

You’re not drunk — you can’t be drunk.

You’re only a few sips into your second drink. And sure, maybe you’re a bit of a lightweight, but never like this. Maybe the hit in the car was laced with something, or it’s reacting badly with the wine, or there was something —

Your gaze slides to the champagne flute in your hand, the soft ripples on the surface.

Did you set it down? Just for a second? To shake a hand, maybe, or refasten the strap on your heel. You didn’t notice, you weren’t paying attention.

But you can feel it now.

The slow creeping fog in your head, a haze of dilution. The lights a little too bright, the music a little too loud. Your skin feels heated and buzzing, something boiling beneath.

There was something in your drink.

The realization sinks through you like a stone, a buzz of panic rising in your veins. You press your fingertips to your throat and feel your fluttering, unsteady pulse. Slower than it should be.

Not good. Probably very bad, but you try not to panic.

You double back to the pool area, the mess of bodies, so many strangers. The music is so fucking loud, God, how does anyone think? You search for your co-star, or any of the girls from the car, but they could be any one of the many wet heads in the pool. It’s impossible to tell, impossible to get anyone’s attention amidst the chaos.

Someone bumps into you and your heel slips against the wet cement. You manage to catch yourself, but only just. Your balance is all wrong, off-center, some new gravity taking hold.

Whatever this is, it’s working fast.

And you can’t keep looking for the others, can’t wait for this to get any worse.

You turn back to the house, but find a man in front of you, his broad face twisted in a leer. The front of his shirt is soaked through, clinging to the stretch of his stomach.

“Want to go for a swim?”

You force a smile, even as your insides revolt, as your skin stretches too tight.

“Not right now, thanks.”

You try to step around him, but he moves with you, blocking your way. His pupils are blown wide, expression hungry as he takes in your dress, the bare skin of your legs.

“C’mon,” he coaxes, “The water’s warm.”

You don’t have time for this, for him. You let the mask drop, Lucky sliding away to leave only you. Angry, frightened, slightly feral you. No more smiling, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Fuck off,” you snap.

His expression sours, curdling like milk.

“Bitch,” he mutters, but doesn’t try to stop you again as you shoulder past.

You try to keep your breathing steady, weaving through the crowd gathered at the window, watching the spectacle outside. The house has half-emptied, everyone else spilling out into the night air. There’s a couple tangled together on one of the sofas, all legs and arms, apparently oblivious to their surroundings.

It takes a few wrong turns, a few locked doors, before you find a phone down one of the empty hallways.

Your hand is shaking as you dial Tess’s number, the receiver held so tightly you can hear the plastic creaking against your ear.

It rings.

And rings.

And goes straight to Tess's voicemail.

Fuck.

You try the apartment next, but it rings right through. And of course it does. It’s a Saturday night, the girls are almost never home on the weekend. And they’re too far anyways, all the way on the west side. You’re not sure you could even stay conscious for the hour it would take them to get here.

You’re halfway gone already. The slow creep of fever along your spine, the fuzzing edges of your vision. It’s an effort to stay upright, to stay focused. You can’t stay here, in this house full of strangers.

There’s only one other number that you know.

One you memorized, girlish and hopeful, but never called. The numbers scrawled on a receipt, tucked into a book by your bed, read over and over until they burned on the back of your eyelids.

Your hands are shaking as you dial, slipping twice so you have to start over. And you realize it’s late, too late to call, and he doesn’t even like you very much. But there’s no one else.

Joel answers on the second ring.

“Hello?”

His voice is low, scratched up with sleep.

“Joel?”

He says your name, and you think, inanely, how much you like the way he says it. The deep gravel of his voice, all the things you’ve been trying to forget.

“Everything okay?” he asks. He sounds — surprised, maybe. Confused. But not annoyed, not angry that you called. At least he hasn’t hung up on you yet.

“I’m sorry, it’s so late. I tried to call Tess. First, I called her first. And my friends. But no one’s answering and — and —”

You shake your head as a wave of dizziness threatens to overtake you.

“Hey, slow down,” Joel says, “What’s going on?”

“I think —” you swallow, “I think there was something in my drink.”

You hear his sharp intake of breath.

“Where are you?”

There’s a hard edge to his voice. An urgency.

You try to scrape through the fog of your memory. You can’t keep your thoughts straight, they keep spilling and tripping together. Someone had said, had told the driver the name as you slid into the back of the car.

“In the hills. At a house. Some producer guy’s — Rich something?”

“Matthews?”

Fuck. Maybe. Names really are not your strong suit tonight.

“I think so?”

“I’m coming to get you.”

Relief surges through you, though with it comes another wave of dizziness, the black-blue blur at the edge of your vision. It takes a second to realize that you haven’t answered, that Joel is still talking to you.

“Just stay put, alright? I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

“Okay,” you tell him.

“Twenty minutes,” he says, and the line goes dead.

You let the phone slip from your hand, skittering back against the wall as the coil contracts.

He’s coming. Joel is coming. Twenty minutes.

You’re not sure how much time you have, how much further you have to fall. You dig your nails into the skin of your arm, focusing on the bite of pain, the sharp sting. Something to keep you awake. Present.

There’s a burst of laughter, the dance of footsteps, and a couple stumbles into the hall. Faces flushed, hands entwined. They stop short when they see you, their shameless apology tripping out through laughter.

You force something like a smile onto your face, straightening as they make their way past you, disappearing through a doorway down the hall.

Shit. Your head aches. You need quiet, need to be alone. You really need to not fall apart in the middle of this party, where anyone could see you and shape your current state into some seedy tabloid story.

You press your hands over your eyes, digging the heel into your socket, trying to relieve some of the pressure there.

“Lucky?”

You look up.

It's him again. The producer, the one whose name you can’t fucking remember. Patrick-Richard-whatever.

You try to straighten, but your knees buckle and you fall back against the wall. Stars burst in front of your vision, obscuring his face, distorting his mostly handsome features.

“Woah, hey,” he frowns, “You okay?”

“Not feeling great,” you mutter, swallowing down the bile at the back of your throat.

He chuckles, “The bartender’s a pretty stiff pour.”

You smile weakly. You really don’t want to throw up on him. But his shoes don’t look that expensive. You could probably replace them.

You must be a little green, because he asks, “Want to get some air?”

Yeah. Yeah, air might be good. Might clear some of the fever in your head, defibrillate you back into sobriety. At the very least, there will probably be fewer witnesses if you puke.

You nod, and he offers his arm out for you to take. Which is good, because it’s starting to feel like the ground is slipping out from beneath you.

“There’s a great balcony,” he’s saying, “You can see the whole valley.”

You’re staring at the floor, focusing on every step as you take it. The rich brocade of the hall carpet, the threshold of the room, the dark hardwood of wherever the fuck you are now. You blink up at the dark room, the French doors and the balcony beyond.

Then you hear the soft click of the lock behind you.

And your stomach drops.

Hands reach out from behind you, sliding around your waist, pulling you close. A sweaty grip at the back of your dress, a gin-soaked breath at your ear.

“Thought we could use a little more privacy.”

You freeze. Breath catching in your throat, every joint and muscle locking in place. A fear like poison, like disease, slithers through your veins.

He put something in your drink.

Somewhere between shaking your hand and making you smile, he slipped something in your fucking champagne. You hadn’t noticed, hadn’t registered him as a threat. His banal, lukewarm smile. His easy flirtation. Not asking too much, barely even pushing.

Because he didn’t need to push.

He planned this.

Nausea twists in your stomach and now you wish you would puke. Ruin the moment, spoil whatever fucked up fantasy he wants to play out. But you can’t even think against the ache in your head, the thrum of your own pulse.

He presses his face into your neck, tongue darting out to taste your skin. His hand slides over your hip, down to the hem of your dress. He gathers it in a fist, the fabric bunching beneath his grip.

“Such a tease,” he murmurs, “This dress was driving me crazy.”

His grip is tight, holding you firmly to his chest. Every touch is hungry, consuming. You can feel him hard against you, pressing against your ass, threatening every awful thing that he wants to do to you.

You feel surrounded, smothered. The heavy spice of his cologne, the bitter taint of sour sweat beneath. He’s everywhere, hands moving over your body, scraping across your skin.

“Stop,” you try to say, but your voice is a weak, shattered thing.

It’s taking everything in you to cling to that last scrap of consciousness. Even if you weren’t drugged, you doubt you could fight him off. He’s twice your size, all lean muscle. The hand that flexes at your waist is a threat, a warning.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “Don’t be like that.”

And maybe you should just give in.

Let go, slip into the waiting black. Submit to sharper teeth, let yourself become easy prey. It might be less painful that way. You probably wouldn’t even feel anything. You would wake up tomorrow, sore and aching, with the shadow of this awful thing, but no real memory of it.

Lips brush your cheek, searching for your mouth. Tasting of smoke and gin and the worst night of your life.

He’s too close, his grip too tight. The hand at your waist slides down, finding your bare thighs beneath the hem of your dress. Your breath hitches, catching on a sob, as his fingers brush against your center.

“Let me in.”

Something base and animal comes to life inside you. A clawing, gnashing fear that rips through you.

You twist in his grasp. Twist and writhe and wrench away from his hands, the suffocating press of his body against yours. His hands scrape against you, nails breaking skin, but you break free.

Just for a second. Just for a breath.

Long enough to turn to face him on your shaky legs, to stare into the eyes of this man whose name you don’t even fucking know. The warmth is gone from his gaze. His friendly, forgettable face is now twisted, turned ugly with frustration. His hands twitch at his side — the hands he put on you, the fingers he tried to press inside.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” he sneers.

And then lunges for you.

You see him coming, the hands reaching out for you, and try to move out of the way.

But your legs don’t work. Your reactions are slow, stuck in the mind-numbing molasses of whatever was in your drink. You take a single, stumbling step and your heel snags on the carpet.

Your head hits something on the way down. The sharp edge of a table. You didn’t see it, didn’t realize it was there.

You land hard, wrong. All the air punches out of your lungs from the force of the fall, the pain splitting through your skull. You can taste blood in your mouth, the bite of metal behind your teeth. It’s thick and bitter when you try to swallow.

It’s too much. The ache in your head, the heavy weight in your limbs. You want to sleep, to stop fighting, to sink into the soft darkness waiting just at the edge of your vision.

There are hands on you again. Dragging you back, turning you over. A weight settles over your legs, pinning you down.

“You like it rough, huh?” he hisses.

You can barely see, vision spotting and smeared with color. His face is a blur above you. Your dress is shoved up over your stomach. You hear the clink of his belt coming undone.

Things are slipping, gone hazy and hard to understand. You can’t think over the pounding in your head.

Or maybe it’s not in your head.

There’s a heavy thud, a muffled shout, and then the crack of splintering wood as the door is forced open.

You can’t see, can’t breathe. It’s all colors and sounds, shuffling and swearing, until suddenly the weight is off you.

You twitch away, curling in on yourself, knees tucking up to your chest. A black film swims over your vision, threatening to overwhelm you. Your nails bite into your legs, and the sharp sting brings you back, keeps you teetering on the edge of consciousness.

Blinking hard, the blackness ebbs away. The room settles into soft-focus.

The man is crumpled on the floor a few feet away from you, clutching at his nose. Blood seeps between his fingers, dribbles down his chin. You didn’t hear bone but you hope to fuck it’s broken. His expression is stained with fear, eyes wide as he watches —

Joel.

It’s Joel.

He’s here. He came for you. He’s here.

His steps are heavy as he crosses the room and drags the other man up by the collar of his shirt, lifting him so they’re eye level. His expression is stony, severe. Ice-cold fury.

“What the fuck did you give her?” Joel demands.

The other man struggles against him, but it doesn’t matter. Joel is bigger, stronger. When the answer doesn’t come immediately, he tightens his grip.

“Ow, shit, man,” the guy winces, “Fucking rohypnol. It’s just supposed to loosen them up.”

Joel’s jaw tenses, and you think maybe he’s going to hit him again. Break some more bones. Damage some vital organs, if you’re lucky.

Instead, he lets go. Shoves him back towards the door, sniffling and still bleeding.

“Get out,” Joel snarls.

The guy doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t spare you so much as a glance before he stumbles out of the door.

When Joel turns to you, all the anger is gone from his expression. His brow drawn, concern etched in every line on his face. He approaches you slowly, warily. Easing down to crouch beside you.

You swallow hard, trying to find words in the slur of your head, the blood in your mouth.

“He — he —”

You realize you’re shaking, the cold of shock settling in.

“Hey,” Joel says gently, “You’re okay.”

He smooths his hand over your skirt, pulling your dress back down to cover your legs. You ease a little under his familiar touch, the careful way he pieces you back together. Sliding the strap back onto your shoulder. Thumbing the blood on your chin.

“Can you walk?” he asks.

“I think so.”

You just want to go, to get out of this house. You’ll crawl if you have to.

He lifts you up carefully, helps you settle on shaky legs. You try to straighten, to stand on your own stupid heels, but the world tips sideways, a sudden lurch that has stars dancing across your vision again.

But Joel is there. His hand at your hip, his arm wrapping around your waist. Steadying you.

“Easy,” he murmurs, tucking you into his side, “I’ve got you.”

It’s a blur, mostly. The hardwood, then back onto the carpet of the hall. Joel supporting most of your weight, his voice low in your ear. Doing good. Just a little further. Through the crowd downstairs, the eyes that slide over you, drunk and disinterested.

When you finally reach the front door and step out into the night, you stop short. You close your eyes, inhaling deeply, hoping the fresh air might settle something in you.

It doesn’t.

“Almost there, baby,” Joel says.

You force yourself to nod, to keep moving.

His truck is a reddish blur at the end of the driveway. He keeps you balanced as he unlocks the door and helps you inside, closing it carefully behind you. Your body sags into the worn leather seat, aching and exhausted, eyes already fluttering shut.

You’re distantly aware of the engine roaring to life beneath you, the crunch of gravel as Joel pulls out of the drive. The dark, twisting hills that sink into city streets. Asphalt and lilacs, the air cool on your feverish skin.

You come-to a few seconds before you realize that you’re going to be sick.

“Shit,” you mutter, “Joel, pull over.”

He does, easing the truck over to the side of the road.

The second it rolls to a stop, you’re fumbling for the door handle and throwing it open. You barely manage to lean over the side before you’re vomiting, spilling sour champagne into the street below.

You feel hands scraping up your hair. Soothing strokes down the length of your spine.

“You’re okay,” Joel says, “Get it all out.”

It takes a second. Shuddering and retching, your body finally revolting against the poison inside it. When you’re finally empty, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and lean back into the seat. Sweating. Shaking. The acid taste of bile sharp on your tongue.

Joel watches you. Wary. Worried. Waiting for your go-ahead.

“You good?”

No. Definitely not. But you think you’re done puking, so you nod.

“Alright,” he says, “Not much longer now.”

X x x x x

You come back to your body in a quiet, unfamiliar place – bathed in a deep blue darkness, the muddy warmth of a streetlight. Soft carpet beneath your bare feet, a blanket around your shoulders. Someone moving nearby, a low voice. Gentle, coaxing.

“Can you look at me?”

It takes a second to focus on Joel’s face in front of you. Everything is a little melty, the colors soft and smudged, blurring at the edges. Your head feels so impossibly heavy, an anvil on your shoulders.

“Where are we?” you ask, and the words come out slurred, the consonants gone soft and lazy.

Joel raises his hand to stroke your hair back from your face. His fingers feel warm and dry against your cheek.

“My place,” he tells you.

His place. The idea of it sits strange, doesn’t settle. You figured he would take you home, or to Tess. Leave you for someone else to deal with. You’re not his mess, not his problem.

You frown.

“Why?”

“You’re sick,” he says simply, “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

You blink again, trying to bring the blurred outline of him into focus. He’s crouched in front of the sofa, face level with yours. The tense set of his jaw, his brows drawn together in concern. He’s holding a glass of water, and he presses it carefully into your palm, curling your fingers for you.

“Can you drink this for me?” he asks, voice as gentle as his hands.

Your arm shakes as you bring the glass up to your lips, and it’s an effort to make your throat work the way it’s supposed to. It feels raw, wrong. But you manage, swallowing down a few mouthfuls, the water soothing some of the burn inside of you, washing away the metallic taint of vomit and blood.

“Good girl,” Joel murmurs, “Let’s get you cleaned up, alright?”

You hum your assent, though your head is still too hazy to follow from one thought to the next. It snags on the good girl, the warmth in his voice that makes you want to cry.

But then Joel's arms are around you, lifting you easily and tucking you against his chest. You sink into the warmth of him, the sway of his step as he carries you upstairs. Eyes closed, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. You wish your own would settle, even out. It’s still too slow, your blood too thick in your veins.

He eases you down onto the bathroom counter, cool granite under the bare skin of your thighs. His hand holds steady at your hip as he leans over to flip a switch. Soft light spills into the small room, and you wince against the brightness. Your head is still sore. Every inch of you aches.

Joel's gaze flickers over you. Steady, assessing. You think, absently, that you must be a mess. Mascara smudged from crying and puking, sick still clinging to your skin. Dress stained from the same, ripped in places you don’t want to think about, not when your stomach still feels so tender.

“Can we take this off, darlin’?” Joel asks.

You nod, lifting your arms. You want it off, gone. Burned, maybe. You doubt you could ever wear it again without feeling the grip of those hands, the snag and tear when he tried to take it off you.

Joel's hands are careful as he eases the dress over your head.

You shiver, goosebumps on your bare skin. But you don’t bother covering your breasts. It’s not like there’s anything to hide. Joel's seen it all before, knows every inch of your body better than anyone else.

There’s no heat in his gaze when he looks at you now, no hunger as he wipes a damp rag over your skin. Skin that he’s kissed and bit and come over. That he now strokes gently, carefully. Cleaning away the remnants of the night.

You should really shower, but you’d probably drown.

He tugs a worn t-shirt over your head. Pulls your hair free from the collar, smooths it over your skin. You blink up at him, and his brow furrows in concern. Dark eyes lingering on your split lip, all the places you’ll probably bruise.

“That hurt?” he asks.

You shake your head.

“S’not bad.”

He hums, but still looks. Tilting your head towards the light, touching the swollen skin.

He’s being so — soft. The tenderness in his touch, in the way he’s looking at you. It makes you ache in a way that has nothing to do with the drugs.

You lean forward, tucking your face against his neck, breathing in the whiskey and oak smell of him. His hand rubs along your back, over the knobs of your spine. You feel the pinch of tears behind your eyes.

“I was really scared,” you whisper.

Joel tenses, his hold on you tightening a fraction.

And it strikes you how easy this is, how well you know each other's bodies. There’s familiarity in every touch, every inch of skin. You’re half-drugged, half-naked. And still you feel safe, despite his bigness, his rough edges.

His hand comes up to cup the back of your head, cradling the bowl of your skull in his heavy palm. His nose brushes against your temple, breath warm against your cheek. You’re alright, he murmurs.

You twist your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, nuzzling your face into his neck. Hoping he can feel the thank you, the gratitude fluttering at the base of your throat. He strokes your hair, and you think he understands.

“Come on,” he says, “Let’s get you to bed.”

He steps back, and you try to slide off the counter.

Your knees give out the second your feet touch the floor, and stumble. Catching yourself on the edge of the counter, wincing as the room spins.

“Fuck,” you mutter. The pounding behind your eyes resumes, a steady throb.

“Careful,” Joel says, “That shit’s still in your system. Can't do any cartwheels.”

You mumble something about just trying to fucking walk, but then Joel’s arms are around you again, scooping you off the floor. And that’s fine too. Better, probably.

He deposits you gently onto a bed. His bed, you realize, dimly. The smell of him on soft gray sheets. Your bare legs slide beneath the blankets, the same space he sleeps every night. It twists inside you, a funny feeling blooming in your stomach.

The mattress shifts as he sits beside you, holding out the refilled glass.

“Drink some more for me.”

You do, and you don’t shake as much this time. You feel only slightly more human when you finish. Still drugged, but the room stops spinning. You can blink without seeing stars.

You grimace, setting the glass aside.

“I think men are bad.”

Joel chuckles softly, his hand smoothing over your hair.

“Real bad.”

You meet his gaze, the warmth in the deep brown of his eyes.

“Not you,” you murmur, “You’re okay.”

Even as you say it, you feel the weight of what’s happened hanging between you. The ugly way you’d left things. The anger, the uncertainty. There’s still so much shit you don’t understand, can’t make sense of. The way he is with you now — where was that when he left you standing in that fucking closet, hurt and confused.

Joel’s brow furrows, and he drops his gaze.

“‘M sorry about the other night,” he says, “I shouldn’t’ve left like that.”

Something nervous and vulnerable flutters in your stomach, but you figure you’ve done plenty to embarrass yourself tonight. It can’t get any worse, really.

“Did I —” you swallow, “Did I do something wrong?”

Joel looks up sharply, shaking his head.

“No. No, ‘course not,” he frowns, “It ain’t that. It’s, well — it’s complicated.”

You tilt your head, studying him in the half-light. There’s that nerve that ticks in his jaw. You used to think it meant he was angry, annoyed. Now you think it’s something else. All the things he won’t let himself say, swallowed down like glass.

“I’ve got time,” you say softly.

Joel looks up, lips twitching.

“What you’ve got is a bunch of fucking benzos messin’ with your head.”

You bite back a smile.

“Might as well tell me then,” you shrug, “I probably won’t remember in the morning.”

Joel huffs out a sigh, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, staring down at a blank stretch of carpet. His profile silhouetted by the bedroom window, bathed in soft blue light.

“I, uh, kept tellin’ myself I’d keep my distance,” he says.

You blink.

“From me?”

He nods, still not meeting your eye.

“Why?”

He scrubs a hand over his face, frustration evident in every hard line of his body.

“Told you, lines get blurred,” he says, “Figured it’d be easier if I stayed away.”

You think of that first scene, the way he walked away without looking back, how it settled like lead in your stomach. The anger in his face when you’d shown up at the bar, the livewire of tension between you. How much it hurt every time he pulled away, shut you out.

You frown.

“I don’t want you to stay away.”

“I know, darlin’,” he sighs, gaze flicking up to meet yours, “And that makes it a helluva lot harder.”

Something warm pools in the pit of your stomach.

Stupid, infuriating man. You want to hit him. You want to kiss him, actually, but you’re pretty sure you still taste like puke. Still, you should try to argue. Plead your case. Explain all the reasons why staying away from you is a terrible idea.

You try to push yourself up, and spots immediately cloud your vision. A fresh wave of nausea threatens to overtake you and you wince, squeezing your eyes shut.

“Woah, easy,” Joel catches your arm before you can topple off the edge of the bed and eases you back down.

You can’t even argue as he tucks the blankets in around you, pulling the comforter up to your chin.

“Just gotta sleep it off, baby,” he says.

“What if — what if I — asphyxiate, or whatever,” you mumble.

You hear Joel’s low chuckle somewhere nearby, the shift of the mattress beneath him as he settles in.

“Not gonna let you,” he says, “I'll be right here.”

The darkness seeps in at the edges of your vision, and finally, you give in.

x x x x x x x x

author’s note: There is no situation, context, or flirtation that ever excuses sexual assault. It is never the victim’s fault.

If you need support, the resources below may be helpful:

RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-4673 | Online Chat

Find a sexual assault service provider near you here. For international readers, you can find local providers here.

Additional resources:

The Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center

LGBTQ National Hotline

Mental Health Support for BIPOC Survivors

National Organization of Asian and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence

1K notes · View notes

adaws12 · 4 months

Text

Listen. Has someone that is very heavily tattooed….this would actually kill me.

What if Pedro Pascal was tattooed? 😮‍💨💡

Ft. @umadosedepascal

555 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 4 months

Text

Well this has fully melted my brain🫠

I’m definitely going to be cool about this and not think about it constantly.

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 1

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.

Guilt is a wild trip, but so is desire. How the hell did you end up in this divvy motel? And now, what's next?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 PLEASE, see series masterlist for extensive trigger warnings. Now I'm off to disappear for another month, heehee. To anyone who celebrates anything, happy whatever you celebrate. Ily 🧡

@frannyzooey And to you, Kelli… Thank you 🧡 Thank for your help on this chapter, without you it wouldn’t exist. Arguably, without you I wouldn’t exist (my gothic ass) and without you I would certainly not be writing at all. You’re the kindest, most generous, most beautiful person I’ve ever met, you shine so brightly and I love you more than all the Frankies from all the universes put together 🧡✨

Word count: 6.5k

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Chapter 1: Dirt

Guilt, you’re about to find out, is an interesting feeling.

A viscous, gluey business that sticks to your skin and clings to your frame. It’s a prickling tickle under your armpits, a rigidity in your legs. It’s a tightness in your shoulders, and it pulls on your face. It has a density, and it’s tangible, not only do you feel it, you see it in every mirror, every reflective surface.

A pervasive, shape-shifting torment that unfurls gradually, and comes in many colorful shades, when you begin to take in the gravity and the ramifications of your actions.

The first wave is darkened by fear, black as petrol, trickling down your insides when he says his name.

Frankie.

Like an invitation, an opening. Gaping, abysmal, pulling you in and you remain silent, struggling on the edge of it, grasping for balance. Drawn in, but too stunned to let go and dive in yet.

It’s a violent crimson, next, shame creeping over you when you walk back inside the bar to retrieve your purse.

Facing Mark is difficult, but talking to him is beyond your strength. You gesture toward the handbag waiting for you on the other side of the counter. He hands it to you in appraising silence, judgmental, surely, and you smile, or you wince, you can’t even tell. With shaky hands, you fumble inside it for your wallet, his green gaze strained on your face.

You know that your entire appearance gives away the narrative of what just took place in the back lot of his establishment. Your face is flushed, your lips swollen, your hair undone. Your clothes are rumpled and in his eyes, you will from now on and forever be this woman.

After what feels like several minutes, he takes pity on you, and reiterates his offer. You’re good, he says. Sweetheart. The first pint’s on him.

You don’t stay long enough for a second drink, however.

Back outside into the muggy night, you crumble onto the passenger seat of your car. The polyester lining of your skirt clings to the bare skin at the back of your thighs, damp with sweat and what is left of your inconsequential desire, and you feel appallingly filthy, bone-deep disgusting.

Guilt washes over you in blue waves of regret, welling under your eyelids when you notice that the red truck is gone. And with it, the gaping, abysmal possibilities of another you, reinvented with him.

The shaking starts as you’re driving, trembling hands gripping the steering wheel. A brutal, chilling comedown, guilt experienced in bright and blinding yellow at the belated realization of your betrayal.

How easily, how rapidly you forgot, trapped under Frankie’s gaze, coming undone between Frankie’s hands, that your life isn’t truly yours. That it has never been. You’re not on your own, no matter how much you long to be. You have never been afforded the privilege of independence, nor do you possess the necessary strength to break free from your family.

And who has Frankie betrayed? What faceless, nameless woman has he gone back to? Remorse blends in with envy and resentment, painting green ring-shaped stains in your peripheral vision as you get out of your car and into the lobby of your building.

Eyes to the floor, you step into the elevator, this oversized coffin lined with mirrors reflecting your image with a silent scoff. There’s dust from the gravel on your leather pumps.

Inside your apartment, the clickety-click of your heels on the tiled floor bounces off the walls of your skull. You hate that sound, eminently cold and giving away your presence.

The living-room television is on, probably set to a news channel, most likely broadcasting a financial show in which white men over 50 listen to the sound of their own voice and debate about obscure economical regulations you’re supposed to care about.

Adrian’s already here. Uncharacteristically early. Friday evenings usually mean late night poker or whatever his own excuse is to get away from your cribless home.

Hoping to go unnoticed so as to avoid him, you take off your shoes, but it’s too late. He calls out your name from the kitchen, his intonation surprised but cheerful.

Head hanging low, heartbeat picking up, you make a silent dash for the upstairs bathroom, remorse so pungent you fear no shower can ever wash it off your skin.

Under the scolding high-pressure stream, you scrub your body raw with a soapless loofah, but there is no scrubbing away the feeling of those hands over your skin.

Eyes drifting closed, you lean your forehead against the anthracite marble of your Italian shower, and let your chest heave around a suppressed sob.

Guilt, shame, and remorse are powerless to outweigh your want, undeterred, unabated, unquenched.

Back in the parking lot, it had been a moment before you were able to push away from the side of the truck and stand upright. He stood there, silent and immobile in front of you. Waiting, as if to shield you from the street and the rest of the world. Silence hanging charged and heavy between you, as you wouldn’t offer your name in return.

When you started moving toward the bar’s entrance, he stepped aside, and that’s when your body moved of its own volition. You took his hand in yours, palm against palm, trembling fingers wrapped around his knuckles.

“Can I see you again?” you asked, pleaded, begged. You didn’t recognize your voice.

He swallowed hard, shook his head at you for the third time, and squeezed your hand in his bigger one.

“I don’t think so. You know that’s not a good idea,” he said.

—

Grief settles like dust over the first weeks of September.

You are surprised, almost shocked, to observe how little your life has changed. You get up in the morning, you shower and get dressed, drink coffee, go to work. You attend meetings about maritime trade regulation, sitting at your father’s side, go over endless spreadsheets detailing import-export profit and loss, you pretend to understand them, and you pretend to care, like a pretty human puppet.

You come home at night, skip dinner when you can. You lie in bed next to Adrian. You seek out warmth where there is none. You perform sex without satisfaction.

There has been no question asked. No suspicion, no doubt cast.

You wear the same clothes, drive along the same roads, walk around the same hallways.

And no one seems to notice that you are different. That you experienced imperious want and incandescent pleasure. That you carry a secret. Nestled, dormant and quiet, between your lungs, like a wild and unknown creature.

Whatever part of him you welcomed inside you transformed the hollowed spaces of your existence. It redefined the void, creating a place of your own where to curate your new desires.

His lips on your lips, your body molded into his, and pressed against your hips, an unfulfilled promise for more.

In the palm of your hand, the ghost sensation of Frankie’s hold, now forever gone and lost, and your highlighted loneliness feels like a barless prison. On your own, always, again, to divert the old familiar pain of being you.

Weeks go by. The guilt recedes, and sadness takes its place, like clockwork, like physics. Like a new sort of weight coating your limbs. A nostalgic longing without any object.

In the idle moments of your day, when you’re stuck in traffic, in a meeting, or in a conversation, your mind wanders back to him. The solid slope of his shoulders. The strong span of his back. Muscles bunching up under your grip. His scent, his curls, his taste. An organic trace seared into your being.

His rebuttal, after he’d given you so much, felt less like a rejection than like a refusal to heed a deeply rooted instinct.

His stare was no longer hard and cold. It carried only sorrow and loss.

Does he think of you like you think of him? Does he miss the contact of your skin, or the abandon of your kiss?

Did he walk away from your embrace with something to keep, like you did?

Day after day, summer fades into fall, the change hardly perceptible through the consistently sweltering weather.

Day after day, focusing becomes tricky, finding sleep more and more difficult and your train of thought turns downright maniacal.

Ava’s calls go straight to voicemail.

More often than not, you start drinking as soon as you come home to fence off the tears of exhaustion, hoping Adrian won’t notice. Another line you had promised yourself never to cross, and under the combined effects of the alcohol and the antidepressants, you feel drowsy and dizzy, increasingly disconnected from your reality. A nagging sting settles on the left side of your lower abdomen. But you don’t mind the pain as much as you mind turning into your mother.

Some days, you think you’d like nothing more than to give way, allow yourself to drown into the proven refuge of self-abuse. Whenever you indulge the thought, soothing images spring to mind, oil on canvas, deep green, tender brown. Ophelia, crowned with wild flowers and rings of violets, sleeping peacefully in a shallow stream.

When you finally return to the Hole in the Wall, it’s only with the hope of hindering your impending tailspin.

In the parking, after turning off the ignition, you sit in your car for the whole of five minutes, staring numbly at the dark lot where the red truck had been parked.

Mark’s hesitant greeting puzzles you; by now you have lost most of your ability to read people’s reactions.

You walk to the counter and choose to sit on one of the high stools. Somewhere deep down, you enjoy his distance; you relish the sadistic pleasure of reliving the humiliation you felt standing before him, freshly fucked dumb on a total stranger’s fingers.

Besides, you’ll take the attention, however uncomfortable it may be.

“Long time no see,” Mark says, and you produce a poorly executed smile.

“I don’t know… two weeks? I’ve been busy,” you add as a way of apologizing.

“It’s been a month,” he replies curtly.

You try a brown ale, this time, rich and bitter. He busies himself behind the counter, cleaning and wiping, while you drain your glass in silence. You haven’t eaten all day, and you’re drinking too fast. Nausea laps against your diaphragm. It’s the last missing scene from this scenario: you, throwing up in the toilet of his bar.

You’re considering leaving when he speaks again.

“Trucker hat dude came by.”

Your head shots up and you glare at him, eyes widening under your pinched brow, a new wave of sickness nudging further up. He gauges your face, twirling a towel inside a pint glass, waiting for your answer, but when you give him none, he goes on.

“Did he…” he starts, and his eyes slowly go back and forth between yours, “he didn’t hurt you or anything? Cause if he did, if you wanna press charges, I can—“

“No,” you cut him off, “god no, I’m fine. I’m perfectly ok,” you add unnecessarily when his gaze narrows.

He pauses for a moment, like he’s the only one who can judge if you are, indeed, perfectly ok, before he faces away from you to put back the clean glasses on the lower shelves behind him.

When he’s done, he turns back around, props his hands low on his hips, and for the first time since you’ve entered the place, he stands perfectly still.

“He’s been asking about you.”

Between your lungs, the creature begins to stir.

“He came back,” you say, surprisingly matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Asked if you come here every Friday.”

Piece by piece, your mind starts swiveling, sluggish and blunt after being successfully dulled out by the past couple of weeks of excessive drinking. You picture his tall figure standing in the small bar, perhaps he sat on the stool you’re sitting on now? Did he lift his cap to comb his hair with his fingers before he spoke?

Mark is talking again, and it’s a conscious effort to bring your attention back to his words.

“Asked if you always come on your own. If I know your name.”

“I never told you my name,” you panic, “what did you tell him?”

“I see your name every week on your AmEx Gold, sweetheart, but I kindly told him to go fuck himself,” he scoffs.

His sardonic tone snaps you out of your drifting daydreaming. Your face immediately hardens. You sit up straight, drawing further away from him and he seems to change his mind. He’s softer when he speaks next.

“Look, I don’t know what’s the lowdown between you two, you understand? And anyway, I’m not in the habit of discussing my regulars with just about anyone. That kinda goes against the job’s ethics, you know what I mean?”

You shrug away the rational, albeit patronizing explanation with a huff of annoyance. You feel more alert than you have in weeks.

“When was that?” you ask.

“Last week. Thursday, I think.”

“Shit.”

Mark lets out a heavy sigh, resembling that of an exhausted father, and he opens the cash register.

“He left a note for you.”

—

An address. Written in all caps, black ink on a white piece of paper torn from a lined notebook. No phone number, not date, no time… and no name. Just the address. Under the feeble cabin light of your car, the paper looks old, like it’s been carried around tucked inside a wallet for years, and time has turned it yellow.

The coordinates on the dashboard GPS are identical to the ones on the paper. They were identical back in the parking, at the bar, when you typed them in; they were identical at every single red light you stopped at and checked. And they’re still identical now, glowing in blue letters, cold and synthetic, above the message You have reached your destination.

You raise your head again and stare at the building in front of you.

It’s a motel. One floor, L shaped, slightly sloping roof. With wrought iron details, a porch hanging low and square wooden pillars demarcating each room, nine of them in total. On the right, underneath a bare bulb, a large ice machine gleams like a beacon for lost time-travelers, next to a pay phone with a cut-off cord and a missing receiver. On the rear end of the building, to the left, above what looks like the reception, a 4 feet tall sign spells MOTEL in red neon letters.

At its height, the place probably looked nice. But that was a rough 55, 60 years ago, you estimate. Now it’s nearly derelict, with visible cracks streaking the yellowing walls, several broken drainpipes, and a missing number on the door of room 7.

If you cared about these kinds of things, you’d figure that the diversion of the main road further south is responsible for the motel’s decaying state.

Your attention is elsewhere, as usual. The parking lot is deserted, save for three vehicles. The red truck is here, parked a couple of places away to your right. Engine off. Empty.

The drive here from the Hall in the Wall was nearly an hour long. The car cruised along poorly lit, narrow two-lane roads, lined with luxuriant vegetation, dense and confining in the pitch darkness of the suburban night. You’ve lived in Tampa your entire life and have never set a foot in this part of the Bay Area. Technically, you’re not even in Tampa anymore.

He’s inside one of these rooms, somewhere. Waiting for you, and that thought alone makes your breathing difficult and your hands clammy.

What now? What’s next? Are you supposed to walk up to the reception and ask about him? A tall man wearing a trucker hat? Frankie?

And what will happen, once you’ve found him?

This is ridiculous. Sordid. It’s gone too far, whatever that is. A motel outside of town. The worst possible cliché. The most degrading place.

Between your lungs, the creature is clawing at your chest.

You shift nervously on the creaking leather seat, exhaling long and shaky, no longer repressing the memory of his sturdy fingers curling inside your warmth, of his tongue swirling inside your mouth. The instant intimacy of your furtive encounter, that turning point, when he briefly relinquished his control.

A chorus of voices rumbles like tumbling boulders inside your head, a cacophony of rules and guidelines, tacit and unspoken, ingrained and internalized. But with every passing minute staring at the bright motel sign, your resolve grows surer.

The yellow curtains ripple behind the rectangular window of room number 2 and you quickly pull the key out of the ignition. Grabbing your phone from the dashboard, you stuff it inside your purse, which you slide under the driver's seat.

Eyes locked on the curtains, you make a fast-paced beeline to the door. Around you, the night is bustling with the sounds and noises of the invisible wildlife. Revealing nothing, containing so much.

With a quick rattle of your heels, you step under the porch, hand extended and ready to knock on the door when it opens for you.

Oh he’s broad, so much broader than you even remembered, blocking the entire doorway with his frame, blue jeans, black shirt, and this goddamn hat that’s already haunting your dreams and your nightmares.

Looking down on you, irate, defiant, daring you to push him aside and enter. Behind him, the room is plunged in darkness. Above you, the porch lights cast a warm hue on his face, that fails to soften his expression. The crease between his brow is deeper than your fears.

You take a step closer, on instinct, but he moves to the side as if to avoid any contact with you and you enter the dark bedroom, carried by your momentum.

Guilt will come back to you later, sporadically, in episodes, but for the most part, you forfeit it wholly when you cross the threshold of room number 2.

He closes the door behind you and flicks up the toggle switch near the door frame. Two quaint lampshades blink to life on the headboard, casting a warm, subdued light. There’s no AC, or he hasn’t turned it on, and the atmosphere inside the room is already stifling, charged with his scent.

“Took you long enough. Thought you wanted to see me,” he grunts, and the creature purrs inside your chest.

“I did. I do.”

Stopping in the middle of the room, you turn around to face him. He’s standing tall and firm and mighty, feet planted apart on the carpeted floor, arms crossed over his chest. Yet you note his hands are splayed across his biceps, as if he were attempting to hug himself.

Perhaps that’s when you convince yourself Frankie is not his real name. Somehow, it makes it easier to believe you’re not the object of his ire.

“Your friend didn’t tell you–”

“He’s not my friend,” you interrupt. “I only got your note earlier. Tonight.”

You let the implication sink in and your gaze travels down to the dip at the base of his neck and back up. The square, yellow bedroom provides you with the brightest environment you’ve ever had the leisure of observing him in.

He’s beautiful, stunning, really, with unique and complex features. Almost pretty, but in a reluctant way, as if it was irrelevant to the life he’s chosen and led. His face speaks so loud, washed over by so many emotions, frustration, doubt and anger, and that lingering sadness in his dark eyes that tugs at your heart and twitches your fingers.

“What’s your name?” he asks, tilting his chin in your direction.

Janet Leigh’s face pops up in black and white inside your mind, driving through a curtain of strident violins, skittish eyes flicking between the road ahead of her and the rearview mirror.

“Marion,” you answer, inexplicably.

“Marion,” he repeats, and you know he knows you’re lying.

Unable to hold his gaze, you look away to the side, and he gives you time to take in the surroundings. The medium size bed with a stained, synthetic bedspread, the practical, shipped furniture, an angular chair and a desk surmounted by a rectangular framed mirror, the antique cathodic TV set hanging from the wall in the corner. The brown carpet. The yellow curtains. The painting of the Appalachian.

And whatever your face says then makes him huff.

“Not what you expected? How did you think this was gonna be? How do you think these things go?”

You look at him again, stunned, lost, hurt maybe, that he should recognize you for what you don’t want to be.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” you tell him in a small voice.

He shakes his head, like you aimed to wound, and unconsciously, your fingers find your sternum, jittery, anxious to appease this wild creature scrabbling against your rib cage.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters hoarsely, shaking his head again, or still, “and you shouldn’t be here either, this is bullshit.”

And he’s right, once more, he is right, neither of you should be here. All the lines you walked, all the rules you abided by, meeting expectations and doing as you were told, and you still end up here, on the outskirts of town, in this gloomy motel. Facing this stranger, begging to surrender to him, with your heart in your hand and your life on your lips.

Eyes strained on his, you move closer, cautious, with your palms upward, as if he were to jolt and scurry away if you were too sudden. If you tame him, perhaps you will tame the wild creature between your lungs as well.

Drawn to his skin, you brush the tips of your fingers along his bicep, and the taut muscle thrums under the freckled, tanned surface of him.

He’s holding his breath, hardened face, hardened stare, deepening crease, and your fingers skate up along the slope of his arm until they meet his hand.

He’s difficult to catch, you think, even when willing to be caught, but it’s now very clear what you want for yourself. You want him.

It matters not that he belongs to somebody else. If you’re here, it’s because he wants you too. Despair and desire have brought you together, combined, conjoined, converging.

Your hand travels round to the back of his arm, soft and feather-like, up under the hem of his t-shirt, lifting his sleeve. His eyes are boring into yours. You lick your lips, slowly, and lower them to his skin. A light kiss, testing, tender and wet, and underneath it, a tremor.

There’s a terrible density to his body. He’s tension and heat. Pressing your parted lips to his shoulder, you let your tongue peek out between them. You take in the tangy taste of him, it travels through your body like lava, like syrup, heavy and sticky and sweet and it pools down between your hips.

He’s completely still, eerily so. Emboldened, hopeful, you tug on his t-shirt, tentatively at first, and when he doesn’t stop you, when he unfolds his arms, you pull it off his frame, the hat coming off with it. You suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his naked head full of curls, lush and tousled. You want to run your fingers through them. You know that’s probably not a good idea.

His chest, broad and solid, fills your vision, and your hands fly to his sternum where you press them, chasing something invisible, roaming up the plane of his chest, as delicately as possible. Your fingertips drum lightly along his collarbone, as if you were seeing him with your hands, as if all your senses were necessary to take in the whole of him.

His frown turns imploring, his breathing shallow.

“Tell me your name,” he murmurs, his deep baritone a pleading husk.

“You can call me whatever you like,” you answer, lifting his hand and taking his two first fingers into your mouth, eyelids fluttering. You cradle them with the flat of your tongue, brushing against the callous tips of them, saliva flooding your mouth around the salty taste. A moan escapes you, imperceptible, and his jaw ticks around a curse, something you don’t make out, something in Spanish, you’re too dazed with want, too dumb with thirst.

Fire licks up your spine when he moves, fast and sure. His hand tangles in your hair and he sharply tugs your head back, his fingers popping out of your mouth with a hanging thread of saliva. His face has become a threat, a warning, a promise. He’ll give you what you want until you regret asking for it.

His mouth crushes yours, teeth colliding, and his tongue is inside you, swirling and licking.

Like a dam that gives, his strength breaks and sweeps over you, crushing you into his chest with his hold and his kiss, fingers gripping your hair, your ass, and you let him have it, let him bruise your flesh with his need, scraping your fingernails up his arms, on his back.

You’re smiling into the kiss, with relief and eagerness, squirming into him and he hardens his hold before releasing you, swift and sudden, grabbing your blouse and pulling it up in a feverish movement that you follow, lifting your arms like a docile little girl. A seam of the silky fabric rips around your shoulders. You don’t notice it.

His face dives into the crook of your neck, the scruff of his beard grating your skin, and he sinks in his teeth, sucking hard and feral, and at first, you melt into it, before you remember. You force his chest away with both palms, whining, urgent, plaintive, “I can’t– can’t have marks,” when what you really want is to be covered in him.

It makes him chuckle, and it sounds like a growl, so terribly dark, so profoundly disillusioned, that you shiver in the heat of his body. He squeezes your breasts through the thin cotton of your bra, it’s brutal and it hurts like retaliation.

“Get fucking naked, Marion.”

Drawing away from him, you start working the button and zip fly of your skirt with fumbling fingers, blood beating fast and booming in your eardrums, while he toes off his shoes and undoes his belt buckle. Hard metal, the same one that was scraping against your belly when he was crushing you into his red truck, into white-hot pleasure.

His skin looks amber and smooth under the mellow lighting, the harmonious muscles you guessed under his shirt on the very first night highlighted in shadows. A soft belly, and a long, sideways scar on his left side. Would he tell you the history of his wounds? Will you ever have the chance to ask?

Your skirt crumples at your feet, you’re lost in the sight of him, arms falling limp at your sides. Self-consciousness skirts the edges of your lust. This body that you neglect and ignore at best, despise and mistreat if given the chance, will it be worth anything to him? Will he want you like you want him? With determination. Without dignity.

When he pulls down his jeans and his boxer briefs in one deft motion, your eyes widen, but he’s grabbing your arm already, spinning you around like a doll and throwing you onto the bedspread. He climbs on the bed after you, the mattress dips with his weight.

His firm hands spread your legs; he’s manhandled other bodies before yours, the skill evident with his dexterity, the experience obvious in his assurance, and you want to be all of them at once, lovers and enemies.

His hand rubs over your damp panties and you buck into it, trying to raise yourself on your elbows to turn around. You want to see his face as he touches you, see his reaction at the evidence of your arousal, you want to watch his eyes when his cock breaches you, but he presses a large hand between your shoulder blades and pins you into the mattress with a grunt.

He’s unlike anyone you’ve known before, brisk and rough and domineering, and you blush at your inexperience, at his irreverence, when he yanks your panties to the side and spits on your folds. The sheer obscenity feels like a reward for coming this far.

Sprawling your arms forward, bunching the slippery fabric of the bedspread in your fists, you brace yourself, the round tip of his cock lining up at your entrance.

He shoves himself inside you to the base, and you cry out at the blinding intrusion, the strength of his thrust hauling your body forward on the bed. With a harsh grasp, he slides you back down on his length and you bite down another cry, flesh gushing through the splayed fingers clutching your hips.

Crouching over you, he presses his forehead heavy against the back of your head.

“Don’t move,” he hisses through clenched teeth, “don’t fucking move.”

His cock pulsates angry and swollen inside your throbbing pussy, his chest pressing down on your back with each uneven, shaky breath burning your nape.

Sitting back, he wraps his right hand around the strap of your bra and twists it around his fist, pulling on it for leverage as he begins to fuck into you. The thin elastic bands bite into your shoulders, raspy vibrations echoing from your throat straight into the bedding with each of his rhythmic pushes forward.

He’s too much, too fast, too sudden. And he picks up the pace, forcing your right leg up with his knee and angling up his strokes, reaching deeper inside your core. He’s going to puncture your body from the inside, and you contract tight and rigid around his length, writhing underneath him, until he leans into your neck, close to your ear with a command, voice low and gravelly.

“You want it, just fucking take it, then.”

That wild thing inside your chest is swelling, madly swirling, your slick floods around his drilling length. Closing your eyes, the side of your face smearing makeup on the bedspread, you nod with just enough strength to exhale a breathless yes.

Yes. Yes, you want it, just like so. You want to be used, shattered, obliterated by this man.

And so you relent. Curling your fists and sinking your fingernails into your palms, as the pain turns to pleasure and he rams into your taut heat, rams against your cervix, bending you backward, spine ready to snap with each forceful shove.

The room is filled with the explicit sounds and noises of your emerging dirty secret. The relentless smack of his hips against your ass, the lewd squelch of his cock slamming in and out of your cunt, the creaking bedding, his feral groans, your grateful moans.

He’s miles away from you, but that’s what you came here for, drain the sadness from his eyes, make it yours, understand. If you’re only going to have him once, then you want it all.

But his rhythm is faltering already, and it stops abruptly. He releases his grip on you and pulls out with a loud curse, leaving you empty, for all those things you never wanted in the first place to fill you up again.

You feel his knuckles brushing against the swell of your ass as he strokes himself into his release. He loses his balance, and braces his hand next to your face to catch himself as come spurts hot and rich into the curve of your arched back.

He slaps his cock into the cleft of your cheeks once, twice, pumping out the last drops of his spend, and he collapses next to you, with a grunt when his back hits the bed, his chest heaving with exertion.

Unshed tears weigh down your eyelids. Your heart rattles against your rib cage, frantic and irregular. Your blood is thick as molasses, of amber and gold, coursing dense and languid down your limbs, but your nerves are crackling like electrical wires of blue and purple.

The creature between your lungs has tripled in size and your sore cunt throbs with your suspended orgasm.

Sunk into the mattress, you’re unable to round your back or turn your head towards him. Everything hurts. Everything is alive.

Reaching back blindly, you dip the tip of your fingers into the pool of his spend, and bring them back to your lips. Tasting him with delight and a quiet, strengthless moan.

The mattress moves with him as he shifts on the bed, and you feel the warmth of his large hand covering the expanse of your lower back.

Before you can relax into it, he flips you on your back with an easy strength, and you wince with the sudden change of position. What a mess you must look like, flushed face, sweat-damp hair, clotted mascara.

He’s heavy, in his straddle of your thighs. He brings his hand to your mouth, and you open up for him, pulling out your tongue to lick his come-coated palm, wrapping your lips around his fingers as they glide over the hot wet muscle. You swallow his essence with fluttering eyelids, grateful, tears rolling down your temples.

The soft light catches at the sheen of sweat gleaming over his chest, like he’s made of gold, leaning over you like a magnificent and merciful god, like you’ll grant him everything, and you bask into his radiance, your lips pursed into a new smile around his digits.

The frown that hasn’t left his brow softens ever so slightly. His throat bobs, corded muscles, pebbled skin, the tension barely relieved. His fingers slip out of your mouth and come to cup your chin, so gentle your mind fails to comprehend. His touch lingers, warm and relenting and it becomes a caress, trailing down the line of your throat and coming to rest over your beating pulse at the base of your neck.

“Are you real?” he asks, sorrow blurring his dark eyes.

“I don’t know,” you murmur, beading sweat, beading tears. “Make me be.”

He breathes in deeply, and perhaps it’s the first time in years he breathes in so freely.

“Okay,” he nods.

Slowly, with the tip of his tongue darting between his parted lips, he tugs down your bra to the side. His calloused palm finds the soft swell of your breast, and his warmth radiates through your skin. His hold strengthens, he pinches your nipples with his two first fingers, the ones you took in your mouth earlier, harder, until your mouth goes slack with pleasure and with pain, and you keep smiling at him through it all.

Loose, trustful, pliant, you watch as he drags your panties down along your damp skin and spreads your thighs. He pauses, eyes on your core and you lie still, exposed and opened, feeling no shame.

His curls, matted with sweat, are stuck in locks to his forehead. Where was he, when you were still hopeful? Were you too young for him, then?

He dives between your hips, and his teeth bite into the soft skin of your inner thigh. You jerk, palm pushing feebly onto the crown of his head and he freezes, eyes shut, like he doesn’t have enough willpower to let go, like too much of his control has already waned and thawed.

“Please,” you coo, “please. I’ll get in so much trouble.”

And your heart sinks a little with apprehension because, surely, he’ll scoff at you again, but instead he just lets go, bringing his fingers to your swollen folds to part them.

A small whimpering sound escapes you when he latches his lips around your clit, but the sensation is nothing like what you anticipated. Of his previous roughness, only the bruising digging of his fingers into the plush of your hips remains.

His mouth is warm and soothing, a liquid caress, the touch from the tip of his tongue precise but gentle. He shifts with a soft groan, applying more pressure and you keen, head trashed back into the bed. Instantly, he adjusts his grasp, pulling you closer to his face, suckling on your clit with more insistence.

The smooth skin of your calves brushes over his shoulders, your heels digging into the muscles of his back and you’re reminded of that first night again, when he swiveled around to meet your gaze, soft sad eyes, hard cold stare. Your orgasm builds up fast, embarrassingly so, encouraged by his heavy breathing fanning the soft curls on your mound.

The wild creature melts into your blood and flows down to your core, branching out to every nerve from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. And when you come, you come sharp and bright, with your hand clasped over your mouth to muffle a loud mewl and your back arched from the bed.

He forsakes his restored restraint when you recoil from the overstimulation, hardening his hold and fastening his mouth over your cunt to lap up your release, tongue diving in, greedy, burning your walls.

You’re still shaking with the aftershock when he releases you and rises above your trembling body. Lying his forehead on your belly, heavy head, heavy breathing, sweat dripping on your skin, he stays there until his breathing slows down, falling in rhythm with yours. You reach down for his hair, threading your fingers through his curls, at last, and he gives in, leans into the tenderness of your touch.

A stray tear slides down into your hairline and it’s over, he’s gone, standing up, his broad back turned to you, gathering his clothes and dressing up.

The notion of the world around you resurfaces. Outside, tucked away in the heart of the night, countless other wild creatures dwell and carry on, moved by fear or desire, and you lie still in that crushing knowledge. Soon, you will have to leave this bed, confront your solitude to theirs.

You roll to your side and curl up on yourself, drifting with the soft droning from the sleeping creature between your lungs and the sweet soreness thrumming between your hips.

He’s at the door, putting his hat back on, when you call out his name.

“Frankie.”

It passes your lips for the very first time, a long kept secret, a forbidden vow, a usurped oath, and immediately you want to say it again. You want it to be real. You want it to be yours.

Frankie pauses and tilts his head towards the bed without facing you completely.

“Thank you,” you say.

He opens the door to a draft of air wafting in, charged with the salty, humid scent of the faraway bay. He’s about to cross the threshold, and disappear into the night, when he speaks.

“The room is paid for til morning. I’ll see you next Friday.”

****

Additional note: I woke up on day and decided to build a multiverse of orange bedroom Frankies 🧡 For those who've read PTMY, can you spot all the clues? This Frankie is really pissed off, though, but I kinda like it. I hope you'll like it too 🧡

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @your-voice-is-mellifluous @mylostloversbookmarks @readingiskeepingmegoing @lovesbiggerthanpride @youandmeand5bucks-blog @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @southernbe @blackvelveteen1339 @anoverwhelmingdin @casa-boiardi @nandan11 @jessthebaker @pedroshotwifey @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @noisynightmarepoetry

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adaws12 · 4 months

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JAVIER PENA in every scene — 12/?

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adaws12 · 5 months

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I miss @jrrmint and bad blood so much

#pedro pascal #joelmiller #joel miller #raider!joel #bad blood #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader

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adaws12 · 5 months

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I am - 😳🫠

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 2

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 8.7k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: you take care of joel after a patrol injury, but you suspect there's more to it than he's telling you. the atmosphere shifts as you and joel grow (begrudgingly) closer. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, brief masturbation (f!reader), praise kink for two seconds, blood, bodily injuries, needles (reader gives joel stitches), dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension intensifies, The First Kiss™, soft!joel vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: we're picking up speed, folks. world-building is my weakness, so i hope you enjoy this nonetheless. honorable mention goes to the readers in the trenches, waiting patiently for joel to [redacted] reader senseless until she [redacted] all over his [redacted]. thank you for the love on the series so far. taglist: @ghostwritesthings, @widowssbite, @p3rkerr, @eternallyvenus, @punkshort if anyone would like to be added/removed to the taglist (or if i missed anyone), please send me a DM!

You’ve always hated flying.

In the great before, the stone ages of family vacations and things to look forward to, fears were singular and planes were yours.

Your family never had a lot of money, not really, but on the special occasion of a death in the family, you’d find yourself trapped to a seat in a metal tube. Going nowhere but up. Sitting through safety instructions that came from smiling, lipsticked mouths that were only hypotheticals until they weren’t.

It’s like a rollercoaster, your dad would say, amused in the way only a dad can be and sleeping through damn near anything in the same fashion. It did nothing to calm the knocking of your knees, to quell the flip of your stomach as you climbed higher and higher until you couldn’t see anything but cotton ball clouds.

It was always unnatural to you that something so heavy could float, that you were supposed to go on doing human things and drinking your ginger ale and munching your pre-packaged snack option. As if you weren’t being hurled into the sky with no one walking you through it.

As if the plummet onto tarmac meant no harm, just completely normal erratic braking that felt a lot like the moments before a crash.

There was no control — it was in someone else’s hands that you never saw. And as you fell, you were supposed to say thank you, that’s exactly what I paid for.

This is your version of the oxygen mask. This is you putting yours on before you help Joel.

You’re on your knees digging through your med bag, thumbing through bandages, checking for a quick count of gloves, antibiotics, wash cloths. You fumble with the zipper, fighting with the tremor that starts in your forearms and liquifies into your wrists. There isn’t much in the way of supplies unless you ransack what’s kept in storage, but there’s no time, and you’re not sure of what you’re about to walk into.

Waiting any moment for a scream, or the blast of a gun when they realize Joel’s not Joel anymore.

And it isn’t really a big possibility in the grand scheme of things, if you consider that he would’ve likely turned on the route home. But it’s still there, tickling the back of your head, nudging your navel uncomfortably. Nothing’s impossible.

You of all people know that.

You linger in your living room, giving a final sweep. Worst case, you can run back for what’s forgotten, but something about the idea of abandoning a vulnerable Joel – if only for a minute – doesn’t settle right in your stomach.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re shoving a bottle of whiskey into the bag, the only anesthetic on hand. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you need to score back some points.

The steps leading up to Joel’s house are sturdy, and you imagine it’s because of the pride he takes in what’s his. Before this, his house was just another skeleton of roof, foundation, windows, and siding.

The kind of houses you pass by every day that are rife with familiarity but you don’t know what it’s like to see the people inside eat dinner, brush their teeth. Fight. Fuck.

Fresh paint from only two seasons ago, reinforced porch posts. A swing. It’s weird to see permanence in this day and age, but his intention to anchor himself and grow roots here flutters meaningfully inside you.

It’s always been a sacred thing to you, you don’t know why. A place you’d never dreamed of entering, but dreamed about what it would smell like. A pair of boots haphazard by the front door, small piles of organized chaos, of collected tangibles. A you never know if you’ll need this in one corner, a saving that for a rainy day shelved in another.

So when you raise your hand to knock, you feel like an intruder, an unwelcome invasion of privacy. And you don’t know why you knock at all, you nearly think better of it given the circumstances, but you’re testing the atmosphere, hoping for voices inside instead of a struggle.

Ellie’s swinging the door open, relief smoothing out the lines in her forehead when she sees you. Her presence seems to answer any unspoken questions you had about Joel being infected, and you don’t voice them to her when you can see unrest in her antsy legs.

“Hey. Sorry for the wait. He alright?”

Her teeth are worrying her lip, probably more traumatized by the sight of him than anything. A few strands of hair have freed themselves from her lazy half-bun at the base of her neck, caught in the crossfire when she ran her hands through it, you think.

“Yeah,” Ellie breathes, committing to it. “Yeah, he’s okay. Bleeding stopped, nothing seems broken. Just needs stitches, I think.”

It sounds more to convince herself than anything else. There’s a foreign fragility to her, and you hate it.

“He tell you what happened?”

The question strikes a nerve. Ellie’s shaking her bowed head, scoffing in a half-laugh that doesn’t touch her eyes. Her hand wraps around her knuckles, cracking slowly in an effort to alleviate the tension that’s reached a fever pitch inside her.

“He won’t tell me, says it doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have gone alone anyway, he was bein’ a dick. ‘I wanna think, kiddo - need t’clear my head,’” she mocks in a gruff, rolling pitch, the perfect dosage of Texas.

It levels you, potent. Are you the thing Joel needed to clear his head of?

You’re weirdly longing for it, but being flicked away like a bug, peeled away layer by layer from him isn’t something you want.

There’s hope that you’re contagious. That you’re haunting him and lurking in the darkest corners of his mind like an apparition like he has yours. And maybe there’s hope after all, something left to salvage.

But you play dumb, furrow your brow a little too expertly.

Ellie’s measuring you, and there’s a glimpse of worry but she hides it in a way that you wouldn’t know what you were looking for if you hadn’t already found it.

“Anything you wanna tell me about the other night? He was pissed when he left,” she tacks on quietly.

You go a little slack-jawed. You don’t even know how to put it into words, and you couldn’t tell her what it meant even if you tried.

What’s there to even say?

“You know what, none of my business,” she says, her hands lifting in tired surrender when you don’t answer, ignoring your near-sputter. “But you’re not off the hook, just make sure the old man doesn’t croak. And tell him he scared the shit outta me.”

You exhale and hope it doesn’t read too much as relief. You’ll have to answer to her later, but at least you might have an answer to give.

“Handful of salt in the wound, rub in circular motions – got it. Tell Tommy I’ll catch up later.”

Your shoulders scrape affectionately as you nudge past each other, and you cast a wide look at the periphery of Joel Miller’s house. The feeling of unwelcome disappears, and if anything, you’re being tugged further inside. Imagining what it’s like to be a fixture, an adornment in his weird little life.

Nooks that you assumed would be messy are neat, coiffed even. There’s that unavoidable smudge of secondhand all over the furniture – mottled ever so slightly, aged uneven in places that only an apocalypse can do. But it’s an otherwise tidy existence. Another surprise from Joel that you’d never pick up on if you only witnessed him nursing a drink at the bar.

An oak bookshelf props itself at the bottom of the stairs and it rivals your own, dust gathering in thin lines where he’s repeatedly shelved this, reread that. There are paintings hung decisively on most of the walls, breathtaking rural landscapes of wherever.

You’re lugging the bag upstairs, counting your breaths with each step. The whiskey rattles mutely against the first aid tin, and it’s a toss-up now of who you really brought it for.

The landing mirrors the ground level, a purposeful littering of tchotchkes. Doors line the second floor, some closed, some ajar but not inviting, and you realize you have no idea which one you’re looking for. You sway uninvited by the bannister until you hear the unmistakable hiss of breath between clenched teeth, then a soft moan as his weight shifts.

And you’re stepping inside a room – his bedroom – warmed in the soft beginnings of sunset. Joel’s sprawled asymmetrically on his bed, eyes pinched shut, delirious with blood loss but already looking substantially less like a corpse. A damp rag settles just above his brow, and the handiwork of Ellie.

There’s an unrecognizable hurt in him, wounded in ways that he shouldn’t be capable of.

He doesn’t give any indication that he knows you’re here until he’s rasping out something weak disguised as stern.

“I ain’t bit. Shut the door behind you.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“How did you –?”

Joel just huffs in response, as indignant as his body lets him be.

“You see anyone else here? They might as well’ve jumped out the window, as fast as they dumped me ‘n left. I ain’t stupid.”

You accept that and drop the pretense, pursing your lips with a nod. He doesn’t seem that offended, knows it’s just the nature of the beast.

You move over to his bedside, unpacking the bag quickly on a side table, looping your metaphorical stethoscope around your neck and switching gears into a mode that’s strictly doctoral.

Yet, there’s still that hum beneath your skin, the fizzle of unfinished business. It’s thick in the space between you, in the way he flicks his gaze at you lazily. You’ll let him foster the anger, giving it a home. You can be the martyr he says you are.

This new lens feels calmer, almost professional. Your nerves are still firing rapidly, and your composure is forced, but it’s better than nothing.

You drag a chair from the corner up to Joel’s bed, not letting your eyes wander too far into the depths of the space. You don’t have time to dissect the idiosyncrasies of his life. Not yet.

He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but you get the sense that he’s tracking your every move. His limbs are concrete, the tendons in his forearms so tense and coiled like any and every movement is forbidden.

“Joel.”

He grunts, a pained translation. Still no effort to move.

“I need to take a look at you,” you say patiently, bargaining like you would with a kid. “Wanna tell me what hurts?”

Another grunt, softer this time. He motions vaguely, weakly to his head, then the left flank of his abdomen.

You already know what you’ll find under the rag on his head, and it bodes well that the bleeding looks to have stopped. His stomach wound, on the other hand, was enough to bleed through two layers.

“Alright. Lemme see.”

A muted whimper echoes in his throat, so uncharacteristically that it tugs on your heart. Still statuesque, unmoving.

Your fingers are deft, careful as they unbutton the first, second, third buttons of his flannel. Joel’s stock-still, and his breath comes in sharp, slow waves through his nose. Your own breath kind of sits in the back of your throat, and you pretend with a hurried exhale that you weren’t just holding it.

Your fingers reach his navel on the last button, and you’re gently tucking each panel of his shirt under him on either side, focusing too hard on not touching him. It feels like something is somersaulting low in your stomach.

You can’t even dare yourself to look at his chest, his stomach. The patch of hair leading down to the band of his pants.

Get it together. That’s not what this is.

An angry gash looks up at you, thankfully clotted with dried patches of blood. It’s about two delicate fingers long, a nasty slice. It looks clean, abrupt in shape but suspiciously manmade. Not too deep, but not superficial enough to heal without some assistance.

And thank god, not nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

Joel’s looking at you now through heavy lids, wary of you, but something like fear touches the corners of his eyes. You fight to stay medical, methodical in your diagnosis. No emotion slips out, nothing allowed in.

You sit back calmly, letting loose a sigh. Not letting yourself bathe in the intimacy of the moment, in the way he’s staring.

“You need stitches,” you announce simply.

“Like hell.”

“Joel.”

He’s scowling, a hurt animal pissed at its own vulnerability. Silence passes like a ship between you, and for a moment, you think he’ll really fight you on this. He can’t hide anything when he’s like this, the weighing of his options evident in the tick of his jaw, the pathetic pinch just in the center of his brows.

“Fine,” he grits out. “Make it quick.”

This fucker.

You’re rolling your eyes, unceremoniously tugging the rag from his forehead. The cloth is red but not soaked, just twinged pink around the edges. Joel curses, just an octave above unintelligible.

His hand is shooting to the cut near his hairline and you’re smacking it away before he can pollute it.

“Lay still, fuck’s sake,” you chastise. “An infection’ll put you out longer than a few days. Unless you have a puzzle you been meaning to get around to?”

The faux-threat calms him immediately, and the shift in restraint doesn’t go unchecked. He doesn’t say another word, but you catch a glare and a twitch of his mouth.

You make quick work of cleaning him up, squeezing rubbing alcohol on a clean towel and scrubbing patient circles through the mess of dried blood. Joel releases sharp noises you can only describe as growls when you get too close to the border of his cuts.

It’s primal, a dog asserting dominance with his leg caught in a trap.

You try to lose the attitude, and it’s difficult when your patient hates you, doesn’t hate you, won’t clarify either way.

There’s a hint of purple that’s developing like fresh film on the mountains of his knuckles that doesn’t go unnoticed. Places on the most taut peaks of flesh where his skin has split, marred with scrapes that look like indents of teeth. And in the right light, there’s a discoloration of something in the same family splayed on his ribs.

And that… you know that when you see it. Even if everything else can be explained away.

“You wanna talk about it?” you say quietly.

There’s an intermission where he doesn’t respond. Too long to be the truth, too short to come up with a lie. And you know he’s been waiting for this question, might’ve already thought of a story.

“Got clumsy,” Joel recites. “Tripped on some stairs that were caving in, hit my head.”

“Bullshit.” And it’s a statement, not an insult. It doesn’t cover why he has a certified stab wound in his side.

Another stretch of silence, lack of defensiveness, makes it clear that he knows you know. But he doesn’t elaborate, and for whatever reason, you don’t push it.

And maybe it’s enough to acknowledge this sort of thing for now. You can stow it away, let it keep you up at night. Draw parallels where there possibly aren’t any. If he’d run into a human thing, he’d be much worse off, right?

Just like you were.

You take care in lining up the supplies to stitch in neat order beside you, mulling over each step in your mind. Stalling, maybe.

You pull the whiskey bottle out of your bag by the neck and nudge Joel with the cap.

“Something to take the edge off.”

He kind of hesitates, but there’s a tenderness. Recognizing it as an act of mercy, a peace offering.

There’s nothing said, but he takes the bait, spinning off the top and swallowing a messy mouthful. A drip escapes through the corner of his mouth and slips into his beard.

You can feel the taste of it blossoming on your tongue.

He grunts his thanks and keeps a steady grip on the neck of the bottle, and the network of veins in his forearm unwind.

You clamp the needle, laced through with something thicker than thread but not quite medical grade. Joel exhales a shaky whine when you pierce the skin, and his fist grips the sheets when you twist clockwise to push the needle through to the other side.

“You’re doing great,” you murmur.

The needle weaves over the cut, greeting the other side. You pull it through and up, and his lower lip trembles, sweat beading his forehead.

“First one done,” you say, praising him but also yourself.

Joel’s still clenching the linens on the bed, ignoring you and hiding out in his own mind somewhere.

You don’t tell him that you’ve only ever practiced on fruit, that your suture knowledge comes exclusively from the one medical text you have and endless hours of TV you grew up on.

Silence envelopes you again, heavier than before if possible. The pressure waxes and wanes like nighttime waves, licking the shore between you. And it’s not angry, just something… else.

“Some house you got,” you note casually as a distraction, like you’re commenting on the weather. It comes off relaxed enough, though any conversation between you feels like flossing a crowded mouth.

His eyes sharpen, and you think it’s in excruciation, but there’s a twinge of apprehension. You straighten for a moment, hands fixed mid-stitch, and roll your eyes.

“Okay, cool it, Home Alone, I’m not casing the place.”

Joel takes a turn rolling his eyes. You swear that you see his mouth twitch again, but you hang your head, dabbing a cloth where pinpricks of blood form.

You try again.

“I like your paintings.”

You dare to look up, and his mouth is in a tight line.

“You like my paintings.” he repeats dully, not a question. Joel’s as cynical as you, and he thinks it’s a jab, not sincere.

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you?”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.”

Now’s as good a time as any. You sigh at that.

“Look, the other night wasn’t my finest moment. It didn’t need to go that way,” you mutter, leaning on the concentration of sewing up Joel’s skin. Otherwise, you might feel too strongly, dissect your word choice with an uncomfortable linger. “Sorry. I know you were trying to help.”

He goes rigid as your second stitch meets a third. The bottle tips to his lips again, and you wonder if it’s an act of liquid courage. You boldly hope so.

“Nah, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Been thinkin’ I needed to apologize anyway,” he admits, and you know he’s happy you made the first move. You can already feel him loosen, but maybe it’s the alcohol. “You ain’t a martyr, y’know.”

Oh.

The needle hooks into the final sliver of skin, your handiwork tightening into a neat line. You sit back, wiping your brow with the ungloved section of your wrist. It’s a treaty, a handshake at the very least.

“Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one,” you smirk, olive branch fully hanging between your teeth now. “Keeping up the charade is so exhausting.”

Joel presses out a pained half-laugh, and you feel something crumbling between you.

You tie off the last stitch, trimming the excess thread off the knot. The clamp clatters into the tray, and you give it a final once-over before peeling a large rectangle of bandage from your kit and pressing it gently over the wound.

“All done,” you quip, peeling your gloves off. “Didn’t even have to amputate.”

“Not too bad,” he grunts.

“I’ll add it to your tab.”

While you’re riding the high of approval, you stand and move to the foot of the bed. Joel’s boots are still on, laced messily.

And for some reason, you don’t even ask permission, you just start untying, tipping them off and lining them next to one another on the hardwood.

He doesn’t say a word. Out of confusion, maybe.

You scoot your chair and makeshift flatlay along with you, positioning yourself at Joel’s head. That look is back, a side-stare that steals your breath.

That look that knows you could absolutely ruin him, and he’d either thank you or kill you.

The pads of your fingers brush back the hair from his forehead, still slightly matted with blood. It’s a surface cut, but crescent-shaped and easily hidden by a curl of brown, peppered with grey. Butterfly closure it is.

No signs of a concussion show themselves. At least there’s that.

“You might have a scar,” you murmur. Being this close to Joel makes you feel like you’re wearing two layers too many.

And he hasn’t broken the stare, not even minutely.

“Add it to the collection,” he says lowly, not an ounce of self-pity.

Your eyes flash to the scar near his temple. You’re exercising full-on restraint not to ask him about it. But it’s not the time, something you could try to pry out of him later. And knowing there’ll be a later makes you relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw.

He’s nice enough to pretend not to notice, or he’s in too much pain to mention it.

You dab the damp rag around the border of his cut again, mopping up any excess. You reach for the isopropyl.

“You might wanna take another swig,” you warn. And he obeys, down the hatch and white-knuckling through it.

“Good boy,” you’re murmuring automatically, and it just slips out.

Your mouth falls open just so, and Joel’s coughing, clearing his throat against the burn of whiskey. You’re pleading with the universe that his cough was close enough, loud enough to cover the words, but his face has turned a shade of red that’s probably rivaling the heat that reaches your ears.

Good boy? Jesus Christ.

If there was ever a heightened moment of being fucking touch-starved, it’s this.

You make haste with the disinfectant and place the closures over the cut. The bloodied towels and scraps from the DIY surgery are cleaned up, tied neatly into a plastic bag. And now, this is the part where you run and never face him again.

You’re already making plans to board up your windows, maybe have Ellie deliver your meals solely through a slot in the door.

But Joel’s pain is overriding everything, and he’s sunken even further back into the pillow, his head lolling to prop on his shoulder. He’s whispering a weak thanks that’s incoherent at best. You tug the blanket up and over him.

You grab a glass from downstairs, fill it to the brim with water and bring it to him. He groans at the sight, petulant.

“I’m not leaving until you finish this.”

His lifts his arm for it, scowling. “Gimme the damn thing.”

Satisfied, you hand it over and watch him drink it down, his throat bobbing in a hearty gulp. Your gaze can’t help but snag on it.

You have got to get the fuck out of here.

You come back with a refilled glass and sit it on his bedside table, close enough within reach. The medical bag is packed up and ready, sagging slightly in areas where you’ve emptied it. It knocks against your already-knocking knees, and you’re grateful to use its weight as an excuse for how blurred you feel.

“I need to talk to Tommy. You gonna be alright for a bit?”

His eyes are closed again, on the outskirts of rest, but his mouth pulls up in the ghost of smile.

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere, sweetheart.”

And you hope he means it.

—

You track down an unsettled Tommy, finding him pacing in the back of the general store. He’s restocking some shelves but not quite – there’s an gross pairing of tinned fish and fresh eggs sitting on a display that’s unappetizing at best.

“He’s okay. No bite,” you add lowly, acutely aware of how many pairs of ears are in the store. “But he needs to be monitored.”

Tommy slackens, rubbing his eyes that are full of exhaustion and bruised with worry. Index finger and thumb stroking the respective tails of his mustache one, two, three times as the gravity of that strikes him.

He loops you into an embrace, and it’s kind, full of ease. The smell of firewood and smoke tickles your nose. His worry evaporates then, and honestly, so does yours.

“He doin’ alright?”

You chew on that for a moment and nod. There are complications, but nothing to do with Joel’s health.

“He was pissed about the stitches, but I didn’t have a choice. Cut was pretty deep.”

“So… he tell you what happened, then?”

There’s that question again. You feel like you should have an answer, but if he wouldn’t clue in Ellie, you sure as hell wouldn’t be.

Like squeezing blood from a stone, your dad used to say.

“No,” you lie instinctively. You don’t know why.

But it isn’t really. Not if you don’t know the full truth yourself. There’s just something about Joel’s omission that makes you feel entitled to find out first.

“He said he fell down some stairs,” you amend, “just didn’t say where or how.”

Tommy offers you the same look that Ellie gave you – a raised brow coupled with a touch of disbelief.

“If you say so.”

You shrug, playing it as cool as’ll come natural to you. “You know Joel. Doesn’t want to make a fuss.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and rolling out his shoulders that you know have been holding tension. He believes that, at least.

“Sounds like you know him, too.”

—

A few days come and go.

Ellie takes on a lot of the recovery, but she doesn’t like messing with stitches — creeps me the fuck out that you did that without puking all over him, she claims — and she’s eager to substitute for the patrol routes while Joel’s down and out. You offer to step in, with a totally normal and selfless motive.

If she thinks anything else of it, you’d be the last to know.

Your new itinerary consists of changing Joel’s bandages, cleaning up through his hissed breaths and every goddamn it. Twice a day, morning and night and sometimes in closer intervals, but never approaching the cusp of any boundary.

Joel’s fiercely independent, swatting your hands when you try to help. Donning a clean flannel in the space between your lunchtime visit and your nightcap, despite you telling him that he shouldn’t be pushing his mobility.

That said, he’s marginally better about following doctor’s orders, drinking the water you leave on his nightstand but neglecting the pills that would stop him from coiling in on himself like a ready spring. And he doesn’t say it but you know it’s because he thinks it’d be a waste.

You trade regular formalities at first, each of you standing behind your respective walls, daring the other to toe a bit closer.

Joel doesn’t ask, but you bring him some short stories to pass the time and he devours them. You didn’t think much of it other than just straying past the point of being nice, but your heart sings a bit at how he leaves his shell at your coaxing.

You learn Bradbury is his favorite, but when he finishes The Most Dangerous Game, it’s the most he’s ever spoken to you in one sitting, astounded at the perfectly tied bow of an ending, asking you questions that only the author could answer. But it’s a marvel to witness, something you think about when you’re cleaning stables or washing dishes.

He’s unraveling for you, a loose thread tugged too hard on your favorite sweater. He talks of the places in the paintings, sometimes abruptly, like he isn’t sure what his cue is or if he has one.

Mentions of pre-Jackson when there was so much uncertainty and isolation, but it was coupled with those types of watercolor skies that you couldn’t paint if you tried.

These little pieces of him that make him whole – it’s like you’re both in on the same secret. And Joel isn’t doing it to lighten the tension, to be nice; that isn’t his brand of politeness. He just revels in the holy act of confession with you as his witness.

You come to learn that his room is modest, different from the rest of his house. Clues of hobbies sprawled on his desk – leatherworking tools and hand drawn blueprints that you can’t get a good look at with just a sidelong glance.

There’s a dusty stereo tucked at the back towards the wall, and you picture a content Joel, sketching new plans for a porch swing or some small addition while old bluesy country croons from the speakers.

You like this daydream, placing him in something lighthearted where his only worry is that he’s losing daylight on yardwork.

The two of you talk about little bits of everything and nothing. Reminiscing about sending snail mail, discussing what you think places like Italy look like now. How close you came to crossing an ocean in another life.

Tonight, you have a night terror that clings to you like wet denim. Stop-motion, nonsensical. Your head ricocheting into concrete, hitting your temple just so. Flashes of the people that used to be your parents, your friends.

And just as the life drains from you, blood seeping onto the floor and into spidering cracks, you wake up a flailing mess.

You practice your routine, twisting on knobs of lamps and plugging in the twinkling lights hanging around the perimeter of the living room. You press your cheek to the floor, checking under your bed for monsters for good measure.

Bleary-eyed, you’re climbing back under the covers, pulling them snug up to your chin.

There’s a neediness crawling its way through your organs with a one-way ticket south. The juxtaposition of fear mingles with an otherness, and it anchors itself to Joel.

You never cared for a protector, still don’t, but the eagerness that sprouts from him to defend your honor — and for nothing in return — magnetizes you on a cellular level.

Your fingers are dipping into the band of your already-damp underwear, taking inventory of what the thought of him does to you. Body on auto-pilot. A pool of dripping neediness, so slick that you’re coating your clit in excess and rubbing in tight circles.

He doesn’t even have to touch you, and it’s pathetic.

Images of Joel’s beard scratching your thighs swirls behind your eyelids, your hand gliding between the glistening of your folds. Fingers crook inside you, dipping into the last knuckle, and you’re choking on a gasp, already on the edge.

You wish they were more calloused, thicker, with length that can hit the spot that’s desperately out of reach.

You wish they were Joel’s.

It takes only a minute, some curling and pumping of your wrist to make it quick in case it’ll only ever be a fantasy. The wet noises of your arousal are nothing short of obscene, and you’re coming loudly, sharply on a string of moans.

In some ways, you think, you have already died.

And fuck. It’s so poetic it makes you sick.

—

On the fourth day, Maria sends you to Joel’s with some stew — two hearty containers that're meant for the both of you.

She’s been taking her shift at his place, carrying over containers of this and that to keep him fed. You wonder how often she takes on that role anyway, sans injury. You don’t peg Joel as the type to eat three square meals a day of his own accord.

Tell Joel I can’t make it tonight. Gotta do inventory.

She makes no room for elaboration, so you don’t ask. But you thank her with a hug, and you could swear that she’s giving you a conspiratorial smirk.

When you knock on Joel’s bedroom, he gives a new, warm invitation, coated in subtle hospitality. It’s a far stretch from the unaffected what? you might’ve received a week ago.

You place the stew down on the bedside table, along with some bowls and spoons you plucked from his kitchen. He just looks up at you from his bed, uncertainty reaching the lines of his forehead.

“It’s all Maria,” you explain and he hums, catching up.

“Explains a lot,” he mutters.

You eat quietly for a little over ten minutes. Joel’s flannel today boasts a rich navy, buttoned up to the top but not far enough to hide the sprinkling of hair that peeks through.

He catches you staring and pins you with a dark glance.

“You afraid of the dark or somethin’?”

Joel’s ask cuts through the air, and your spoon stops mid-route to your open mouth. It’s so out of the blue that it stuns you momentarily.

“Sorry?”

“You turn the lights on at night.”

What you thought to be private moments of fear were actually on display for all to see.

For Joel to see.

And the memory of your thighs trapping your hand as you came over and over again on your fingers… you’re grateful to at least have had some decorum to draw your bedroom curtains.

“Um.” You dig for a way to say nope, I’m actually just a pussy and I see things that aren’t there. Also, I was touching myself thinking about you last night. “No, just nightmares.”

Every inch of your skin feels like it’s searing. A bead of sweat makes a slow descent down your spine to your tailbone. You laugh lightly to deflect.

Joel’s mouth thins into a tight line.

“It’s nothing,” you promise.

“Ain’t nothin’,” he snaps. His brows are knitted in fury, misdirected. But you get it.

Your stomach is rumbling, but you’ve effectively lost whatever appetite you had. The bowl finds a space on the side table, and you’re pulling your knees to your chest protectively, thumbing at the fray on the cuff of your jeans.

You don’t mean to scowl, but you can’t help it. You can’t even meet his eyes.

Joel’s sighing, his own bowl discarded on the nightstand, grazing the lip of yours.

“Look, it’s not my business,” he starts, choosing his words carefully, “but that kinda shit worries me.”

When you do look up, he’s rubbing his beard with rigid fingers. You should feel nice and fuzzy that he cares enough to point it out, but it’s just embarrassment instead.

That, on top of everything else, you can’t even get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat.

“I know how it looks,” you say in surrender, “but I swear I’m fine.”

You can imagine what it would feel like to really mean it; it’s just on the tip of your tongue. There is a defiance there, it’s just struggling to find a way out.

“You sure about that?”

You let your feet touch the floor, straightening out your legs and busying yourself with smoothing the creases in your pants.

“You worry about everyone else like this?” you muse, hoping to redirect.

Joel’s scratching the back of his neck, eyes fixed anywhere else.

“Always worried about you.”

If you were any farther away, you wouldn’t have heard him.

Outside, kids are yelling, playing tag. You watch in jealousy, can almost hear the crunch of their boots and their tiny, inconsequential conversations. It takes you longer than intended to give a response, and he waits, patiently. Just trickles a look from the crown of your head to your hands to your face. Searching for a reaction.

“You’re about ten months late, Miller.” And you’re smiling briefly. You mean it as playful, but it’s colored with sadness.

His eyes glaze, and the wheels are turning, wondering if that also means too late.

“Didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of the situation. And I thought Max —” Joel bites down on the name.

“Fuck Max,” you spit in disgust. “That was never a thing.”

You don’t have to make eye contact to see that he’s pleased by that. He hums in the back of his throat. Resists a shit-eating grin. From the looks of Joel connecting the dots, you don’t need say much else.

“Yeah, well. We all failed you,” he insists. “I failed you.”

It sets an incredulous spark in some hidden part of you. Nails cut into your palm, your fists balling harshly. Everyone else? Sure, you’d give him that. Jackson spit you out, with the exception of a select few.

But Joel?

“You saved me.”

“Not good enough,” he says under his breath.

—

The next day, you let yourself inside, already learning the language of Joel’s house when you press a little extra weight against the door to seal it shut when it sticks.

It’s quiet, on the cusp of 8, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Joel’s on the brink of sleep.

The sun’s long settled over the mountain, so there’s not much in the way of guidance.

It’s dark, but you expected it to be. You draw the curtains one by one, moving blindly from room to room yet knowing exactly where your feet are. It strikes you as odd, a visitor keeping pace with an unfamiliar house.

But if Joel’s anything, it’s predictable. Unfussy in the way he keeps out of the way, even in his own space. Takes pride in it, sure, but lives in a way that demands nothing but cherishes everything, even the absence of something.

Meaning there’s nothing too unexpected, too risky in its placement. He doesn’t take up too much room in the event that it’s gone tomorrow.

When your hands fumble for the switch of the living room lamp, the bulb springs to life and bathes a wary Joel in light. Sitting on the couch, slouched with residual soreness, but waiting.

For you.

“Jesus, fuck — what the fuck, Joel —”

“You’re late.”

“— sitting in the fucking dark like a lunatic —”

He puts a hand up to stop you, as if to press your mute button.

“I didn’t fall down any stairs.”

Your hands have risen to your chest in the shock of him there, and you’re gripping your shirt in the way he had almost a week ago. You don’t miss that little detail, so much so that you struggle to piece together what he’s saying.

It punches you abnormal; you kept so busy with leaving the subject alone that it slipped your mind that he lied.

“Sit down.”

You’re obedient and you don’t know why. You find a seat across from him, pulling up a stool that’s meant for feet, not your ass. Something crackles beside you, and the embers of a dying fire glow and warm to the left of you.

Your leg crosses over your knee, creating a 45-degree angle that you rest your elbows on. “Yeah, I gathered as much, thanks. You’re a terrible liar.”

Joel’s just eyeing you. And it’s not in a way that sizes you up, more of a calculation of what to say next. What to give away. There’s a beat of this, then another, then another.

“I thought ‘bed rest’ was pretty self-explanatory.”

You’re growing impatient, filling the room just to do it. You both know what happened, and maybe that’s what’s needling at you. That you’re the one person who’d understand the most, but the one person he doesn’t want to know.

It feels wretched and seething, knowing something but not enough.

“I’m gonna need you to cut to the part where you tell me what happened, Joel.”

At that, Joel drags in a breath and leans deeper into the couch. His gaze has moved to somewhere far off, burning into the drawn curtains like he can see outside, can see directly into the window of your kitchen. And with sudden clarity, you realize that he could — it’s a clean diagonal stare.

Are you afraid of the dark?

How many times has he sat in this very spot, taking in the show, watching you make tea, watching you read, watching you stutter and shake with sobs? Witnessing the onslaught of a nightmare?

Touching yourself? Watching you undress?

You aren’t the voyeuristic type, just uncaring to the point of defenseless. But Joel keeping an eye on you in this way is the coup de grâce that does you in. There’s no question now of whether he cares.

“I took Mountain View, headed for the outpost. Not much up that way lately, maybe one or two infected every once ‘n a while,” he says, and it’s unsettling that he’s talking in a way that could be to anyone or no one at all. “Thought I’d stop at the pharmacy on the way up, check that off, too. ‘Cept I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”

He pauses only to crack his knuckles for effect. Fingertips splay on his spread knees, and what seemed so fragile earlier, watercolors of bruises stretching from ligament to tendon, seems threatening now.

“One was lootin’ in the back, didn’t hear me come in. I thought he mighta been alone ‘til his friend followed me in,” he pauses, lost in thought. “Got into it with him.”

As if on cue, the gory split-skin of his hands flexes. Offensive wounds.

You were right, but you wish you weren’t.

“His friend came up from the back, ‘n they took turns for a minute. Long enough for me to get a good look. I ended up takin’ out the shorter one, other one was gone before I could get up.”

Joel doesn’t lift his head, just his eyes. The skin around them crinkles in sinister shapes, lids disappeared, lashes nearly touching brow. You know it’s not anger directed at you, but it’s shrinking you back down into an armchair, your fingers digging and clawing at the fabric without recognizing it.

“Know what’s funny about that?”

You don’t think you can answer with the desert that runs through your mouth. And whatever it is, it’s anything but.

“Not a lot of activity along the outposts this way, unless it’s infected. Everyone else comes straight through to Jackson. The logs say we’ve only run into two groups of raiders in the last five years along the patrol route,” another pause for emphasis. “And one of them was ten months ago.”

Something catches in your chest.

And then there’s a dam that breaks, pure relief. Relief that Joel’s seen the thing you’ve been pointing and screaming at while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and squints.

Then — panic.

Ice sneaks into your veins. The tips of your fingers run numb. It strikes you that you’re standing, that the foot stool is tipped on its side.

He doesn’t move, but there’s a contained rage in his eyes and his voice. A temper bubbling now that you’ve confirmed what he suspected.

“He have any tattoos?” Joel asks roughly.

There’s a flash of stars, hand-poked, bordering on downright sloppy.

“Who?” You say dumbly, but it’s obvious what he’s referring to. He’s seen it, too, and he’s seen it this week.

“You know who.”

You do.

You could draw it from memory if he asked.

Your weight becomes too much for your legs, and you collapse back down, this time into a chair that supports your amoeba-like state as everything in you turns to jelly.

“They’re getting closer. We were in Teton, so if they made it this far —” you jumble out, not sure if it’s just meaningless vomit to his ears. By his solemn nod, it isn’t.

He’s up and out of his seat with a wince that’s not as severe as before, his eyes careful on you, on your hands that you’re gripping together tightly to keep them still.

The isolation of his side is evident in the way he closes the space between you, but he masks the grimace as best he can. There’s a reprimand in you somewhere that he should be resting, lying down at least, but you know it’s pointless.

“Hey.”

He’s kneeling as much as his flank will allow, a pain in his eyes that isn’t for himself. Those fingertips scale the cliff of your jaw, ghosting as if he’s afraid to overstep. They’re prodding you to meet his eyes, and when you do, he drops his hand like he’s been burned.

It connects fiercely to a memory that you try to hold in your hands. A snowy, reminiscent one that slips through like a ribbon of smoke.

“Ain’t gotta worry about him. I’ll take care of it.”

You laugh, a real one that’s stained with sarcasm.

“What does that mean?”

Joel softens now, and the shift startles you. He thinks for a beat before answering.

“Whatever you need it to mean.”

It feels incomprehensible that anyone would willingly put themselves in danger for you, even adjacently, but then who noticed you were missing that day? Who led the pack, found you bleeding out?

The weather was violent, incoherent — a lost cause, a needle in the proverbial haystack. He already toed the line of a dangerous, potentially fruitless rescue mission.

And you never even thanked him.

“Why?” You ask it for the second time in as much as a week. It’s disjointed in conversation, but he knows that you need this answer.

“You remember how you were before?”

And for a split-second, you try.

There are glimpses, a rickety reel of kids tugging on your pant leg as they beg you to join them during recess, a glittering spray of laughter with Ellie as empty beer cans and discarded guitars litter her living room floor.

Of your friends’ faces on too many relaxed, sunny patrols, sometimes forcing them into a detour into the abandoned record store through Alpine so you can see what’s left.

Dinner in warm houses like Tommy and Maria’s, so full to the brim of love and potatoes and mead that you stumble on down to your house with cheeks burning and tuck yourself in with all of the lights off.

Visions of Joel that are fleeting, taped in frames on a film strip, but friendly exchanges.

But it’s a faceless narration. The accident wiped clean of any room for interpretation. Any visitation with these memories. You can place yourself in them, but can’t for the life of you feel tethered to her.

Frustrated, eyes watering, you shake your head.

“That’s why.”

Now he’s holding your jaw like he would some fragile thing, slotting his thumb just under the pulse thrumming in your neck, feeling the echo of it in his hand. There’s a silence, as if he’s straining to hear, to know the sound and syllables of your livelihood. You wish he’d press harder, bring you to the precipice of pleasure and death.

If only to know what it feels to be glass in Joel Miller’s hands, to be given the taste of death after he’d given you the gift of life all those months ago.

Your heart is hammering against your ribs. You know he can feel the adrenaline in your pulse point.

“Joel,” it falls out as a whisper, and you hate how good his name feels in your mouth.

He’s looking at you with empathy, thumbing through the pages of every agony you’ve succumbed to. It’s new and buzzing, knowing that there’s nothing you’d ever have to explain to Joel. No reasoning or fine print for how you are, he just knows. And he stays anyway.

A tear tracks a salty line down your face and it meets the pad of his thumb, an easy swipe.

And there’s a surge low in your throat, seesawing with satisfaction and the tell-tale lump of more tears if you lean in hard enough. Joel never shows his hand, the last to fold, but it feels a lot like you’re the prize he was waiting to throw cards down for.

So, you lean. Concave cheek into his calloused hand, tears without sobs leaking between his fingers down into his sleeve. The weight of only the world — your world, plural and shared — pushing you into him. The cataclysmic release that you’ve been aching for.

Your head is against his chest, cheek pressed against flannel because he’s guided you there. And it’s nice, you think, nice that he’s being a gentleman about the whole thing.

A gentleman just finger-combing through your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

It’s serene, and you’d happily make a home there and fall asleep if it wasn’t for the hammering of your heartbeat. You know he can feel it, and your quickened breath is the cherry on top.

Joel levels your faces, and his fingers are deja vu on the braille of each ridged cheekbone. He’s waiting on a cue, a line to be given to him from offstage, but you see flames licking through each darkened iris.

Something keeps holding him back, keeps holding you back. He’s too careful, afraid of cutting his hands on you. And in exploring every facet of that, it’s because he doesn’t want to bleed on you, not because the sharpest parts of you could hurt him.

You keep telling yourself it’s foreign and you’re strangers to one another.

But is it? Are you?

As if he’s reading your mind, Joel closes the distance in one fell swoop, and he kisses you.

It’s clumsy at first, in the way that clumsy is when you’re learning each other’s mouths. You taste the dregs of whiskey, of something wanton, and every unspoken word that’s ever misted between you. Years of forming smile lines and the prickle of his unkempt beard against your chin, taste the stories of every scar.

You’re tangling with him, lips pressing urgently against Joel. His tongue’s expert but gentle when he dips it inside your mouth, and you’re swapping breathless sighs. You can only imagine what he’s tasting of you, what flavor he’s been dreaming of.

His hands are still at either side of your face, thumbs pressing sweetly into the bony part of your jaw. Joel’s stilling the unrest in you that’s put its bags down and refused to leave. It quiets, tips a hat and walks out, leaving a welcome calm in place.

There’s a chasteness, but you know he’s just as desperate and hungry as you are. Wanting to claim, to devour each other entirely. And it’s not lost on you that he’s on his knees, hands clasping your face in prayer like you’re some communion he’s drinking from.

He engulfs you, and you’re moving together, fitting together like you were poured from the same mold. Joel’s fingers have moved to thread through your hair, one of his hands cradling the back of your head and tugging just barely.

Enough that magma pools in between your hips.

But he slows, letting loose a low groan into the heat of your mouth. It’s helpless, like he’s accepted he can’t swim and has submerged his head underwater.

And when you finally break apart, Joel’s pupils are dilated, on the cusp of black. Your collective breaths are uneven. He looks at you in awe.

“Been wantin’ to do that for a long, long time,” he’s saying, but you can barely hear him. Not when your heart is catching up with the rest of you, roaring above everything else. His thumb skates over your bottom lip, and the instinct to unhinge your jaw for him shouldn’t be there, but it is.

Maybe this sort of suffering is worth it, if it’s Joel you’re suffering for.

If you weren’t in trouble before, you sure as fuck are now.

341 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 5 months

Text

FUCK. I love your writing so much I could cry

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 1

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 5.6k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: life goes on after raiders infiltrate a routine patrol. you're a shut-in, and jackson residents tiptoe around your trauma. joel found you after the accident, but you don't know what to make of it. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, mentions of trauma (no s/a, i promise), blood, bodily injuries, death, shitty men, dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension if you close one eye, the softest enemies to lovers you've ever seen vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: longtime listener, first time caller. yes, there will be smut — in due time. probably a slower burn than you're used to on tumblr dot com, but there will be porn galore, i promise. heavy on the hurt + comfort trope in this one. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy.

“Get the fuck up!”

The boot connects with your side again, the rounded toe slamming into ribs you’re sure are already broken. You’re trying to play dead, but it doesn’t exactly work when yelps are being kicked out of you. Old Yeller, of all fucking things, comes to mind.

But you’re not sick, not infected. Just wrong time, wrong place.

Blood pools sticky under your head. Voices are filtering in like an untuned radio, gathering static and making you nauseous. Like it’s all one bad hangover or a lucid dream in a realm too far.

“Where are the others?”

Someone else asks the question that you’ve been concentrating on. The knob turns, clearing the radio fuzz just so. You strain to hear, but you don’t dare open your eyes.

“Dead. Not shit on ‘em that was worth stealin’. We gotta fuckin’ go — just leave her.”

A vague twang of Boston wraps around his words. You’d forgotten what it sounded like, how the rs get caught in the back of the tongue and dropped. How the voweled aws are spit at you, the shell of your ear growing numb against the icy concrete.

Yes, you think. Fucking leave me.

The raider that’s been torturing you for what feels like hours groans as if it’s an inconvenience, an interruption to something he was thoroughly enjoying. Whatever he would’ve done, continued doing, taunts the crevices of your mind. He digs through your bag one last time, and you don’t know what he’s looking for or if there would have been anything at all that would have satisfied him the first time.

You remember a sliver of skin where his sleeve had bunched, revealing a shitty coupling of star tattoos on his wrist. You can feel your icepick heartbeat behind your eyes, and you wonder if it was a dare over a few beers. A matching tattoo with a lover. The thought lifts you up and out of the crushing burden of pushing air into clenched lungs, only for a moment. It’s no name to grab hold of, but it’s an identifier if you can make it out alive.

He’d crept up behind you while you were clearing a warehouse that you swore you’d be fine doing by yourself, pushing the cold barrel of something painfully familiar into the back of your head. He was tall, unflinching, unworried, too practiced. He helped you slip the straps of your backpack off your shoulders but staggeringly violent and unkind. Feeling you up for weapons with a disgusting leisure. As if you’d be hiding something gun-sized in your small back pocket.

You’d heard panic and screams outside, and you already knew. Voices outnumbered your friends, and it was almost – almost – funny to think that Tommy said the three of you would be one too many for patrol.

So, when exactly two gunshots hit their targets, it only took you seconds to figure out the score.

Something significant cracked in you then. Started in your chest and splintered to your heart, head, down to the tips of your toes. There was no fighting back, and you were next.

Now — fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, bloodied face, broken wrist, and one concussion later, here you find yourself. The tall one has a thick mustache, something sinister and villainous that seems too stereotypical even for this. At some point there had been a shift, and what started as a robbery now felt like killing for sport.

“Fine. Think she’s dead anyway.”

He kicks you one more time for the cinematic pleasure of it all.

This time you don’t wince, don’t feel a jerk or twitch betray you. The muscle in your jaw is so tense, the teeth grinding so hard into one another that you expect to open your mouth to a cloud of dust.

An agony you’ve only ever seen in movies is wringing every cell dry. It’s seizing, unrelenting, almost an exorcism in the tensing and writhing of it all. But you keep it beneath the surface, barely clinging to the little control you have.

You try to count the footsteps that are finally retreating, to breathe around the blood in your nose both dried and fresh. It feels like measuring the closeness of thunder and lightning, some kind of correlation with the distance of a storm.

The group trails outside, and heavier footsteps of your stolen horses lead them away. Onto the next. Breath idles in your chest, and the clarity that you think will come when you finally unstick your eyelids doesn’t. Everything feels swollen, scorched, raw. Nerve endings clipped and lapped up by the unrelenting lick of wind. A scream climbs up your throat, but the pain isn’t worth the exhale. And you don’t want them to come back for round two.

You drag the dead weight of your limbs out to inspect what you know to be true, and it’s nothing but bloody snow angels and twisted, awkward angles of your friends. You can’t even look at them, turning your head and squeezing your swollen eyes shut when you check for pulses that aren’t there.

Snowflakes collect on your lashes and drip pink down your face.

—

Daylight wanes, languid and impatient. It’s been hours trying to retrace your steps back to Jackson, the blood loss slowing you to a stop every five dizzying minutes. Your feet trick you into standing, only for your knees to buckle and bring you down into the snow. Teetering on the cliff of willfully alive and mercifully dead. There isn’t pain anymore, not really, and you’re grateful for the numbing cold, but you can feel your body threatening to cave in on itself.

Tears don’t come as much as you beg for them, for any type of release that’ll ground you. Enough time has ticked by that someone has to notice an absence of three, but you can’t be sure that you’re even on the right path anymore to meet them in the middle.

When they find you, if they ever find you, at least they’ll know you tried.

There’s a comfort in that, a warmth that reaches out and grabs you and folds you in like a blanket. It’s safe here, it says. Just lie down for a minute. And you don’t fight it.

Someone’s calling your name now, and it’s a gentle tug back into consciousness. There are frantic hands on your face, delicate and urgent when they take inventory of your wounds. When they say death greets you, maybe it’s this.

But there’s a Texas drawl that’s murmuring you’re okay, I’ve got you and I know, I know it hurts and shouting instructions to someone else that’s lifting you up, up, up.

Your fingertips scrape a stubbled jaw when you’re pulled away. The light dims like a blown-out candle. And you’re falling, grasping at anything, everything, nothing.

You forget the rest.

—

Ten months pass, dripping into spring, then summer, and meeting autumn at its doorstep.

Everything has healed, down to the last scratch. That day feels hazy, and you’d assume it was a hallucination if not for the two friends that didn’t come back with you. The recovery was just as strange, trauma shielding you from the gory parts but not the guilt. Never the guilt.

Sometimes, you test the memory, prod at it, but nothing new comes to the surface. No recollection of who they were, where they were going, if they were anything more than nameless thieves. It’s probably better this way, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true.

Fistfuls of flowers collected on your porch, and they seemed to appear out of thin air because no one ever came with them. Anonymous condolences that didn’t want to be seen, and it was an easy guess as to why. You heard rumors, retellings of what happened without much accuracy, but there was nothing to say to correct them. Some of them were angry, and you let them be. Call it penance, undeserved or not.

Ellie would visit occasionally, sometimes Tommy. You let her play guitar without saying a word, let him bring you books to keep you occupied. Everyone else dodged you, and you didn’t know if it was discomfort or because you were the only one left alive to blame. Probably both.

Since then, they’d kept you busy elsewhere. Projects that hadn’t been projects before suddenly popped up. More hands in the stables for getting horses ready for patrol. Planting vegetables and flowers for food and morale. Playing doctor when the patrols would come back with minor injuries from staving off infected. Being underfoot at the Tipsy Bison, picking up shifts when there was a movie night or some string-lit illuminated get-together.

Slinking into the shadows and being the ambient background noise in everyone else’s conversations.

You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you had the farthest thing from a green thumb, that you couldn’t bartend for shit, that the most nurse-like thing you’d ever done was slap a band-aid on a skinned knee.

An otherness that weighed so heavy you thought it would be better to crush you. Poison that bloomed in the belly of a tight-knit community that didn’t know what shelf to put you on. Who felt like collective trauma was part of the deal, and this was just yours.

But it softened the blow of your abrupt uselessness. You let it happen. Becoming competent was better than peeking out from drawn curtains. Better than sleeping with your eyes open, watching everyone around you move on while you couldn’t.

While nightmares claw their way up your chest at night and leave you in a cold sweat, flicking on every light that’ll burn to make sure you’re really, truly alone.

The roar of laughter snaps you out of the trance, breaks the eye contact you were making with your fireplace. You wonder absently if you’d tuned out the rest or if everyone had finally huddled together in front of the projector down the road for tonight’s showing of whatever DVD was looted during this week’s patrol. You didn’t usually mind — sometimes even joined when Ellie had enough of your sulking and all but kicked your door in — but tonight feels like an organized, cruel punishment.

You pry yourself from your couch, knocking over the stack of books on your way to the coat rack. Anaïs Nin pierces you with a glare, rotting where you left her. You slip each arm into a heavy coat, tucking one of the books into your bag with a lone cigarette as a makeshift bookmark. It’s cold as fuck tonight, but maybe you’ll linger a little longer after closing down the bar. Maybe you’ll wait until the crowd outside dies down to sneak back into your house, light another fire, and count down the hours until your shift at the stables.

Bartending tonight should be quiet, hopefully only encountering a few regulars that usually kept to themselves and tipped you for doing the same.

You steal one more warm moment before opening the door and stepping into the flinching cold, taking note of the way words stutter and lose traction when your face registers with the nearby crowd. There always seems to be a vacancy of pleasantries. And you don’t exactly invite them.

Tommy gives you a sympathetic look, tipping his chin up in a half-nod. Ellie lifts a few fingers in a wave, knowing you don’t want the pity but hate the suffocation of nothing at all. You will the corners of your mouth to quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes and force your legs into a normal pace, almost locking your knees so you don’t break into a run. The debt of an overdue visit with them burrows in your chest.

The Jaws theme song hums ominously, and you think it’s only fitting.

A few people litter the bar when you meet the cozy blanket of peanut-shelled air of the Tipsy Bison. A pool cue cracks against a ball and sends it clattering into a group of others, a low crackle of some country something crooning out of the jukebox. You shed your coat and your bag in the back, washing your hands under scorching water to shake some feeling back into your bones.

“Just a few tonight. Been slow – you’ll probably be out early. What’s playin’?”

You smile at the thick, syrupy Southern mama accent by your side. Cheryl is no-nonsense, usually slips you a little extra at the end of your shifts, and feigns ignorance of anything about the ugly parts of your past. All she cares about is that you’re eating. There is an undying gratitude for Cheryl.

“Ah. Jaws, I think.”

She seems to read your mind with a laugh, patting your shoulder affectionately like only a mother can.

“Maybe I’ll go join the sharks. Joel just got here, wants a whiskey ‘fore I head out. You know him,” Cheryl tuts, almost rolling her eyes but you know she likes the caretaker role if you’re any indication.

And you do. You do know him.

Joel keeps to himself almost as much as you do, maybe a little less when it comes to Ellie and Tommy. He’s sort of your catty-cornered neighbor, but not the sugar-asking kind. More like the kind that glances in your direction, holds your stare for a beat too long, and abruptly looks away before anything discernible can appear.

The closest you ever come to saying anything of substance to each other is when you ready his horse for patrols and intercept it when he’s back safe and sound. You try not to let him catch your gaze shifting to that shiny scar on his head, and you stifle down the question that’s none of your business.

Maybe he does the same for you.

And maybe he was there and saved you that day, but neither one of you has ever mentioned it since. You don’t know how, and there’s a brick wall around the subject that won’t let you. Enough time has passed that you figure he’d have said something if he gave a shit.

Yet, there’s a deep yearning for his approval, his attention. It’s a mystery even to you, when you think about how savagely indifferent you are to anyone else’s. But you think it’s the magnetism of having him as a witness. The way he could vindicate you and give you an alibi, a heroic complex, but he doesn’t.

So, the idea that he’s one of the patrons that you can count on one hand tonight… you can’t put a name to what it’s doing to you.

Cheryl makes sure that you’re okay, but she doesn’t linger. She packs up her things with haste, jogging through the cold to join her wife in front of the bonfire.

No one really pays you any mind as you start your closing duties early, and it’s doubtful that the seats will fill any more than they are as the party picks up outside.

Joel sits at the corner of the bar that faces you, and he’s down to a knuckle’s length of whiskey. If he were anyone else, you might wonder why he’s not at the bonfire — but it’s Joel. Social anythings are like a second plague to him.

The thought of having to refill his drink vibrates in the back of your mind, and lead fills your stomach. Small talk that you never quite have with him. It dissipates just as quickly, when you see the way he’s fixed on the sweat gathering on his glass instead of anything else, and when a gust of wind comes in as the door opens.

Max. Anxiety snaps in your rib cage like a rubber band. Something acrid hits the back of your throat and you think it might be blood the way your teeth connect with the soft tissue of your cheek.

Max had been a recurring character in your bed once. Before. It was never more than convenience, and the way you fucked wasn’t love, not even close. Liberating to think that you never neared the edge of feeling anything except his hand pressing your face into a pillow, performing orgasms that never came.

There’s no carcass of affection left, so devoid of emotion for him that it feels like a severed limb.

He’s all ego and athletic strength, sauntering up to the bar with a gait that reeks of hours of pregaming. There’s a permanent sneer when he addresses you, a coldness that has nothing to do with the weather.

“Tequila. Two doubles.”

He’s the type to twist the knife of your tragedy in even deeper, making sure to hit all vital organs. The first to question what more you could have done to save his friends, blaming you for leaving them there to die as if they weren’t dead the moment raiders showed up. As if you weren’t almost dead. Anything you’ve said in defense is inconceivable, an excuse, an admission of guilt. He mourns at your expense and often.

Jackson trudges forward, but Max forces you to stay in grief and remember.

“I think you’ve had your fill this week. Drank through your ration on Tuesday, remember?” you say coolly, but a twinge of fatigue colors your tone, giving you away. You aren’t in the mood, and Max finds it easy to light flame to your resolve as-is.

Maria spends hours of careful inventory, and there’s been more than one occasion where you’ve been instructed to cut off a greedy drunk. The vice, the urge to drink in an apocalypse doesn’t really align with the limited stock, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly see Maria around, do you?” A jeer at face value, but you decide in the beat of silence that follows that rule enforcement isn’t worth it tonight. “Sounds like you’ll think of something. And you fuckin’ owe me one, don’t you? Or would you prefer I collect on that another time?”

It’s not worth it. You’re dropping your glare, squaring your jaw, lining up two glasses so that the rims clink. But the way your skin prickles, there’s an unwelcome visitor in his stare, an x-ray vision that you wished Max didn’t have.

Somewhere down the bar, glass slams against wood and something you know to be amber-colored sloshes.

You try to steady the angry tremble that overcomes your hands as you upturn the liquor bottle. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

He holds the ration card to you, taunting you by pulling back when you reach for it, only to smirk and flick it toward you, uncaring of where it lands. You shove it into the mouth of the register with the violence you wish you were brave enough for.

“You can leave now.”

“That so? Mouthy now that you have an audience?” Max gestures cruelly to the grand total of four patrons, five if you counted Johnny Cash.

It stings, but dully. You’ve heard worse – even if not to your face – and it’s all kind of anti-climatic if you considered the low-budget production they always try to make out of you. The words eventually all sound the same, nothing punches quite the way they intend. Still, your cheeks burn as if on cue, and —

“She told you to get the fuck out.”

A low timbre erupts, easily mistaken as pure venom. There’s a sway in the way your senses glitch and then still, and reality swirls at the edge of your periphery. Pool balls stop their roll, murmured chatter ceases, and even the fucking jukebox settles on an instrumental to lean in and listen.

You dare to look over at Joel, whose demeanor looks more akin to statuesque and threatening than his curved slouch when you first clocked in. He’s standing, flexing his fists so hard that you think they might shatter.

Max backs off but subtly – you can see the way his puffed chest deflates even though his glare doesn’t. He finishes off one tequila before backing up with the other dangling in his fingers, both hands turned palm-out in mock surrender.

A deep annoyance plucks at his brow, but he knows he’s flirting with a black eye.

Max flashes a middle finger, lets his grip relax after downing the glass in his hand, and it crashes to the floor with a wincing shatter. He’s gone before you can string together any curses, and would it have mattered anyway?

Then, there’s scattering, the bar flies wordlessly agreeing that anywhere is better than the awkwardness of being here. Cards thrown down, beers drained, and there’s an uneasiness with the way they shuffle outside towards the rest of the group. A dance around the broken glass that isn’t their problem. You pretend not to notice, though you try to hide the redness that stains your cheeks as you bring a dust pan over to the mess.

You feel eyes on you and, all too suddenly, you realize that Joel didn’t follow them.

“Careful. Here, lemme do that.”

He’s kneeling, taking the pan from you. Knuckles brush yours a little too long and electrify, zapping you. You mutter something like thanks and it’s too ungrateful, too tired. A woodsy scent fills your nose, and you’re hard-pressed not to lean into his collar and bookmark it.

Glass slips into the trash with a tinkling, shimmering sound. You’re already back behind the bar, hands busying with something else, tidying up the already-tidy. Letting him slip outside with the crowd, heavy with satisfaction that he came to your rescue yet again.

But he’s sat back down, watching you with an odd intensity. He’s never assessed you like this, at least not that you’ve seen. A different sort of undressing than what Max gives you. You meet his eyeline warily. Vulnerable, waiting for your predator’s jaw to unhinge and devour you whole.

“He always talk to you that way?”

A quiet, lethal question hangs in the air, so quiet that you could’ve chalked it up to your imagination. But evidenced by the white-knuckled grip Joel has on his glass, the measured way he brings it to his lips, it was real. Controlled, scary even. But real.

Your mouth opens to answer, then closes. You consider in a beat’s time how it would sound to laugh it off, then stop yourself. It would be too forced, too desperate of a sound to be convincing. You’ve never been the unfeeling, unaffected type.

It’s clear that he knows the answer, has probably seen it with his own eyes, but it’s like he wants a green light to set his sights on some other more sinister and deserving prey.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s been through a lot,” you say, half to yourself. It’s easier this way.

“Does matter. So’ve you,” Joel says, even quieter, like he’s trying to contain an angry edge that threatens to bleed out. The calm is almost worse. In a way, you wish he would loosen the leash on his rage. Or break something to satisfy the urge in you that wants to do the same – you’d give him permission to do that. This is too unreadable and ambiguous, too much room left for agonizing interpretation in how he grits his teeth and pulses that muscle in his taut jaw. You want to yell, let out what’s long pent-up. Yes! Yes, it does fucking matter!

But you don’t. You keep the rag tight on the lip of the pint glass in your hand, rotating it past the point of needing to be cleaned. The rub of the microfiber cloth makes you itch, and your teeth scrape again at the inside of your cheek.

It leaves your mouth before you can catch it and shove it back down.

“Why do you care?”

Joel looks up at you now and you think that you’ve already overstepped during your first, real fucking conversation. He finishes off the whiskey and puts it back down carefully. He stands up, each slow step over to you spiking your blood pressure, your breath shifting into neutral.

It’s the way he’s fixated on you, a litmus test for any sarcasm. The way a chill creeps into the base of your spine and slithers up each vertebrae despite the warmth you feel below your waist. And when he comes behind the bar, reaches for the glass in your hand and puts it down gently, you wonder if that tug has always been there.

Fuck.

“You think I don’t care?”

Tiny hairs at your nape stand at attention in a near-salute. The web of intrusive thoughts tangles between you, and you’re acutely aware that this is the closest you’ve ever been to Joel Miller – that you’ve been conscious for. That feeling rushes back and bursts in your chest, the comforting honey in his voice that’s been haunting you since he found you crumpled in the snow.

The omnipresent, sharp tang of whiskey sticks to the slightly graying stubble that you want to reach out and touch. That you want to feel the scrape of in places that makes heat pool deep in your belly. His flannel is unbuttoned at the top, the column of his throat ridged and tense.

Focus.

“Why are you saying this now?” you say, and you want to hold your ground but his admission is akin to mesmerizing.

He thinks for a minute, his eyes smoothing over every angle in your face. They look past you, just over your shoulder, like he’s asking himself the same thing.

“Knew you could handle it. ‘Til you couldn’t anymore.”

There it is. You let it sink in, clicking that last piece into place. Always observing you from a safe distance, the buzz of something unsaid ringing in your ears when he’s around. How he listens to your interactions, but never too closely. Watching for weak spots. And tonight was the weakest of them all, letting yourself be humiliated by the only person that knew where to bite just right.

You feel laid bare, too seen. Pissed that he can witness your struggling, thrashing, drowning with outstretched arms and kicking feet and decide when and if he’ll pity you.

And this time, a laugh does slip out – humorless and breathy.

“The same way you can handle whatever’s making you drink alone on a Friday night? Don’t act so holier than thou, Joel. I’m the wrong one.”

“Watch it.”

You don’t mean it. Not really. But you’re so angry, a wasps’ nest that’s been taunted and poked at after being left to its own devices for too long. Sometimes violence feels more intimate. Safer.

And he’s using that gravelly, terse tone with you of all people, and you want to fucking lose your mind.

When he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at you and waits, they leave their home in a wave. Burying stingers where you know they’ll hurt. Once more, with feeling.

“Are you looking for a ‘thank you’?”

Joel’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a smile. It only stokes the fire, and you know what he’s doing. Letting you win, begrudgingly because you’re being an ass. But you haven’t had a win in the last ten months, only loss after devastating loss. He’s throwing you a raft.

“No. Just tryin’ to help, ‘s all.”

Your nostrils are flaring in sharp inhales that you can’t control, and you physically jab at him, your own tightly wound chest dragging in the hive for a final, practiced nosedive. “I don’t fucking need your help, Joel.”

He’s snatching your wrist, holding it in a vise, but there’s a flinch in his expression. Joel hardens, sliding that cool armor back into place. Sizing you up one more time, committing you to memory. A curt nod, plucking that chord of roughness in his tone that makes you ache.

There’s a glare you’ve never seen from him, like disappointment and disdain wrapped up neatly in one package. Delivered with a dagger straight to your heart.

“We’ll see. Not s’good at that, are you?”

And it’s a KO you allow, one you’ll lay with. But he’s leaning in, invading your space. You move to retreat and cower, the way you’re accustomed to, but Joel’s grabbing a fistful of your shirt and fastening you in place. His mouth’s at your ear as if he’s telling you a secret.

“Good luck bein’ a fuckin’ martyr.”

The pressure loosens, as does his grip, dissipating like some ghostly presence. He leaves without another word, and something inside you snags and unspools.

—

You don’t see Joel for days.

Three days to be exact, torturous and fluid days that feel like trickling sand, but blend together in an indistinguishable slideshow when you zoom out. You time your breaks perfectly at the stables so you don’t run into him, and you ask Cheryl to cover for you on Tuesday, ignoring the strange look she gives you – the resident workaholic.

It’s a sort of avoidance that you don’t want to acknowledge or look directly in the eye. If you did, it would mean that Joel affected you more than you want to admit. Or that he’d sized you up in an expert way that a categorical stranger shouldn’t be able to.

You should be livid, and you are… in a way. But mainly you want to shrug your skin off, your unease for being so dissected by him. Just unzip it all and let it pool at your feet, stepping out of the pile one leg at a time. The pinch, the untethering of you and the man that could read you without translation.

And when it’s 9 o’clock and you’re making tea as you trudge through a book without really reading anything, you glance outside at the house across the street and it’s so dark that you think it may have swallowed him whole.

Or he’s hiding from you, too.

—

It’s finally Thursday, and you can’t put it off any longer. You’re running out of food, you promised Tommy you’d lend a hand with feeding the horses – and there’s a dull itch to see Joel again. You don’t even know what you’d say, if he even wants to bother with you after the other night. Part of you hopes that you fall backwards into the acquaintance of saying nothing, that you have permission to rewind past whatever this nagging feeling is.

It’s quiet outside – a lazy day. The snow on the ground is melting, patchy in spots where sunlight or kid-feet caught it at just the right angle. The greenhouses are so fogged and frosted over that you’re grateful you can’t see the death-rot inside. It’s not quite growing season yet, but close, and you long for the added distraction in your day if this is the alternative.

Anything to pass the time and not think about Joel and his hands touching yours. The fabric of your shirt oozing between his knuckles when he forced you chest-to-chest.

When you make it over to the barn, his horse is gone and there’s almost – almost – a twinge of relief. You’ll be done before he gets back from patrol. You won’t have a chance to swallow the apology that will rise in your throat like bile, but maybe it’s for the best.

You’re elbow deep in feed when there’s a yelling that cracks in the air. You freeze, waiting to hear a suffix of children’s laughter, but it doesn’t come. There’s a confused sort of shouting, and the gate at the border of Jackson slams and rattles like you’ve never heard before.

Shaky hands wipe at your pants, and you step out, a hand shielding your eyes from the glare of the sun.

Joel is slumped atop his horse, upright but hardly. There’s a cut somewhere on his head that streams a blurry red, and the horse whines when Tommy sprints to meet it.

“It’s Joel! I need some fuckin’ help here!”

And without fully connecting the dots or measuring the severity, you just run. Colliding with the crowd that’s formed, shoving elbows and shoulders as if in a trance. Like something’s pressing you from behind, throwing all its weight into pushing you forward.

You blink and you’re helping Joel down, Ellie’s tattooed forearm somewhere in the jumble of limbs. Tommy’s jean jacket stiff from the cold.

You don’t have to look in a mirror to know that you’re pale as a ghost. The moisture strips from your mouth, joints moving as if by marionette. Blood is already drying and caking in the creases of your hands. Knowing it isn’t yours makes you feel sick.

“‘M fine, Jesus Christ,” Joel coughs, a jagged edge in his throat that sounds anything but. There’s something underneath his coat that’s soaking through, blossoming a dark stain on the front.

Images keep shifting every time you blink, like you’re losing time in between and someone’s slamming the fast-forward button until it jams. Joel groaning on a makeshift stretcher. Ellie’s frenzied feet following as they take him to his house.

The tall one on top of you, squeezing your windpipe.

Your head cracking against the pavement.

Two gunshots firing.

Snow in your bloodied, matted hair.

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I know, I know it hurts.”

Ringing grows loud and shrill in your ears. Tommy’s in front of you, calling your name. Shaking your shoulders.

“– need you to go fix him up –”

And you’re falling back into the present, vision shifting back into focus. You’re nodding, clinical now. You’ve seen worse, and strangely, that’s comforting.

“– whatever supplies you need, I trust you –”

The weight of Tommy’s confidence steadies you, tying up the loose ends that have untwined deep inside. You run through the mental checklist of what’s in your medical bag at home – stashed in your closet on the very top shelf. Bandages, antibiotics, sutures. But if you’re dealing with a bite…

“I got it. Promise. Keep everyone out, alright? I’ll let you know.”

He pauses, catching up with the subliminal thing that waits in the air between you. Wariness paints his gaze, and you know he knows what you’re afraid to say.

Tommy nods, but you’re already running.

500 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 5 months

Text

Paranoid Heart

Series Summary: Maybe reckless hearts come in pairs.

Series Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Series Content/Warnings: Fluff and Smut, Smoking, PIV Sex, Oral Sex, Hands Doing Hand Things, light use of restraints, cats (in case you have allergies), Javier Peña is a certified grump, a lil' bit of spanking, reference to a previous relationship that was bad but did not include physical abuse/violence, tiny punch cup in a lorge hand

Word Count: 4.9K

Previous Chapter / Series Masterlist

Chapter 10

“Lomi, you ready?” You reach down to straighten the small crown of flowers nestled in her dark hair, and she gives you a nod as she swirls her hand through her brimming-full basket.

“Look how many I got, Aunt Tabby.” Her smile is wide as she looks at the abundance of petals.

You let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot. Remember, you don’t have to throw them far, but pretend you’re making a whole beautiful carpet for Grandma to walk on, okay?”

“Okay.”

You hear the music change, and you smile at Lomi. “You’re up, Lo.”

She flounces down the aisle, and you hear the murmurs of the guests over how adorable she looks.

You glance back at Ruth and shrug. “We can’t compete with that.”

Ruth grins and whispers, “Well, you can’t. You’re hideous.”

You stick your tongue out at her and spin around to wait your turn. Once Lomi’s halfway, you walk through the tall oak doors into the hushed sanctuary. Evergreen wreaths with simple white ribbons adorn the ends of the pews, and the air is sharp with their fresh pine scent. You force yourself to walk slowly, glancing to the sides to see the smiling faces of family and old friends: the church brimming full of people who love your mother and Chucho.

Your hands are a little sweaty as you grip your small bouquet of white camellias; you take a deep breath and lift your eyes to the front of the church. The minister and Chucho are side by side, smiling at you from the dais, and your nerves settle as you return their smiles. You let your eyes drift to Javi, one step behind Chucho and your breath catches in your throat.

You’re not sure anything could have prepared you for Javier Peña in a suit.

It’s a dark charcoal gray that matches his father’s, and both men are wearing deep green ties the same shade as Mama’s dress, and Chucho looks handsome – the dark colors contrast beautifully with his white hair.

But Javi.

If you weren’t already sleeping with him, you’re pretty sure that how he looks right now would have convinced you to start. His shoulders – which you already knew were wide, had spanned them with your hands just two nights ago as he held himself over you – look even broader in the fitted jacket that tapers to his narrow waist. You let your eyes slide up him – past the flower tucked in his lapel, past the knotted tie at his throat that makes you swallow hard – and when your gaze finally reaches his face, he’s not-quite-smiling at you.

His lips are set in a line, but you can see the lift of the corner, see the hint of dimple in his cheek, and his dark eyes look soft and focused on you.

Your heart thuds hard in your chest. Javier Peña doesn’t often look like he wants to be anywhere, but right now, he looks like he’s happy to be wherever you are.

And you don’t mind it at all.

---

“You clean up good.”

Javi turns to see you grinning up at him, and he makes an elaborate show of dragging his eyes from your face to your feet and back again.

He leans towards you – speaks into your ear. “What’s under this dress?”

The crowded reception hall is loud enough with music and conversation to make it impossible for anyone to overhear, so he knows that when you whisper your answer back to him, it’s just because you want to.

“You can check later.” You smile innocently. “Having fun?”

He grimaces and sips from the punch cup that feels ridiculously small in his hand. “How long do receptions usually last?”

“Well, given that the bride and groom are senior citizens –” you wrinkle your forehead thoughtfully – “I bet things wrap up no later than 10.”

Javi leans towards you again, drops his voice. “Two more hours is too long.”

You tilt your head up, your answer warm breath against his ear. “I’m not fucking you in the bathroom, Javier Peña.”

He chuckles and shrugs.

You wink at him. “At least not yet.”

Javi feels someone approach from behind him and turns his head to see two of your nieces – Charlie, he remembers, plus the little flower girl – reaching for your hands.

“Aunt Tabby, you wanna dance with us?”

“Absolutely.” You take their hands and glance up at Javi. “You want to come, too?”

“Not even a little bit.”

You grin at him with a wrinkle of your nose, and let the girls lead you onto the dance floor, where the recorded voice of Patty Loveless is singing about Oprah in the afternoon.

He watches the three of you spinning around each other, arms flailing, and even though he’d rather be alone with you right now, he enjoys seeing you like this, too – bright-eyed and laughing and fucking beautiful.

Javi feels a small hand on his back, sliding from his waist to his shoulder blade, and he stiffens.

“Oh, Javi, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Vanessa peers up at him through her thick lashes, pulling her hand away. “I just saw you over here all by yourself and thought you looked like you needed company.”

Javi’s first thought is that this is a side of Vanessa he didn’t see on their date. Her conservative sweater and skirt from that night have been replaced by a swishy, shiny magenta dress with a neckline that dips deep into the shadow of her cleavage.

She smiles up at him, reaching to touch the camellia still tucked into his lapel, and he knows that look she’s giving him, has seen it a hundred times – if he asked her to come home with him right now, she would.

“I never heard from you about that second date, Javi.” Her fingers drift over to his tie, pretending to straighten it.

He keeps his eyes on her face, away from her other hand that is toying with a pendant necklace that is settled against her bronzed chest.

“Sorry about that. Things have been busy with…” He lets the words trail off as he gestures at the buzzing reception around them.

She steps closer and he can smell her perfume – soft, powdery, floral. “You’ll have to make it up to me.”

Javi barely hears her – instead he watches the two little girls leave you on the dance floor as the music changes to some slow George Strait song and he sees Ray the fucking insurance agent take your elbow and whisper something in your ear. You laugh, and then his hands are on your waist and yours are on his shoulders and Javi can hear the dull thump of his heartbeat in his ears.

“So?” Vanessa leans close, her breasts resting against his arm, and her voice drags his attention away from you.

“Sorry, what?” Javi wills his clenched teeth to relax.

“I said if you wanted to make it up to me, I love this song. How about a dance?”

He ticks his jaw to the side and nearly slams his empty punch cup down on the table next to him. “Sure.”

Javi hasn’t danced in years, but Vanessa doesn’t seem to mind – she seems content to mold herself against his body and sway. He’s a little hesitant to look down at her – the way she’s smiling up at him makes him worried she might try to kiss him. So he answers her questions and nods politely as she chatters, but he keeps his eyes over the top of her blonde head.

He’s relieved to see you keep Ray at arm’s length, to see the way you let go of him the minute the song ends. He wishes Vanessa would do the same, but instead she loops her arm through his elbow and leads him off the dance floor.

“I forgive you now.” She lifts her eyebrows and glances towards the doors of the reception hall. “Want to step outside for some fresh air?”

Javi shakes his head, too quickly based on the shadow that passes over Vanessa’s face. “Sorry, I – I need to go check on something. Have a good night. Thanks for the dance.”

He tries to give her an apologetic smile as he turns, but his eyes are fixed on you. He remembers again – ‘no sudden moves’ – so he takes a deep breath and slows down his walk as he crosses the room to you. You’re still with Ray, the two of you standing off to one side of the dance floor, and he shakes his fists loose against his thighs as he approaches.

“Oh, hey, Javi.” Ray smiles affably and Javi gives him a friendly nod.

“Hi, Ray.” He turns to look at you and tilts his head towards the door. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”

Your eyes flash with interest and you reach out to pat Ray on the arm. “Thanks for the dance, Ray. I’ll catch you later.”

Javi stops himself before he brings his hand to your lower back to steer you towards the door, and instead just walks ahead of you, knowing you’ll follow him out of curiosity if nothing else.

It’s the first day of winter; the air outside is brisk, but after the warmth of the reception hall it feels almost refreshing. Javi leads you around the side of the building, into a dark shadowy corner by the emergency exit.

Your voice is soft and teasing as you slide your fingers into his belt loops and lightly tug him toward you. “What are we doing out here, Javier Peña?”

“I wanted a cigarette.” He slides his hands around your waist and dips his head to kiss you. Your lips taste sweet and you open them for him, your breath a sigh. “So I needed you.”

You smile against his mouth, and kiss him again, your tongue easing along the edge of his lips as your hands slip inside his suit jacket to grip his sides. Your fingers dig into him, nails pressing through the fine cotton of his shirt, and he breaks the kiss just for the pleasure of watching you frown, your lips still searching for his.

You tuck your face into his neck, and he feels first the soft press of your lips followed by the edges of your teeth. Your whisper is soft. “I’d better get back in there. But you should use your key tonight.”

He lets you go, feels your hands slide from his jacket as you back away, and when he speaks, his lips are still wet from your mouth.

“I will.”

---

You climb the stairs to your apartment on the balls of your feet so the points of your high heels don’t get stuck in the diamonds of the metal grating. The plate balanced on your hand threatens to slide as you flip through the keys on your keyring, but you steady it with the bottom of your chin as you slip the key into the lock.

You turn the deadbolt and then reach for the knob but stop with your fingers wrapped around the chilled brass. You hear something coming from inside your apartment – music, muted and soft through the heavy door.

You open the door, cheeks growing warm in the burst of heated air from inside but also from the feeling of someone waiting for you.

“Hi, Kitten.” Javi is standing across the room by the low shelf that holds your stereo, flipping through the thick folder of your CDs. “You have five Indigo Girls albums.”

You kick your heels off and drop your tote next to them. “Yeah, it’s called all of them, Javier Peña. But this –” you squint, tilting your head as you listen – “is not them.”

He gives you a half-smile, his eyebrow lifted. “I picked the one that said ‘sex music’ in marker.”

You grin at him. “A Tabitha original. Good choice.”

“What’s that?” He tips his chin toward the plate you’re still carrying.

“That’s leftover wedding cake.” You cast your eyes sideways at him as you carry it to the kitchen. “My leftover wedding cake.”

“So you’re always bad at sharing.”

“You’ve been paying attention.” You place the cake on the counter and pad across the wooden floor to him, your footsteps hushed by the fine weave of your stockings. “Speaking of…I saw you dancing with Vanessa.”

“I saw you dancing with Ray.”

“Hmm.”

Javi’s tie is loosened, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled up to his elbows; his suit jacket is tossed over the back of your couch. You like this side of him – rumpled, eyes a little tired, stubble starting to darken his jaw. You hook your finger in the knot of his tie, tugging until the end slips through; you pull it free of his collar and drop it on the coffee table.

You smooth your hands over the starched cotton of his shirt. “You didn’t dance with me.”

“Didn’t think you’d want me to ask you.” He slides his hands down your arms, his touch feather-light against the silky fabric of your dress. “Since this is a secret.”

You let your head fall to his shoulder, your eyes fixed on the steady beat of his pulse at the base of his throat, and gently sway against him. “I know. But I wanted to.”

He turns his head to place a kiss on the top of your head. When he speaks, his voice is low, husky. “Don’t think I want to see that again.”

You lift your eyes to his face. “See what?”

“You dancing with another man.” He ticks his jaw to the side, his eyes dark. “Not dancing with me.”

You ease your hands around his waist, palms spread wide on his back.

“I’ve been thinking.” You chew the inside edge of your lip, choosing the next words carefully. “I think I should stop spending time with Ray. I don’t think it’s…fair. He deserves someone who wants him in that way, who looks at him…”

You let your words trail off, brow furrowed.

The corners of Javi’s eyes crinkle as he gives you a sly smile. “…like you look at me?”

You flicker your eyebrows up. “I was going to say like Vanessa looks at you.”

“Mmm.” He nods his head slowly. “You jealous?”

“Of her tits, yes. Have you seen them?” You smirk. “Oh, wait. You’ve definitely seen them. We all did tonight.”

“You sound jealous, Kitten.” His tongue flits against his lower lip, a slow smile spreading over his face. His hands ease over your shoulders and down your back, until they cup your ass. “I’m not interested in Vanessa.”

“How about her tits?”

His chuckle is a low rumble and you feel the vibrations of it against you; you remember that first night on the porch at your mother’s house, how that laugh had pulled you in. “Or her tits.”

You rest your lips against the pebbled skin of his throat. “So. To recap. I’m not going to spend time with Ray anymore. And you’re not going to…”

“…spend time with Vanessa. Any of her.”

“But this is still…” You let your words trail off.

“…still nothing, Kitten.” He squeezes your ass. “That right?”

Your heart thuds in your chest – you aren’t sure you can answer that honestly right now. “You spending the night, Javier Peña?”

“Can’t.” He leans down to kiss you, his lips warm.

You pull back and lift your eyebrows. “You sure? I might share my cake.”

“Pop’s not coming back to the ranch.”

You furrow your brow in confusion.

“I know, but….” You pause as the realization dawns. “Oh. So you have to do everything.”

He lifts his shoulders and lets them fall. “Yeah.”

You wrinkle your nose. “Well, that is some terrible fucking news, Javi. I’ll miss waking up to your grumpy face sometimes.”

He tilts his head, his fingertips making jittery figure eights against your hips. “You could stay out at the ranch some time.”

There is an edge to his voice, a question hidden in his words that you can’t answer yet. Instead, you slide your hands over the front of his shirt to unbutton the third button and look up at him. “Do you have to leave soon?”

“I can stay for a while.”

“Good.” You turn in his arms, point over your shoulder. “Unzip me.”

His fingers find the zipper tab and he draws it slowly to the base of your spine with one hand, the other trailing warm fingertips down the middle of your back. He brings his mouth to your shoulder, and you feel the flick of his tongue against your skin.

You slide your arms from the dress and step out of it, leaning forward to drape it over the couch next to his jacket.

“Fucking hell, Kitten.” You hear his exhalation, his palm landing between your shoulder blades to press you forward until your hands land on either side of your dress. His thick fingers slide up the silk of your stocking to slip beneath the strap holding it up. “You’re gonna fucking kill me.”

You push off the couch, turning to face him, and run your fingers over the deep green lace of your garter belt.

“Do you think I wore this for you, Javi?” You smile and pull his hand to your belly, sliding it slowly, slowly, slowly down until his fingers reach the thin lace between your legs. When you speak again your voice all breath. “Because I did.”

His hand curls against you, cupping you in his wide palm, and the tip of his tongue darts against his lip before he smiles at you. “Knew you did.”

“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Javi?” You ease out of his grip – ignoring his huff of disapproval – and walk to your nightstand, the swish of your stockings a whisper in your wake. You open your nightstand and pull out a folded paper, holding it up. “This.”

He crosses the room to you in a few long strides, one hand sliding around your hip to grip your ass, the other taking the note from your fingers. He flips it open and smiles as reads it.

You arch your eyebrow. “’One for each wrist.’”

“’One for each wrist.’” He slides the note back into your drawer and pushes it closed with a gentle thunk, then reaches for your jaw. He captures the point of your chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts your face up to his. “Get on the bed, Kitten.”

You start to reach behind your back to unclasp your bra but he stops you.

“Unh-uh.” He shakes his head, his fingers closing around your wrist. “Leave it on. If you wore all this for me, I get to enjoy it.”

You smile and push the comforter down to the end of the bed and stretch out on the cool sheets to watch him undress. He takes off his shirt first – pulls the hem free of his trousers, moves his thick fingers slowly over the buttons, eases it off his shoulders, takes the few steps to drape it over the back of the couch with his jacket. Seeing his broad back turned to you makes your stomach clench – you’ve seen him undressed often now but haven’t had many chances to admire him like this.

His back is still turned, so you watch the muscles there shift and move as he unbuckles his belt – black leather this time, with a simple silver buckle – and unfastens his trousers. He bends to lower the pants and step out of them and you grin.

“Javier Peña, you’re wearing underwear.”

He glances over his shoulder at you, smirking. “It was a wedding, Kitten.”

“Ohhhh.” You lift your eyebrows. “So these are your fancy pants.”

He takes the handful of steps back to your bed, and you feel a lump in your throat at the strain of his cock against the black fabric of the briefs. Somehow he looks even less decent like this, the heavy weight of him pulling the waistband down, and you reach to trace the contours through the stretched knit.

He lets you, his own hand sliding down your belly to rest heavy over your lace-covered pussy. “Yours are fancier.”

Your fingers bend around him, a dark patch on the fabric damp against your palm where the head of his cock is leaking, and you want to press your tongue against it – to taste the salt of him, the musk.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, and you keep touching him – even as he takes his hand away from your aching center, even as he leans over your head to unthread the ties from the top rail of your bed.

He drops one on the pillow by your head, the soft silk sliding down to pool against your clavicle and holds the other in one hand. His free hand slides down your arm until he reaches your wrist.

He gently lifts it. First to his mouth – he kisses the thin inner skin where your pulse is racing – then past your shoulder and over your head, until it rests against one of the iron spindles. The metal is cold, hard, and you shiver, both from the chill and from the anticipation as he winds the slate blue tie around your wrist.

He does it loosely, the loops sliding gently around your wrist, and then knots it around the spindle with a light tug. He picks up the second tie and leans down to kiss you, his tongue dipping between your parted lips.

His voice is husky, tight. “That okay?”

You nod, your heart in your throat.

The tip of his nose nudges against your jaw before he kisses it. “I need to hear you, baby.”

You swallow hard and push out quiet words. “I trust you.”

He pulls away, his eyes searching fast over your face, and you see the clench of his jaw as he brushes his thumb lightly along your cheekbone. “Good.”

He lifts your other wrist – repeats the steps: the same kiss, the same gentle loop, the same slack knot.

And the question again. “Still okay?”

“Still okay.” You give an experimental tug against the loops – they shift but hold. “What kind of knots are these?”

He grins, his hand curving around your jaw as he looks at you. “Pretty fuckin’ bad ones.”

“I thought it’d be some kind of fancy knot. Like a clove-hitch or a bowline.”

“Not trying to get a Boy Scout badge, Kitten.” He leans down to kiss your neck, the prickly stubble of his jaw sending sparks across your skin.

“If you were –” you sigh as his tongue licks into the hollow of your throat – “you’d have so many already.”

His chuckle rumbles against you, makes you shift your thighs together in an effort to soothe the ache that has settled between them. You take a deep breath – smell his aftershave, the clean scent of his hair, his warm skin – and the familiarity of him, the safety of him, unspools inside you.

You roll your wrists inside the loose, barely-there knots; you feel Javi’s hand slip between your back and the bed as his mouth breathes humid heat through the lace of your bra against your breast. And the knowing settles bone deep: Javi would never hurt you.

“You still good, Kitten?” He looks up at you, eyebrows lifted, his lips damp from the kisses he’s been covering you in, and you nod.

“So good.” It feels true. “I’m so good.”

The pads of his fingers tap against your sides, his eyes mischievous. “You ticklish?”

You narrow your eyes. “Javi.”

He lightly drags his nails over your skin towards your underarm, and when you twitch, he grins. “You are.”

“I’ll knee you in the balls, I swear to God.” You bow your body away from his touch with a frown.

He lifts his fingers – drops his head to kiss the spot that still feels shivery.

“Just teasing. I wouldn’t.” His kisses move to the point of your hip bone, his mouth opening against the lace of your garter belt. “You might not let me come back.”

You sigh as you shift your hips beneath his mouth. “I’d change the locks.”

He laughs as his fingers hook the waistband of your panties, tugging them down just enough to flick the tip of his tongue against the faint indentation they’ve left on your skin. He follows the trail of it, revealing more of you, lips soothing the creased line with his tongue.

“Up.” His instruction is paired with a pat on your hip as he starts to pull your underwear down, and you dig your heels in and arch your back to lift your ass off the bed. He eases them over your thighs – over the garter straps and the stockings – and off, dropping them onto the bed.

His eyes skim over you as his hand slides beneath your stocking-covered calf, his teeth settled into the plump of his bottom lip.

“Whatever are you going to do with me now, Javier Peña?” You lift your eyebrows, letting him guide your leg wide.

He shifts on the bed, moving to kneel between your spread thighs. “Whatever I want, Kitten.”

By the time Javi is almost done with the whatever he wanted, your throat feels hoarse, your thighs ache and one of your wrists has come untied, which lets you twist your fingers into his hair as he drags a second orgasm from you with his tongue.

You yank the dark strands hard as you gasp out your words. “No more.”

He pulls his fingers from your pussy and you whimper at the sensation – you’re so sensitive now, every nerve sizzling. His smile is slick with you, his tongue sweeping over his lips. “One more.”

“No more.” You shake your head and curl your hand around his jaw, trying to bring him to you. You nudge him with your knee. “Come here and kiss me.”

He lets you pull him to you, his mouth opening before it even touches your lips, tongue searching for yours. Your hand slides around the back of his neck, holding him tight as you hook your calves around his hips. His cock slips through your folds, grazing your clit, and you whine.

“Inside.” You whimper into his mouth, wriggle your hips beneath his weight. “Need you inside, Javi.”

He leans onto one forearm over you, his other hand moving down your sweat-damp stomach to where your bodies are sliding together. A grunt and a shift, and then the head of his cock is pushing into you, your breath hissing out as it does.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” Your free hand grips his arm, the muscles there flexing as he starts to move. His thumb rolls across your clit, circles it, and you jerk against the tie still holding your wrist, making the bed frame creak.

His teeth settle into your lip. “One more.”

“Can’t.” Your nails dig into his triceps, your voice breaking.

“You can, baby.” His words are a growl, deep and rough, as his thumb slides against you again and again. “Come on me.”

You start to protest – start to insist you can’t – but he shifts, his cock finding that spot deep inside you that still wants more, and you clench down on him with a groan. “Oh.”

“Fuck, Kitten. Felt that.” He grimaces, keeps fucking into you at that perfect angle. “Is this it? This what you need?”

You can’t answer, can’t find breath to speak; you just rock your hips into his as your vision starts to darken. You hear his praise, words coming fast and guttural: how good you are, how you’re taking him so deep, how hot and tight and fucking wet you are just for him. You wrap your arm around his back, pull him down to you, bite hard into the top of his shoulder to stifle your cry.

“Fuck.” He sinks deep as you come, grinding into you as the shuddering squeezes of your pussy grip him like a fist. “Shit.”

Even in your haze, you feel him coming, feel the stutter of his hips, feel the throb of him inside as he fills you, and you hold him with your thighs, your arm – hold him close, as close as you can get.

His mouth is at your ear: breath hot, words soft. “Fucking hell, baby.”

You feel his hand slide up your arm to untie you. He unloops the tie, and his thick fingers circle your wrist, thumb rubbing it gently. He kisses your earlobe, the hollow beneath it, the side of your neck. Your breath is still rushed, your center still quivery and hot.

You whimper as he eases in and out once, twice more, before pulling out and falling on the bed next to you. He slips his arm beneath you and guides you into him – tucks your head into the crook of his neck. You match your breathing to his, slowing down in unison, until you’re both quiet.

“Am I wrong –” his hand smooths up and down your back, his voice vibrating against your cheek – “or was that better now that I’m your brother?”

You groan and bump his thigh with your knee. “Gross. You can leave right now.”

He laughs and kisses the top of your head, pulling you even closer against him.

“Not until I get some of that cake.”

239 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 5 months

Text

little aphrodite sex on fire chapter nine

the amount i had to write jean-marc in this chapter makes me nauseous. anywho. these two heal my soul and make me weep. please enjoy a little look back at the ceo's experience of paris.

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: we're going back to paris. this time, through joel's eyes.

warnings: age gap (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), workplace relationship, imbalance of power dynamic, alcohol consumption, ostentatious flaunting of wealth (eat the rich i say), sugardaddy!joel, softdom!joel, oral (f and m receiving), daddy kink, praise kink, cursing, angst & pining, and...well. the ceo falls in love.

word count: 7.5k

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He wasn’t even sure you’d say yes when he asked. Thought you’d find it a bit much, flying halfway across the world just for one lousy meeting. He had what he’d say when you turned him down in mind, already: Sure, yeah, no problem. No, I just thought – Yeah. ‘s alright. I’ll bring you back som’ as a souvenir.

But you didn’t.

Oh, yeah? you’d said. Your face seemed to light – humored, impressed even. It made Joel feel braver. Reassured. You’ve a habit of doing that to him.

Mhm, he replied, chewing on the sub you’d ordered him after his conference call. He can’t remember what he promised Human Resources he’d have done within the hour. You walked in as he was saying it, and – well. Two days, he says, swallowing, Saturday Sunday.

And are you gonna make me take minutes while you meet with this Jean-Marc? You wiggled your fingers as you said it, letting the name drip through your lips in some kind of dreamy song. I don’t make the flight back unless they’re typed up by the time we leave? That the catch?

No catch. You don’t even gotta come to the meetin’.

I don’t have to –? Wow, Miller. You’re spoiling me, no? You kicked your leg, one knee hooked over the other. Your skirt shrinking up your thigh.

You were sat in the chair on the right, opposite his desk. You always sit in that one – and Joel’s still trying to figure out why. The working theory so far is that it’s at a good angle to watch the city below, and at the same time, see exactly who comes and goes in and out of the office during lunch.

But there has to be more to it, he thinks. He suspects. Martha’s desk is, like, five feet from yours. She spends her lunches in the conference room with Deb, shaking salads doused in balsamic vinegar and sharing cross-floor gossip. They invite you every day, and almost every day, you turn them down in favor of his shuttered office, the muted swish of cars on the street, the mock gasps and clutch of invisible pearls when you share that same fifth-floor gossip with him over the desk.

You’d been talking while he’d been thinking about the damn chair. He hadn’t heard a word of it. Huh? he asked, and you rolled your eyes.

Ain’t never listenin’, you muttered, peeling the damp paper back from your own sub.

Say it again, Joel said. Was just making a mental note to book dinner for us over there.

You scoffed, licking mayo from the corner of your lips. Why you making mental notes for anything? That’s what you pay me for.

And you were right – it is what he pays you for. Pays you to be his shadow, his right-hand man, his eyes and his ears and his entire brain, some days.

But lately – he doesn’t know. It’s different.

Truth be told, he has no idea what’s gotten into him. Looking at you the way he is. You’ve fucked around twice, now, and both times have been…nothing short of fucking amazing. Both times, Joel’s thought he might come within the first two minutes. Pushing inside your velvet walls, watching the way you roll forward, hearing the lewd moans pour across your lips.

He’s always thought you were attractive. It’s pretty fucking hard to ignore. Physically, sure – the look of your body, the way you know how to dress it. And the prettiest, softest face he’s ever seen. You can win him over in any discussion without a word, just by fluttering your eyelashes at him.

But you’re more than that. He thinks of you both as friends, maybe something more. Something deeper. It’s in the glances you steal, the silent lines tossed between one another. The way you read one another like an open book. Sometimes, he wonders if you actually can read his mind.

You’re intelligent, you’re funny, and you’re a hard fucking worker. Always on time, always seemingly juggling thirty things at once, and never letting him down. Nothing is too much, it seems; everything just is as it is. And he likes that about you. Simple. No baggage.

The morning of the flight, you send him a voice note telling him you’re downstairs. “And I ain’t lugging two cases up to the top floor only to bring ‘em back down when we’re leaving, Mr. CEO.”

He’s striding past Martha for the elevator before he’s even done listening to the message.

“Uh-uh!” she chirps, dashing over to slip between the brass doors behind him.

Joel sighs under his breath.

“I know better than to rely on you to remember all this stuff,” she says, holding up a file he’d asked her to put together for the trip.

She’s right not to – he’d probably leave that file in the car, or put it down somewhere and walk off without it. You’re the only one who can be trusted with it – with anything. You’re good at your job. And yet, he resents the fact that Martha’s about to lump you with even a fraction of responsibility for the next four days.

So when the Rolls pulls off and Martha is nothing but a pin-sized silhouette through the back window, still waving from the sidewalk, he pinches the folder in two fingers and tosses it to his left hip. Out of your grasp. You smile, eyes rolling, and pop your earbuds in. Joel breathes a laugh, eyes dipping again to skim read some contract on his phone. His hand is locked around your thigh. He likes that you just let him do it now.

Likes a lot of things about you. Likes that you put your music on shuffle, and then skip eleven tracks until you find one you actually want to listen to. Likes that your fingers twirl around the light chain of your necklace – the way they do anytime you’re nervous – and when he asks if you’re alright, you bareface lie to him and squeak, Yep.

Likes the glow the morning sun casts on you when you emerge from the car on the tarmac, pooling in the dimples on your cheeks, bright gold. The way you tug on the loose cotton of your sweatpants, bashful. Shy. And he likes that, when he follows you up the steps to the plane cabin, your awestruck expression lasts all of five seconds before that quick wit kicks straight back in.

“Feelin’ pretty guilty about all the air pollution,” you tell him, and Joel silently says his fifth thankful prayer this morning that he thought to ask you and not Martha.

He watches you settle into a seat by the window, watches you crane your neck to survey the view from the tiny circle of thick glass. He thinks about what he’d do if you were alone right now, if there weren’t crew slowly filing into the jet behind him.

He floats the idea. Tells you about the bedroom up back, tells you it’s cozy. You read between the lines just like he wants you to. And when the plane’s in the air, you follow after him.

You fall into bed together the same way you do when you arrive at the hotel. A tangle of limbs, of sweat and stuffy plane air. He sleeps the soundest he has in months – years, maybe. Pushed off by the sound of your breathing, the dip in the mattress by his side. The warmth which radiates from your body, the soft brush of your hand against his.

He puts it down to the travelling – the eight-hour flight, the plushy super king waiting on the other side. He puts it down to the way the world feels different, this side of the Atlantic. The privacy he feels come over the two of you, like sneaking into the next room: your voices muffled through the wall, your movements reduced to vague shadows beneath the door.

He watches you through sleepy eyes as you prance around the suite in the morning, twirling in and out of the bathroom while you get ready for the day. He wonders if this is what you’re like every day – if you spend your Monday mornings beaming like a little kid, toothbrush hanging lopsided from the corner of your mouth, white bubbles lining your gums. He wonders why he’s wondering. Why a part of him wants to see that version of you, too.

This version – now following his lead down Avenue Montaigne, doe-eyed and wonderstruck – is over all too soon. He’s dragged from her, from you, before he’s ready to leave.

His phone vibrates in his pocket right as he’s leading you out of some ridiculously overpriced jewelers – an irritating reminder of his meeting in an hour’s time.

“Fuck,” he whispers, holding you steady as you spin around to glimpse at the baroque building. “Hey, pretty girl,” he squeezes your hand, “I got some bad news.”

Your bottom lip pouts, eyes gleaming. It’s enough, he thinks, to convince him to stick around. If you asked him to, he’d text Jean-Marc right now and tell him to fuck off. But you tell him to go, tell him you’ll meet him back at the hotel once he’s done and you’re tired. With a teasing smirk and a tiny wave, you see him off down the cobbled street. He watches from the back window as you set off again, heading towards another iron-gated store.

Denis pulls up alongside the towering hotel, totters around the car to meet Joel as he stretches out of the Maybach. The square-jawed man stands with his hands linked, and nods enthusiastically when Joel thanks him.

“The shopping – I will take it back to the hotel,” he assures his boss, a wide smile on his lips.

He’s a good guy, Denis. He’s chauffeured Joel to five of these meetings over as many years – he knows the drill by now. Knows it’ll be a couple hours and a few whiskeys before he gets another call to pick him up.

His nodding doubles, more obedient when Joel asks him to make sure he listens for your call. “You mind stayin’ nearby that part of town?” he asks. “Just so – when she’s done, y’know…”

“Not at all,” Denis says, flapping two palms to the ground. Swatting away Joel’s concern, his worrying, his missing you.

He replies, a little absentmindedly, passing by the head of gray hair with a distant smile. “Thanks, Denis. See you later.”

Five meetings, five trips over here to be pestered by some obnoxious little man in an obnoxious little robe and obnoxious little loafers, and still, Joel never knows what to expect. He strides beneath the golden archway entrance into a domed lobby, every surface spotless and shining; marble counter in the center with a symmetrically-suited clerk sat behind.

She stands and smiles politely to Joel as he approaches, recognizing him with a flutter of her eyelashes. He feels the absence of your arm on his, an ache at his elbow.

“Monsieur,” she croons, pale fingers reaching for the telephone. She whispers something softly into the receiver and then nods, folding her painted lips together as she places the handset back into its cradle. With a floating hand aimed at the elevator behind her, she says, sultry and dreamlike, “He is ready for you.”

Joel fights an eyeroll with every fiber of his being. He wanders round the circular desk, bunches his shoulders into the tight elevator, and jams his thumb into the button marked P.

The doors shudder open when he reaches the top floor. He steps out slowly, waiting for the Frenchman to pounce on him like some kind of wild cat. Wouldn’t put it past him, Joel thinks. As he’s scanning the room, counting the six bouquets dotted around, there’s a single clap from behind the veiled curtains. A silhouette out on the terrace.

Jean-Marc swings between the sheer white, calling out to the lonely figure in his entryway. “If it isn’t my favorite American,” he sings, taking Joel by the arms and squeezing roughly. “How lovely to see you again, Joelie. Please, come.”

The sunlight blinds Joel when he steps out into it, peering over the city skyline under low brows. Jean-Marc is already sat at the top of a thin, glass table, pouring golden whiskey into a square glass and scooping two bulky ice cubes in. The nectar swirls around when the glass is held out to Joel, the ice tittering as he accepts it.

The table, a rocky terrain of pain au chocolat and brioche, pools of citrus spreads and dishes of butter. Joel keeps his hands to himself as Jean-Marc slaps jam onto a croissant, bronze flakes fluttering all over the table as he attempts to regale Joel with some investment into a casino.

“Riccardo says it is too much; I told him to go to hell. We will double the cost of the place, I know it, Joel. We have the eye for things like these, men like you and I, hm?”

Men like you and I, Joel thinks, lips tilting. He balances the glass on his thigh, watches the ice cubes turn over themselves. He thinks of you, thinks of the man you see him as. Thinks how tall he stands against the man Jean-Marc must see sat opposite him right now.

Thinks how rotten, and ugly, and how small the latter is. How easily you and your words could crumble him. All show, all sitting on perfect terraces with pretentious dickbags disguised as friends, drinking pissy whiskey with a plastered smile on his lips.

How comical it all is – the sound of yapping across the tabletop, These idiots would pay millions for manure if you painted it golden, the sprawling sheets of green-leafed plants, the headache-inducing flowers, the buckled loafers and the signet ring catching the sun.

How much he misses the weight of you on his hips, forearms flat on his chest, ear against his heart. The sound of your laughter lilting in his ear. The rosy smell of your skin and the feel of your eyelashes, featherlight on his cheek. He feels the distance between the two of you like elastic strung apart, stretching thinner and thinner, weaker and frailer, ready to snap into two halves at any moment.

“Anyways,” Jean-Marc says, lifting the wine bottle shakily. It clinks brashly against the lip of his glass, a painful scrape. Joel wonders if he’s already halfway to hammered. “Tell me how you’ve been, Joelie.”

Joel tells him he’s been fine. Business is fine. Money is fine. Company’s doing fine. Everything’s fucking fine. Easiest answer to avoid further questioning, to satiate Jean-Marc’s constant thirst for news, or intel, or just plain gossip.

He slips up, though. Makes the one colossal mistake he spent all morning hoping and praying and drilling directly into his brain that he wouldn’t.

Jean-Marc asks how his flight was, sticking the damp end of a cigarette to his bottom lip.

Joel says, “Good, yeah. We got here, maybe, ten o’clock last night.”

And Jean-Marc’s eyebrows arch. His hands freeze, match held against the striker strip. “We?” he asks, white stick flapping between his teeth.

“Uh,” Joel shifts in his seat. Your gentle wave, the corners of your lips, the toss of hair over your shoulder. It’s as though Jean-Marc can see his thoughts played on a reel before him, the haste with which Joel attempts to wipe you from his own mind. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, “Jerry ‘n Lisa. Len and Pol.”

The Frenchman’s eyes narrow, a grin pulling on his pink lips. “We,” he says again, whipping the match roughly against the strip. Speaking into cupped hands, a cloud of white billowing from his leathery fingers, he murmurs, “Joel brought company with him to Paris, yes? Who is the lucky tourist? Une petite amie?”

Joel’s tongue dabs at the sickly wash of whiskey on his lips. He thinks to grab the fucker by the throat, throttle him until the idea of you rattles from his skull, spilling back into Joel’s safe hands where you belong.

He almost fucking lies. Almost says it’s just Martha, or Drew, or his fucking mother. But Jean-Marc is like a rat, scurrying along after a source of water. He’ll find it in the end. They always do.

He breathes your name, reluctant to let it go. Jean-Marc cocks his head, leans in, a swirling snake of silky smoke lifting from the cigarette between his fingers. Joel repeats it, voice louder, but flatter. Breaks it into too many syllables. Lets his host hear every bite of annoyance.

“She’s my assistant,” he says, and Jean-Marc claps again.

“Your assistant! How wonderful. And where is she today? She is not…” his fingers circle the air, disturbing the trail of smoke, “…assisting you?”

“Gave her the afternoon off.” Joel lifts his glass to his lips. The geometric shape amplifies his voice, bass like the growl of a bear. “Busy couple days. She deserves some downtime.”

He hates the sound of your name as it peels from Jean-Marc’s tongue. Like a hangnail, the residue a gorge of bloody, torn skin. Your name is Joel’s favorite sound, he realizes now, and the way this little asshole keeps butchering it boils an anger so hot and so quick under his skin that he’s not sure he can hold it at bay.

It’s not as if he owns you or your name – far from it. He has no desire to be anything more than a placeholder: somewhere for you to slot your hand, rest your head, curl your body against. Still, he feels a direct protectiveness over you right now. An impulse to stand in front of Jean-Marc’s tiny figure, arms wide, stopping him from picturing you or learning about you or meeting you.

Which is, of course, exactly what the little fucker suggests.

A wet pff sound as he rids his mouth of bitter smoke, and he offers to host breakfast in the morning.

“No, no, we, uh –” Joel’s hands are up, like pleading with the man, whiskey kissing the lip of its glass, “– you don’t have to – Look, Jean-Marc, I’m sure you’re busy enough with all –”

“Nonsense!” Jean-Marc waves a hand. Ash sprinkles down the cuff of his robe. “It would be my pleasure. Shall we say, ten?”

Joel grumbles, eye following the flight of a bird in the distance. What are you doing right now? Are you back in the suite, trying on the outfit you picked out together? Are you still wandering down the streets, drinking up the lavish city like a perfect little cocktail of bliss and wonder?

And what the fuck does he have to do to excuse himself, to come find you, to wrap his arms around you and never let you leave his side again?

He feels idiotic. Juvenile. Like a stupid little teenager, pining for his junior year girlfriend. The feelings all sharp and brittle, prodding his heart roughly anytime he thinks too hard on them.

When he looks back to Jean-Marc – the cigarette tearing closer and closer to his fingers, an expectant smile on his lips – he concedes.

“Ten is fine,” he says, and suddenly, the sky casts over.

You’re on the terrace when he finally returns to the hotel room. Head aching from the alcohol and forced conversation, he drags himself over to you.

The sight of you, hair lifting in the breeze, the sweet smell and soft touch under his hands feels like the pouring of honey on a raw throat, like cool water lapping at his waist on a scorching day. And he needs more, and he feels the saliva pool beneath his tongue, and you’re touching him and talking to him and all he can think about is replacing his saliva with you – with every drop of you that you’ll lend him.

You follow his every request – parting your legs, making room for him between them, opening yourself to him like coming home after work, like sinking deep into your shared bed, like pushing your salt-slicked fingers on his tongue and chanting taste me taste me love me need me.

Petals opening, shards of orange separating. His cock throbs in his pants when he feels the circle of your hips against his jaw, the taste of sweet, sweet nectar spilling from your center. His clothes still smell of the smoke from Jean-Marc’s weedy lips; the sweat on his skin borne from three hours sat in the sun, dehydrated by whiskey, discussing money and gold and then money again.

He doesn’t want to fuck you here, like this. As that puny, pompous prick he’s felt like since the second he wandered through the Frenchman’s hotel doors. He can’t. You deserve him clean, new. You deserve the Joel you think he is – yours. Affected by your touch alone, moved by the gleam in your eye. You deserve him, Joel decides, on your terms.

And that same night, stood in the same spot, dregs of sunlight replaced by molten moonlight, staring at the dazzling Eiffel Tower against the deep blue sky – that same night, when he turns and clocks the silhouette of your body just feet from him, he realizes that this is it.

He’s sure he thinks you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, standing in the dim light, your fingers playing with the bust of the silk robe draped over your body. The jewelry on your neck catching the light like his own private attraction, his own little spectacle. Just for him.

He forgets any other version of himself. Shakes them off like seawater flying from his body as he emerges from the ocean. Venus stood before him; hair lifting in the light, palm over her breast. And he doesn’t notice the departure of those old versions; doesn’t feel the way they tear from his skin. His eyes are glued on you, only you, everything around the two of you reducing to dark matter. There is only his awestruck gaze pointed to your radiant form, as though the scene sits alive in the eye of Botticelli or Michelangelo.

Baby, he whispers, and you move forward, dragging him with you under a wave of lust and rebirth.

He stirs the next morning to the feeling of a weight shifting across his body, two divots in the mattress either side of his waist. Something nuzzling, warm and featherlight, into the nook below his earlobe. Wet kisses trailing down his neck.

There’s no weight of you in the crook of his arm anymore. He’s scooping thin air. He lifts it, and his palm meets the baggy cotton of his own T-shirt, draped over your body, draped over him.

A laugh brushes between his lips. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he croaks, voice still low and broken.

“Hi,” you whisper back, voice like silk and sugar and tufts of lustrous clouds.

He opens his eyes and you’re hovering over him. Tip of your nose circling his, hips light as air across his own.

You look so fucking cute, he thinks. He’d take what he had last night – you, dripping in black lace and bound by satin straps – every night for the rest of his life, if he could. If you’d grant him it. But, this. This.

You – in Joel’s clothes and nothing else. You – the curl of your hair now a lazy wave, the smoky afterthought of your half-removed makeup. The smell of sex still lingering on your skin, the taste of Joel still home on your tongue. Each part of you laced with a part of him.

You – holding yourself up over him, less than an inch apart, and all Joel thinks to do is wrap his arms around your back and let you drop onto his body; his strong, solid body, which accepts the weight of you with only so much as a tiny grunt over his lips when you fall on top of him.

You giggle. He swears he feels butterflies in his stomach. He prays you don’t feel them, fluttering purposefully against your ribcage.

“You’re an idiot,” you mumble into his collarbone, words curled by the smile on your lips. You suck a mark into the hot skin, teeth and flesh and sel et sucre, and then push off from his chest, nudging his thighs wider with your knee.

Your tongue drags a wet trail down his chest, from solid sternum to suppler stomach, following the thickening of hair the lower you move. You leave wet kisses along the crests of his hipbones, the gentle slope of skin leading you to the wide base of his cock, already stiff.

Joel’s breath hitches when your tongue sweeps across it. Your eyes lift and lock with his, fingers taking a heavy hold of him. He smiles, tongue sitting patiently behind his teeth.

“Go on, angel,” he nods, “put that pretty little mouth on daddy.”

You obey instantly, as hungry for it as he is, your tongue swiping from the base of him up, curling around as you reach the head. Swollen, gleaming, slit dripping with slick precome that you lick with just the tip of your tongue and send a roll of pleasure across every nerve in Joel’s body.

He falls back, hands searching for the back of your skull as your lips sink further down down down, tightening around the smooth skin, stopping only when they meet the tuft of hair decorating his dick. His tip pushes against the back of your throat. His head begins to spin.

His back arches, hands anchored on your head, holding you steady as you bob up and down. His shoulders push heavy into the mattress, tummy sucks in until the points of his ribcage mold through his skin. And, oh – you’re so soft with it, so wet and so warm and so good with your tongue, kitten licks over his tip, wet fist wrapped tight around the width of him.

You lift your hand and meet his halfway up his stomach, fingers intertwining, Joel’s knuckles instantly whitening.

“Doin’ so good, baby,” he groans, gasping when your throat constricts around him again.

You gag, choking with a wet grunt, but you never pull away. A quick pause, a heavy breath from your nostrils, and your movements resume.

“’s alright,” Joel coos, fingers rubbings against the back of your hand, “you got it. Atta-girl, fuck.”

His hips begin to lift, slowly jerking up into your mouth. He looks down, loosens the grip you have on his hand only to run his thumb delicately across your cheek, dabbing lightly at the tears in the corner of your eye.

You suck hard around him, cheeks hollowing, tongue flattening to his underside to let him fuck your mouth – a rhythm of sopping sounds and heartbeat hums from your throat. He’s close. He’s so fucking close.

“Just like that,” he tells you, and you blink up at him. Moans muffled by the mouthful of cock, saliva and sex slipping from your swollen lips. “Fuck, baby, I’m gonna come. You’re such a good girl – you want daddy to give it to you?”

Mhm, you mumble into the warmth of his cock, the vibration of your throat on the eager skin enough to send Joel over the fucking edge. He throws his head back, lifts his hips up to you, and fills your mouth at the same rate he fills the room with the sound of his orgasm.

You take every last drop. You’re so good for him. Once he stills, once the screaming in his ears subsides, once the room slowly desaturates back to normal, a faded, blurry normal – he sits up and hooks his hands under your arms, pulling you up into him.

You collapse against his chest for the second time this morning, giggling and licking the last of his come from your mouth. Joel guides your jaw towards his, lips meeting in the middle, and licks the salty aftertaste from your tongue.

He rolls you both over, your thighs sitting safe on his hips.

“I know,” you sigh, head rolling against the curve of his arm beneath, “I know. You don’t gotta tell me.”

“Tell you what, angel?” he asks, one eyebrow lifting.

“Best head you ever had. I know.”

He scoffs, lips finding the hinge of your jaw. You giggle into his ear, a sound softer than birds cooing at the break of dawn, sweeter than the first bite of ripe fruit – the sharp taste bursting across his tongue and coating his teeth in sugar, numbed by the holy coaxing of feathered doves.

“You’re good with it, I’ll give you that,” he murmurs, and the giggle erupts into a laugh which fuels him enough to follow your roll out of bed, tear his shirt from your shoulders, and slip into the shower behind you, kneeling before you when you turn to look.

Joel’s second encounter with Jean-Marc in as many days, goes about as well as the first.

He balls his fists as he introduces the pair of you, watches like a caged and bound animal as Jean-Marc’s eyes loop all around your face, your shoulders, the pull of your dress around your waist.

He knows he’s being quiet. The glances you keep stealing at him tell him you know it, too. He wishes there was something he could say, something his lips might be able to carve into a neat little sentence. Tongue sanding the jagged edges of what he’d really like to say into a joke, a quip to ease the tension you so obviously feel.

But he can’t. His tongue isn’t blunt, isn’t defensive. It’s sharp like the kiss of venom, protective and aggressive. He knows he’d do better to hold it tight between his teeth.

The best he finds himself able to do is keep a heavy hand on your thigh, let you wrap your fingers around his own, squeeze you in place of whispering in your ear.

You hold your own, up against Jean-Marc. He knew you would. He learned less than a week into working with you, not to underestimate you. Your quick tongue, the million and one observations hidden behind the flash of a frown. He knows you can read Jean-Marc – probably better than he can, having known the guy ten years.

It doesn’t make it feel any safer, though. Luring you into a lion’s den. He knows you’ll make it out alive, but he can’t stand the thought of the claw marks in your skin.

That feeling washes over him again – that urge scored so deep into his bones that it hits marrow, to put himself between you and anything which might come to harm you. He swallows it down with the acidic sting of orange juice – slots it somewhere safe in his chest until he can assess whatever the fuck it is. Whatever the fuck it means.

His hand tightens around your leg when Jean-Marc mutters something to his assistant. Joel decides against asking you what it means, for fear he’ll tear the Frenchman limb from limb, strips of satin robe strung across the paved patio.

The assistant – tall, thin, looming over you like impending doom on legs – offers to show you the view of the city. And as Jean-Marc settles into your empty chair, the image of that torn satin robe shunts closer towards reality.

“I wonder if you might indulge me,” Jean-Marc slithers, pinching thin air with one hand and resting the other on the back of Joel’s chair.

“I wonder,” Joel mutters, finger tapping angrily on the table.

“She is a wonderful character. Beautiful, and very smart, I can see. I would be crazy not to ask, you must understand, Joel –”

He can’t help himself. He bites before Jean-Marc lays the trap. His head shakes. “She’s – she’s –”

And suddenly there isn’t a single word in the English dictionary worthy of describing you. Not a single combination of letters, of sounds, of syllables and phonetics that would do you justice.

He settles for, “I wouldn’t be anywhere without her.” It feels fucking redundant. It is fucking redundant.

Jean-Marc nods. “And you know that I see the value in things, hm?”

Joel dead-eyes his opponent, gaze narrowing. “What are you sayin’, Jean-Marc?”

“Well,” he shrugs, gesturing to the shadow pointing out the Eiffel Tower, “Paul is fantastic. Dedicated, hardworking. But it is a lot, for one person. I am sure you can understand, being that you have two assistants yourself.”

“And you wanna take one of ‘em out from under me?”

Jean-Marc chuckles, shaking his head. Tutting. Teeth grinding. He senses the bitter tone, hears the distortion of words squeezing through gritted teeth. “Not at all, my dear Joelie, not at all.”

Placating. It pisses Joel off more.

“I simply would like to raise the question of: would she like to be…taken?”

“Taken?”

“Hired. By me.”

The smug grin which pulls over taut lips incites Joel with a desire to punch the luminous veneers from their gummy holders. His fist balls again, nails digging harshly into his palm. He swallows roughly.

“She seems…she seems happy enough where she is to me.” He glances over, catches your eye for a fleeting second before Paul’s ghostly hand perches on your shoulder and turns your attention away again. Resigned, he adds, “You would have to ask her. I ain’t speakin’ for her.”

Jean-Marc’s leer only grows. “Ask her,” he repeats, nodding. “That is an idea.” He pushes out of his chair with a squeal of wood across stone, calling to the party, “Why don’t we take a drive? There is so much of the city I would love to show you – both of you, of course.”

Before he knows it, Joel’s on his feet, too, panic hammering through every muscle in his body. He tosses some half-assed excuse to the breeze; a half-truth, a desperate attempt to pull you away from the beady eyes and sharp claws of Jean-Marc and his assistant, and back over to his side. He takes your arm and scatters, pulling you past four, five, six bursting bouquets, your heels clicking along the polished floor, your head spinning.

He can feel the blood thrashing through his veins as the elevator arrives back in the lobby. Can see the shadow of Paul the assistant still over your shoulder, the place his hand sat like charcoal on white linen. He feels red hot, anger mixed with panic mixed with a word he hasn’t let slip just yet. He covers it by answering your questions shakily, diverting the ones about the conversation on the terrace.

And then you’re back in the safety of Denis’s car. You’re back to being on your own, together. No third set of eyes watching your every move, studying you like you’re some doll to be observed, or worse. You’re touching him again, holding his arm, caressing his cheek. His breathing eases, his body relaxes into the backseat of the Maybach.

You tell him you’d like to see the Louvre. So Joel takes you to see the Louvre.

Joel Miller has never been in love.

He’s said it, sure. Said it plenty to Avery.

G’night, love you.

I’m so proud of you, sweet; I love you so much.

Thanks for makin’ dinner, babe, I love you.

It began to take the form of breath, passing over his tongue with as much ease and instinct as his lungs would push out air. She looked at him a certain way – he’d say he loved her. They’d talk about the future – he’d tell her he loved her. They fought, over his working hours or the interest rates at different banks or whose family to spend Christmas with – and he’d remind her he loved her.

He meant every single one. He did, truly, love her. He loved her auburn hair, the way it’d sweep over her shoulders like a wave of fire. He loved the way she would pause to take thirty photos of the sky at sunset. He loved how homely she was, how simple and warm she could be. Her recipe books lining the shelves in her kitchen. Her pajamas folded neatly at the foot of her bed, waiting for her at the end of the day.

He loved her enough to spend four years with her, a life split nearly down the middle. Never seeping into one another. His side of the bed, and hers. His items in the fridge, and hers. His fucking bathrobe, and hers.

But right now, standing in a jam-packed room, maneuvering awkwardly around museum guides and backpacked tourists, avoiding the knee-height glass barriers and dodging fucking selfie sticks – Joel knows: he has never been in love.

Not until the moment he turns from some headless bust to search the room – the dark marble walls and great, carved arches; the white Parisian sky illuminating everything in a pale glow. Not until he catches a glimpse of you amongst the sea of bodies – stood before the Venus de Milo, staring up in wonder at Aphrodite like she’s the first thing in the world you’ve ever truly seen. The gentle lean of her body, the low sling of marble fabric around her waist, the soft dimple of her navel.

The way your eyes scan every detail of her form – every fold draped over her thigh, ever chisel mark and chip in her torso. The round swell of her breasts and the wavelike swirl of her hair. Barely blinking, afraid to lose sight of her for even a second.

Joel’s never been in love. Not until this very moment.

He only turned to make some quip about…well, now he can’t fucking remember, can he? Something irrelevant. Something so mundane, so meaningless, so dull that he wishes he could take back every word he ever said to you and use the breath more wisely – use the time spent making stupid jokes and work orders, just to look at you. Watch you, like he is right now. Every other thought, every worry and concern drop weightlessly from his mind, with such ease that he doesn’t feel the loss.

Your fixed stare up at the statue’s set face, the slow pacing of your heels, ankles crossing over one another as you pivot around her. And the look of wonder on your face – as if Joel instantly recognizes eight-year-old you, thumbing through the pages of the first art book she was ever gifted, copying the curled hair and round shoulders of the marble goddess in a pencil sketch.

Haloed by the towering windows behind you, arms crossed over your chest. Lips melting from a content smile to agape, and then pinning back in a smile again.

And suddenly – he can’t remember the flame of hair over his ex’s shoulder. Doesn’t remember a single meal she ever cooked for him. In the blink of an eye, he realizes he doesn’t want a life neatly split anywhere.

He realizes that his life, the way he wants it, was always meant to be meshed with yours. Intertwined so tightly that there is no his and hers. Last night at dinner, you couldn’t decide between the bœuf bourguignon and the confit de canard, so Joel ordered both – as well as what he wanted – and the two of you picked at three separate meals. Holding out forkfuls to feed one another, comparing and judging them like professional chefs on a fucking cooking show.

Back at the hotel, you fell asleep in his arms. Your head nestled under his chin; your arms curved around his shoulders. In the center of the bed, laying at an angle. When he got up this morning, the robe he threw around himself smelled like your perfume. The terrycloth on your shoulders, tinged with the weak scent of whiskey.

None of it – not the relationship you had before any of this happened, not the strolling over one boundary to the next, not the blurring of lines between colleague, and friend, and lover – has been neat. None of it has made any sense. And maybe that’s why he fucking trusts it so much.

Joel spent the first two weeks after you fooled around in his office swearing he wasn’t that guy. Staring himself down in the mirror with a balled fist, a pointed finger that said, You don’t sleep with your fucking assistant, you idiot.

And now, standing opposite you in a crowded room and only seeing you – he knows. He finally gets it.

He loves you. He – no, fuck.

He doesn’t just love you.

He’s on his knees, dagger through his heart –

blood spilling all over the pristine floor –

pathetic and adolescent in its nature –

butterflies tearing through his stomach as destructive as a hurricane –

in love with you.

He thinks to say it. To wander over and kiss your shoulder, hook his chin into your collarbone like he did in the Dolce and Gabbana store, and whisper, Hey. I love you. Did you know that?

But he knows that’d be fucking insane. Knows you’d probably unstick yourself from him and back up, tripping in your step. Paris ruined.

He knows he’d probably get so far as curving around your back and then bottle it, anyway. The words would die in his throat. You’d just lean back into him, none the wiser. You’d still make his heart pound.

Pound the way it does when you reach for his wrist and drag him off into the next room, and the next, and the next. And with every piece of art your eyes fall upon, another fragment of your soul is revealed to Joel. The depth of da Vinci, the color of Bruyère. The scale of Veronese and the beauty of Canova.

And with every part revealed, a desire blooms in him to learn the next part. Understand you; know you better than he knows himself. See you, the way he’s seeing you right now.

He takes his ex’s lead, when you’re stood in front of the Mona Lisa. All those fucking sunset photos, like she was afraid to forget what it looked like. The thought becomes urgent, pushing past every other meaningless word in his head.

He taps you on the shoulder, says your name lightly. When you turn, he’s already holding the phone up, watching your delayed motions through the screen. Please don’t let me forget this. Don’t let me forget you, like this.

“Smile,” he says, and you do.

“You’re cheesy,” you tell him, wandering off from the painting.

He’s still staring at the photo. At your dimpled cheeks, your red lips. Staring at your eyes, seeing a new glint in them that wasn’t there before. Like eight-year-old you smiling back at him, trusting him, knowing him.

Joel breathes, “She’s beautiful,” taking your waist in a steady arm to guide you out of the room.

You misunderstand him. He knows it. He doesn’t correct you.

She’s beautiful – the Mona Lisa. But she only became beautiful the second you laid eyes on her. The second she handed you a piece of your soul, the transaction laid bare for Joel to witness. A bucket list item ticked, or simply your childhood self, stood before one of her own seven wonders.

Everything is only beautiful after it comes into contact with you.

There’s a change in you, the morning that you leave. Something low-lying, melancholy and blue. Joel feels it under your skin, in the grip you keep on his hand the entire car ride from the hotel to the airport.

“You good?” he asks, walking up the steps of the jet, shelled around you. Safe, with him, safe with him.

You nod, but you’re watching the Maybach roll off, rounding the corner back to the airport. The same way you watch the city disappear beneath the clouds as the plane takes off.

The same way you glance over to him, your glossy eyes twinkling, pearly tears swimming across your waterline. Joel gets it. Figures he feels much the same.

He leads you slowly back through to the dark cabin bedroom, where you peel the shirt and sweats from your body. He watches from the bed, arm outstretched and inviting you to burrow into his side, curl around his body, loop your legs through his. His own little Aphrodite, the curves and the dimples and all the beauty to go with her.

He sinks his shoulder to let you nuzzle into him, let your slow-closing eyes follow his movements like rocking you back and forth to sleep. You link your arm through his, locking your bodies tight together. Joel slows his typing down, moves gentler, so you can fall asleep without being nudged too much by his arm.

You mumble something into the sleeve of his tee. He pauses. Looks down at your already closed eyes, your parted lips.

“What’d you say, baby?”

You take a deep, slow breath. Already sleeping, he thinks. And then, in the sigh that escapes from your mouth, you whisper to him.

“Please don’t ever leave.”

678 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 5 months

Text

The edging is KILLING ME 🫠

i know it when i see it - part 6

series masterlist | part one | ao3

pairing: pornstar!joel miller x fem!reader

rating: explicit 18+ minors dni

word count: 7.3k

warnings: sex work, exhibitionism, public-ish sex, a lot of feelings, more feelings than porn tbh, dirty talk, explicit p in v sex, angst

summary: you fuck joel off-camera for the first time. it makes everything worse.

a/n: thank you for being patient and loving this story even when i am a disaster. it means the world to me.

Joel drives you home after the diner.

And it’s easy. Too easy. The comfortable silence stretching between you, the blur of streetlights and breeze catching your hair. Sated and soft-limbed, a little sore between your legs and at your wrists where the rope chafed. And when he exits off the 405, there’s a small, stupid part of you that wishes you could just keep driving. Head down to the PCH, go up the coast — just stay in that truck with him forever.

You don’t linger when he pulls up in front of your apartment. You can’t. Not with your belly full of syrup and sugar and something else, something so soft it scares the shit out of you.

The apartment is dark when you get in, the only light spilling in through the window. It’s warm and untidy, remnants of the night left scattered across the coffee table. A popped cork, a lime wedge. A little tin of tobacco with a fingerprint pinched out of it.

You’re too restless to sleep, skirting the blurry edge of a breakdown, so you climb out onto the fire escape. The night air is cool, but it does nothing to soothe the burn beneath your skin, the furious storm of feelings scalding your insides.

You are so fucked.

You don’t know what this is. It’s so much more than stolen kisses in school hallways, breathless sex in the back seat of cars — all the things that came before. The fast-fading infatuations, the slowburn of affection left charred and smoking. The men that used to mean something, the ones with names you once wrote in your diary, faces now blurry and indistinct.

Nothing has ever felt like this. This want that has teeth and claws and could tear you apart.

And it’s so embarrassing. To want like this, to feel the way you do about him. You’re supposed to be a sex symbol, for fuck’s sake. You’ve seen more dicks in the last month than most people do in their entire lives. But every time you’re around him you feel small and girlish and so tangled up with feeling that you can’t think straight.

Porn isn’t real. The fucking isn’t even real most of the time. It’s all so calculated and precise, a veneer of sex over clumsy mechanics and awkward angles. Every touch rehearsed, every orgasm pre-planned. It doesn’t mean anything. You know that.

But when you’re with Joel, it’s so easy to believe the lie. To get caught up in the fantasy, the feeling. The stupid, desperate hope that maybe he’ll still want you when the cameras stop rolling.

You stub out your last cigarette, smearing ash on the windowsill before you climb back inside.

The receipt with Joel’s number is still tucked into the book by your bedside. The creased edges are now smooth from your fingertips, the ink a little smudged. You’ve spent too many nights staring at it, willing yourself to find a reason to call.

Something always stops you.

The thing is — if he wanted you, he could have you. He must see it in your face every time you look at him. That open and obvious hunger, the desire that’s eating you alive. Sitting across from him at the diner, spilling your messy history between the salt shakers. It would have been so easy for him to take your hand if he wanted to.

But he hadn’t.

Because he doesn’t want you, not like that.

Fuck.

It was so much easier when he was an asshole. When he kept you at arm's length, all frown lines and frustrating stoicism. At least then you knew where you stood. Now you’re not sure what he feels for you. If he likes you at all or if he just tolerates you because you’re good at making him come.

You’re so sure of everything — this city, this business, all the bridges you burned to get here.

Everything except him.

And that scares the shit out of you.

x x x x x

Tess was right — people will pay good money to see you get tied up.

The bondage scene sells better than anything you’ve ever done before. And it’s not a surprise, not really. There’s an appetite for rough, for raw. Women writhing and whining, at the mercy of some big strong stud. The wet dream of every soft-boiled middle man across America, wheezing his way to a disappointing orgasm while his wife cooks him dinner.

You wonder if they could still get their rocks off if they knew how gentle Joel was with you after, how he rubbed the ache from your wrists and asked if you were hungry. Probably not.

Soft doesn’t sell.

You’re getting more work, bigger roles. Your name is more than just small print. Not quite top billing, but you’re getting close. You always have your own dressing room on set, some tidy impersonal trailer, a vase of wilting flowers on the vanity.

It’s less of a mystery — this business, this world. The flashbulb and fantasy of it all. You know how to play the game now. Leveraging your looks, your little sliver of celebrity, that slight shimmer to the air around you. The way the world opens, unfolds, and all you have to do is lean a little.

Tess picks up a bag of fanmail from the production office and you spend an afternoon going through it. The envelopes spread across the kitchen table, a bottle of red airing out in the decanter. A record spins in the living room, the music drifting through the open doorway as you sift through the pile.

Each letter is worse than the last — all vaguely obscene, occasionally bordering on the obsessive. Clumsy declarations of devotion, promises to leave their wives. Fumbling, sweaty prose about all the ways they want to fuck you. Requests for a pair of panties, return addresses enclosed. A few polaroids of blunt and blurry erections.

Tess holds one of them up for you.

“This one says he’ll make you feel things you’ve never felt before.”

You raise an eyebrow at the picture. The sad, shriveled foreskin peeking out from coarse hair.

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t feel anything.”

Tess snorts, and tosses the picture into a pile with the other discarded dicks.

You have a stack of your own pictures in front of you, an assortment of headshots and pretty girls taken from different shoots. Your wrist is getting sore from signing them, a headache pinching between your eyes as you write love from Lucky for the millionth time. There’s a small collection of cheap perfume on the table, and you douse each picture before slipping it in its envelope.

It’s tedious and un-sexy, this part of the job. Selling the fantasy, the idea of access. You have to let them think they have a chance. That all their rutting and grunting is worthwhile. Every ticket they buy, every tape they slip into a discreet plastic sleeve brings them just a little bit closer to you. You’re the girl-next-door, the girlfriend they’ll get after the divorce. Utterly, eternally available.

Their Lucky.

You know that it’s all part of the game, but you think you liked her best when she was just yours. This careful creation, the girlish monster made from glitter and wet dreams, gazing out from glossy pages. It’s a little less satisfying when you have to share her with everyone else.

“So,” Tess says casually, still rifling through the pile, “You and Joel.”

Your hand slips on the photo you’re signing, looping the y in Lucky into a figure-eight. Your heart flutters somewhere at the base of your throat, and you try to keep your voice level.

“I thought you weren’t getting involved.”

Tess shrugs, “Call it professional curiosity.”

You hesitate, staring down at your own picture, that soft-focus glow.

You could tell her — you know that you could. It’s not like there are any other secrets between you. She’s seen you through every shade of debauchery. Spunk in your hair, rug burns on your knees. She won’t judge you. Tease you a little, probably. That wry smile, the knowing glint in her eye, something like I fucking knew it on her lips.

But you can’t bring yourself to say it, to spill the messy contents of your heart onto her kitchen table. It feels too raw, too real. An exposed nerve, an ache you don’t want to draw attention to.

“Nothing happened,” you tell her, which is only sort of a lie, “and nothing is going to happen.”

The second part feels like the truth, even if it settles like lead in your stomach. Nothing is going to happen. He doesn’t want you the way that you want him. And you just have to deal with it.

Tess raises an eyebrow, “So that little stunt in my living room?”

You blush, although you wish you wouldn’t.

“We got a little carried away.”

“Is that all?”

You drop your gaze. Because you can’t look at her when you think about the other things. When he touched you outside of the bar, or at the party in the hills. That time in Bill’s office. All of the moments you’ve stolen off-camera, the little scraps of a nameless something that you wish meant something more.

You can’t tell her, because it’s embarrassing. A bit of flirtation, a few friendly smiles — that’s all it took. You don’t need her to know how easy you are.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” you mutter.

It doesn’t. Not to him, anyways, and that’s sort of the important part.

Tess tilts her head, “You sure about that?”

Her tone is still light, but her gaze is — sharp. Dissecting. Pulling apart every nerve and synapse, tugging at the tender flutter of truth beneath. She knows you’re lying, but she can’t figure out why.

You push back from the table, suddenly antsy, agitated. You need something stronger than wine.

There’s a bottle of bourbon on the bar cart, and you give yourself a heavy pour. Tess’s eyes are on you, searing, but you don’t quite meet her gaze when you ask —

“You want some?”

Tess frowns, “Can we cut the bullshit?”

You glare at her.

“I said it doesn’t matter.”

Tess leans back, folding her arms over her chest, “Look, I just need to know if this thing is going to blow up in my face.”

Heat flares in your cheeks.

“There is no thing.”

Tess gives you a look. Flat, unimpressed.

“I have eyes, kid.”

You drop your gaze, staring at the inch of bourbon in the glass. Fuck. There’s the awful burn of tears behind your eyes and blink hard, trying to keep them at bay. But you can feel the flimsy thing you call resolve starting to slip.

“Hey,” Tess leans across the table, softening, “Do I need to kick his ass?”

You laugh, a weak, watery sound.

“He’s twice your size.”

“Yeah, but I fight dirty,” Tess smirks.

You scoff and scrub a hand across your face.

The thing is — Joel hasn’t done anything wrong. Not really. And it twists uncomfortably in your stomach, the idea that you’ve made a mess of things between them. It’s not his fault that you can’t keep your feelings in check. That stupid fluttering want, growing arms and legs and getting out of control.

“I just got caught up,” you say.

“It happens,” she shrugs, “But if he’s fucking with your head—”

“He’s not.”

You think of what Joel told you at the bar, when you asked why he had kissing on his rider. Stops the lines from blurring. He told you where his line was. It’s your own stupid fault for thinking it meant something else.

“Look, I’m a big girl,” you sigh, “I'm not going to break.”

Tess gives you a warm look.

“Trust me, I know,” she says, lip curling, “Toughest slut around.”

You laugh and think — enough.

This is enough.

You’re not starved for love. Most of the time you’re surrounded by it — in breathless laughter, dancing in the kitchen, piled together on the couch. Here, in the warm glow of the kitchen light, shuffling through a stack of smutty fan letters with the first person who looked at you like you meant something.

You don’t need anything else, anyone else.

You don’t need him.

And maybe, if you keep telling yourself that, it’ll start to feel true.

x x x x x

The season slips into winter, but the weather doesn’t change. Seventy-five and sunny, the Santa Anas coming down from the hills, catching at the ends of your hair and hem of your dress.

You’re going the tiniest bit crazy. Not thinking about Joel, not asking Tess about him when he calls. Tamping the feeling down, trying to starve it into submission. You have to find a way to shape it into something you understand, to tame the raw want inside of you into something a little more survivable.

The other girls are just as bored, just as listless. Wearing silk robes and waifing around the apartment, waiting for the phone to ring. Drinking flat champagne before noon, chasing the stale taint of it with coffee. The afternoons are blurred and boring. Plucking at a six string someone left behind after a party, a tuneless buzzing chord. Only one of them can actually play, but she hasn’t been in the mood since that pianist broke her heart last month.

You’re all itching to do something interesting, possibly illicit.

You decide to go to The Daisy, with its velvet ropes and brick patio, the rotating crowd of up-and-comers, the membership fee you could never afford. But men with money don’t like to drink alone, and rules always bend for pretty girls. There’s a line out the door — stilettos and slacks curling around the corner of Rodeo — but the list has your names on it.

You try to hide your smiles, your giddy laughter as you’re led to one of the shiny, upholstered booths. Inside, the air is heavy and sweet, cigar smoke spilling out over the crowded bar. The tables are packed, extra chairs pulled up to make room, overflowing ashtrays. Waiters weave between tables, trays held aloft. The whole place has a glossy, dreamlike quality. A bottle of champagne sweats in the bucket and the little row of waiting glasses catch the light.

The bottle pops and sprays, spilling over your fingers. The other girls cheer and hold their glasses aloft, faces flushed and smiling. You fill your own glass and settle back in the booth. The music is loud and terrible, but the alcohol helps, softening the edges of the room, filling your belly with a warm blur of feeling.

One of the girls nudges you.

“You caught one,” she whispers, nodding towards the bar.

You follow her gaze and find a guy at the bar watching you, his fingers gone slack on the neck of his beer. When your eyes meet his, he flushes and gives you a sheepish sort of grin. He’s handsome in a way that’s in fashion — the overlong shag of hair, a scruffy sort of softness. A little boyish for your liking, a little smooth.

Not like Joel, an unhelpful part of your brain supplies, and you tell it to fuck off.

You smile back at him, fluttering your fingers in a wave that makes him go even redder.

More bottles arrive at your booth, and you don’t know who’s sending them but you don’t really care. Men come up to the table sometimes, stale with cologne and well-rehearsed lines. I saw you from across the room. I had to come say hello. You all hide your smiles behind sips of champagne and say things like that’s so sweet and maybe the next song.

One of the girls gets up to join a game of 8-ball, racking up alongside some Central Casting square-jaw who looks ready to lose his life savings. Another wanders away in search of acid, catching the wrist of one of the wide-eyed, too-young teenagers by the bathrooms.

“Excuse me?”

You look up.

It’s the guy from the bar. His shoulders sloping, his posture unsure as he offers his hand out for you to shake. He says his name — shouts it, actually — but it gets swallowed up by the music. He’s a little sweaty, a little breathless when he asks if he can buy you a drink.

You’re not sure if it’s because you’re pretty or because of the porn. You decide it doesn’t really matter. He's looking at you with an open, earnest kind of interest. The attention is nice — overt. There’s no mystery to it.

You slide over, making room for him at the end of the booth. He doesn’t ask for your name, but you have a feeling he already knows. He flicks his hand for a waiter and orders a round of shots. You can tell he’s trying to impress you, and you don’t mind, really.

He tells you that he’s in a band — the one with the billboard on Vine and the album full of all those miserable little love songs. Trite and terrible and topping the charts anyways. There’s an eager sort of flush to his cheeks, a nervous twitch in his hand when he curls his arm around the back of the booth, like he’s itching to get even closer.

“I’ve, uh, seen some of your films,” he says, and you can tell he’s been waiting to bring it up. You’re used to it by now, the way that men will trip over themselves to talk about sex.

But that’s fine. Sex is easy. It's always been easy. You’re good at it — you have the proof in your scenes, in the ticking rise of your bank balance, the bills stuffed under the mattress, the messages scrawled on bar napkins.

It’s everything else that gets complicated.

You lean in, and suddenly you’re her again. Lucky. Her curling lip, her fluttering lashes. His eyes drop to your necklines, the way the fabric drapes to expose the curve of your breasts.

“Which one’s your favorite?” you ask.

It takes him a second to respond, to drag his eyes away from your chest. He flushes when he realizes you caught him staring.

“Uh, the bar one,” he stammers, “It was, I mean, you were good in it.”

You think of the bar scene. Joel on his knees in the back room, the heat of his mouth at your center. The teasing sort of smile on his lips when he realized you were close to coming, the low murmur of his voice in your ear. I’ll take care of you.

Shit.

That was a mistake. You didn’t want to think about Joel right now.

You take another shot, feel the bitter slide of it down your throat. It helps a little. The burn searing the edges of the memory, blurring the details.

The musician’s hand slips a little lower on your waist, the fabric rippling beneath his smooth, uncalloused touch.

Maybe this is good. Maybe if you have a taste of something real, then your feelings for Joel won’t matter so much. You can’t keep waiting, can’t keep wanting.

You curl your hand around the collar of the musician’s jacket, tugging him close enough to smell the gin on his breath, see the spark of excitement behind his glazed eyes.

“Kiss me,” you tell him.

Because someone should.

He leans in. The press of his lips against yours is eager, a little sloppy as he slides his tongue against yours. His hand slips down your waist, resting at the curve of your ass. His nose bumps against yours, his breath coming in frantic little pants.

And it’s — well. It’s a kiss.

But you feel nothing. Less than nothing.

Maybe a little nauseous.

When you pull away, the musician grins at you, a boyish sort of eagerness in his expression. Best kiss of his life, probably. You try to smile back, but you don’t really want to be here anymore.

You don’t want some soapy upstart pawing at your dress. You don’t want his awful, ginny breath in your ear as he promises to write you a song. You don’t want to be the story he tells his friends tomorrow, bragging about the blue movie star he talked into bed.

The other girls have disappeared. It’ll probably be a few hours before they’re ready to call it a night. You look past him, gaze drifting over the lilting crowd —

And then you freeze. Lead settles in the pit of your stomach.

Because Joel is standing across the bar.

Watching you.

And you think, for a second, that you must be imagining it. He can’t be here, not really. You must have conjured him from your haze of frustrated feeling, placed him there amidst the smoky air and spinning bodies.

Except he looks — pissed.

Angrier than you’ve ever seen him, in a way that you would never imagine, would never want him to look at you.

And you’re suddenly aware of the musician’s hand on your hip, a stinging self-consciousness. It’s much less scandalous than most of the things that you do on camera. But suddenly it feels wrong. Unwelcome.

You shiver away from him slightly. He notices and pulls his arm back.

“Sorry,” you say, the apology tripping out. But you’re not looking at him. You’re looking at Joel.

Joel who is just — staring at you. Jaw tight, eyes dark. A brooding mass of a man, the rage rolling off of him in waves.

And then he’s turning away, melting back into the sea of strangers.

He’s leaving.

You sink back into the booth, your heart in your throat. The musician taps his fingers on the table, like he’s not sure what to do with his hands now that they’re not on you.

You stare at the spot where Joel was standing.

The low buzz of alcohol in your belly, the taste of some other man’s mouth on your tongue. And still all you can think about is him. Those rough hands, that grip he has on you.

You shouldn’t go after him, you can’t. You’ve been trying to get over this, stomp on the embers of that stupid affection before you get burned even worse. You can’t let him ruin your night, he doesn’t get to have this, he doesn’t get to —

You’re out of the booth before you realize you’re even standing.

The musician looks up at you in mild confusion, maybe a flash of contempt.

“I'll be right back,” you say, and then you’re slipping away through the crowd, following Joel.

You weave your way across the room, past the twist and spill of bodies from the dance floor, the anxious line for the bathroom, the smoke-dense patio door. You catch up to him in the front hall, with its brocade wallpaper and faded brown carpet. There’s the silhouette of the doorman through the door at the end, but otherwise you’re alone.

“Joel.”

He stops short. Muscles tensing, shoulders bunching beneath his shirt. When he turns to face you, that look from before is gone. He’s stony and stoic as ever, completely unreadable.

“I was just on my way out,” he says, voice tight.

You frown.

“And you weren’t going to say anything?”

His expression shifts, mask slipping. You catch a flash of anger, of irritation.

“Seemed like you were busy.”

There’s a bite to it, a snarl.

Something like shame coils low in your stomach but it doesn’t last, because it’s not fucking fair. You were trying to get away from him. Drown out the memory of his touch with someone else’s hands, someone else’s mouth. And now you’re back to feeling as stupid and girlish as you always do around him.

You fold your arms across your chest and glare up at him.

“Do you have a problem with that?”

The muscle in his jaw ticks.

“You want to climb all over some guy at a bar, be my guest.”

And it stings, even if it shouldn’t, even though you don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

You glare at him.

“Fuck you.”

Joel’s gaze flashes over your shoulder. A few people linger at the mouth of the hallway, peering over their shoulders with interest. Goddamn fucking voyeurs.

Joel shakes his head, “We’re not doing this here.”

He wrenches a side door open, and jerks his head. Go on. You step inside, away from the curious eyes. An acidic sort of anger roiling in your stomach, seething.

It’s dark inside, the single overhead light coated in dust and the tarry smear of old cigarettes. The walls are lined with coat racks, the air heavy with stale perfume, the humid taint of weed. The door snaps shut behind you, muffling the music.

You turn to face him and — shit.

He’s close.

You can see the flecks of amber in the dark brown of his eyes, the little threads of gray through his beard. Heat radiates from him, warm and whisky-scented. Your stomach swoops low, and for a second you forget that you were arguing. It’s hard to hold your ground when he takes up so much fucking space, eats up all the air in the room.

“You come here with him?” he asks, jutting his chin back towards the main room.

And you want to say no, I didn’t, but even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because his tongue was down my throat and I still couldn’t stop thinking about you.

But you can’t, obviously you can’t, so instead you settle on —

“I don’t even know him.”

Joel raises an eyebrow.

“Looked real cozy to me.”

You flush, anger and embarrassment roiling together in the pit of your stomach.

“Since when do you care who I fuck?”

Joel scoffs, “I don’t.”

But it’s a lie.

You can see it. The twitch in his jaw, the flex of his fingers at his side. There in the burning heat of his gaze — he’s jealous. And he’s doing a really shitty job at pretending otherwise.

The realization flickers through you like a flame, heat igniting low in your belly. That want, that hunger. The thing about him that makes you soft and unsure and so fucking needy. Because now you can see it reflected back at you.

And maybe you don’t know how he feels. Maybe you don’t know if this is real, if it means what you want it to mean, if anything changes after tonight.

But right now you know he wants you just as bad as you want him.

You take a step closer, and he goes still. Tense. Watching you, brow furrowed. Wary. Almost like he’s a little afraid of you, afraid of the line you’re about to cross.

And it makes you bold, makes you reckless.

You raise your hand to his chest, laying your hand over his heart, feeling the rhythm stutter and then double beneath your touch.

“I don’t believe you,” you say quietly.

That line between his brows deepens, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

But he doesn’t stop you.

Not when you drag your hand down his chest, over the tense muscles of his stomach. Not when your fingertips catch on his belt. Not even when you go lower, sliding over the front of his jeans, cupping the thick shape of him through the denim.

He hisses a breath through his teeth, and you tilt your head up at him.

“Feels like you care a lot,” you murmur.

Joel’s hand darts out and catches your wrist, holding you fast. His eyes are dark, pupils blown so wide they edge out any of the brown.

“You are treading on some mighty thin ice here,” he says, voice so low and edged in warning, the threat heavy on every syllable.

And maybe that would make you back off — if he wasn’t so hard for you.

You lean in even closer, your pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips where he holds your wrist, his grip tight enough to bruise, but not enough to stop you.

“If you want to fuck me so bad, you can just say so,” you tell him.

Then you tilt your head.

A challenge.

A dare.

“Unless you want me to go back out there and let him do it.”

Joel moves fast. An angry, animal sound tearing from his chest as he turns you, presses you up against the wall. Your breath catches in your throat, stuck somewhere in the thrum of your pulse, the rush of blood that makes you dizzy. You feel the heat of his body at your back, crowding up against you, trapping you there against the wall.

“Not goin’ anywhere,” he grunts.

And you can’t help the smile that curls at your lip, the little spark of vindication that is smothered by a surge of arousal as his mouth drags over your pulse.

“Fuck — Joel,” you gasp.

His breath is hot on your neck, beard scraping against your cheek as he bites at your jaw. Your breath catches in your throat, and you press back against him. Wanting more, needing more, more of him, always.

And it’s like he knows, like he can feel it. He slides his hand around to your waist, pulling you up and back, angling your hips so you can feel — oh.

“This what you need?” he mutters, grinding the weight of his cock against you.

And maybe he’s not looking for an answer, but you give him one anyways, a slur of fuck and yes and Joel, please. He grunts and grips you tighter, pulls you even closer, dragging his nose down your neck, biting at the curve of your shoulder.

“Need to get fucked so bad you’d let that asshole touch you?”

His hand slides up over your stomach to cup your breast in his palm, kneading it roughly beneath his palm. He thumbs at your nipple, raising it to a peak, and a little whine slips through your lips.

Joel makes a satisfied sound against your throat.

“He wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with you, baby.”

He rucks up the front of your dress and slides his hand down to the wet heat between your legs. He strokes at the damp fabric of your panties, fingertips teasing over your leaking center.

“And what about this, huh?” he murmurs, nipping at your throat, “All this for me or for him?”

You keen, nails scraping against the wall as you try to arch further into him.

“For — fuck. For you, Joel.”

He hums against your skin.

“That's what I thought.”

He slides his hand up your trembling thigh, the scrape of his callouses leaving a trail of goosebumps. There’s a tug and a tear, the thin lace of your underwear ripping easily under his hands.

His fingers slide through your slick, the sticky mess between your legs. You’re so wet for him, arousal dripping down the inside of your thigh in a way that would be embarrassing if you could think about anything other than the weight of his cock against you. His fingers brush against your clit and your stomach twists, insides empty and aching, desperate to be filled.

And then two thick fingers slide into you, punching the breath from your lungs. Joel grunts, biting at your shoulder, the bruising scrape of his teeth over your pulse.

“Fucking tight.”

His wrist flexes, fingers driving deep into you, brushing up against that spot that makes you see stars. Your breath hitches, and you grind back down against his hand. It’s not enough, not when you’re this wound up, when you want him so badly you can barely breathe.

“More,” you whine, “I need — shit. More, please.”

“I know,” he murmurs, “I know what you need.”

He drags his hand back, leaving a trail of slick between your thighs.

You hear the soft clink of metal behind you, his belt coming undone. He shoves your dress up, tangling it in his fist and holding it against your hip. You feel the brush of his knuckles against your ass as he works his cock, slicking it with your arousal.

You're almost dizzy with pleasure, the need overwhelming, when he nudges at your entrance, the heat of him parting your folds. And you feel the scrape of his beard against your cheek, his hot breath on the back of your neck.

“Is this what you want?”

“Fuck — yes,” you pant, “Want it, want you.”

He fills you in one thrust. The weight of him inside you smothering that emptiness, filling the lonely spaces. Your eyes sting at the stretch — because it still is, even now, even after you’ve taken him so many times, it still feels like he’s splitting you in two.

You gasp, his name breaking between your lips, “Joel —”

He doesn’t give you a second to breathe, to think. He rocks his hips against yours, driving even deeper, pressing up into that almost painful pleasure, that ache low in your belly.

He swears under his breath, his grip on your hips tightening.

“So good at taking this cock,” he grunts, his thrusts coming hard, “So goddamn good.”

You brace yourself against the wall, letting him fuck you the way he wants, the way you need. His one hand at your hip, fisting the fabric of your dress, the other across your chest, keeping you tight against him. His cock driving deeper and deeper, stoking the heat inside your core, that spring that coils tighter and tighter.

And then you hear voices outside.

Joel stills, fingers flexing on your hips.

You can hear them, just beyond the door, a low murmur of conversation. Soft and slurred, the words misshapen. And you can imagine them there, dawdling in the hallway, cocktail glasses dangling from fingertips, perfume fogging the air.

Joel scrapes his teeth along your jaw.

“Gotta be quiet for me, baby.”

He starts fucking you again. Slow, grinding thrusts. His cock dragging against your walls, barely leaving your wet heat before he pushes back in. It nudges up against that spot and you gasp.

The voices outside pause.

Joel presses his damp fingers over your mouth.

“What’d I say about being quiet?”

He keeps you like that, his hand tight over your mouth as he fucks you.

It’s all dizzying touch and quiet, panting breaths. The steady drive of his cock inside you, the moans tearing at your throat, fighting to get out. Heat builds and builds until you’re right on the edge, right on the shivering precipice. And you know Joel can feel it, the soft spasm of your muscles.

“That's it,” Joel grunts, “Come on my cock.”

And you do, breaking apart under his hands, the pleasure ripping through you in a white-hot wave until you’re a trembling, gasping mess. The world narrows and blurs until all you can feel is Joel filling you, fucking the last few, hazy thoughts from your head.

Until it’s just him.

There you go, he’s saying, his voice low in your ear, all rumbling softness, all desperate hunger. Just like that. A sharp bite right beneath your jaw, his stubble brushing against your cheek. His grip bruising, his voice wrecked. So good for me.

He drops his head to your shoulder and you can feel the furrow of his brow, his breath hot and heavy as he pants against your skin. His hips stutter as he spills inside you, a heavy warmth that spreads like a fever, sticky and messy and good.

You stay like that, the wall cool beneath your cheek. The heat of Joel’s body pressed against you in the dark, the space between your bodies damp with sweat. Your breaths come ragged and raw, the air humid. You feel the soft press of his lips against your shoulder.

And then the door opens.

Light from the hall spills over you, exposing the tangle of your bodies together. There’s a gasp and an embarrassed sorry! before it snaps shut again.

There’s a moment of quiet tension.

And then you start laughing. Because — fuck.

“Goddamnit it,” Joel mutters, but you can hear the smile in his voice.

He pulls out of you, and you can feel the little spill of semen dripping down your thighs. But you’re used to it by now. Most of your life is spent covered in sweat and come.

You turn, leaning against the wall, grinning up at him in the dark.

“So much for being quiet.”

He grimaces.

“Reckon the whole bar will be hearing about it now.”

You shrug, “Nothing they haven’t seen before.”

He looks down at you. All the anger is gone from his gaze now, and there’s that soft tinge of fondness you recognize from the diner. The way he looked when you poured too much sugar in your coffee, too much syrup on the pancakes. It’s warm, and it makes everything inside you fuzz.

He brushes a sweaty strand of hair off your face.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I'm good.”

His thumb strokes along your neck, the tender skin there. You wonder if he left a mark. You sort of hope he did.

“I was rough on you.”

You smile, “I can handle rough.”

“Yeah,” he nods, “Know you can.”

His hand lingers there, at the base of your neck. His gaze is heavy even as his touch stays soft, and you suppress a shiver. His hand trails down, grazing the side of your breast, stroking over your hip. Your breath catches when you feel him tug up your dress again, knuckles brushing the tender skin of your inner thigh.

You start to shake your head, “We shouldn’t —“

You cut off in a moan as his hand slides between your legs, cupping your sticky wet sex.

“Not done with you yet,” he murmurs, his fingers dragging through your damp folds.

He ducks face into your neck, scrapes her teeth over your collarbones, tasting the sweat that’s gathered there. He pushes your dress down, mouth closing around your nipple. Your hands dart up to clutch at his shoulders.

“Joel,” you gasp, “People need their — fuck — coats.”

“Fucking seventy degrees out,” he mutters, “Nobody needs a goddamn coat.”

His fingers find your clit. Slow, steady strokes, a pressure that makes your breath catch in your throat. Your hips twitch, chasing the scrape of his callouses, that almost too much touch. His fingers slide down to tease at your entrance, catching his own come as it drips from your slit.

You can still feel the low build of arousal deep in your core, that ache that somehow hasn’t been satisfied. It’s not enough, you think, maybe it won’t ever be enough. Maybe you’ll always want more of him.

His mouth is hot against your chest, teeth and tongue sliding from one breast to the other. You shudder at the feeling, your cunt clenching down on his fingers, and his groan vibrates against your sternum.

You feel dizzy, weak-kneed and too hot, but he holds you steady. One arm around your waist, the other steady between your legs. The feeling flickers through you. The heat of his mouth, the slow rub of his fingers.

It’s different this time, a syrup-thick drip of pleasure that tips and spills, burning low in your belly. You tilt your face up towards Joel and he watches as you come, dissolving under his touch, breaking into a million soft, shivering pieces.

When he pulls his hand from between your legs, his fingers shine with your combined release. He slips them between your lips. His come and yours, sticky sweet and heady. You hold his gaze as you lick them clean, tongue sliding in the space between his fingers.

He lets them linger there for a moment, fingertips on the swell of your bottom lip.

You look up at him, at those dark eyes tinged with amber, and for one you can read him. You can see all the things he’s so good at hiding. There’s still that hunger, that heat. But there’s something else too, something so tender that it makes your stomach clench.

His eyes flicker down to your mouth, and your heart stutters. For a second, you think he might kiss you. It’s against the rules, his rules, but still. He’s so close, so warm and solid against you. You want him to rip you open, to eat you raw.

Then something shifts in his gaze. That warmth, that softness flickers and dies.

He takes a step back. Drops his gaze, clears his throat.

“I, uh — I should go.”

Your stomach sinks. Just drops, straight through the dirty carpet, through cement, down to the fucking fault lines below. The places where his hands held you turn cold, a chill catching on your skin.

“Oh.”

His throat works, fighting for the right words.

“I mean, I don’t do — this.”

You don’t know what this is, but you suspect he might mean you. And it aches, it stings, burning in your chest and behind your eyes. But you can’t fall apart, you won’t. Not in front of him.

“It's fine,” you say, “It’s just sex, right?”

Joel looks at you for a moment. Then nods.

“Yeah.”

You swallow and it hurts, but you keep your expression even. You smooth down your dress, the places where it wrinkled beneath his hand.

“I guess I’ll see you around then,” you say.

Because you need him to go now. The air feels thick, too heavy with the smell of sex and heat and him. Your skin feels a little too tight, achy in the wrong ways.

“Right,” he says.

He turns, headed for the door. He stops with his hand on the doorknob, hesitates for just a second. But then he’s pulling it open, stepping out in the hallway. And then he’s gone.

Leaving you alone in the dark with that gnawing want, the aching bruise of unreciprocated affection. And something else.

A hungry, hopeful little thing that wonders if maybe it’s not all in your head.

x x x x x

You make it home, eventually. Finding your friends in the darkness of the bar, piling into a sweaty cab, pressed between them. You’re quiet, but they’re loud, still buzzing from the night's adventure, talking over each other, laughing and asking the driver to turn up the radio.

You don’t want to be alone, so you crawl into bed with one of the girls.

Her sheets are warm and her hands are gentle when they find you, patting over the sheets until her fingers tangle in yours. She pulls you close, wrapping her arms around you and tucking you into the soft shell of her body.

You lay like that for a moment, the glow of the streetlight slating across the room, spilling tepid light across dirty laundry and last night's heels.

“You smell like sex,” she mumbles against your hair.

And you want to laugh, but you also sort of want to cry, so the sound that comes out is sort of strangled, a sob and a scoff all at once. She pulls back, brow furrowed, and studies you for a long moment.

“What happened?”

You don't know what to say, where to begin. How to unriddle the mess of feeling that lives inside you. But she must read something in your face — that desperate obviousness, the disease of feeling. She can tell, the way that girls can always tell, can see it in each other.

“You okay?” she whispers.

And honestly — you don’t know.

Coming here was supposed to solve things, answer the impossible riddle of yourself. You wanted to be like the girls in the magazines, and now you are. But it hasn’t answered anything. The future still stretches uncertain and strange, a haze of half-hopes.

You bury your face in the pillow and feel the slip of angry, exhausted tears.

You’re older than you’ve ever been and still feel so young, so unsure of so many things. You thought things would be different if you made people see you.

But you’re starting to realize you only care if one person is looking.

#i know it when i see it #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller #pedro pascal #joelmiller

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adaws12 · 5 months

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bageldaddy can you give us a 24 hour heads up whenever youre posting something about i know it when i see it so i can make sure my vibrator is charged

charge ‘em up, ladies.

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adaws12 · 5 months

Text

Oh my fuck.

sweet child o' mine | pt. i

purely just some fun and games putting big grumpy joel miller slap bang in the middle of a romcom. i hope you guys enjoy. dedicated to big sis @mrsmando, who is the light of my life, let herself be completely swept away by this idea into unhinged, whimsical mania with me, and who inspired so many lil details for this story. love u, zhort x

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: you strike up a deal to attend a wedding with your neighbor as his date. what could go wrong?

warnings: age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), grumpy!joel initially finds reader mildly infuriating, cursing, alcohol consumption, discussion of a car accident (non-graphic) & dead parents, softdom!joel as per, fingering, handjob, comeplay, spitting, drunk unprotected one night stand, creampie, praise kink, one mention of nausea (but nothing happens, my little emetophobic angels), someone falls pregnant and it's not joel miller i'll tell you that much. honk if you love cats!!!

word count: 9.8k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

It’s just gone seven on a Saturday night when his knuckles rap on your door.

The sun casts tall, angled shapes on your living room wall. Lights the pages before you in a glow of tangerine. Refracts through the glass tumbler on your coffee table and bleeds the amber liquid onto the pale wood surface. Everything lit in some variation of gold, everything bowing its head quietly as the day begins to turn its back.

The house is still. The world feels still, as though transitioning. Like you’re sat in a waiting room, leg bouncing, anticipating something you don’t know to look for yet.

Perfect, comfortable, still – until he’s on your porch. And he knocks again.

You snap your book shut and slide it across the table, nudging the heavy glass. The ice clinks, irritated.

“You mind fastenin’ your…delicates to your clothesline a little better?”

His voice shoulders its way into your hallway before you’ve even pulled the door back enough to see him. Not that you need to see him to know who it is. You’ve lived in Austin three years now and met only one person with a voice as low and toneless as Joel Miller’s. Slung in sarcasm, dripping with disdain. All that.

You cross your arms and slant against the doorframe, unable to mask your amusement. “Excuse me?”

He answers by lifting his left hand. From his pointer finger hang a tiny pair of white panties, lace pattern fluttering in the late summer breeze. You glance over his shoulder as you steal them from his grasp, balling them in your fist.

“Uhuh. They were sitting on my back lawn. I have company tonight, y’know. I can’t have women’s underwear just – lyin’ in my damn yard.”

Your head tilts. Ears prick. “Company? You hostin’ somethin’?”

His shoulders drop with a sigh. “No. I am not hostin’ anythin’.”

“Good. ‘cause I’d want an invite.”

“If I were hostin’, you’d be the last person I would invite. And you know that.”

“Ouch,” you pout, “that hurts, Miller. I watered your plants while you were off visiting your brother last month. They woulda died without me there.”

“And I am grateful to you,” Joel grumbles, “but that doesn’t mean I need those anywhere in view of my kitchen window.” He throws a pointed finger to your elbow, where your panties sit scrunched in your fist.

You look down to the froth of frill spilling between your knuckles, and back up to his dark features – his glower casting a shadow over the hazel eyes and deepening the creases between his brows. You smirk, a realization dawning.

Company – that he doesn’t want seeing a pair of someone else’s underwear.

“You have a date.”

Joel’s tongue flicks across the inside of his cheek. He glances over his shoulder and speaks through his teeth. “No, not a date,” he quietly tells the street.

“But you have a lady comin’ over. Or at least – someone you don’t want seeing these.” You unfold your arms and twirl your fist. The gentle wind lifts the lace.

He grunts. A low hmph. Agreement, you think.

“Sounds like a date.”

He hisses, “’s not a date.”

Your stare doesn’t slip from his. Not when his brows tighten, not when his jaw does, too. Not even when he sucks a breath between gritted teeth. Your smile widens.

Finally, with a sigh, he concedes. “It’s…it’s somebody Tommy ‘n Maria are tryna set me up with. Alright?”

“So – a date.”

“If you don’t –” Joel’s head flicks over to his own driveway at the same time his hand lifts, a pointed gesture you read as – shut the fuck up. “We’re just having a few drinks. Just – hangin’ out.”

“Just hangin’ out,” you repeat, eyes widening. “One-on-one. With some woman who – Wait, Tommy’s in Wyoming. How the hell do he and his wife know someone way the hell down here?”

“From before they moved. And – Maria ain’t his wife. Yet. They’re getting married next month.”

Suddenly the sun reappears over the dark horizon. The evening begins to clear up, make sense again. You lift your chin, nodding.

“Right, right. So, she gonna be your plus one, or…?”

The understanding raises his heckles again. Exasperated, he asks, “How many damn questions are you gonna –? I’m only here to – to return your –” He nods once more to the pale fabric in your hand.

A laugh shoots from your nostrils. “What’s the matter? You don’t like – whatever her name is?”

“Laura.”

“Laura,” you breathe.

“And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with her. She just – she…”

“She…?”

“She has, like, five cats, and it’s just…hair, everywhere. And at their engagement party, she spilled an entire margarita down me. Right down my –” He sweeps a hand down his front, balling his fists again once they reach the hem of his shirt.

Your lips turn, amused. “Five cats. Cat lady Laura. Well. Have fun, I guess. Thanks for these.”

He acknowledges your raised fist with a bashful glance. He’s already halfway down your front steps when he says, “Keep an eye on your laundry from now on,” and strides off back to his own place.

Joel has lived here his whole life. In Austin. You’ve no idea when he moved in next door, just that he was here when you did. You don’t know much about him at all – the fact he even filled you in enough to tell you about his date is shocking enough.

The day you first arrived, U-Haul truck squealing to a halt by the curb, he found himself unlucky enough to be stood in his front yard watering the blond patches of his grass. He saw you struggling to open the rear door of the truck, and with a grumble and a glance across the street for a more eager rescuer, he tossed his hose and came over to help.

He unclicked the heavy latch and pushed the door up with enough ease to put you to shame. And he seemed to feel some obligation when he saw the mass of belongings stuffed in the back, to help you unload them. Didn’t seem overjoyed by the thought, mind you, what with the sigh he let slip when you hopped up and held out the first box.

He indulged you for no more than one hour. Answered every question you had about the neighborhood, dodged every one about himself. He told you about the couple across the street with the newborn baby, told you about your neighbor on the other side who pretends to garden just so she can snoop on everyone else’s business. And as soon as the last box thudded down on your gleaming living room floor, he nodded, and paced back over to his own property.

He's a good guy. You know this much. He’s a dick to you most days, but he’s honest, and he’s kind when you catch him in the right light. He takes deliveries for you when you’re not home; he once drove Diane to the vets when she showed up on his doorstep in the dead of night, Fred the Jack Russell ailing in her arms.

He’s observant. Noticed just this summer the three different plumbers who showed up to your house in the space of two days, and came over as the third guy was leaving – his shining bald head low between his shoulders.

‘s the matter? Joel asked, watching the navy overalls sink into the rusted vehicle.

Kitchen sink’s leakin’. Fuckin’ – nobody can fix it.

He shouldered you out of the way with his then-trademark sigh and left twenty minutes later, your kitchen finally free of the dripdripdrip you’d been plagued with for a week straight.

He’s good. He’s a good neighbor. But, man, is he private.

You’ve never seen the inside of his place. His body blocks it anytime you’re on his doorstep. He has a brother, you know that – though, only since last month, when he asked you to keep an eye on his garden – and you know, now, that the brother is getting married.

You know that he likes country music, know he plays guitar – accidentally. You heard him one day in the spring, when he left his window open and you were lounging by your pool. When he looked out and noticed how you’d angled your sunbed to listen, really listen, he slammed it shut.

You know he’s single and childless and has been for at least the three years you’ve lived next door to him.

You know little fucking else.

The words on the curled pages seep into one another. You’re staring through the book now back in your hands, the shape of your living room blurring around you: the brick fireplace, the still, red light of the TV. The lulling sway of the sheer curtains, pushed like the tides by the air through the open window.

You cross your ankles on the coffee table. Your lips purse. Tongue dabs at the smoky-sweet singe of whiskey on the flesh of your cheeks. From here, you can see the street outside Joel’s house. If – when – Laura pulls up, you’ll know. And you’ll be here to watch. Survey. Observe.

See what kind of woman a guy like Joel Miller takes to his brother’s wedding.

It’s nine fifty-two when she eventually leaves.

She’s been in there two hours and seventeen minutes. Her car – a kind of rotten green Chevrolet with one tail light out – sits patiently out front, like even it can’t wait to help her fucking disappear.

You’re hoisting a swollen black bag down your drive when his porch light flickers on and his front door opens. The glossy plastic exhales as it slumps against the trashcan. You dust your hands. Joel hasn’t noticed you yet.

“…so nice gettin’ to properly know you,” Laura’s crooning, sidestepping as Joel walks calmly down to her car. Ushering her. You hold back a laugh.

“Thanks for comin’,” he says, his voice falling flat in the windless evening. He’s a step ahead of her, like a parent leading their child away from the park. She’s still babbling about his six-string.

“Maybe next time I can hear a little somethin’…” she says, and you know from the way he halts that Joel hears the same questioning tone you do, the way somethin’ curls up at its end.

“Maybe,” he says, curtly. His words curl down. And then nothing else, and Laura – who, now that she’s a little closer, stood on the curb by her car door, you notice has sweeping golden hair which flicks away from her plump cheeks, and bright eyes which dazzle in the dusky glow – is forced to cough up one last chance.

“I gave you my number,” she says, then, “I didn��t get yours?” and this time, it’s definitely a question.

Joel pretends to pat down his pockets. “I musta left my phone in the house.”

You can’t help it. A scoff bursts from your lips. But he still doesn’t look over.

“Well,” Laura tugs on the handle, “thank you for a lovely evenin’. I’ll hear from ya.”

Joel smiles but puts a hand on the door, like he might slam it shut for her if she tried to backtrack. But she doesn’t. She swings both legs in, pulls it closed, and the engine spurts to life.

As she pulls off, Chevrolet jolting a little, you notice the bright yellow bumper sticker plastered squint beneath the license plate. You walk silently over to Joel, grass prickly under your socks.

“Honk If You Love…Cats,” you murmur, shoulder brushing off his bicep.

He sniffs. Tightens the grip his arms have on his chest. His eyes are fixed on the one red light, slowly shrinking into the distance. “Don’t even.”

“Good date?”

“I said don’t.”

“She talk much about her cats?”

“Goodnight.”

“Did you ask their names, at least?”

He’s backing up, crossing the dark lawn towards his front steps. He looks you up and down, his lips a flat line. Your sweat shorts. Your bare legs. The tight vest top molded around your breasts. His eyes shoot back up. “No more questions. No more pesterin’ me.”

“Nothin’ about the cats? Seriously, dude?” You lift your arms, grinning after his dark figure, swaggering up the porch steps.

Joel ignores you. He disappears through his front door and the light is snuffed. You slink back up to your house, grateful for the blanket of darkness covering the skip in your step.

Eleven hours later, you’re stood in front of your bedroom mirror.

The day melts against your window. Brilliant blue sky, cradling soft puffs of snow-white clouds. Crows on Diane’s roof cawing, slowly yellowing trees rustling. The bright, hot square across your front where the sun forces her way in.

You turn, taking the loose hem of your sleepshirt in your fingers, and pull it over your body, tossing it to the foot of the bed as you examine the pattern of colors hanging from inside your closet.

You take them one by one, tug them free, slot them back in. Eventually you settle for a gray hoodie, cropped and loose. As you haul it from its hanger, there’s a whine from the wooden cabinet. A squeal. The top shelf rips from either side, dropping to the closet floor and taking the pole with it.

“What the f–? You gotta be fucking kidding me,” you growl, stepping forward to run your fingers along the splintered wood where the nails have ripped themselves free. Four black holes, jagged insides of the closet pricking your fingertips.

The crumple of clothes and hangers sulks up at you pathetically. You fall back onto your bed with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. The fan whirs slowly, scooping your gaze and throwing it in lazy circles.

The closet was old, anyways. Was here when you moved. It’s probably about time you had some new ones built. But fuck, that’s gonna cost. Ripping the old ones out, building them from scratch. The fan pulls your eyes back around to twelve o’clock.

Joel’s a contractor. He could do ‘em. Might give you a discounted rate, too, for all the times you move his newspaper from his front lawn to his doorstep for him. Either that, or he’d want something in return. And what handy skills do you have? You once knitted a scarf for you grandma for Christmas. Maybe not Joel’s thing. You can cook mac ‘n cheese – though one lousy meal isn’t payment enough for an entire wall of solid wood, two panes of glass and two days’ labor.

A favor, maybe. An IOU. What the fuck kinda favor does Joel Miller need–?

You’re hopping over the tiny burst of hedge between his yard and yours before the thought is finished, bending to scoop his newspaper up and slotting it under your arm. He answers just as you lift your fist to pound on his door for a second time.

You slap the rolled paper into his chest. “I have an idea.”

He squints at you in the summer light. “Wh–? Didn’t I tell you not to p–?”

“I’ll be your date.”

Joel blinks.

“I’ll be your date,” you repeat. “I got a wardrobe needs replacing. You do it, for free, and I’ll be your date.”

“Your wardrobe?”

“Crapped out on me this mornin’. I don’t want to pay for some stranger who’ll overcharge me ‘n do a half-assed job. Fix it, ‘n you don’t have to take cat lady Laura to Tommy’s wedding. And you can fix my kitchen sink, too.”

“I already fixed your kitchen sink.”

“It’s back at it. Drippin’ all through the damn night. Drip drip drip –”

“Alright.” Joel’s palm is up again. He does that a lot when he’s talking to you. “Alright. Wardrobe ‘n sink.”

“We have a deal?” you ask, extending your hand.

His chest fills with a thoughtful breath. His eyes scan you up and down, lingering somewhere a little lower than your jaw for a second. And then, the heavy weight of his palm against yours. The tightening of his fingers around your wrist. One sure shake.

Deal.

Two weeks before the wedding, you’re at Joel’s door again.

He’s in a black tee, dark sweatpants slung low on his hips. His hair is damp, fringe still dripping onto his forehead. He runs a hand through the gray-singed brown and stares at the tangle of fabric slung over your arm. “The hell is this?”

“Do you know what you’re wearin’?”

His eyes roll up to meet yours. “Do I know what I’m wearin’?”

You nod. “You’re the best man. Guessing Tommy has you covered?”

“Black suit,” he says, after a beat.

“That’s it? He ain’t got no theme?”

Joel’s head cocks. “I don’t do themes.”

You roll your eyes, ducking under his arm fixed against the doorpost. He manages three words of protest and then shuts the door in resignation, turning to watch as you take his stairs two at a time.

“You are so damn annoyin’, you know that?” his voice echoes behind you.

“You want this date or not, Miller?” you call over your shoulder, following the route through the identical house to your own bedroom – thankful when you nudge the door and it opens to reveal his bland, colorless decor. “Very…gray,” you note, feeling the shadow of him over your shoulder.

You throw the dresses down on his bed, satin and lace and pink and green swimming between one another on his sheets.

“I’m not wearin’ a dress.”

You glower at him. “Ha. We have to match.”

He rubs the towel against the back of his head, drying the dark hair. “Match how?”

“Y’know, your suit ‘n my dress. If I’m your date, we have to match.”

“Already told you. I’m wearin’ a black suit.”

“Right. But, like – what color tie? And can it be any of these colors?” You hold your hands out, surfing over the sea of shades. “Maybe,” you lift your eyebrows, eyes darting to the pale teal color, “this one?”

Joel entertains you for all of five seconds, lifting his cheeks in a false grin before they deflate. “No. Black.”

“Joel.”

He slings the towel over his folded arms, and looks at you plainly. “Black,” he says again, in a tone of voice which sounds something like a door being slammed shut.

Your eyes thin, and you gather your dresses up in one swipe. “Can you just –? Will you make sure that you match my corsage, at least?”

“Why the hell are you so hung up on this?”

“I’m not. I’m just tryna make it believable. You turned down cat lady Laura, this is what you get.”

He sighs, tossing the towel over to his laundry basket. “I will make sure I match your corsage. Happy?”

“Happy. Are you ready?”

“Give me five minutes.”

You huff, head rolling back. “You are so prima-donna, Joel Miller.”

With a sarcastic chuckle, he shoves you out of his bedroom to get dressed. You saunter down his stairs, drinking in every detail of his home as though it’s the only chance you’ll get to see it.

It probably is, when you think about it. You don’t imagine he’ll be inviting you over for drinks anytime soon.

Your eyes move along the wall as you slowly thump down his stairs, thrown from framed photo to framed photo – a black and white photo of a man with a tousle-haired boy on his lap, the kid’s tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth as he wraps his small hand around the neck of a guitar; an out-of-focus Christmas photo, a family of four sat in front of a million multicolored orbs dotted along the branches of a tree; a kid with skinned knees crouched by a German shepherd, his lanky arms hooked around the dog’s thick neck.

One brown suede jacket hangs from a coat peg at the bottom, Joel’s boots sat loose and unlaced beneath. A dark blue blanket draped over the back of his couch. A painting of a moose over his fireplace. Shelves lining one entire wall decorated with carved-wood animals, with more photographs of times gone and memories made, with books and DVDs that lend your fingertip with a heap of white dust as you drag it across their spines.

Enough to paint a picture, not quite enough to show you the colors. The tones, the depth. Despite your best efforts, the man remains a mystery. You settle with the fact he will never be fully revealed.

The creak of his stairs turns your attention from the guitar on the wall around to his tall figure, fixing the collar of the loose flannel over his shoulders.

“You ready?” Joel asks, bending with a groan to reach for his boots.

“Yep,” you reply, leaning forward to glance into his kitchen while his head’s down. The most you manage to observe are the light drapes, the sunlight shooting through and bouncing off of a white-topped island.

“’s go,” he says, keys dangling from his finger.

It takes twenty minutes to drive to Home Depot.

You chitter in Joel’s ear the entire time, reading from his handwritten list of measurements and supplies needed for your new closet. ‘n how do you know this is all enough? Because I know. What if you get started and it’s not? I won’t; it’s enough. You sound so sure. That’s ‘cause I’ve done it before, kid. You take many closetless girls out on fake wedding dates, Joel?

“What’s our story, then?” you ask in the store, fiddling with hanging packets of door hinges while Joel reads thrice over his note. Your hand dives into the bag of M&M’s he begrudgingly bought you at a gas station on the way.

“Our story?” he mumbles back, the words slipping under the mental math you can see going on behind his eyes.

“Like, when people ask how we met. What’s our meet-cute? Both reached for the same door hinge, our hands touched and lit aflame? That kinda thing?”

He doesn’t laugh. Your smile dampens instantly. You kick his boot. “Joel.”

“’sec,” he frowns, “I’m focusing.”

You lean close, pushing on your toes to study the folded slip. His scrawled numbers, the pencil lines blunt and smudged in the creases of the paper.

“Twentytwofortysixeightyninetyfivesixhundredelevenfourtwelvenineteen–”

Joel’s lips seep a maddened sigh; he glances down the aisle like a store attendant might separate you from him if he demanded with enough passion, or maybe if he slipped them a twenty.

“Do you mind?” he barks, his expression a brick wall for your giggles to fall flat to the floor against.

“Home Depot’s your stomping ground. Why the hell do I gotta come watch you pick hinges and timber?”

“Because it’s your damn closet I’m fittin’. Just –” he swipes two packets from their peg, tossing them into the shopping cart, “– come on.”

Joel makes off down the muck-colored floor, the overhead lights reflecting harshly in the shiny surface. The front right wheel of the cart trembles as it rolls, nervously leading the two of you down an aisle lined with cylinder tins and pamphlets on Choosing the right finish.

“So, are your parents gonna be at this wedding?” you ask, taking the cart from Joel’s hands when he drifts off to study a shelf of wood varnish.

His jaw turns towards you, and then back to the tin in his hand. “Yeah. Why?”

“Do I get to meet ‘em?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not gonna introduce your date to your mom and dad?”

He scoffs, stealing a handful of candy. “My fake date?”

“They don’t know that. Let me meet Mr. and Mrs. Miller.”

He holds two tins up, offering them to you like answer to your question. “Matt or gloss? Guess it don’t really matter if I’m painting ‘em after.”

“Stop fuckin’ ignoring me. I hate when you do that.”

He leans in close, lowering the matt varnish into the cart. “You think I’m gonna introduce you ‘n your potty mouth to my mom?”

You smirk, eyes narrow. “Dick.”

“Funny. What color paint you want? You said something about duck egg?”

“Planning on repainting my room that color, yeah. Hey, you could –”

He swats your pointed finger away, taking the cart back. “We shook on new wardrobe. No changin’ the deal,” he mutters, wandering over to the rainbow of paint tins on the opposite side of the aisle.

You follow him over, eyes moving from blue over to green, the tins plastered with the fake smiles of families and fluffy pet dogs on the front. “Where are your mom and dad from?” you ask.

“Austin,” he replies, eyes squinting to read the small print on the back of one vibrant shade. You shake your head and guide his wrist back to the shelf, where he obediently sets the heavy tin back. “Never known anywhere else,” he adds. “What about you? Where’s Mr. and Mrs. Potty Mouth?”

“Uh,” you swipe at your nose awkwardly, “they’re up in Allandale. That’s where I grew up.”

“That so? I got a cousin who used to live that way. Used to take my bike up every Saturday. He lived right by this old car shop, all these old classics they used to fix up ‘n resell.”

“Yeah,” you say, “right next to the cemetery, right?”

“That’s the one,” Joel says, lifting paint tins to the light and setting them down again. “They live nearby?”

Your breathing shifts, starts to claw its way up your throat. Your chest heats, skin lighting with an irritating anxiety. “They’re, um,” you gulp, “they’re in the cemetery.”

Joel pauses, letting the tin slip from his grasp with an echoing thud against the wooden shelf which reverberates in your ears a second too long. “Oh,” he says, set on your expression.

“It’s okay – I don’t mind. It’s – it was a car accident, back when I was eight. I wasn’t in it, or anything. I grew up with my grandma. Really, Joel, I don’t mind,” you add, when his face falls and he begins to apologize.

“I had no idea,” he says, and you break the eye contact before you break a fucking sweat.

“’s all good,” you murmur, lifting paint tins of your own now, focusing on deblurring your glossy vision, “I got to buy a big house with the money they left.”

It thaws him a little. He snorts, and taps the lid of the tin you’re holding. “That one’s nice. You, uh – you okay?”

You finally turn back, the world clearer, colors no longer bleeding into one another through sharp tears. “Yeah. I’m fine. We got everything?”

Joel nods, and wheels the cart around. “You can meet her, if you want. My mom. She’s a little full on, but I reckon you can handle her.”

You smile, following him down the aisle.

A month after he delivered your underwear back to you, you’re back on Joel’s doorstep.

Your hand flicks nervously at your side as you wait for him to answer, petals of your corsage quivering. The clip of his footsteps echoes down the stairs, a deep sound growing louder and louder until the door clinks open and you’re separated only by air.

Joel’s eyes scan down your body at the same time yours scan down his. Black suit, sure enough, just without the jacket, and with his tie slung around his loose collar. You both freeze when your eyes meet again, your lips silently forming the shape of an avalanche of words that refuse to sound until Joel’s do.

“Wow, you –”

“– look great, I –”

“– nice dress, is that –? Sorry –”

“– no, I’m sorry, you were – sorry.” A laugh pushes from your throat. “You look – you look good. Scrub up well, ‘n all that.”

“You too. You – Yeah. That’s a nice color, after all. You suit it.” His eyes linger on your chest, your breasts draped in lustrous silk, decorated with the glint of golden jewelry. You notice.

“Thanks. After all?” You snort, and Joel’s exterior seems to crack a little.

He steps back, ushering you in. “Alright,” he says, taking the tote with your change of clothes from your wrist. He watches across the street as you step over the threshold, his fingertips light on your back as you pass by, like little shocks of lightning up your spine. “You know what I meant.”

Your dress swishes around your ankles, your heels clicking along his varnished floor. Your arms lock around your torso, holding your pashmina in place while Joel totters around, tossing his jacket over his shoulders. His shirt stretches from his tight waistband, fabric flattening against his tummy. Your eyes shoot north again when he speaks.

“You mind doin’ my tie? It’ll end up squint if I do.”

“Sure,” you reply, stepping forward.

He buttons the top of his shirt and lifts his chin, staring at the wall behind you as you tug on the black fabric, the silk slipping through your fingers. You steal glances at the trim of his beard, his pink lips beneath the dark bristles; the slope of his nose, the lines on his worn skin.

He’s rough around the edges, sure, a man in his late forties. But there’s something soft about him, something familiar and…comfortable. The pages of a used sketchbook, the lived-in material of a favorite dress.

You pull the knot higher until it’s sitting in the notch below his Adam’s apple, smoothing it down and giving his chest a light pat before stepping back again.

“Thanks, darlin’,” he mumbles, and a spark lights in your chest. “Oh,” he says, holding a finger up and disappearing into the kitchen. He returns with a little white box, holding it out for you to see.

Your cheeks swell, eyes flitting up to acknowledge the proud look on his face. “Very nice. Good job.”

“You can do the honors,” Joel says, handing you the boutonniere by the stem.

You pin it through his lapel, straightening it with a focused glance. Joel’s eyes are on you, watching the flutter of your eyelashes, the tilt of your head. “There,” you whisper, leaning back.

He extends his elbow, something of a smile on his lips. You don’t see it often. It beckons a mirrored expression.

Arm in arm, Joel leads you out to the truck, where he helps you up and waits for you to scoop your dress into the footwell before closing the door. You watch patiently as he locks the front door, slings both your bags over his shoulder and jogs back to the truck, tossing them in the backseat before joining you in the front.

“How come he didn’t send a limousine? Or a Jag, or somethin’?”

“You think we’re made a’ money?” Joel asks, smirking.

You return the smile, wrapping your shawl over your body. “Can I pick the music?” you ask, earnestly, a tinge of sweetness to your voice.

Joel glances over again, reaches behind your headrest to reverse out of the drive. He runs his tongue along his top teeth. “No,” he says.

Three hours later, Tommy and Maria are married.

The wedding is…big. Joel’s family is big. The venue – a rustic hotel suite, fairy lights draped from the rafters, blooming flowers sprouting from crystal vases, lace tablecloths and tied chair cushions and wax dripping from thick, naked candles – is big.

Joel’s been good about it – that friendly neighbor you see all too little has been kicked into high gear. He delivered you by hand straight to his mom – a small woman with silver hair neatly twisted into an updo at the back of her head – who took your hand and held it tightly all the way to your seats.

Kind and warm, she asked where you were from, how you met Joel, how long you’d been dating. She offered you some tissues before the ceremony started, then winked and nodded in Joel’s direction as the bridesmaids swept down the aisle.

You lingered behind the photographer while he took photos of the wedding party, instructing them to shuffle a little closer, that’s it; ma’am, with the red hair, lower your bouquet a little; alright, now, everyone: big smiles!

You worried that Joel had kept the same placated smile frozen on his face for so long that it might never melt away, might never return to the stoic scowl you’re so used to seeing on him. You didn’t even realize you were staring at him, until he waved you down, flicked his hand, and beckoned you over to the group.

You hesitated. I don’t know if I –

Get over here, girl, Tommy had called, grinning alongside his big brother.

The two Millers slotted you in like a jigsaw piece between their bodies, two arms wrapped around your back – Tommy’s, loose on your shoulders, and Joel’s, tight around your waist. He held you close, squeezing you into his side while the photographer praised the party and snapped photo after photo, the flash burning into your eyes by the time he clapped his hands and thanked you all for your patience.

Drink? Joel had asked, and you’d responded with one thumb up, the other massaging your eyelids. He squeezed your shoulder and disappeared into the crowd of bodies.

He’s still over there – by the bar, a wooden structure draped in ivy and studded by steel bolts. His beer in one hand and your wine in the other. A lean, poised figure stood opposite him – her dress a royal purple, her hair a wave of brown spilling over her bare shoulders.

She’s beautiful – a striking charm which draws your eye to her like an arrow directly through the sea of bodies between here and there. Her languid movements, the slow roll of her neck to sweep the hair from one side of her body to the other.

Her head falls back in laugher, her bejeweled hand falls softly on his arm. Your throat closes sharply. Joel nods, angling as if to make off, but she holds onto him and leans in. He laughs, then, at whatever her full lips whisper into his ear, and he finally breaks off from her and returns to you.

He pushes the glass by its base across the smooth tablecloth. Your fingers brush over one another as you trade, the stem sitting between your index and middle. He’s warm, his knuckles kissing yours.

“How was it, then, talkin’ to my mom?” Joel asks.

You smile, propping your chin on the heel of your palm. “I like her. She’s funny.” And then, when he tosses his head in response, “Who were you talkin’ to?”

Joel follows your eyeline over to the woman in the purple dress. The glint of white crystal on her neck. The drama of dark hair on pale skin. “Uh,” he wanders around your back to his chair, “we used to work together.”

Your nails tap against the glass. “Oh, yeah?”

He sniffs. Doesn’t meet your eye. “Yep.”

“You were talking to her for a long time.”

He watches a blue orb dance over your head on the wall, a spot of light from the disco ball over the dancefloor. “Lotta memories.”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

His eyes plummet. Fall from the string bulbs straight to your face, sparkling in the rainbow lights. “You want me to look at you? There.”

You grin. “’s better. If you stare up there long enough, they might stick.”

“Safer to have ‘em stuck on you, is it?”

“Mhm,” your voice echoes around the curve of your wine glass, “better view. So, who is she?”

Joel shifts uncomfortably. He twirls the bottle in his fingers. “We…we were together for some time. A few years.”

“An ex,” you muse, stain of lipstick left on the rim of your glass. “How many years?”

“Eight.”

You almost choke on your drink. “Eight – eight years?”

Joel nods, waiting for you to catch your breath. Expression never changing. Bottle still twirling. “Haven’t seen her in a while. We were just catchin’ up.”

“Eight fucking years. Why the fuck aren’t you married?”

He scoffs. “That’s a fifth-date question.” He lifts the bottle to his lips, tongue pushes against the glass.

“I don’t need five fuckin’ wardrobes,” you quip, and he laughs. Like, genuinely laughs. His head tips back, his teeth show. Your chest swells, confidence and relief blooming there. She didn’t make him laugh like that – not from where you were watching.

It becomes something of a mission in the back of your mind – tallying up how many times you can make his chest shudder, his shoulders jerk. How many times he leans in closer and repeats whatever you said, eyes closing over and hand hitting his thigh. How many times he looks at you and your stomach flutters, the blood cartwheels through your veins, the bones of your ribcage readjust and make room for the swelling of your heart.

Within four rounds, you’ve lost count.

The thudding beat of the music muffles in your drunken ears, like it’s coming from the next room. Your gaze fixes on the vase in the center of the table, the bouquet spilling over the glass. The wide burst of speckled lilies, the humble blush of tulips between. The colors soften and blur the longer you stare at them.

The jerk of Joel’s shoulders stirs you from your daydream. That’s one more.

“What?” you ask, head rolling to look over to him.

“You still in there?” he asks, one word slurring into the next like waves lapping.

You scoff, looking back to the pink flowers. “You know who has tulips?” you ask him.

He lifts his eyebrows. Who?

“Alice.”

“Brown?”

Your head nods heavily. “One time, she was out getting her mail, and I had just pulled up in my car on the phone to my best friend – he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, it was a whole thing…” You bat your hand. “Anyway. She pretended to tend to her tulips for forty-five minutes while I sat talkin’ to him in the driveway.”

Joel’s head tilts back with a burst of laughter. “She hear every word?”

“Every – damn – word. Stood by the fence listenin’.”

“That woman is som’ else,” Joel says, shaking his head. He stares down at the bottle between his fingers. His thumbs play with the curled corner of the label. “Didn’t I warn you about her?”

“Mhm.” You smile, realizing he has the same memory that you do, locked up somewhere in his mind. The sweat running down his temple, the dark patch between his shoulder blades. His hands gripping the heavier boxes, leaving you to carry the linen, the base of a lamp. Nodding as he wandered back over to his own porch, calling back for you to Holler if you need anythin’.

The high squeal of the Sweet Child O’ Mine intro snaps you back to the wedding reception. Tommy and Maria are playing air guitar on the dancefloor over Joel’s shoulder. You unstick your gaze from his white shirt, unsure how long you’ve been fucking staring.

Joel sits forward, drags his chair across the polished floor closer to you. He fixes the strap on your dress, untwisting it before settling back again. Your eyes follow his fingers as they leave your shoulder and sit back on the curve of his thigh, lifting when his voice breaks through to your eardrums.

“What room number did you say you were, again?”

Your shoulders roll. “Thirty-four, I think.”

Joel nods. Points to himself. “Thirty-six.” And then he glances over his shoulder, watches as Tommy kneels before Maria and rocks his head, his messy mop of hair tossed across his shoulders. The older Miller brother turns back. “Think they’ll miss us if we call it a night?”

“We’re callin’ it a night?”

“Figure if I’m headin’ off then you won’t wanna be sat here by yourself,” Joel says, and he’s right. He stands up, sets the half-empty bottle on the tablecloth and stares down at you. “I’m callin’ it a night,” he tells you. “You comin’?”

The colors in the room spin like the reels of a slot machine. Your fingers sit lightly in his outstretched palm, and you pull yourself up alongside him.

“’s a good girl,” he mutters, looking over your shoulder to the doorway, and your eyes sober up long enough to catch the flicker in his eye.

You totter along the hallway, arm in arm, anchoring yourselves together. Whichever way one sways, the other inevitably follows. You’re laughing, and Joel’s hushing you, warning that there are folks tryna – tryna sleep, we’re in a fancy place, hey, da-rlin’, no – you gotta shhhut up.

“Great party,” you decide, finally docking against your door.

“Yeah,” Joel agrees, leaning a little on the wall. The gentle glow of the hallway lights him perfectly; the strong angle of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbones. The hazel pools that make up his irises, the swollen circles of black in the middle. And the twinkle in them, like the moon reflecting on dark water, every time his gaze lifts to you.

He’s different tonight. Maybe it’s the alcohol. The way it colors everything in a peachy film, all objects softened and rosy and shapeless. But he feels different, too. You suddenly realize, shoulder pressed hard against the cold doorframe, that you’ve never touched one another more than you have today. His elbow in yours, his arm around your waist, his hand through yours as you danced together.

“Are you tired?” you ask, head rolling.

“Tired? No. Drunk, yeah. Not tired.” He laughs again. It’s infectious.

“You wanna come inside?” you ask, words leaping from your giggle.

He takes ten seconds to consider it. Slumps into the wall, steadied only by his forearm pushing him back upright. His watch face catches the light behind him.

“Yeah. Fuck yeah, I do.”

Your hand fumbles in your clutch for the keycard, swiping the handle and pushing down heavily. You spill into the dark room, light sneaking in from the sconce outside your window, and spin back to face him, his hand locked tight with yours.

Joel follows you slowly as you back towards the bed, kicking your heels off and tripping over the skirt of your dress. When your legs hit the plush mattress, his body leans into yours. Your lips ghost across his, your words pushing them apart one by one.

“This ain’t – part of the – agreement,” you murmur, the coarse hair of his beard scratching your chin. You pull apart his tie, loosening the knot.

“Changed my mind,” he replies, collapsing on top of you on the bed.

Your head rolls back when his lips suck into your neck. You wrestle with his belt, with the waist of his suit trousers. “No changin’ the deal, remember?”

“Tell me to stop.”

If you had any intention of answering him, your body overrides it. Words lassoed and dragged back down where they came from, your throat opening only to gasp when Joel’s teeth graze the flesh of your breast. His fingers tug on the straps of your dress, letting them fall from your shoulders until your chest sits exposed.

He drags his tongue along your skin, dipping between your tits while his hands massage them, fingers pinching your nipples. Your back lifts and his hands move beneath, following the curve of your spine to where your dress pools loose around your waist. He pushes down, slinking the smooth fabric from your body.

“You fuckin’…” He clicks his teeth, laughing behind them. Another flush of heat washes over your skin.

You giggle, bending your knees to cover the lace panties he knows all too fucking well. Joel stops you, pushes your legs back down with two heavy hands.

“Don’t get shy now, baby,” he murmurs, opening your body up again. “You were so happy about me seein’ ‘em a few weeks ago, no?”

“’s different,” you reply, tang of alcohol fueling your words, “now I just want you to take them off me.”

He cocks his head, drinking every word you’re handing over like it’s water from an oasis. “Such a dirty girl, ain’t you?”

You pull him closer by the collar and line your mouth against his, the tip of your tongue wetting the inside of his lips. “You got no fucking idea,” you whisper, whipping the shirt from his torso.

Joel growls, flipping you over and pulling you by the shoulders flush against his chest. You hook an arm around his neck, turn to grant him access to your lips. He kisses you like a starved animal, savoring every taste, teeth nipping at your tingling lips.

His hand curves around your hips, pushing beneath your underwear to cup your mound, middle finger pushing on the spongey hood of your clit. Your head falls limp against his collarbone, back arching as Joel holds you steady with an arm around your waist.

“’s alright, baby,” he coos, his tongue licking the shell of your ear. “I’m gonna take good care of ya. Gonna give you what you need, alright?”

A strangled moan unravels across your tongue, echoing into Joel’s mouth. Your hips begin to gyrate, meeting the rhythm of his hand, his finger massaging rough circles into your clit. He smirks, peeling the panties down your thighs.

“Attagirl,” he breathes, “you want it bad, huh? Gettin’ so worked up so fast. Here.”

He removes his hand from between your legs, ignoring your moan of protest and replacing it with two fingers on your bottom lip. “Open,” he instructs, and you obey like a fucking dog. He slips them in, thick and heavy, and waits for you to coat them with your wine-stained tongue.

Joel pushes down, forcing a muffled gag from your throat which lifts the corners of his mouth. He shakes his head lightly, whispering, “You got it, ‘s okay.”

A thread of saliva strings between his fingers and your lips when he lowers his hand again, trailing his fingers through your folds until he’s dancing along the seam of your cunt. You jolt forward; Joel hauls you back.

“Just fucking – do it,” you whimper, your walls clenching around nothing.

He holds his fingers together, curling and inserting them in a painfully slow motion. Your knees widen on the mattress, body sinking down by instinct to meet his fist, to feel his thick fingers and wide knuckles as deep as they’ll go.

You gasp when Joel begins hooking them inside you, nudging against your walls like your heartbeat against your clit. Your hand lowers, slipping beneath his loose waistband, beneath the elastic of his boxers and around his already solid cock.

Joel groans, fucking you harder on his hand. “Fuck, just like that, baby. You feel what you do to me?”

“Uhuh,” you reply, voice wanton and broken.

You squeeze him, your fist moving up and down, his warm skin following the movements of your tight grip. His tip is already soaked, precome staining his underwear, dribbling down your thumb.

Joel uses his free hand to shove his pants down, crumpling on the floor at his feet when they free his cock. You carve your mouth around his, the two of you exchanging breath and flicking your tongues together as you fuck one another’s hands, the room slowly filling with the hot, muggy smell of sex.

Joel’s the first to cave. With a jerk of his hips, he takes you by the wrist and frees himself from your clutches.

“You’re gonna make me come, darlin’,” he murmurs, pulling his fingers from your cunt.

“That’s kinda the point here,” you reply, teeth bumping into his in a grin.

Joel shakes his head, lifting his hand, glistening with your arousal. “Gotta feel this fucking pussy first.”

You smile, parting your lips for him for the second time, suckling on his fingers and licking them clean of your own salty slick. His cock draws sticky trails on the seam of your thigh.

“Yeah,” Joel breathes, eyes fixed on the place where you close around him, “that good, baby? You gonna let me taste you?”

You release his fingers and he pulls you in, tongue slipping against yours with a groan which vibrates against your jaw. When your lips part, you hold your mouth open, your tongue sat on your bottom lip.

Joel reacts instantly, collecting a bead of saliva in front of his teeth and letting it drop into your mouth. You moan and swallow it, a cocktail of beer and whiskey and slick. Joel watches as you lick your lips, the stained-pink coated in a thick, white shine.

“Alright,” he says, letting you fall forward onto the bed. He jacks himself a few times, spitting into his hand and using it to coat his cock.

“Want you to come in it,” you whine, wiggling your ass for him as he lines up at your slit. You can feel the arousal gathered on his tip, dripping down your cunt.

“Yeah, baby,” Joel growls, a smirk on his lips as he watches himself slowly disappear inside you. And then –

You both fall silent, mouths hanging wide open as you each feel the width of his cock and the tightness of your cunt. The way your body opens up to accommodate his size, the direct pain and ethereal pleasure of Joel pushing into you.

“Fuck,” he groans, your pussy drawing him in with a sweet, wet sound. “Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. So damn gorgeous in that dress.”

You slowly move your hips back to meet him at the base of his cock; dark, trimmed hair bristling against your lips. Joel’s hands lock around your waist, holding you steady with his entirety buried inside, letting you adjust to him.

He’s so fucking big, so wide and deep that your breath tears rugged from your lungs, barreling up your windpipe. Your walls squeeze tight as he pulls out like your body refuses to let him go, like your cells understand better than you do that you were made for this – made for him. Like the only place in the world that he belongs, is somewhere deep inside you.

So big that it hurts, each time he fills you up and stretches you wide open. The pain an eye-rolling, lung-closing, limb-shaking sensation.

Your elbows give, falling chest-first onto the mattress while Joel fucks you hard, his hands gripping your hips. Your cheek and breasts flat against the sheets, your back arched. He slams into you, edging you closer and closer with each meeting of his warm skin against yours, each sopping slap of come and saliva.

The mattress shifts above your head, two valleys where his palms push down heavily, then the weight of his body at the back of your thighs. He towers over you, hips hammering so hard that you’re forced to hook your fingers around his wrists just to stay on the same fucking planet.

“Gonna – fuckin’ – come – baby,” he spits, his jaw locked tight. “You want it in this little pussy? You think she can take it all?”

“Mhm,” you whimper, the edges of your words rounded by the silk sheets. “Joel, I – fuck –”

“Yeah, she can,” he agrees, playing with the hair spilling across your shoulders and taking it in a fistful.

The hazy drunken blur begins to turn over in favor of something sharper, something electric pulsing through your veins. Every part of your body alive, everything rising to meet the same high, the same release. You cling onto him, body beginning to melt beneath his.

Joel’s lips press between your shoulder blades. “Don’t fight it, baby, let go. I got you.”

You moan his name in one last pathetic attempt before the world whitens. You clench around him as a deafening orgasm shocks through your body, curling your back and forcing your nails deep into Joel’s wrists.

“Fuck, baby, fuck me,” Joel gasps. He slams into you one final time before you feel the staggered pump of his come flooding between your walls. “Ahh,” he groans, pushing apart your ass cheeks to watch the trickle seep from your cunt. “Good fucking girl. Take it, baby. That’s my girl.”

He turns you over onto your back and you wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him against your body as he thrusts into you again, tenderly pushing his spend deeper inside. It draws a strained moan from your throat.

“’s alright,” he coos, hips slowing against yours, “just feel it, baby. You feel how deep I am?”

“Uhuh,” you cry, nails digging into his skin, damp with sweat.

“So fuckin’ full of me,” he says, more to himself, before collapsing alongside you, holding your thigh on his hip, his tip still sheathed inside you.

You lie like that for a while, listening to the distant hum of music from downstairs, the party still raving in the belly of the hotel while you two lay in content bliss somewhere in its ribcage. Tracing one another’s features, learning the lines on Joel’s face, the flecks of gray in his eyebrows – all the parts you’re never close nor brave enough to get to know.

His right hand massages your plush waist, his left arm a pillow to rest your heavy, dizzy, drunk head on.

“I wanna do it again,” you whisper, the words sneaking out between heavy breaths.

Joel nods. His bottom lip sticks with sweat to yours. His hips push a little neater into you. “I wanna do it again, too.”

“I wanna do it all night.”

He hasn’t stopped nodding. He shrugs, tightens his grip around your shoulders, and tilts his head. “Then let’s do it all fucking night,” he says, and his lips slam back into yours.

The morning after the wedding, Joel drives you home. The truck soars down the highway, the two of you an uncomfortable distance apart. The same sobering distance you’ve kept all morning – the unreal aftermath of sex.

The rolling waves of bedsheets between your bodies; the sun sifting her long fingers through his hair as she peered through the curtains. The way you’d silently pushed yourself from the mattress, fragmenting your movements and allowing the spring to dip a fraction at a time so not to wake him. The spongey feel of the hotel carpet under the balls of your feet as you’d tottered to the bathroom. The sharp shot of the lock sliding into place, echoing like a bullet.

He waited until you finished showering to get ready himself. Sat on the edge of the bed patiently and watched your shadow beneath the door, the to-and-fro of your silhouette breaking the sliver of golden light as you dressed your sticky body. When you pulled on the metal lock again, he was sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees, pinching the bridge of his nose. His bare shoulders were curved, and tanned. You blinked twice to store the image and turned away as he stood.

He says he feels hungover. You say you do, too. It’s the closest you come to talking about it. You hop out of the truck in his drive, your tote bag hooked on your shoulder. The canvas gnawing at the silk inside. Joel tells you he’ll see his end of the deal through in a couple weeks.

“Real busy with work,” he mutters apologetically, his wrists still balancing on the steering wheel.

“That’s good,” you tell him, nodding. “I ain’t in any rush. I know where you live, so.”

A relieved laugh pushes from his lips. “I will get to it,” he assures you.

You shrug casually. “Whenever, Joel.”

You don’t talk for a few days. A few days bleeds into three weeks. You find yourself stood by his front tires, throwing his newspaper onto the porch and scampering when it lands. The noise like a bomb dropping.

Slowly, as the month draws on, you become braver and braver – daring closer and closer to his front door, until you’re back to marching up the steps like you own the place, depositing the roll on his doormat. Rubbing your thumbs against your fingers to feel the ink like satin.

The door cracks open as you make your way back down his steps one bright morning.

“Hey, kid,” Joel murmurs, reaching down for the paper with a groan.

“Hey.”

“You doin’ okay?” he asks, leaning his forearm against the door.

Your head tilts back and forth, your hand lifting to shield your eyes from the sun. “Think I ate som’ bad, maybe. Weird stomach this mornin’.”

Joel’s chin angles. “Hope it ain’t contagious. Was thinkin’ I could get that closet started for you, maybe tomorrow?”

The offer takes you off guard. You buffer for a few seconds before answering, “Sure. Sure, just, uh – just come over whenever, I guess.”

“Nine work for you?”

You nod. “Nine’s good. See ya then.”

It’s something like nine when you find out.

You wake feeling groggy. Tired, sluggish. A heavy ache pulling on your breasts as you rise from bed, tender and swollen. You stand in the bathroom, milky morning light filtering in through the doorway, and your stomach lurches. Waves of nausea deep in your belly, rocking back and forth, swirling and spiraling.

You’ve a box under your sink. It makes sense. Before Joel was some date from Hinge, who fucked you against the wall of his living room and who snored so loud that you left before the sun came up. Negative. Like always.

But it never hurts to be sure.

The pack tears like it’s liquid in your hands. Peels back to reveal the plastic white test, the bubblegum pink cap – like it’s something fun and sweet to place the direction of your future into this little device. A clinical compass needle.

Three to five minutes. You set it down on the counter and drag yourself back through to your room, lifting your bedsheets, tucking them under the mattress, heaving your pillows back into place against the headboard. An uncomfortable heat boiling under the surface of your skin, a prickle of sweat clinging to the nape of your neck.

A sickly taste harboring on your tongue, you pad back to the bathroom and swipe the test up. Your eyes scan past the result window to the counter as you reach for your toothbrush – and then snap abruptly back to the tiny oval. Your outstretched hand freezes in midair. There’s no fucking w–

Your arm swings back to reach for the light cord. The bulb hesitates – flickers, like it’s unsure whether to reveal the truth to you. It knows something you don’t. It’s seen something it doesn’t want to show you. You stare at the pregnancy test.

Two little pink lines stare back. And Joel knocks at your door.

#pedro pascal #joel miller #joel miller fic #the last of us

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adaws12 · 5 months

Text

Paranoid Heart

Series Summary: Maybe reckless hearts come in pairs.

Series Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Word Count: 7.2K

Previous Chapter / Series Masterlist

Chapter 8

“Oh, Mama.”

You and your sisters sigh in unison when your mother steps out of her bedroom. She’s wearing a tea-length deep green shift dress with a trim cropped jacket, and she gives you a twirl with a bashful smile.

“I just finished the hems.” She smooths her hands down the front bodice. “What do you girls think?”

Your mother had spent the last few weeks making her dress, in between sewing bridesmaids’ dresses for you and your sisters. It had been almost-fun and certainly nostalgic – standing stock-still in her sewing room as she fitted and pinned fabric around you. You’d spent countless hours doing just this growing up, and you joked that you’d never known what size you wore until you were grown because your mama had made everything just for you.

“Mama, it’s perfect.” Esther’s eyes are shining as she looks at your mother, and you have to swallow hard not to cry, too. “I love the green.”

“I know forest green seems so predictable for a December wedding,” your mother begins, but Ruth waves her hands dismissively.

“Not predictable. Classic,” Ruth declares.

“And you girls look lovely, too.” Your mother smiles at each of you in turn. “Those dresses fit perfectly.”

You do a quick spin, letting the skirt lift around you, and nod appreciatively. “You did such a good job, Mama.“

She beams at you. “Well, it’s easy to make my girls look beautiful. But we’d better get out of these. Chucho is bringing over some of boxes this morning and it’d be bad luck for him to see me in my wedding dress.”

She walks back to her room, and you and your sisters go into the sewing room to change back into your clothes.

“How was your date last night?” Esther unzips your dress, then turns her back towards you for you to help her. “Ruth said you and Ray went to the basketball game?”

“Ruth, for God’s sake.” You ease the zipper to the bottom while glaring at Ruth over Esther’s shoulder. “We didn’t even go together. We met there. I ate a hot dog that I paid for. And then I drove home alone.”

Ruth’s smile is all sneaky delight. “Then how’d you get that?”

You’re just sliding your dress down to step out, but you freeze as her words make your stomach drop. “How’d I get what?”

“That, baby sister.” She points to the top of your shoulder, and you feel cold dread as you look. There’s a bruise there. It’s a faint, neat ring and you recognize it immediately: a bite mark. You remember it happening: remember Javi fucking you from behind, remember him sinking his teeth into you right there as he filled you.

“A bruise?” You roll your eyes, arranging your face into amused dismissal. “Yep, you’ve got me, Ruth. I have a bruise.”

“Tabby, that’s not just a bruise.” Ruth shakes her head, and Esther leans closer to look.

“Esther.” You level a serious look at her. “Do you really think I am doing anything with Ray Harrison that would leave bruises? Really? Have you met him? You think he’s out there just…I don’t know…giving hickeys left and right?”

Esther laughs. “That is hard to picture.”

You wrinkle your nose. “Eww. Please don’t try, Esty.”

Ruth exhales dramatically. “I know a bite when I see one, Tab. But whatever. You can have your little secret.”

You force a chuckle. “Oh, it’s a bite now. Did you hear, Esther? Ray’s apparently a biter, too.”

Esther finishes buttoning her blouse as she looks back and forth between the two of you, then walks out the door, hands raised. “I’m staying out of this.”

You pull your sweatshirt over your head and turn to follow her when Ruth grips your forearm.

“Tabby, I swear I’m not trying to drive you crazy. It’s just…I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide things from us. Not ever again. Even if…if whatever this is between you two isn’t what I expected, I’m still happy for you, okay? As long as you’re happy.”

You sigh and reach for your sister, hugging her tight. You want to apologize, but you wouldn’t know where to start: For pushing your sisters away? For all the years of secrets? For always trying to go it alone?

Her hands rub comforting circles on your back, and you decide that the only way to start is by starting.

“Ruthie, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Ted until it got bad. I didn’t want you all to worry and I wanted to handle it on my own. I thought I could. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets. I just felt…stupid. For letting it get like that.”

She pulls away, her hands firm on your shoulders and her eyes are blazing when she meets yours. “Tabitha, you were not stupid. He was a fucking asshole.”

You swallow and smile faintly. “He really was.”

She doesn’t let go. “But that’s your past, Tabby. He’s your past. He’s not your present and he’s not your future. So make sure you don’t let him take those from you, too, okay?”

You nod. “I won’t. But you can’t keep pushing me either, you know? I just…I need to feel like I’m in charge of my own life.”

“Oh, Tab. You’re right. I’m so sorry.” Ruth’s eyes tear up and she slides her hands down your arms to squeeze your hands. “I’m not going to bother you anymore about any of this. Just know that I’m here for you, got that?”

“Got it.” You return the squeezes and the two of you smile at each other with shining eyes for a long moment, before the chime of the doorbell jingles down the hallway.

Ruth lets go of your hands and dabs her eyes with the cuff of her sweater. “We can’t go out there looking like we’ve been crying.”

“Oh, c’mon, Ruthie.” You rest your hands on her shoulders and push her out the bedroom door. “It’s a wedding. All we’re going to be doing for the next two weeks is crying. This is nothing.”

In the living room your mother is holding open the front door while Chucho carries in an armload of clothes on hangers.

“We’ll just go ahead and hang those up in the bedroom.” She gestures for him to follow her, and you step to the side to let them pass.

“Mama, do you need a chaperone in there? You two aren’t married yet,” you tease, and she swats you on the arm as she passes, but Chucho gives you a wink.

“Mornin’, Tabby.”

You return his cheerful grin. “Hi, Chucho. Leave the door open.”

His laughter echoes down the hallway, and you are just walking into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee when you hear the front door open again.

“This one’s books?” Javi’s voice draws you back to the doorway.

“Those can go in the study.” Esther points down the hallway, and then catches your eye. “Tabby, show Javier where he should put that.”

You see Javi’s eyebrow flicker up and you suppress as smile. “C’mon, Javier. Right this way.”

He follows you down the hall; the study doubles as a guest room, so bookcases and an overstuffed chair are tucked along one wall across from a daybed made up with your mother’s Lone Star quilt in shades of blue.

“Where should I put this?” Javi’s low voice is almost a whisper behind you, and you laugh.

“She made that too easy.” You smile at him as he drops the box of books on the floor with a thud.

He shrugs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kit –”

You shake your head with narrowed eyes, and he winks at you as he continues – “Tabitha.”

The room feels small with him right there –the open collar of his shirt makes your fingertips itch to touch his skin and you’re remembering how he felt beneath your hands and your mouth when you notice it.

“Shit.” Your voice is tight and quiet. “Javi, button your shirt.”

He furrows his brow but does it – buttons it all the way to the top. “What?”

“You have a mark.” You point low on the side of your own neck. “I think I left it.”

His eyes twinkle. “You left a few.”

You grimace and step closer to him. “Well, you left a bite mark. Then Ruth saw it. And if she sees you with something…”

You let the words trail off, frowning.

He nods, understanding. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” You reach one finger out, stroking the crisp cotton of his shirt that’s now covering the mark. “Usually I don’t mind souvenirs.”

“Jav!” Chucho’s voice passing by the doorway makes you yank your hand away. “C’mon, son, we’ve got more to unload.”

“Okay, Pops.” He walks past you, giving your ass a quick squeeze. “I’m coming.”

By the time the truck bed filled with boxes has been emptied, your mother has somehow managed to make a pan of enchiladas and insists that everyone stays for lunch.

You don’t sit next to Javi, even though he catches your eye and flicks his chin towards the chair next to him. You choose the one on the opposite side of the table, your face neutral and hands folded primly in your lap.

It’s not that you don’t trust Javi – you do. But the jeans he’s wearing are faded – they look so soft and worn – and you aren’t sure that your hand could resist his thigh.

“Javier, how have things been since you’ve been home?” Esther’s question is polite, but you still see Javi’s jaw tighten as he wipes his mouth with his napkin.

“Good.” All the eyes around the table have settled on him, and you know how uncomfortable he must be right now.

There’s a half-beat of silence as everyone waits to see if he’ll say more, but he doesn’t.

Ruth tries next. “Did you ever actually meet Pablo Escobar?”

Your laugh is a slightly wild cackle and everyone’s gazes swing from Javi to you. “Ruth. Oh, my God.”

She shakes her head, a smile breaking across her face. “That was a ridiculous question, Javier. I’m so sorry.”

“And I’m so sorry you’re going to be stuck with all this –” you gesture at your sisters and yourself – “from now on.”

You see a flicker of gratitude in his expression as he clears his throat to answer. “It’ll be fine.”

Your mother speaks up. “Javier, you should come to church with all of us soon.”

Chucho stifles a chuckle. “I’ve tried that already, Cal.”

She waves him off, her sweet smile aimed at Javi. “It’s such a nice way to meet people.”

You grin at him, amused by the image of Javier Peña at church. “Our family takes up two entire pews, but we can definitely find a spot for you.”

His eyebrow briefly arches as he meets your eyes, his face neutral. “I can come tomorrow. Since you think you can fit me in somewhere.”

Your mother reaches over to pat his arm and Javi gives her an innocent smile, his face not even slightly betraying the sharp kick you give him under the table.

---

It wasn’t the service that bothered Javi.

That part was fine – better than fine, mostly. He’d ended up in the pew behind yours, between your mother and one of your brothers-in-law. The long sermon gave him plenty of time to study the back of your head, to remember seeing it from this angle just a few evenings ago, to think about how it fit perfectly in the palm of his hand as you slid the velvety snug ring of your lips down his cock. During the hymns, when everyone stood, he got to admire the way your neat trousers clung to your ass, got to watch as you shifted in an easy sway from side to side while you sang.

All in all, it wasn’t a terrible way to spend an hour.

But this part? After? When everyone gathered outside the sanctuary and chatted?

He could do without it.

“Javi, this is Mrs. Williams.” Cal gestures to the smiling, white-haired woman who is extending a frail hand laden with rings.

Javi nods politely and gently shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Williams.”

She doesn’t let go – instead she adds her other hand, sandwiching his tightly between hers. “Javier, I’ve been hoping you would come to church soon. We’ve all been looking forward to getting to know you.”

He clears his throat, smiling carefully. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Williams turns her head, lifting her chin to look out over the sea of faces in the packed foyer. “My niece Vanessa has been wanting to meet you, but I don’t know where’s she run off to.”

Javi wants to feel relieved when he sees you approach, but the playful grin on your face mildly concerns him.

Mrs. Williams looks up at you. “Tabby, have you seen Nessa?”

“Oh, I think she might have left, Mrs. Williams.” You point toward the door and Mrs. Williams frowns.

“Well, maybe next Sunday then.” She lets go of Javi’s hand, and leans towards you, patting you on the arm as she lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know what we need to do, Tabby? We need to find Javier a good girl to spend time with.”

“We really do,” you reply seriously, your eyes bright. “See you next Sunday, Mrs. Williams.”

The older woman bids you both goodbye and walks away with Cal to chat with the preacher.

You briefly catch Javi’s eye and then walk past him, your knuckles brushing softly against the back of his hand. He doesn’t turn his head to watch you go, but his eyes follow you; when you glance back over your shoulder, he can’t help himself.

He trails you from a distance, watching you turn down a deserted hallway and disappear into a darkened classroom at the end.

He steps inside the room after you, closing the door softly behind him, and his eyes haven’t had time to adjust to the darkness when he feels you press against him, your body pushing his into the door. Your lips find his, whispering, even as your fingers unbuckle his belt and open his trousers.

“Javi, do you know what you need?”

He doesn’t even have time to answer before you drop to your knees on the carpet in front of him, your hand pulling his already half-hard cock from his pants. “You need a good girl.”

Fuck – your tongue slides over him then, wet and hot, and he grinds his teeth to stay silent.

He’s grateful for the light that edges around the door and sifts through the curtained windows because it lets him see you – lets him see you look up at him with wide eyes as you suck the head of his cock between your soft lips, lets him see your fist stroking what doesn’t fit inside.

He rests his hand on the back of your head as you work, fights the urge to fuck your warm mouth, but then you slide off, your lips slick with him, and say it again.

“Do you, Javi? Do you need a good girl?”

It’s almost too much.

“Fuck, Kitten.” His fingers twist into your hair and he can only grit out his words. “Put it back in your fucking mouth, baby. Please.”

Your tongue sweeps over your lips as you stroke him, and you smile. “Whatever you want.”

He struggles to keep his eyes focused as you shape your lips into a perfect, glossy circle and push him through the tight ring: deep, deep, deep, the wet flat muscle of your tongue curling against him as his cock slides over it.

You don’t tease, don’t drag things out – you just fuck him with your mouth and your hands. He knows there’s not much time before someone will notice your absence, so he doesn’t try to slow himself down; it’s not long before he feels his balls tightening, an ache building.

“Kitten, gonna come.” His voice is strangled and low as he tries to hold back.

You release him for only a moment – “I want to taste you” – and then you’re sucking him deep again, your slick fist fast over him.

Your permission is all he needs. He stifles his groan as his fingers grip the back of your head, holding you still, and he fills your mouth. Your tongue rolls against him as you swallow, the muscles of your throat working, and he feels another pulse of pleasure rush through him at the sight.

You let go him and stand, fingers wiping the corners of your mouth as he tucks himself back into his trousers. You lean close, whispering in his ear. “I don’t think a good girl would blow you at church, though.”

He chuckles, sliding his hand around your waist and pulling you into his body. “Your turn now. Let’s go to your place.”

You kiss him; your breath is warm and your lips taste like his come and he wants to fucking lose himself in you right now. “Can’t. I have plans.”

Javi frowns, brows drawn together as he looks down at you. “What plans?”

“Ray’s making a roast.”

“Oh.” Javi isn’t jealous – can’t remember the last time he was jealous. But whatever he’s feeling is making him annoyed. “Lunch date.”

You shake your head. “No, there’s a few of us. Some of his friends.”

Javi lets go of you and shrugs, angles his thumb with a jerk at the door behind him. “You wanna leave first or me?”

You narrow your eyes a little. “I’ll go first. You okay?”

He takes a deep breath – he realizes he’s being possessive, feeling possessive, but the fact is: you’re not his. He exhales hard and forces his face to soften.

“I’m good, Kitten.” He gives you a wink. “Enjoy Ray’s meat.”

Your shoulders relax and you smile faintly. “It��ll be dry.”

He smirks as he steps away from the door so you can leave. “Hopefully that’s not all.”

You wrinkle your nose with a grin. “See you later, Javi.”

Javi nods as he opens the door for you. “Bye, Kitten.”

---

You squint at the instructions on the back of the frozen pizza box, then slide it onto the counter and turn the oven on to preheat. After digging around in the back of your fridge you locate a lone juice box, left behind last month when you’d babysat Ruth’s kids, so you pull it out and peel the tiny plastic straw loose. You jab it through the small foil circle on the top and wander over to your windows, sipping the apple juice.

It’s already dark outside – the shop windows up and down the street spill pale circles of golden light onto the sidewalks, making it seem much later than seven o’clock. You rest your forehead against the chilled glass, peering down the street – you can just make out the lawn of the library, where a towering Christmas tree glows with white lights.

The oven beeps, so you drop your juice box on the coffee table and head to the kitchen to put your small pizza into the oven and twist the timer to fifteen minutes.

You grab the cordless phone and carry it back to the couch, fingers tapping lightly against the numbers – not quite pushing, just mapping out the same seven digits, again and again. You press the first three, the beeps loud in your ear, then stop.

With a frustrated sigh, you hang up the call and drop the phone on the table. You flop back against the armrest and pick up your juice box, flattening the thin plastic straw between your teeth while you wait for your pizza. It doesn’t seem like just a week ago you and Javi were here – right here, on this couch – but now you haven’t heard a word from him since Sunday at church.

You even stayed home tonight – passed on chaperoning the winter formal at school even though your students had begged you to come – because part of you was hoping he would stop by.

You’re not happy about that part of you either, and you’d willfully ignored it several times this week – hung out at Ray’s until late Sunday evening playing board games with him and his friends, spent the afternoon with your mom on Tuesday and stayed for supper, hadn’t gone back in to answer your phone when it started ringing last night just as you walked out the door to go to Charlie’s Christmas play.

But you want to see him – and not just because of the sex, though you’ve realized in the last week how very, very, very much you’ve missed sex. The thing is – you like Javi. When you’re with him, you don’t feel like an oddity, don’t feel like you have to explain anything about yourself. You like how he frowns at your dumbest jokes and you like how his face gets soft when you kiss him and you like you don’t have to be anything for him. You’re just you when you’re together – have only ever just been you – and he still seems to like it.

Being with Javi is easy – comfortable, in a way you haven’t had in…well, too long.

You stare at the phone, willing it to ring, but instead only hear the buzzer of the oven timer. You stand up and start to move when you hear a different sound. Creaking, thuds, and excitement bubbles like champagne through your veins – Javi’s boots are on your stairs.

You scurry to the door, ignoring the still-buzzing timer, and fling the door open to see him standing there, one fist raised to knock and his eyebrows lifted.

“What’s that sound?” He furrows his brow and cocks his head to the side as he looks past you into your apartment.

“Oven.” You rest your hands on your hips and narrow your eyes. “About fucking time you came to see me, Javier Peña.”

A smile breaks slowly across his face as he steps through the door. He slides his arm around your waist and nuzzles his nose against your hair. “You missed me, Kitten?”

You tilt your face up to his and grin. “I’m not answering that.”

He chuckles as he turns your body and gives you a gentle push. “I missed you, too. But you need to turn off that fucking oven.”

In your kitchen, you switch the timer off and pull the pizza from the oven.

“If you’re expecting me to share, the box says ‘single-serving.’ So…sorry.” You shrug with a smirk as Javi hangs his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair.

“I didn’t come for dinner.” He sits down in the chair and leans back, giving you a long look.

You grin as you carry your plate to the table. “Well, then I definitely need to eat this whole thing. Sounds like I’m going to need my strength.”

He laughs – and it’s that laugh, the one that makes you want to climb on top of him – but you focus instead on your pizza, blowing on the slice before taking a careful bite. He watches you, his dark eyes amused, and you push your plate towards him.

“You can’t just watch me eat. You can have one piece, but I swear to God –” you narrow your eyes at him – “I will slap your hand if you try to take more.”

He squints at the piece he picks up, turning it over with a frown. “It’s burnt.”

“It’s well-done.”

He flicks a piece of blackened cheese off the edge. “It’s a fucking charcoal briquette, Kitten.”

You shrug, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s fine. But I do have Cheerios if you’d prefer that.”

“No toast?” He leans forward to slide the charred pizza back onto your plate.

“You have to earn toast, Javier Peña.”

He laughs again, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, finish your burnt pizza and I will.”

You give him a thumbs-up as you take another bite. Once you’ve swallowed, you wave your hand at him. “Don’t just stare. Entertain me. What have you been up to this week? Besides not visiting me, obviously?”

He knits his eyebrows together, smiling. “I tried. You weren’t around.”

“When?”

“I came by Sunday night.” He tilts his head. “Must have still been with your not-boyfriend.”

You can’t quite read the expression on his face. It feels like he’s teasing you, but there’s a flicker of something else in his eyes.

“Ah. Yeah.” You don’t explain; you don’t think you need to.

“And last night. Your pickup was gone.”

“Have you ever seen The Best Christmas Pageant Ever performed by 4th graders? It’s a pretty good time.” You wipe your fingers on your napkin then place it on the table. “But honestly? It’s no evening with Javier Peña.”

He shifts in his chair, one foot tapping restlessly on the floor, and gives you a lazy smile. “Knew you missed me.”

You resume eating. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“What can I put in your mouth?”

You roll your eyes at his broad smile. “Tell me about your week.”

“Not much to tell. Pop and I got fitted for our wedding suits. Cleared some red cedars out of the west pasture.” He smooths the corner of his mustache with his thumb. “Went on a date.”

Your eyes widen. “A date?”

He nods, his fingers now drumming on the table.

You step on the toe of his boot with your bare foot. “Talk.”

He shrugs. “After you left Sunday, Mrs. Williams found her niece and then found me. I took her to dinner Wednesday.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Williams was your type.” You stroke your chin thoughtfully, ignoring fizzle of discontent that settles in your chest.

“Vanessa.” The edges of his mouth twitch, not quite smiling. “I took Vanessa to dinner.”

Your face feels hot and the pizza is sitting in your stomach like cement. “Vanessa is nice.”

“She is.”

You aren’t jealous – you’re positive it’s not that, because if you were jealous that would mean that you thought you had some claim to Javi, and you don’t. You don’t, and he has no claim to you, and that – this – is how you wanted it.

You smile, focused on keeping your face relaxed. “She’s a good girl.”

He smirks. “I didn’t try to find out.”

With a wrinkle of your nose, you push your chair back and stand, taking two steps to perch on Javi’s thigh, your hands sliding into his hair. You twist your fingers into it, tugging until his face tips up to yours.

“Good. Because if you do want to find out, we can’t do this anymore, okay?”

His eyes are dark, glittering, focused on your mouth. “That’s how this works?”

You kiss him, set the edge of your teeth into his lip until you hear his breath catch. “That’s how this works. You can do whatever you want, but if you want to fuck me, you only fuck me.”

His hand slides along your thigh, squeezing the pliable flesh through the thick fleece of your sweatpants. “Same for you?”

“Why would I want to fuck anybody else –” you place your hands on his cheeks, thumbs drawing lines along his cheekbones – “when I could fuck Javier Peña?”

His eyes narrow, the tip of his tongue easing along the plump of his lower lip, and you drop your head to lick it, to feel the wet slide of it against yours.

And then you kiss him. His exhale is long and low, the hand on your thigh sliding higher; his other hand is moving beneath the hem of your t-shirt to spread wide and warm on the curve of your lower back.

“Kitten.”

You break the kiss and trail your thumb against the scrape of stubble on his jaw. “Yes, Javi?”

“You taste like burnt pizza.”

You laugh and stand up, brushing his hand off your thigh with a swipe of your own. “So picky. Fine. I’ll go brush my teeth.”

He pats your ass as you move past him and you add an extra swing to your hips as you walk away, knowing he’s watching. You close the bathroom door behind you and freshen up: brush your teeth, smooth your hair, dab perfume in a few secret places you hope he’ll find.

When you come out, your eyes follow his trail – Javi’s boots are kicked off by the kitchen chair, his shirt is draped over the back of your couch, his wallet and keys are on the coffee table, his belt is coiled on the floor by your bed. And he’s standing by the bed, too, his back turned to you..

You feel hot and light as you watch him toying with the two silk ties that are knotted on the frame of the headboard.

You sidle up behind him, slide your palms over his ribs and around to his bare chest, press your face into the valley of his spine.

“My ties.” His voice is low, thick, and you smile against his skin.

“Technically, they’re mine now.” You glide your hands down his chest to his belly, feel it tighten as your fingernails scrape through the fine hair around his navel. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, right?”

“Mm.” He tugs at one of the ties – the slate one, the one you took – and the knot loosens beneath his fingers. “Not sure that’d hold up in court.”

He slides the tie off the wrought iron, and then turns to face you. “Have you worn this one again? Since we…talked?”

Heat spills through your veins: makes your cheeks burn and your breath quicken. “Sometimes.”

“’Sometimes’?” His smile is hungry. “When was the last time?”

You lift your chin – meet his eyes. “This morning.”

His eyebrows flicker up, and he nods appreciatively. “Wish I could have seen that.”

You lift your shoulders in a shrug, start to reach for the button of his jeans when his question stops you.

“Can I?”

“Can you…what?”

“Can I see that?” He’s leaning over you now, fingertips of one hand catching the point of your chin to stroke the pad of his thumb over your parted lips. “Kitten. Show me what you do with my tie.”

The ache that blossoms in your center almost takes your breath way, and the need that’s been building for the last week makes you bold. You push your sweatpants and panties down your legs, kicking them free, and he takes a half-step back to watch, unbuttoning his jeans and shoving them down to step out. His face is slack, eyes moving quick over you as you pull your t-shirt over your head and drop it to the floor. You climb onto your bed, lay back against the pillow and extend your hand toward him.

“Give me the tie.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed and drapes the silky fabric over the tips of your toes, then drags it up, up, up: over your foot, your ankle, the bend of your knee. He eases it slowly along your thigh, twists his wrist so it brushes over your mound before moving over your stomach and through the valley of your breasts. You stay still – your breath caught in your throat as you watch the meandering path he blazes across your chest to the top of your shoulder. His tongue flicks between his lips as he eases the tie down your arm and presses it into your open hand.

“Here.”

You slide it around your neck, lifting one end to breathe in the scent that lingers and letting the other fall across your breast. “Still smells like you.”

“Mmm.” He leans over you, brings the tip of his nose to the fabric pinched in your fingers. “Smells like you, too.”

You let go of the tie to catch his jaw with your fingertips, chasing his mouth, but he only smiles and pulls away, and you sigh theatrically. “If you’re just going to watch, Javi, what do I even need you here for?”

“Didn’t say I was just going to watch.” He gives you a half-smile, cheek dimpling below his almost-black eyes. “You wear my tie and…then what?”

You feel flushed, flustered, a little shy, but you meet his eyes. “I wear it and I think about you.”

“What about me?”

“I think about you kissing me.”

“Where?”

“Here.” You brush your fingers over your lips, then drag them down your throat. “And here.”

He shifts, stretches out on the bed next to you, dipping his head to kiss you, then follows the path your finger has drawn.

“Here.” You stroke your fingers against your clavicle, and he’s there next – mouth opening against you, his tongue tracing the thin ridge of bone.

You sigh, shifting, trying to turn your body toward him, but his palm lands heavy on your low belly, keeping you on your back. “Easy, baby. What’s next?”

You exhale and cup your breast in your hand, thumb brushing your nipple. “I think about you kissing me here.”

His mouth is there immediately, plush lips closing around the pebbled nub, his tongue sweeping against it. You arch – press more of yourself into his mouth, whimper – when the edges of his teeth gently nip. His eyes flick up towards your face as his words sink into your skin. “You like that, Kitten?”

You nod, quick and desperate, and he does it again: little bites on your nipple, at the swell of your tit spilling through your fingers, on the silky-soft underside. He’s gentle – so gentle – but the contrast between his full lips and the pinch of his teeth makes you groan. You realize your other hand is gripping the tie, twisting it in circles, stacking silk in loops around your wrist.

“What do you do next?” Javi’s mustache drags against you as he kisses his way to your navel. His tongue circles it, his breath warming the damp skin left behind.

You slide your hand down your stomach, stroke his jaw with your fingertips before letting them brush gently over your mound. You exhale, bend one knee, let it fall open.

“I do this.” Your fingers slip through your folds – lightly, teasing yourself even though you’re already dripping, already aching for more. “I do this and I think about you.”

“About my fingers, baby?” His lips press against the crease of your leg, his fingers skimming over the backs of yours. He nudges them, guides your touch to your clit, helps you stroke small circles that have you whimpering.

“I think about –” your words catch in your throat as he angles your fingers lower, pushing your pointer and middle finger into your aching pussy. His palm is heavy over the back of your hand, keeping them deep. “Fuck, Javi. I think about being in your truck. About how thick your fingers felt inside me. About how you made me come.”

“Jesus, Kitten.” He shifts on the bed – moves to kneel between your legs, spreads them wide. “You’re making me so fucking hard.”

The tie clenched in your hand feels sweaty, hot, and your nails dig into it as you whine at his words. “And I think about your mouth, think about how good your tongue felt.”

You almost arch off the bed then, when he leans down and licks the back of your hand, his tongue sliding over the grooves of your knuckles. “Like this, baby?”

“Please, Javi.” You don’t care if you’re begging – are happy to beg if it’ll get his mouth on you. “Please.”

His hand closes around yours, draws your fingers from your drenched cunt, and he slides them into his mouth. His tongue wraps around them, snakes between them, licks them clean. “You taste fucking good, you know that?”

You nod, fingers fluttering against his smiling lips.

His eyes flash, narrow. “You like how you taste, baby?”

Your heart is thudding in your chest, gaze fixed on his face, and you feel like you’re his – like you’d do anything he asked you right now. “Mmhmm.”

He gently holds your fingers, sweeps them through your slick center, then lets them go. “Show me.”

You lift your hand and bring the two glistening digits to your mouth, spreading your slick against your bottom lip before flicking your tongue out to taste. You move slowly – making a show for him, wanting him to ache like you do – and swirl your tongue around the tips, then press the fingers deep into your mouth.

His jaw tightens as he watches, one hand kneading the muscle of your thigh, the other curving around your hip, fingers digging in. “See, Kitten? You are a good girl.”

His eyes twinkle and you smile as you pull your fingers from your mouth.

“Funny Javi.” You reach for his hand on your hip and tug him down towards you. “But funny Javi needs to kiss me now.”

He settles over you, his arms on either side of you, hands slipped beneath your shoulders, and his sharp nose drags over the tip of your chin before his mouth finds yours, his tongue sweeping your slick from your lips. “So sweet,.”

You feel the thick heft of his cock pressed into your inner thigh, and you shift your hips until he’s settled in the vee of your legs, the weight of him sliding through your folds. You rock against him – you think you could come like this, just from the slippery friction of him gliding against you, but you don’t want to. You’ve waited all week for him and you need him inside.

“Javi, –” you arch, shift, wiggle until you feel the head of his cock nudge into your opening – “fuck me.”

He smiles against your mouth, teeth catching the tip of your tongue when it flicks into his mouth. “Been a long week, Kitten?”

You frown, rocking into him, but he teases your entrance, the thick head spreading you open but going no further. “Too long. Don’t make me wait.”

He drops his face to your neck and the stubble of his jaw scraping over the thin skin sends a shiver through you. “Hard to wait. Feels fucking good.”

“Javi.” You finally release the tie, let it fall limp onto your chest and slide your hands down his back as you lift your legs to lock them around his hips. “Fuck me.”

He grunts against you and finally – finally – slides into you. You exhale with a groan – he’s thick and heavy, so wide inside you; there’s no room left for any thought other than how good he feels.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Tight, Kitten.” His words are strangled, muffled by the sweat-damp skin of your neck. “Missed fucking you.”

You close your eyes with a moan as he sets a rhythm: it’s careful, but deep and steady, too. You’ve thought about this every day since the last time he fucked you and you need to come, need to feel him splitting you open while you fall apart around him. Your hand slips between your bodies to find your clit, slick and swollen.

“You’re gonna make me come, Javi.” You drag your fingernails over his side, his back, hoping you’re leaving marks. You imagine the scratches, fine red lines branding him as yours – imagine him seeing them later and remembering you writhing beneath him. Your teeth sink into your lower lip as you feel pleasure gathering and building in your center. “Oh. Fuck.”

“Squeezing me so hard, baby.” You open your eyes to see him looking at you – teeth clenched, brow furrowed. “Come for me. Come on my cock, Kitten.”

It crashes over you then, your pussy spasming around him as your fingers move quickly, his name on your lips as he keeps fucking you, hips picking up speed.

“Such a good fucking girl.” His teeth are bared, eyes heavy-lidded as he rocks against you. “Been thinking about this all week. Needed this. Needed you.”

You pull his mouth down to yours, giving his plump lower lip a wet suck. “Needed you, too.”

“Fuck. Shit.” He grunts, hips grinding against you, and you feel the pulsing jerk of his cock deep inside you as his forehead presses hard into yours. “Fuck, baby.”

His body sags onto you – you like it, like the weight of him grounding you down into the bed – and his breath is all quick pants against your mouth as he kisses you. It’s a long kiss, tender, as he gently slides in and out of you a few more times. He slips his hands out from under your shoulders and gives the tie still around your neck an easy tug.

“Looks good on you.”

You grin at him. “You liked it, huh? I wasn’t sure.”

He chuckles, easing his body off yours, and flops onto his back on the bed next to you. “I liked it. You can keep it.”

“Of course I can.” You roll onto your side and rest your head on his shoulder as he wraps his arm around you. “It’s mine.”

He closes his eyes and smiles, his restless hand mostly still as his fingers gently stroke your hip.

“Hey, Javier Peña.”

“Yeah, Kitten?” He half-opens his eyes and tilts his head to look at you.

“Don’t stay away this long again.”

“Don’t plan on it.” He places his lips against your forehead – keeps them there for three long breaths. “I like it here.”

“Okay, then.” You trace meandering loops and swirls on his chest with the tip of your pointer finger.

He points toward the floor, head cocked to the side. “Bell stopped.”

“Store closes at 7:30.”

“Mm.” His fingers change their pattern, pick up speed: now drumming a quick 1-2-3-4 against you. “What time do they open?”

“Also 7:30. Why?”

“How about I stay here tonight?” You can hear the tightness in his voice, and you have a sudden sense of what it’s costing him to ask you for something. “Truck’s two streets over, so nobody’ll see it. Then in the morning, I leave out the back and you go that way –” he points to the door that leads to the store – “and we meet up at the diner. Have breakfast.”

You twist to face him, grinning. “Javier Peña, is that a date?”

He frowns at you, the creases between his eyes deep and shadowed. “It’s breakfast.”

“Okay, good. As long as it’s just breakfast.” You drop your head to kiss the smooth expanse of his chest. “Then yes, you can stay and be sneaky and buy me breakfast in the morning.”

“Kitten, I didn’t say I was buying.” His dimpled smile makes you laugh, and you snuggle deeper into the crook of his arm.

“Then I’ll just have to earn it.”

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adaws12 · 5 months

Text

viii. leave me on red

frankie morales x f!reader | chapter eight of i like the way you

best friend! friends with benefits! frankie morales summary: what starts off as an offhand remark, quickly becomes a regular, scheduled 'stress relief'. the only problem is, both of you are in denial that you feel anything outside of friendship for the other.

warnings: friends with benefits. fwb! rules. flirting. idiots who are so in love it’s stupid. feelings. smut - phone/text/video sex. angst. dont hate the jo.

word count: 3.6k

an: the hugest thanks to @thetriumphantpanda for not getting mad at me for doing this to them.

You decided it in the minutes after he left, you were going to tell him.

Back pressed to the door, head resting, eyes closed. Tears stinging in the edges, burning. Your breath all strained and difficult—that is, until it decided what it wished to be, anyway.

Then, it shifted, transformed. It morphing into a sob that rumbles and cracks, shaking its way through you until your knees plead to crumble to the floor.

Because you had wanted to chase after him. Even ring him. Beg him to come back.

It wasn’t until you climbed back into bed, letting the scent of him wash over you, did you commit to the idea.

That’s when you begin rehearsing it, letting it move from rolling around your skull to dripping from your tongue. You did so as you made food, as you did chores. Perfecting it, choosing words so cautiously and carefully, swapping them out, practising it until it becomes a thing typed into a piece of your soul.

I’m in love with you Frankie. I have been for a while.

You don’t expect it to rival the greatest poets, and won’t find a place amongst the greatest scripts to ever be. It won’t be a speech that’ll be copied and used in film. But it’ll matter.

It will be meaningful.

It’ll have weight and carry truth—and you suppose, when all is said and done—that’s what will matter. It’ll be out there, free, existing—swirling between the two of you instead of caged inside of your chest.

Once you’ve spoken it, it should calm the storm inside of you; should quiet the choppy waves that collide within you, each one attempting to do more than knock you off your feet, but grasp you by the ankles and drag you under.

Confessing it, should do a lot of things. But that doesn’t bring you any comfort right now. If anything, it makes you feel sick, feeling only thorny anguish which keeps you up at night.

Never before had you been thankful for booking vacation time.

A chance to be, to sit around your home and pretend you don’t want to find a way to get to him, tell him it all now, let it unspool, even with no hope of it being the same as it ever was.

Because you could lose him. Ruin it all. Taint the one thing you cherish above all else.

It’s why you turn it over. Letting it worm its way from a box of doubts to a fully-fledged car crash you replay over and over as you lay in bed, fingers twitching, chest tightening, jaw clenching.

It’s only on the third day since you had made the decision, that you decide to share your plan with another soul.

Doing so over the phone—only one name came to mind. As soon as she answered and you spilt, you were greeted with only a joyous tone, it all full of pride. Your friend who is all knowledgable and wise, being nothing short of a cheerleader. Saw it coming, she tells you, been waiting for you to wake up and smell the coffee. You bite your inner cheek, doing so until copper swirls around spit, because you’ve known too (something you want to tell her). You’d been carrying it around for longer than realisation had been bestowed on her.

It’s easier not to say it. Swallowing it, letting it die in a pit of stomach acid, where other things you never say go to erode.

“Any advice?” you’d asked.

“Just be honest.”

On day four, you had gnawed the skin from your lip. It's sore, practically pulsing. It has its own heartbeat from how raw it feels.

Your nerves beginning to get the better of you, swarming and piercing, pecking away at your earlier confidence—stinging it with doubts, ones which spread, all poisonous, swelling out until it’s all you can feel.

His texts help.

One day I’ll get you back up in a heli. Only if I can sit between your legs like last time. Can sit anywhere you want, baby.

You’re not sure how it’s possible that miles away he can make your day better and your pussy clench around nothing all at once. Your body missing him—just as much as your head, heart and soul. Thighs pressing together, all your earlier thoughts popping like bubbles as you read his words over, and over, and over. A whimper grows in the back of your throat, hammering on the back of your teeth to be released.

Flicking your eyes up, you catch your appearance in the mirror.

The way your skin is just lightly sheened with the droplets from your shower—having been in a rush to reply than dry yourself. So much so, the air tinged with the scent of your shampoo and body wash. It’s thick, and heavy, your skin warming under the effect of his words making it more prominent, evident.

Smirking, you slide your hand until it undoes the robe of your dressing gown—letting it gape, the cool air brushing over once warm skin, until it pebbles, the peaks of your nipples hardening as you take a breath, and snap. There, immortalised, you stand—positioning your phone, ensuring the camera cuts off your eyes, beginning at the base of your nose, capturing the white of your teeth against your bottom lip, the white robe hanging, parted, framing the bare skin under it.

And you don’t think, you just send.

No caption, no message.

Just the sound of the whoosh as your heart hammers, beats, and thumps in the milliseconds it takes before you see the speech bubble of his reply.

Fuck, baby. Wish you were here.

Bending down to kneeling, you shimmy the fabric from your shoulders—pooling it in the creases of your elbows. Positioning yourself so your hand can be seen perfectly between your thighs, keeping yourself hidden, just a fraction. You ensure your breasts are on show, arm shifting to push them closer together, before you smirk—no, you think. Shifting your expression to a smile, a little one, which grows bigger and larger just as you click the shoot button.

It begins, a slow-motion capture of your disrobe, of you seating yourself down on the floor in front of your mirror, taking instruction through his texts—positioning yourself like a doll. The last being on your rear, soles flat to your carpet, thighs spread, head back as your neck elongates.

You’ve never felt more beautiful, even exposed. Eyes don’t linger on the things you usually pick apart first thing in the morning, before you dress for another day, and they don’t linger on the parts you catch in the corner of your eyes before you shower. You just see radiance, shadow-kissed skin that is being bowed to through a screen.

Fuck you’re gorgeous. Can see how wet you are. You need me, baby? Always, Frankie.

Your finger sliding along your inner thigh, tips brushing over before parting your folds. It won’t be enough, he’s ruined you—made it impossible not to wish for him, crave those thick, long fingers that both keep things hovering in the air and you hovering over space, time and existence.

“Frankie,” you moan, to no one but you.

Curling, sinking deeper until—

Can I call you?

You don’t reply, you just call. The distinct sound of a request to video echoes around the room as you slow your ministrations, a low whimper escaping as he connects, as his face fills the screen that's cast to the side, his own view of your ceiling.

He says your name, quiet, more questioning. Your trembling hand moves, picking it up as the other remains buried deep inside you, lifting your phone, giving him a view, a taste, a sight.

“Tell me what to do,” you whine.

Watching him as he drinks as much of you in as he can, commits you to memory, skates his eyes over every pixel, not wanting to miss a single one, before he clears his throat, before he carries you in his phone to his bed.

Licking your lips, you release a breathy sigh—one that begins in the depths of your stomach, rising up and fluttering out. Almost carrying a moan as you find that spot inside of you, the one which makes you boneless, thighs threatening to tremble.

“You want me to keep my fingers—“

“Faster,” Frankie stammers, “Want you to move those perfect fingers a little faster for me. Think you can do that?”

Nodding, you roll your lips, heat washing out over you, gripping the phone tightly.

“Fuck, baby. Y’know how good you look right now?”

You heave out his name. It building, fanning out over nerves that tingle at the edges of you—making your fingers curl, heel of your palm catching the swollen bundle of nerves that makes the sound of what you’re doing that much louder, filthier, more obscene.

And you fucking love it.

Love all of this.

Love him—

“Wish I could bury my face between your legs—“

“—oh, shit—“

“—y’like the sound of that, querida?”

Your eyes flick to the screen, staring at him—a pang in your chest flooding outwards, it mixing with how much you wish he was here, desperate for it, half-wanting to beg him to get his ass over here and make a mess of you in front of your mirror.

“Touch yourself,” you say instead.

Swallowing back the rest, letting your head fall back, obscuring him from view as you slow your movements, teasing, edging yourself as your core twists, and electricity thunders in your veins.

“Want—fuck—wanna come with you.”

“Alright baby,” he says—as if it’s the most normal thing, as though anything the two of you are doing is normal. “Let’s do this together.”

You hope it’s not the only time he’ll say that to you.

Days drag when you clock watch. Hours take even longer.

It’s a thing you know, but you can’t help but do so all the same. Each time you check, you hope it’s closer to the time. The one marked in your calendar, the one which has been making you both nervous and elated all week.

It had only been when you stopped tidying, stopped moving things from one counter to the other, did you spot it—eyes land on it and never leave.

You're not even sure when he left it behind, but your eyes linger on the corduroy jacket near your door. It’s moss-green, hanging, growing in the corner of your eye and borrowing more of your attention than it should. You’re sure it grows vines, ones which tap on your shoulder when you’re able to forget it’s there, only to make you look over, and spot it all over again.

The worst thing about it, it looks like it's supposed to be there. As though the hook you had expertly hung, (correction: hammered a nail in and hoped for the best) was always meant to hang his things, be dedicated to it.

In truth, he acts like he’s supposed to be here.

Fitting, even if you’d never made a place for him outside of being his friend. Now, you see the outline of him, perfect cut out, a drawer which could host the bolts and bits from his pockets, the shelf which he could place his eccentric collection of DVDs from the sleepless nights during storms.

You suppose it’s why it continues to catch your eyes, your gaze lingering on it—knowing, without brushing your fingers against it or burying your nose into it, that it smells like it. That, in its own way, is spreading out that calming effect he has.

One you need now more than ever.

Hand wrapping around the handle of the knife, chopping, preparing. Eyes studying the recipe that is ingrained in you, one you could do with a timer and your eyes closed, but you need to stare at it, to read the handwritten notes and pretend for a second it’s not something you used to make for him all the time.

Before the rule, the one he made you agree to because you’d asked something from him.

Now, you just snort. Adding the ingredients to the pot, turning the heat down, as a soft simmer begins before you wipe your hands down on your towel. Because in time, you’d broken all of them, both for one another and for yourselves.

And that had to mean something. Had to be more than a coincidence or something that just was. It had to be underpinned by unsaid words and swirling emotions neither of you feel equipped to handle, yet feel more prominently than you know what to do with.

You make more of an effort in your clothes. Not for him, for you. A thrill sparks through you when you catch sight of yourself when you pass a mirror, catch yourself in the reflection of a window, your television. Because you look like someone who could confess your feelings, let your adoration be known. You feel like someone who will do it, can do it—a confidence which has been coming and going since you’d decided.

It’s only when you lay it all out (the glasses, the plates and the cutlery), does a stitch begin to appear in your carefully thought-out plan. One that digs, the needle-sharp, pointed, aiming to prick and make you bleed, smear across perfection and make it ruin. A thing you put off, able to argue with it, point out its stupidity.

Tonight could be the last time you see him.

Maybe, this thing the two of you had was all he had wanted—all he’d needed. Not an overbearing amount of emotions he can’t handle or begin to understand.

A thought you try to squash, shove down deep inside.

That is, until the bigger hand pushes the smaller one on, and it begins to create a hole inside your chest. It forming based on that earlier thought. That dread, that worry and concern which has been thickening in the back of your head for weeks now. Now, it's grown out of the walls you kept it behind. It widens with each passing minute until it’s close to an hour and it’s practically a sinkhole. It taking everything it can with it—happiness, courage, laughs and the smiles. Vanishing them, wiping them clean like they never existed, as every bit of wanted you had felt, was painfully plucked from you, tweezed until you were back to that horrid place you were before all of this began.

Except now, you felt too much. Unsure if you’re able to put a cork in it, trap it under just want him to be happy and content at being friends.

A sob escapes, just a little one.

But, it’s enough to widen the door. Allowing more of them to bubble up and appear, climbing forcibly up your chest as though they’ve been building a ladder and plotting their escape for the last few minutes.

Each rolling out, freeing, bursting into the air. Your body racked with them, trembling, shaking.

Your hand finds refuge on the counter, stabilising you, keeping you from falling into the hole of your own making. And your thumb brushes porcelain, the neatly displayed food you’d spent hours on, a declaration all on its own.

A—see, I broke the rules too, Morales—except, he hasn’t come. Hasn’t arrived.

Maybe he’d known. Maybe he’d decided that it was all too much, standing you up easier—you supposed it was much harder to face the person you’d been best friends with and break her heart to her face.

But, your Frankie would never do that. Except he isn’t yours, not really.

Even less so as time ticks far past running late into the zone of stood up.

And you feel dumb, stupid. A gnawing sensation growing in the place your love had once been, it twisting, tainting, painting everything it can in ruin and staining it in the disappointment you never thought he’d make you feel.

“Fuck,” you choke out, hand clasping your face.

Fresh tears, acidic and thick, hammer down onto your cheeks like a downpour. Layering on top of one another, blurring your vision, making your chest feel both heavier and lighter all at once.

Grabbing your phone, you don’t even think—unlocking it, finding the contact and clicking Message.

Are you free for a drink?

You should consider it, go to bed, wake up tomorrow and bury your feelings in something healthier like yoga or a walk—but you send it. Discarding your phone across the counter, it clattering, catching on the plate as you bury your face in your hands.

Tears, hot and thick—running down your wrists—not doing enough to numb you as you let them fall. Disbelief doubles as hope is swallowed whole, your throat filling with sobs you feel forced to let spill—etching their way into the silence, fracturing it, cracking what should be laughter, but is instead loneliness.

It’s why you’re thankful they reply with a yes, giving it no more thought as you blow out the candle in the centre of the table, ending the night before it even began.

Frankie wakes to darkness.

It’s a comfort, the way it blankets him, allows the little shadows to rest easy against the ceiling from his open curtains—it is all soothing, relaxing. It even almost allowed him to curl back into the comfort of his sofa. His blanket—the one you bought him—cast over the lower part of his legs.

Then he remembers.

Eyes widening, blinking furiously as he throws his legs from the sofa, hand grabbing—making all sorts of noise on his coffee table—until his phone screen illuminates and he sees the time.

Late it spells.

It all a blaze, just in the form of numbers.

Fucking late it bellows.

Disorientation wraps around him as he shoves himself up to stand, fingers tugging at his curls until he imagines they’re more frizz than defined. Not even thinking—just grabbing. Phone, keys. Shoes barely on his feet as he yanks open his own door.

Calling you.

It rings. And it rings. Each unanswered drone of it doing something to the fragility of his heart. Making it quake, crackle at the edges.

All week, he’d done nothing but think of you. Think of holding you, burying himself close against you, not even asking you to shed layers, but rather just lying with him. Take in the weight of you that he finds all but a comfort.

I love you, he had planned to whisper. Mark it against your neck, just under your ear. Write it against your lips if you let him. Burn it anywhere else until you’re nothing but tattooed in praise and adoration.

“Pick up, baby,” he mumbles.

Ringing you again in the car.

The drive over tense, silent—the occasional dial tone echoing around the bed of his truck. His knuckles whiten at each red light, shoulders practically under his ears when he pulls onto your street. Something knotting, all horrible, riddled with vines and sharpness that cut into him with each breath he takes.

He’s not sure if he should be worried or thankful your car is in the drive—because the house is plunged into darkness. His boots clatter against your wooden steps, hammering on the short porch as he cracks his knuckles against the door.

Its echo, comes back to him—able to travel around in the silence and come back with an answer.

You’re not here.

But he knocks again, and again. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes, something clenched around his stomach, tightening and tightening as your name falls, all pleading, an edge to it that he hadn’t known was possible. But then, he hadn’t known he could begin splitting down the middle, the seams coming undone, his own might and willing not able to keep him together as the realisation he’d fucked up the one good thing he had.

The one good thing he didn’t even really have, too cowardly to tell you—too fearful that you’d stare at him blankly and tell him you don’t feel the same.

Because he’s been drowning in it, in this, in you, for so long, he knows how to just about keep his head from going under. He had been sure he could do it for longer, could stem his feelings, push them down. Until, you slept against him, fitting perfectly.

Until he woke with his arm draped over your waist, your leg tangled in his, staring at him with wonder and awe as you traced your name on his back.

He should have told you then it was the best thing he’s ever woken up to. A sight he had only dreamt of, but never imagined could even be true.

Pushing your key into the door, he’s greeted by darkness. It hovering its hand to him, welcoming him, even if the cold chill of the place was more than unsettling. He wanders, feet almost dragging, half hoping to find you sat in the dark, because at least then he could begin to make it up to you.

You’re not.

Moving through to your kitchen, all set to pass through to your bedroom, when something makes his eyes pull to your table, and he sees it.

Eyes landing on the set-up, from the plates to the glasses, to the orange dish in the centre—and his heart drops to his feet. It landed with a squelch, a thud which vibrates through him to the tips of him.

You made him food.

You broke a rule. You broke the rule.

His eyes beginning to well up, stinging, until one falls.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

Letting his hand run down his face, staring at his favourite meal—unable to unsee how congealed it was, how long it’s been sat there, existing, waiting.

“Fuck.”

an: forgive me 😘

CHAPTER NINE ->

406 notes · View notes

adaws12 · 5 months

Text

seeking what is desirable, one: cacciatore

Joel Miller x f!reader Explicit, 18+ Series masterlist | AO3

Series summary: Albert Camus said that "A man is always a prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them,” and it made me wonder how we justify romantic affairs — if we are free when we enter them in secrecy or only truly free when we have burned the bridges we ran over to reach the arms of the other.

Warnings: Smut, infidelity, age gap (25/47), no use of y/n, no outbreak AU, reader and Joel are married to OCs, reader is curvy but it's not a plot point, spousal neglect, alcohol, emotional unavailability, unprotected PIV, oral (f, m receiving), sex with a stranger, brief ass eating, choking, daddy kink, size kink, size difference, dd/lg dynamic, knees weak arms are heavy reader’s spaghetti

A/N: Welcome to my new series, hope you enjoy! There's no posting schedule but it will be updated regularly. Listen to the Spotify playlist while you read + follow my notifications blog!

Word count: 12.2k

“I am out with my lanterns, looking for myself.” — Emily Dickinson

—

“And I said to her, I said Rhonda, why on earth would you buy a sports car like that, I mean— at her age?”

You listen to your mother in law as she talks about her friend trading in her Mercedes for a Porsche, red painted nails wrapped around the stem of her wine glass, leaning over the island counter with her chin resting on the palm of her other hand, elbow propped up on the granite countertop. “You know Rhonda, she— Eh, nevermind, I could go on about her, God knows, I just— You know what I mean?” Listening to her talk makes you feel like you never left New Jersey, that the years you spent there attending university lasted a lifetime, though it never really became a second home.

Nodding along, you look into the pot of bolognese and wait for the moment you deem it ready for consumption, watching the bubbles in the thick sauce popping one by one, little specks of red clinging to the sides of the metal. You can’t remember the last time you spent Jeremiah’s money on yourself. The idea of the clothing on your body being his property makes you feel suffocated. There’s no lack of money, between his salary as a criminal defense lawyer and his father’s inheritance, but you want none of it in your pocket. They’re a wealthy bunch, his family, all lawyers, though Vivian was able to retire after turning thirty and shifted her focus to raising her son. The modest salary you earn from teaching at a local high school part time goes towards saving for something you’re not quite sure what is yet, but at least it’s yours to do with as you please.

“Where are their priorities? And don’t get me started on Barb,” Vivian wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and rolls her eyes, “We go to get our hair done the other day, the lady gives her highlights instead of lowlights, and she still tips twenty percent, would you believe that? Don’t get me wrong, a few dollars here and a few dollars there, but your husband works thirteen hours a day and this is what it goes towards? That and the rude nail technician who doesn’t know what a French manicure is?”

“Wow,” you say dryly as you shut off the burner, then dump the sauce into a pot of spaghetti, “Guess that’s why I do my own nails, I always know what I’m gonna get.” She waves her hand dismissively and takes another sip of her wine, then looks at her watch and purses her lips while you set the pot down on the dining table and gesture for her to come sit down.

“Well, have you gotten any answers about the placement yet?”, she asks as she slinks off the barstool, the same question you’ve received every Friday for the last month.

“No, but—”.

“You know Jayjay would be happy for you to just take care of things at home, right?”, she reaches her hand over to cover your own, and speaks in a reassuring manner, “You don’t have to bust your ass working with these kids all day, it sounds exhausting. Wouldn’t you rather spend time with your girlfriends?”

“No, it’s actually very rewa—”, you’re interrupted by the front door opening and the sound of your husband’s voice.

“Ma?”

Fucking mama’s boy, there’s no other way to describe him. High-powered lawyer, tall, muscular, lined up beard with dark, slicked back hair, nicely dressed and an absolute suck up to his mother, still her little boy at the age of thirty. It sure is easy for him to be in his mother’s good graces when she knows nothing about what he does at night, when he’s created and upheld the illusion, his entire adult life, that he’s nothing like his philandering father. The poor woman thinks her son got out scot free from watching his parents’ relationship and that he was able to take the good and leave the bad, that he provides for you and is a loving husband. In some ways, it’s true — he would be happy for you to stay at home, to go to pilates with his associates’ wives and spend your time shopping, cooking, and letting him do whatever he wants in exchange for the financial support. He does provide, but he’s emotionally vacant and there’s not much going on behind his stony, sculpted exterior.

She stands up and gives him a hug while you stay seated, holding out a plate for him. He takes it and greets you without looking directly at you, hey, babe, before taking off his tie with one hand, throwing it over the back of the adjacent chair and sitting down. You listen as Vivian tells him the same story she told you, about how she would never spend his father’s money like that, and you twist your fork in the spaghetti, watching it wrap around in circles while the voices across the table become a murmur. You can’t tell if he actually gives a shit about what she’s saying but he does play along, and he sounds enthusiastic, which, at the end of the day, is all she needs.

Vivian is a nice lady, a good mother. You wonder how on earth she raised a son like Jeremiah. He’s never been a prize — you’ve known that for a while — but you insisted so firmly on wanting to be with him, on coming with him when he got a job offer in Texas. And by the time you realized that he was, in fact, not a prize, it was too late. You’d already burned the bridges and severed the ties. Your parents tried to tell you not to marry him, to wait, give it a few months, but you weren’t having it, and you stomped your feet in a fit of childishness and said something about being a grown woman and then got on the flight the next day.

You haven’t seen them since, and the phone calls you used to reject eventually dried up last year and now you’re too afraid to return them. Your parents’ only daughter, detached and isolated and estranged, far away from them, out of reach. Their lasting memory of you is a final argument resulting in your mom throwing in the towel, verging on tears, and your dad standing beside her, emotionally constipated as can be, making a feeble attempt at comforting her. A singular hand on her back, barely moving, while she watched you roll your eyes and rip your jacket off the hanger and slam the door shut on your way out.

What stung the most wasn’t the fight, nor was it the tears you shed in the car, at the airport and on the plane. It was the sight of your mother giving in, or giving up more so, the deep inhale she took as she shook her head and said fine, go, I’ll be here if you need to come back. You hoped you never had to go back, but sometimes you find yourself wondering how it would feel to walk in the door to your childhood home and into your mother’s embrace, to have her cook for you and rub your back. The guilt and shame over how you left them, several years ago now, burns in the pit of your stomach, and you shudder when you think about how you spoke to your mother especially. You can’t begin to think about how your father must have felt — if he dared to open up to one singular emotion he would be hit with an avalanche of crap and shit and his parents’ divorce and a landslide of things he can’t even begin to comb through without having to take sick leave from work. But your mother, she’s never been afraid of emotion, and knowing that she’s likely still waiting for you to call her, to tell her that you miss her, hurts you every day.

Your attention shifts from your plate to the table and its glossy wooden surface. It was so expensive, much like the rest of the furniture in the house, a house your parents would never be able to afford, which somehow makes everything feel even worse. Sometimes a very unpleasant thought weasels itself into your mind, into your already guilty conscience; the idea that your parents think you left because they weren’t wealthy enough. When they sit in the duplex you call your childhood home, you fear that they feel ashamed over their own personal finances, over your modest upbringing, over the lack of vacations and boats and cabins that your classmates’ families all seemed to afford. To think that your mother feels as though her love was worth less than the wealth Jeremiah owns — you can’t even think about it, you swallow down the thought as soon as it arrives and you push it back down to where it was.

“I saw your friend Bianca the other day,” Vivian says with her hand on Jeremiah's forearm, snapping you out of your thought spiral. You hold back a bitter laugh at her calling Bianca his friend when Jeremiah’s laundry has been covered in her perfume for the better portion of a year. “She was holding hands with a man maybe around your height, blonde, curly hair, glasses— very handsome. Is he one of your associates? Is that the Oliver you keep talking about?”

He cocks an eyebrow as he stabs at his food, and you watch his eyes flare open before they narrow. He tilts his head to slightly stretch his neck. His jaw is tense. He’s jealous, and you feel a rush of adrenaline course through you. Her name has never been brought up between the two of you since you met her at a company party, and aside from his lousy explanations and floral smelling work shirts, you have no other proof that he’s unfaithful. That, and if you’re being honest, the complete lack of interest in sex with you that suddenly occurred when Bianca started working in his office. You don’t know how Vivian knows of this girl, and you’d prefer not to know, the same way you prefer to live with the truth of your husband’s indiscretions hidden in plain sight. It keeps your anger at bay. Your bitter, resentful, seething anger towards your husband for treating you like an option and towards yourself for accepting it this long. Your hand balls into a fist and you dig your acrylics into your palm before your fingers stretch open, long nails shining in the reflection of the chandelier. Your breathing goes fast and shallow, and you try not to tremble as you feel the suppressed tears and screams burning in your throat like acid.

“Not Oliver,” he says through his teeth, “Don’t know who that guy is.” Jeremiah keeps staring into the table, eyes fixated on the salt and pepper shakers across from him before they start to shift back and forth, clearly trying to figure out who his mother had spotted her with. And there you are, looking across the table at your husband who is clearly consumed with jealousy over another woman. What a pathetic reality to find yourself in. His left hand is clenched into a fist, the hand that bears his thick, black wedding ring. Sometimes you wonder if he notices it’s there, cold and hard around his finger. Sometimes you wonder if he even notices that you are there, no longer warm and no longer soft.

“I gotta make a call,” he says, clearing his throat as he puts his napkin on the table and pats his mother on her shoulder, then gets up and darts into the living room. You stay seated, trying to breathe through your nose as you force down the last few bites on your plate, feeling your blood boil. Truthfully, you don’t give a fuck who he sleeps with, the boring and selfish lover he is. What hurts is the humiliation of being that man’s wife, and the humiliation of his side piece — one or two, you think, maybe even three by now — feeling some sort of victory, as if he chose them over you, as if his attention is anything to strive towards. He’d lose it if he saw you holding hands with another man, if he saw another man treat you with kindness and tenderness and affection, and it would have nothing to do with you. It would be nothing but a bruise to his ego, and it would turn into an inevitable dick measuring competition where all he’d care about is being seen as a man, not some sort of cuckold, as if he’s ever been what you’ve come to consider as masculine.

“What are you two lovebirds up to tonight?”, Vivian asks, nodding towards the living room.

You sit up straight and chug the entirety of your wine, lick the corner of your mouth and plaster on a sickly sweet smile. “I’m going out tonight, actually,” you tell her, leaning over the table and tilting your head, “My coworker, Gianna, invited me to a housewarming party so I have to go shower. Jay will be back in a sec, okay?” You stand up as you grab your plate, then dump it in the sink and head upstairs, straight to the bathroom, where you dig a fresh razor out of the back of the cupboard under the sink.

Standing in the shower, you catch a glimpse of your shimmering engagement ring as the overhead light hits the flat surface of the diamond. With the water running down your back, you look out through the glass and towards the door, before wriggling your rings off and setting them on the shelf next to your shampoo. You rub the indent in your finger, stopping every few seconds to see if it has started to fade.

On the other side of town, Joel pulls a tray of enchiladas out of the broiler, takes off the oven mitts and tosses them on top of the counter, then folds his arms and leans against the drawers while he looks at Gwen, who’s gesturing broadly to the cupboards and the flooring. “I was thinking we could hire someone to remodel the kitchen, freshen it up a little,” she says, pointing around the room that has mostly stayed the same since they bought the house together fourteen years ago, when Sarah had just turned two. It was his fourth wedding anniversary present to her, that he remodeled the old kitchen, and surprised her with all new countertops, drawers, doors, and wall tiles he laid himself. She cried when she saw it for the first time, wrapped her arms around his neck and thanked him over and over, raving about how great it was every time she made lunch. Joel, however, has always spent the most time in the kitchen out of anyone in the family, dutifully making breakfast and dinner every day for himself, Gwen, Sarah, and for the last three years, Ellie.

“Freshen—”, he interrupts himself with a sigh and stands up straight, starting to collect dinner plates from the cupboard, “For what, Gwen? Why? If it ain't broke, don’t fix it.” He sets the table as he waits for her response, watching as she looks up into the ceiling and takes a deep breath, before he comes back over to the oven, running a hand over his beard.

“The energy here, it’s— it’s wrong,” she says, and he fixates his gaze on the corner of the room so as not to roll his eyes.

“Maybe,” he lowers his voice, “The energy here is wrong cause all you've done lately is pick fights whenever we’re in the same room, pretend like nothing when the girls walk in, and then we don't talk about it again until we argue about somethin’ else. Could that be it?”

“I just think it's time for a remodel,” she insists, nodding and folding her arms, leaning against the counter now.

He runs his hand over his forehead and looks at the cupboards, free from scratches, free from wear and tear like he intended, as if his work means shit to her. “Well, if it's time for remodeling, then I’m the one doing it, you understand? Ain’t payin’ someone else to do what I can do on the weekend, replacing the countertops or—”

She interrupts him then, holds her hand firmly out to the side and hisses, “Why do you always have to do everything? Why can't you delegate?”

His eyes flare open but his blood pressure stays the same — too used to this conversation, too used to Gwen wanting something new, something different. It’s always been like this, more or less, Gwen being the whimsical free spirit who always seeks novelty and newness while Joel values solidity and routine. He always liked that she pulled him one step out of his comfort zone, convincing him to go dancing or take a weekend trip, but it seemed that their differences were no longer complementary when Sarah entered the picture, and where he felt that she needed routine and familiarity, Gwen thought it was never too early to go out and experience the world. Since then, a slow, gradual crack in the foundation of their marriage started to deepen, that he tried to fill with compromises and ideas until he could no longer see the end of it, until he found himself home alone with his daughter every weekend while his wife was out on girls’ trips with a plane ticket he paid for.

“Gwen, that would cost a fortune compared to me just doing it. Please, just— if it really means that much to ya, I’ll do it, but just give me some time, okay? I’m— I’m doin’ everything around here and the girls ain’t even in school yet, it’s gonna get busier and we have to prioritize.” A huff is all he gets in response, an avoidance of eye contact as she tips her head back. “Can you tell them that dinner is ready?”, he asks and takes a step in front of her, peering down to meet her eyes, caging her in with one hand on the hard surface while the other brushes her hair over her shoulder, seeking contact, closeness. To say she has responded to his attempts at affection in the last few years with passivity would be an understatement, and he has tried so hard to meet her where she is, but sometimes he wonders if their love has run dry. If it’s that simple. It hurts to look at her and not touch her, to sleep next to someone who he can tell would prefer to have the bed to themselves, never seeking him out for warmth or comfort. He wraps his hand around the back of her neck, forces her to look at him, and waits for her to pull him closer but she never does.

“Dinner’s ready,” she yells to the living room, then pushes him lightly with a palm on his chest, walks away and sits down at the table. He plants both palms on the countertop and hangs his head, tries to deal with the subtle rejection that shouldn’t sting him anymore with how little he feels for the woman he calls his wife. He’s not entirely sure what hurts more, between the pain of her rejection and the recognition of how little he feels when he looks at her now. Despite how beautiful she is, it can only go so far, it can only compensate so much before he’s struck with the feeling that she is no longer his, and wonders whether she ever has been at all, the free spirit she is. The thing he liked about her, that he thought he could learn a thing or two from, now a point of contention. She said once that he holds her back, and although she didn’t say what from and then ate her words moments later, he never forgot how she spat the words at him. But this is the life he has chosen for himself, it is a choice he lives with and a choice he continues to make every day.

“Early dinner today, Joel,” Ellie remarks as she sits down, “Are you preparing for the nursing home I showed you the other day? Only two more hours and you’ll be right on schedule.” Sarah snorts and Joel rolls his eyes. Little shit, he mutters and hands her the spatula.

“Your dad’s going out tonight,” Gwen says and winks to Joel, nudging his shoulder. No fighting in front of Sarah seemed like a great idea until she got old enough to tell what’s going on and Joel fears that she will become an adult who associates resentment and coldness with love and relationships. The only time she ever touches him is in front of Sarah and Ellie, detached and not much more than a performance.

“You remember your uncle Tommy’s old friend, Marco? Probably saw him last at Tommy’s fortieth, anyway, his sister is having a housewarming party, I guess—”

“I’m making him go,” Gwen cuts him off triumphantly, then turns to him, “You never do anything on Friday nights, you just sit and read…Live a little, maybe see some old friends, then the three of us girls can spend some time together.” She’s not wrong, but after a week of work, cooking, cleaning and homework help, he can’t imagine doing much more than sitting still and reading, getting his mind off of things for a while. Last year, for Christmas, his sister in law gave him a copy of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus. She majored in philosophy back in the day and thought that maybe Joel would have a taste for the absurd and the existential. He couldn’t figure out why he got so irritated at one line in the book, "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" — what a naive and ridiculous thing to think about someone pushing a rock up a hill for all eternity, he thought — until he looked back on his past week and realized the only thing separating the days in his mind was what he packed Sarah and Ellie for their lunches.

When both lunch boxes were tucked into their backpacks, his days shifted back into being part of the same blur, and suddenly he felt as though he was the one pushing the rock, but instead of getting higher up on the mountain as he went along, it rolled back down every night he went to bed and he had to start over when he woke up in the morning. His days, his weeks, his months; all the same with miniscule amounts of distinguishable traits. It’s as if he’s working for a goal he never reaches and perhaps never even tried to set, telling himself that he’ll go on vacation when this house is done or that bathroom is finished, but it never happens, he never even looks at plane tickets or thinks about where he might like to spend a week or two.

There’s a silence before Sarah takes her turn to speak, nodding towards Ellie. “We have a class together this semester,” she says, and Gwen nods, smiles, looks at her intently, “It’s just biology, nothing too special, but the teacher is pretty young and seems cool, and there are field trips so—”. Joel watches as Gwen takes a bite of her food, and although she nods along, her eyes no longer meet Sarah’s. It’s as if they glaze over when she’s speaking to her own daughter, staring across to the other side of the table, clearly deep in thought about something else. He tries to get Sarah’s attention before she catches that her mother has checked out on her again, and with a single glance at Ellie, he can tell that she has witnessed it happening again, somehow having Joel's exact observant streak despite lacking the blood relation he thought was required in order to inherit such traits.

“New teacher?”, he asks.

“Yeah, I think we might be in the same social studies too but they haven’t told us who’s teaching it yet, so..”, she shrugs, and Joel nods as he looks at the two of them, before checking the time on his wrist, planning when to pick up Tommy for the party he’s getting dragged to with his own wife as an accomplice.

—

When you arrive at Paula’s house, hoping you got the right address from Gianna, you step out of the car to a slight breeze, welcome in the warm air of a mid-July evening. You listen to the click-clack of your heels as you make your way to the house, and right before you wrap your fingers around the door handle, you slip your rings off again and drop them into your purse, watching them disappear into the darkness before you open the door and step inside.

Luckily, you spot Gianna immediately and head over to the couch she’s perched on the armrest of. She hands you a glass of wine and introduces you to a girl named Isabella, her childhood friend. You chit chat a little about work, you learn that Isabella works as a personal trainer, and she bashfully pushes Gianna’s shoulder at her glowing review and recommendation that you train with her once you get tired of the snobby gym Jeremiah goes to. You promise to give her a call the next time some old man tries to hit on you at your current gym, and she laughs before they’re both whisked away by a woman you’ve never seen before. A little nervously, you stay on the couch, hoping they’ll be back in not too long. You scoot backward as your hand runs over your thigh, anxiously smoothing down your dress and looking at your naked ring finger, when you collide into something hard and immovable, a wall behind you that feels unexpectedly warm on the bare skin of your shoulder blades.

The man you’ve bumped into turns around immediately, his hand shooting out to touch your back, right above the edge of your dress. As you turn towards him, his chest and shoulders are in eyeline, thick and broad and stretching out the fibers of a v-necked navy sweater with the sleeves bunched up below his elbows. His entire torso is turned towards you as you look over your shoulder, slowly rotating your body when you realize that he’s touching you. His palm is big and warm, radiating heat into your spine, staying on you as you turn. You think you might melt or burn up under his searing touch and his gaze, zeroed in on you like an animal caught in a trap. “I am so sorry,” he says, his husky voice full of concern, “You didn’t spill anything, did ya?” His dark brown eyes sweep over your lap, brows knitted as he looks back up at you.

“No, no, sorry, I didn’t—”, you suck in a breath that spasms as your lungs fill and that palm is still there, his other hand holding around a short glass, comically small in his large hand and a quarter full of copper shaded, dark liquid. You look back up at his face then, wholly unprepared for your body’s reaction to his brown and silver streaked, messy curls, his eyes that carry as much concern as his voice, and his patchy, gray beard. You think your eyes might slide into the back of your head at the whiff of his scent that hits your nostrils, of his cologne or deodorant or just his musk, you can’t even hazard a guess with the state you find yourself in. “I didn’t notice you were sitting there,” you force out with a nervous laugh, before you put your hand out and introduce yourself.

It’s only when he removes his palm from your back, reaching out to envelop your much smaller, much softer hand, that you notice the gold wedding band on his thick finger. You shouldn’t be surprised, but your stomach still sinks just a little. Of course he’s taken, and you haven’t yet forgotten that you are too, but his wife must be somewhere else tonight, because if you were married to a man like that, you wouldn’t let him out of your sight for a second. “Joel,” he says warmly, letting your eyes get lost in his as he lightly squeezes, then lets go, “How’s your night been?”

“Good, aside from getting abandoned by my friend and left with a stranger,” you respond teasingly, and he nods, humming in acknowledgment with a subtle smile on his lips. You shift around and place one knee over the other, fully turned towards him now and resting your forearm on your thigh, still holding onto your half empty glass. You raise your brows and widen your eyes in a show of suspicion, acting a little dramatic for the hell of it, “For all I know, you might be a serial killer.” He chuckles as he takes a sip from his glass, eyes trained on yours. You watch as he slowly blinks, then looks down for a moment, and you bite back a smile when you get to look into his gorgeous irises again. You’re so fucked.

“Is that the vibe I give off?” His voice is an octave lower now, breathier, and his eyes narrow to match your oh, so suspicious act. He’s still smirking and he rests his elbows on his jeans, leaning down a little to meet your height. You don’t miss it when his eyes quickly scan your face, flashing open when they linger on your lips for just a second longer than he probably means to, then returning to your eyes. Oh, he’s so handsome, so rugged and masculine and grown it makes you feel like a little girl, flustered and shy and overcome with giggles. Feeling this way in the presence of a man is, at once, exciting and mortifying, a feeling of vulnerability you’ve managed to avoid until now, when it has hit you like a freight train. No one ever makes you feel small or dainty or little, nor do they make you want to give up control over yourself and your body, but in the presence of this mountain of a man, you’re sure he could hold you in just his palm. You’d live there if you could.

“On second thought,” you say, tossing your hair back over your shoulder and feeling devious, “I think serial killers are supposed to be charming?” You grimace at him and take a sip of your wine, cocking an eyebrow when the rim of the glass touches your lips, lingering on his eyes for a second as he takes you in.

“Pshh,” he nudges your arm with his elbow and your lashes flutter at the contact, “Didn’t know I came here to get roasted by some random little lady.” A giggle escapes you and your face feels flushed warm. Term of endearment or not, you feel it in your spine, the mere expression of him perceiving you and recognizing himself as the one with the upper hand. There’s an air of dominance to him, one that isn’t forced and doesn’t have to be explained, but rather exists as something intangible but overwhelmingly present. It’s part of his essence.

“Random little lady my ass,” you snark, sounding flirtier than you intended and slapping him lightly on his thigh, “Who do you know here anyway? Are you a party crasher, or having a midlife crisis or something?”

“You got me,” he sucks air in through his teeth and holds his hands up in surrender, lifting three fingers from his glass, “Full midlife crisis on the couch of a stranger while I wait for my sportscar. Gettin’ a perm tomorrow too, just to top it all off.” You share a laugh as you tilt your head, eyes fixated on his face, on the wrinkles by his eyes and the curve of his nose. There’s a slight blush in his cheeks, lips pulled up into a smile he tries to hide behind the glass while he takes a sip. During the moment of silence between you, you watch the muscles in his neck as he swallows. “Nah, in all seriousness, my brother Tommy over there,” he points to a man across the room with longer, darker curls, “He’s childhood friends with Marco, Paula’s older brother. And you?”

“Paula is a friend of Gianna, my coworker, who brought me here and subsequently ditched me. So I guess you’re my coworker’s friend’s brother’s friend’s brother?”

“Sounds about right,” he says, and in the corner of your eye, you spot him playing with his wedding band, his thumb spinning it around on his finger while he looks across the room, and then at you. He can’t get his eyes off your lips, gaze zeroed in on the tip of your tongue that peeks out to lick the corner of your mouth. That sweater was a horrible idea, way too warm, he can feel the sweat stains forming already and the skin on his back dampening from how you look at him. He’s never seen anyone quite like you, has never felt a tangible, physical pull towards a woman, or a want to have her in his hands so desperate he could fall to his knees to beg for it. He can see it, clear as day, how badly you want him, and it makes his palms perspire so much he tucks his pinky under the glass to keep it from slipping out. He’ll never recover from feeling this wanted, and he’ll never forget the urge to throw you over his shoulder and take you home with him, to unravel you and overpower you with his strength, to make you his. His cock twitches and he adjusts in his seat. “What do you— what do you do for a living?”, he asks.

“I’m a high school teacher, I teach social studies.”

“Where at?”

“Good question,” you sigh, “I don't know yet actually, I'm waiting to see where I get placed this year. Could be anywhere in the county.”

“That's exciting,” he says and raises his eyebrows. His genuine enthusiasm is so kind and warm and it hurts, just a little, that this stranger seems to be the person in your life who is the most supportive of this career, of your choice to have a career in the first place. He doesn’t need to know it’s only part time and that you had to convince Jeremiah to let you work, nor does he need to know much of anything about you aside from how much you want him and how desperate you are to have sex with someone who isn’t your cheating husband.

“Eh..”, you shrug, “What do you do?”

“Mostly carpentry, but some other stuff too,” his voice sounds so deep, so husky, but smooth as butter, “I do drywall, tile setting, insulation.” God, the way this man talks. It feels like foreplay to listen to him, to look into his deep, chocolate brown eyes while he talks about things you have no clue about but you’d do anything to hear him explain. His accent, his cadence, his tone — so beautifully comforting, so sexy and soothing and warm. His gaze is transfixed on you, as if nobody else exists in this room, despite the ring on his finger, and if you ever had a chance to get what you need, it’s from him. Deep in your intuition, you know this for a fact. He'll take care of you, there’s no doubt, it radiates from him. You want him to hold you, want him to stroke your hair and ask you about your day, you want him to fix the stupid broken hinge on your closet door and cook you dinner. It’s all too much.

You cock an eyebrow and bite your lip, casting all subtlety aside. After all, you could find someone else if he pulls away, but you’d really like for him to be the one to take you away from it all for just one night. “So you’re good with your hands?”

“Uhh—”, he clears his throat, then chuckles and blinks a few times as if he’s snapping out of a trance, “Yeah, you could say that.” He watches your lips curve into a sneaky smile and cannot, for the life of him, remember the last time someone gazed at him like that, with an expression dripping with lust and desire for him. Not even his wife. Without thinking, and as if he’s driven by nothing but instinct and a primal need for intimacy, he tucks his hand into his pocket and keeps it there while he looks around the room. He fidgets with his ring for a few seconds before carefully slipping it off and letting it slide down till it hits the seam of the pocket, then takes his hand back out and runs it through his hair. You glance at his finger then, the gold band gone from your sight, and you wonder if perhaps he’s here for the same reason you are, that maybe he wasn’t quite as determined but saw the opportunity unfold and decided to take it. Either way, you’re going in for the kill, and there’s no turning back now.

“You're very handsome,” you purr, looking at the silver in his curls, then his eyes, his nose, his lips, his chest. You smile when you make eye contact again, watching him try to compose himself while he studies you. The effect you have on him is so unbelievably satisfying, and you want to sink your claws into him, drag your nails down his skin and leave marks all over his back. You want him to fuck you so deeply and thoroughly that you feel him the day after tomorrow. You want him to ruin you.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he says, flustered and blushing, with a hand on the back of his neck, “You’re very beautiful yourself.” He takes a breath, almost chuckles on the exhale, clears his throat again, his eyes getting lost in yours, “Stunning, even, you're— uh, I’ve never—”. And you thought you didn’t fall for charm and pet names, thought you were immune to sweet talk until this man came along and tore up the very foundation of your own beliefs about attraction, about how it truly feels to be attracted to another human being.

“Thank you, Joel, you like my dress?” You tilt your head and bat your eyelashes, knowing you’ve caught him, only needing to reel him in a tad more. Just a little bit.

“I do,” he breathes, and you could unravel at the sight of his smile alone, at his undivided attention, the reciprocated attraction drawing you towards each other like magnets, desperate to be close. He lifts your hair away from your shoulder, letting his fingertips trace down your upper back, goosebumps following their trail, “Looks good with your earrings — little ladybugs?”

“Mhm.”

“Those things are always gonna remind me of you now,” he chuckles, “You know that, right?” You swoon like a schoolgirl, rolling your eyes while you grin, completely overcome with infatuation and the mere idea that Joel would think about you again after tonight.

Mhmm, you nod. “From now on,” you look into his eyes, with all the sincerely you can muster, and shift closer to him until your knees hit the side of his thigh, “Every time you see a ladybug; it’s me, getting ditched by my friends and desperately seeking you out for company and entertainment, so be nice to her.”

“I will,” he says with a wink, then chuckles a little as he shakes his head. His smile makes the little wrinkles by his eyes deepen, and it is the most gorgeous thing you’ve seen in as long as you can remember. He has to be in his early forties, judging by the silver threads and the crows feet, the indent of a concerned wrinkle or two between his eyebrows. Your forearm rests on his knee and he watches how you’re drawn towards him, how your body leans into his and seeks him out. He can tell you feel safe around him, that you feel comfortable enough to rest on his limbs. He feels needed, wanted, and he wants you too, wants to give you as much of himself as you want to receive. There’s an undeniable pull between the two of you, a magnetism that turns the rest of the room into a blur of sounds and voices and bodies. There’s no way in hell he can point out anything else in the room at this moment — all he sees is you.

“What are you looking at?”, you ask innocently.

“Nothin’”

You lean in a little closer and purr, “Just me?”

You look like passion and desire and intimacy and all the things he’s pretended not to need for more years than he dares to count. You look like a long night and a longer morning, like sweat stained sheets and tangled limbs and holding hands while you eat breakfast. He can smell your perfume and the scent makes him dizzy with arousal, with a primal need to pick you up and toss you onto the closest bed he can find. To make love to you and show you everything he’s still very much capable of at his age. There’s no way you can’t tell how old he is, and the way your eyes sparkle when you look across his face makes his chest feel hot. You’re so young and beautiful and he doesn’t deserve you but he’s not going to put up an ounce of resistance when you come onto him like this.

He might not get that damn vacation, he might work Monday to Friday until the day he retires without ever getting on a plane to the Bahamas. He might never feel the lustful and hungry gaze of another woman. He might never be able to look himself in the mirror ever again. But tonight, he’s gonna give you his all. This is his reckoning, his break, his vacation, his confidence boost — a night with you is his reward for his selflessness, his sacrifices for his family. His reward is to give you what you need, to hear how you sound while he satisfies you. To feel you. That is what he’s been working towards.

“Just you,” he says, and before you can think up any sort of coherent response, you feel his hand wrap around the back of your neck, pulling you in, and you close your eyes as he leans in to kiss you. You’re shaking, and you can feel the slight tremble in his hand too, opening your mouth just enough to carefully take in his bottom lip. Your breaths are stuttered and nervous as they fan over his cheek, trying not to exhale too hard through your nose, suddenly aware of every single movement made by every muscle in your body. You taste the whiskey on his tongue when it meets your own. It makes you whimper, and your hand shoots out to grip a fistful of his sweater.

The quick tug of the fabric makes his eyes flash open and he watches your face as he kisses you, though only for a moment before he glances to the side and realizes how many people could give his wife an unsavory phone call any second. He doesn’t stop, though, just grips the back of your neck more firmly and licks into you, behind your teeth and as far into your mouth as you’ll allow him. You moan when you feel his tongue, and with all of the restraint he can conjure up, he pulls back to look at you. “Wanna go somewhere a little more private? Think I walked past an open bedroom down the hall,” he says, then inhales a shaky breath and chuckles, a little flustered again, “Or, I’m— I’m sorry, that might be a little forward, I—”

“Let’s go.” You set your wine glass down on the side table before you grab his hand and stand up, watching him ditch the last sip of his drink and follow you through the crowd. He looks down at your figure as you make your way through the hot, noisy living room and into the empty hallway, where he spins you around and pins you against the wall, starting to make out with you frantically, teeth clashing and growls ripping from his throat. He moves ravenously to the side of your neck, kisses you there too and bites softly along the column of your throat as you tilt your head back onto the wall and whimper his name. The cadence of your shared breaths is erratic, desperate — how can you be married and yet so touch starved? How can you share a bed with another person and still never feel the heat of their skin on yours? It’s as if you need a sign of life, a pulse, anything other than the vacant presence of the person you share a bed with every night, worse than if they weren't there at all. I need this, I need this, I need it more than you know.

He pulls at the half open door next to you and backs you into the room, shutting the door and flipping the lock behind himself with his lips on yours. His cock strains in his jeans, too tight over his crotch, and his hands rove over your back, down to your ass, cupping and squeezing it in his palms, pulling you towards himself while your arms reach up to circle his neck. He’s so tall, so broad, and you can barely clasp your hands together at his nape, even when he bends down to grab your asscheeks. He smells so good, masculine and intoxicating, and you can feel how hard he is, how big he is, through his pants. Your hands quickly fall to his belt buckle, frantically clawing at it until he chuckles and puts his hand over yours. Easy, he whispers with a smile, slipping a finger under each of the straps running along your chest and pulling them over your shoulders, then down your arms until your tits spill out of your dress, nipples firm and tight from the arousal churning inside you. He leans down further, takes your nipple into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it, sucking gently while he walks you towards the bed, then releases it with a wet kiss.

He pulls your dress all the way down, holding your hands as you step out of it, then pulls you close again and you push your tongue past his lips, kissing him with a desperation so palpable there’s no way he can’t feel it. He crouches down to pull off your panties, then discards all of his own clothing in a frantic hurry, leaving the two of you naked as he throws you onto the double bed. The room is faintly lit by a glowing lamp on the nightstand, casting a warm hue over the bed, over your nude bodies, and as he crawls up the mattress between your legs, you see the overwhelming size and perfect shape of his cock. The tip is wide, flushed red and leaking precome, his shaft is thick and decorated with bulging veins, and his pelvis is covered with dark, thick hair. It might very well be the most masculine thing you’ve ever seen, his body hovering over yours, and everything inside of you starts to ache for his touch. You want him inside you, want to feel every inch of him stretch you out and turn you into a submissive little bunny for him.

Despite his rush to get you in the room, he takes his time with you. He lays down on top of you, shifting to relieve you of his weight, kissing you again, slower this time, deeper. His hand sweeps down your back, over your ass, reaches the back of your thigh and pulls your leg up over his waist, letting his cock rest against your cleft, already wet and weeping. He can’t stop touching you, can’t stop running his hands down your spine, squeezing your ass and stroking your hair. His heart rate slows, the frantic energy of the past ten minutes having dissipated, no longer worried about his performance but now incredibly concerned with making you feel good. “I'll take such good care of you, baby,” he coos, shifting down to lick your nipple, kissing it and sucking on it for no more than a moment. You miss the feel of his lips on your chest when he retracts, you want them everywhere. His hand moves down your stomach and you lift your leg for him as he slips a finger into you, “I'll eat this gorgeous little pussy and lick your pretty clit till you tell me to stop,” he curls his digit into your g-spot, pressing and massaging, “I'll make you come, I'll give you my cock, I'll fuck you — you want that, ladybug?”

“I do,” you squeak, eyes rolling back at the feeling of his finger inside of you, the touch of a man to an area only you’re familiar with now, that only you have touched with care and affection for so long. He fills you and rubs you so gently, with intention and tenderness, kissing your neck and your chest. “More than anything, please, please,” you beg, and he gives you another finger, stretching your little hole, making space for himself. The way you moan makes a heavy bead of precome leak from his cock and onto your leg. It is so disproportionately intimate to be this naked with someone the first time you fuck, the first time you meet, in a stranger’s home, but you need it so badly and something tells you that he needs it just as much. He scoots down, off the bed, kneeling on the floor and pulling you to the edge by the flesh of your ass, spreading your legs and settling between them to access the place you need him to lick and suck. You shaved everything, squatted down in the shower and got every crevice, needing to feel this as much as you could, and you love that he hasn’t touched a razor in what has to be months. You want to feel his soft, wet tongue and then the scratch of his thick hair on your clit — you need it, and it is no longer a simple want.

He licks the crease between your folds and your thigh, opens you up with his thumbs and licks your clit, closes his eyes and eats you while he hums at the taste. He lifts your legs back, spreading you further so he can press his tongue into your opening, lick your asshole, come back up and suck on your clit until your back arches off the bed and you come for him with your fingers threaded through his curls, holding him right there and riding his tongue. God, the way you moan for him, the way you fit in his hands when he holds you down, continues to lick you, and you writhe in his grasp, trying to squirm out until you settle and let yourself come once more. He loves doing this and yet he never gets to, he loves the taste of your pussy and the arousal leaking out from your opening that he laps up before he pulls you all the way to the edge and stands to his full height. The thought of wearing a condom doesn’t even cross his mind, too many years gone by since he last had sex with someone new and all he can find it in himself to think about is how not to come the moment he enters you.

His hand wraps around the head of his cock, drags his palm up and down slowly while he looks down at your naked form. You want to touch his face, want to feel his scratchy beard, but he’s too tall and your body is sunk too deep into the mattress, so you sit up and reach your hand out, placing the pads of your fingers just above where the dark curls start to cover his skin, tracing across his stomach while he strokes himself slowly. You’re mesmerized by how he touches himself, how he hardens even more from the gentle stimulation. “Daddy,” you whisper, eyes wide and glassy, feeling the word slip out between your lips when you take him in. His eyes slide back and a shudder moves through him, down his spine, forcing out another drop of precome, “Fuck, you’re so big.” You bite your bottom lip, entirely sure that you should be embarrassed of yourself now, but it’s all that comes to mind when you look at him, at his thick middle, the hair tracing down from his chest to his navel. Joel. Daddy. You want to say it again and again.

“It's all yours, angel, all for you,” he coos, loving your attention, your eyes on his body, your legs spread and pussy leaking onto the sheets. “You want it inside you?”, he reaches down to slip two fingers back into you while he strokes himself, and you continue to brush your fingers over his skin, down to his pubic bone now, feeling the scratch against your skin and wondering how it’ll feel against your clit. “It ain’t gonna fit, though, baby, you're too tight,” he tuts, rotating his wrist and feeling you tighten.

“Yes, it will,” you groan, “I need it so badly, please, daddy”

“You need daddy to make it fit?”

Mhmm, you pout, nodding your head and looking up at him, batting your lashes. He can’t resist that face and those big eyes. He needs to fuck you, needs to feel your tight pussy around him, needs to make you squirt all over his groin. “Suck on it a little, honey, get it wet,” he murmurs, letting go of his head to press down on his shaft, and you take him into your mouth, slather your saliva around his wide tip, slowly taking him in all the way to the back of your mouth and drool when he thrusts just a little further. “Good girl,” he whispers, then moans and lets his head fall back on his shoulders, letting you lick his frenulum and suck on his length, “Fuck, you're gonna make me come like that.” One last thrust and a swirl of your tongue, then he pulls out from your wet mouth before it's too late, and the sight of your spit dripping from his shaft makes him throb.

“Christ, baby, you see what you do to me?”, he groans, giving a few tugs to his tip, wet and flushed red, “See how hard I am for you?” He paws at you to lay back down, grabs the backs of your knees and pushes them down to fold you, then leans over, takes his cock in his hand and guides it into you, inch by inch, and the stretch is almost unbearable. Holy shit, you gasp, and feel his tongue on your lips while he pushes deeper and deeper and you cannot possibly fathom how he fits inside of you, but he makes it fit, he fills you until your clit rubs against that coarse thatch of hair. “Yeah, you like that,” he whispers into your mouth, and thrusts so slowly you can feel every inch as it slides out of your opening and you suck him back in. He’s a stranger and yet here you are, completely bared to him, open and full of him, raw and unprotected, hearing him moan and curse under his breath. He fits as if you were molded for him, your pussy created in the image of his cock, and you know this about him but you do not know where he lives or where he works. You know that he’s married but you wonder if he has children, if he got his wife pregnant like this. You wonder when he last had sex, if he’s ever had sex with a stranger before. You were in college the last time, bent over a twin bed in a fraternity house, fully clothed, standing on a sticky floor in a tiny room. It was, without a doubt, the worst sex you’ve ever had, and now you’re here with your second stranger, on the precipice of your third orgasm, waiting for the last nudge of his body against your clit to push you over.

He grunts and slowly pounds into you, making your chest shake every time he hits your cervix, pressing his palms into the back of your thighs and pushing them out to the side to see all of you. But it’s not enough, he needs you in the palm of his hand, and he leans over to wrap his fingers over your throat and anchor you to the bed while your eyes roll back and you start to spill around him. It drips down onto the sheets, he plants his other hand on the bed while you claw at his chest, trying to pull him closer while he flexes his arm and keeps you under his control. Another few deep thrusts, staring into your eyes, and he lets go, lays on top of you and licks into your mouth. It’s messy and sloppy and you wrap your arms around his neck, feeling a bead of his sweat hit your chest.

Then you’re swiftly flipped onto all fours, back arched with your ass high in the air, looking back at him as you gently sway your hips, arms stretched out in front of you. He enters you from behind in one smooth thrust, grabbing your hips with both hands, sliding in and out of you, and your head falls back on your shoulder while you moan. His resounding growls send electricity through you, right to the fleshy little spot he nudges into, over and over. “I’ve never— never been f—fucked like this,” you hiccup, as he thrusts a little harder, grinds deeper, and when you reach down to circle your clit with your fingers, you immediately come for him again, clenching around his thickness, “Joel, Joel, please, I love your cock, you feel so good”. The way you say his name makes his chest tighten — it almost hurts.

“That’s right, baby, you deserve to be taken care of, deserve pleasure, deserve to feel good,” he murmurs into the shell of your ears, his voice low and raspy. Don’t stop, don’t stop, you can barely form coherent words. “Imagine how lucky I am, huh?”, he says, and rubs his nose along the back of your shoulder and scattering kisses along the goosebumps raising up from your skin, prolonging your orgasm with his slow, deep thrusts, “So lucky to be deep inside this little cunt, so wet, so tight around me.” He bends over to bite at your jaw and you reach your hand up to the back of his neck, rising on your knees, turning your face to his, feeling the roughness of his beard on the softness of your cheek while he grabs your tit, squeezing and kneading before his hand falls to your hip and he pulls you back onto his cock.

You’ll never be touched or fucked or loved on like this again, not if he goes home to his wife tonight and he reverts to being nothing but a stranger. That word shouldn’t be in your mind or anywhere near this room but what on earth are you supposed to call this type of intimacy? The type that warms you, holds you, the type that keeps you safe and protected while it opens you up and lets someone look into the very depths of you. He sees you, he’s the only person who has ever felt you like this, and what are you supposed to call the feeling of his skin on yours and the tenderness of his touch when this is the most loved you have ever felt by a man?

You arch your back, bending your spine so he can reach a depth that makes your sight blurry. You’re cradled in the curve of his body as he towers over you, fucking you slowly so you settle, so you don’t strain yourself but let him bend you as he pleases, like his little toy, pliable and submissive and soft for him. “Nah,” you suddenly hear his voice and a rough sort of chuckle in your ear, “This is gonna be over too quick, too fuckin’ tight.” You crane your neck further to kiss him and taste your own salty sweat on his lips, then feel him withdraw from you slowly, letting you feel every inch as you clench in an attempt to pull him back in. His arms wrap around you, spin you around to face him, and he kisses you with such sweetness and tenderness you think you might fall in love with him right here and now.

“Let me lay you down, sweetheart,” he says, and lifts you while he kneels onto the bed, lowering you onto your back before he comes to lay behind you. You fit so perfectly, tucked into his body, that it feels unfair you can’t sleep in the safe clutch of his arms and wake up there tomorrow. He slips his arm under your neck, threads his fingers through yours and holds you tightly, lifts your leg and glides back into you, then turns your face to his. It’s so excruciatingly intimate, it’s borderline romantic how he whispers, kiss me, and his lips meld with yours so softly and gently while he reaches down to rub your clit. “Feels good to have a big cock inside you, huh?”, he coos when you start to squirm and he holds you steady, fucks into you deeply and in long, slow strokes, “Of course it does… Little thing like you just needed someone to fuck you right.”

“Someone like you, daddy?”, you ask and look into his eyes, his deep, beautiful chocolate brown eyes, and reach your free hand up to run your fingers through his hair again, to gently drag your nails along the base of his skull. Mhmmm, he’ll treat you right, he’ll fuck you right, he’ll do anything, as carried away as he is, as overwhelmed as he is by you, as intoxicated as he is by your scent and the sound of your moans. He’ll never be the same again.

“How do you get so fucking deep?” You buck your hips and wind into his grip, his palm pushing onto your lower abdomen while the pad of his finger circles your clit and his cock is so deep inside you lose all sense of time and space. All you feel is him.

“Just wanna make you come, sweetheart,” he chuckles and starts to thrust a little faster, “So use my cock, okay? Just use it, make yourself come on daddy’s cock — fuck yeah, good girl”. And oh, has he missed talking like this, he has never even gotten the chance to be who he is now, to soften a woman and talk her into coming for him, to enter into this shared sort of erotic consciousness with her where she lets him take care of her and be everything to her for the night, to be her caretaker and lover and safe space. He wants to take care of you, and not just tonight, wants to make sure that you’re safe and fed and comfortable, that you’re satisfied and that you feel good. You clench your hand, tighten around his cock, winding and moaning, raising your chest and arching your back as that blissful sensation starts to build in your spine. “Yeah, just like that,” he coos, and rubs your nose against his, pressing the pads of his fingers into your clit just a little more, and your orgasm washes over you before you get to tell him it's here, “There it is, right there.”

He sees how fucked out you are, feels your arousal start to smear all over his crotch and his cock starts to swell and throb. “You’re making me come, babygirl, you feel so fucking good,” he breathes, in disbelief almost, only a moment away now, “Where do you want it?”

Anywhere, daddy. He can’t possibly hold it any longer, and as he hangs onto the sliver of reality he still has in his grasp, he rips himself out of you and tugs at his cock, moaning in your ear and stroking his head with your slick while hot ropes of come coat your mound and start to dribble down your folds. You giggle into his mouth and kiss him again, then pull back to see him smiling and blushing, looking down at your lips while he holds your thigh and brushes your skin with his thumb. “I’ll clean you up in a second, just wanna— wanna lay here a bit, with you, if that’s okay.” You smile, of course, he kisses you and he turns you around, then wraps his arms around you, and they are, without a doubt, the warmest, safest place you’ve ever felt. He pulls your leg back up over his hip, lets you make a mess and smear his come all over his groin, needing you closer. You feel his lips on your forehead, a soft kiss, and then his nose nuzzling into your hairline. You dig your face into his neck while he sweeps your hair away from the damp skin on your upper back, holds you at your nape and brushes his thumb along the side of your throat.

He needs this, there's no way around it, no longer a way for him to lie to himself that the crumbs of intimacy he's given at home will suffice. It is not a want, not a wish and not a fantasy, it is a need. He needs intimacy, closeness, warmth, your kind eyes on him and your hums of contentment when he touches you. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers, “Sorry I can’t shut my mouth, sweetheart, you’re just so gorgeous and so fascinating, I can’t— I don’t— I don’t know how I got lucky enough to spend my night with you. Jesus, you’re a soft little thing, such a pretty girl.” He wraps his arms tighter around you, places another kiss to the top of your forehead, and although he can feel you smile and murmur thanks, digging your face further into his skin, he feels awful that he can't take you to dinner after this like he wants to and like he should. You must think of him as the type who uses women for his own entertainment, he's sure of it, and the thought of you feeling used by him makes him feel sick to his stomach. His hand sweeps up and down your back, your neck, along your thighs and your waist. You don’t know how long you lay there but it’s so peaceful, it’s where you want to be forever. You kiss his chest and nuzzle the soft hair there. You’ll never forget his scent.

He cleans you up with a warm towel from the ensuite and gets dressed while you watch him, only letting you put panties on before he sits at the edge of the bed and pulls you onto his lap. You giggle when he kisses your neck, touches your earrings and plays with your hair, and it's the most beautiful sound that will haunt him in his dreams for the rest of his life. “You smell so good,” he whispers, then looks at your face, trying to make sure there's not even an eyelash he hasn't ingrained in his memory. He should not get emotionally attached to you in any capacity but he’s already there, already falling victim to every sign of infatuation and warm feelings he can think of. He wants to ask whether you're being taken care of emotionally, physically, sexually, can't help but wonder if you ever have been or if you're left to your own devices. It’s not his business. Do you live alone? He hopes you don't. Maybe you have kids of your own to go home to and no father in the picture. That thought would hurt too much if he thought about it too hard — maybe it’s best to stop the thought spiral right there. He's going to miss you, deep in his chest and his soul, and the thought makes his arms circle your shoulders again, to sweep your hair out of the way and hold you while he breathes in the scent of your perfume. “You have work tomorrow?”, you ask him, wrapping one of his curls around your finger, feeling the slide of his thick, soft hair on your skin.

He inhales deeply and keeps you in his hands, pulling back just enough to see you, “Yeah, took today off, so—”. You nod in shy disappointment, wishing you could stay here with him longer. You don’t know if he’s telling the truth.

“Okay,” you pout, “I’ll let you go, it’s getting late.” It should absolutely not be this hard to say goodbye to you, but it feels like his heart has melded together with yours and that the two of you are being ripped apart, as if you belong together and the pain of separation is the sign that it is wrong to be anywhere else than in each other's arms. But how can that be? How can he meet a woman and, only a few hours later, wonder whether she was the one he was meant to meet all along? It’s not right, it’s wishful thinking and quite pathetic, really. He has to rip off the bandaid before he thinks up something stupid like lying about taking care of Tommy and getting a hotel room for the two of you just so he can fall asleep with you in his arms. Deranged thinking.

He kisses you while he stands to his feet, and you wrap your legs around him, letting his tongue slide in deeper and clutching him like a koala. You never want to let go, but he has to go home to his wife, maybe even to his kids. Of course he has kids, there’s no way he doesn’t — too careful, too observant, too kind. You barely know him and yet you wish you had a father like him. You wish you had a husband like him, because even though what he is doing tonight is wrong, you are not the one to judge, and above all else, he is kind to you.

It takes everything in him to let you down onto the floor and slip your dress over your head. Time is up, no way around it, and the pain of your closeness being over has already turned to numbness as he puts his hand on the door handle and kisses you one last time. “Alright, ladybug,” he whispers and opens the door, “Get home safe, I’ll give you a minute then I’ll go get Tommy.” He forces himself not to give you his number in case anything happens and it hurts to hold back. Another last kiss, then one more, goodnight, Joel, and he watches as you turn the corner while looking back at him, then disappear into the crowd. He takes a step back into the bedroom, leans his head on the wood, and accepts that although he cannot live without this, he has no choice but to find a way, and if he's lucky, the memory of your time together will sustain him.

—

Of course you come home to an empty house. You should be insulted by how dumb and ignorant your own husband thinks you are, but you can’t find it in yourself to give a fuck anymore, knowing that whoever he’s with right now is getting the short end of the stick. You take your dress and earrings off, brush your teeth and get into bed, smelling Joel’s sweat on you, feeling the tightness of where his come seeped into your skin, and feel the ghost of his touch on your body.

Everyone is asleep when Joel gets in the door, and he goes straight to the laundry room, discarding everything but his boxers, admittedly stained with his own come, keeping them on until he gets to the bathroom and can shove them into the bottom of the hamper. He reluctantly showers off the scent of your perfume, and looks in the mirror as he dries off. He doesn’t look different and yet he can’t recognize himself in the mirror. Another man is staring back at him now, one whose hair has been tousled, skin caressed, cock begged for, sucked, and taken by a woman who is not his wife.

He's a cheater. You're a cheater.

He feels guilty about it.

You don't.

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