#tabletop nails | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writingsbychlo · 6 months

Text

LAST TIME | tom riddle

summary; things just aren’t right between you and tom. when you suggest a break up, however, tom is ready do anything to make it work.

word count; 4153

notes; honestly pure smut. I say tom is willing to do anything but what tom does is just give some really good orgasms. and somehow, it’s still better than 90% of men out there, so.

“You… want to break up?” The clock in the room seemed to tick louder than ever, the seconds dragging on longer and longer as Tom stared at you in disbelief. There was a bottle open between you, two glasses of whiskey poured but neither of them touched, as he stared in shock. “Why?”

“Because this isn’t working, Tom.”

He picked up his glass now, taking a heavy gulp from it, his brows furrowing as his throat bobbed, until only the empty Crystal was back on the table. He filled it up again.

“Tom—”

“Just let me think for a second.” You sighed, his gaze flickering over to you, and he softened for just a moment. “I’m trying to work out what to say.”

“There is nothing to say—”

“There has to be!” He slammed an open palm down on the wood, the table rattling and your drink shaking in its glass, his mumbled apology belaying his regret as he glared. At you, at the wall, at the clock still loudly tickling the seconds by. “Why?”

“Because this isn’t—”

“Don’t say this isn’t working. It works perfectly for me, so if it’s not working for you, tell me why. Tell me what I did, what I can do.” You reached for your own glass now, sliding it across the table and taking down the contents in one. Pushing the empty glass toward him with one finger as your throat burned, he filled it up, cupping your hand and pressing the glass into the other. “We fight all the time, I get that. But you love the fight, I know you do. But you’ve never—you yell, I shout, we fuck it out and we’re fine. This isn’t right, you don’t sit here calmly and tell me you want to break up, so tell me what to do.”

“I can’t tell you, Tom. I don’t know. I just know I can’t do this anymore.”

“But why?”

Exasperation burned through your veins, the words ‘It’s not working’ sitting on the tip of your tongue, and you had to bite it to stop them from coming free.

“I want to work through it. I want you to tell me every goddamn little thing that’s wrong. We’re not leaving this room until it’s right, do you understand me?” His fingers curled on the tabletop, a fist forming, nails no doubt digging into his palms, and you sighed. He may be making it sound like demands, but you both knew it was a question, a desperate plea not to give up on him. The kind of desperation you’d never heard from him before, and it was the only thing that made you stay. “Please.”

“I’ll stay, Tom. I’ll talk, but I make no promises, because I just don’t see this working out.”

“I’ll make it work.” There was so much conviction in his tone that you almost found yourself believing it. “First issue.”

“Tom—”

“First issue.” He insisted, and you ran a hand down your face.

“Okay, fine.”

And just like that, the night melted away. Hours slipped by in a blur of petty arguments, Tom’s eyes boring into your own as he fought and conceded, edging closer and closer to you throughout the night.

You resisted for only so long, the first drink gave you the confidence to tell him that you needed more. His cold attention wasn’t enough, you needed love and passion, you needed his vulnerability and his emotions, you needed his trust and his confidence to take down those walls.

The second drink gave you to confidence to yell, shouting about the kisses he denied you in public, the affections you dreamed of that he never delivered, the activities he got up to that he’d never tell you about. The friends he kept a secret. The times he’d disappear from you for days only to reappear with no word, yet demand to be a part of every single aspect of your life.

The third brought you closer, barely resisting his advances as you fought tears, fought anger, fought every overwhelming emotion that was almost spilling out.

The fourth brought peace. The fourth brought silence, whispered promises you were inclined to believe, as he all but crawled and knelt. He begged for forgiveness, a sight never before seen for Tom Riddle, when your stubbornness reared a new, alcohol-filled strength, urging you towards the door to leave him behind.

The fifth brought solace and warmth. The fifth brought the end of the argument.

The firewhiskey was almost gone, a comfort flooding through both of your bodies enough to loosen your lips beyond the hesitation you both held, and you knew if you drank anymore, all progress would be lost. Swiping up the bottle from the table and putting the stopper back in, you took it towards the shelf, feeling Tom’s eyes track your every movement through his dorm.

You placed it back within the cabinet, its rightful place between the other vintage bottles, displayed proudly like it wasn’t contraband to be hidden, his arrogance never more prominent. For some reason, you loved that. It had always been one of the things that had attracted you to him, his intelligence, his confidence, his sexy self-assuredness, but it just wasn’t enough anymore.

As you slowly walked back toward your seat, Tom’s calloused hand wrapped around your wrist, bringing you to a halt by his chair. Another soft tug, and he was bringing you down across his lap, arm snaking around your waist to hold you close to his chest.

“Tom…”

“Babydoll…” His whisper was lost to the air between you, a space that was closing as he leaned in. Slowly, slowly, giving you time to pull away, but you couldn't. Everything about him was your weakness, you’d never been able to leave him, not since the day you met him all those years ago, and you’d never be able to leave him now. “Let me back in. Love me again.”

“I do still love you, Tommy.”

“Then let it be enough. Trust that I’ll do whatever it takes.” His lips met your cheek, suddenly, firmly, over far too quickly as he rested his head on your own. “I know I’m hard to love, but if you do love me too, then please trust me.”

Another kiss, your hand cupping his jaw, a whimper slipping free as he pulled back again.

“Have some faith in me.”

Another kiss.

“Don’t leave me.”

“Kiss me, Tommy.” You sighed, tugging him forward and crashing your lips against his. He didn’t hold back, mouth slanting with your own as he sat up in the chair, holding you tighter to his body. His mouth was insistent, forceful and commanding just like every other part of him, lips coaxing your own apart until you were panting softly into his mouth, his tongue slipping through to tease your own.

He tasted of whiskey, faint traces of coffee and sugar, a heady mix that you were drowning in. His hands traced slowly across your body, dragging and gripping, tracing like he was trying to memorise you, in case it was the last time he ever got the chance.

You wanted more, you needed more, hands in his hair, messing up all those pretty curls and tugging him closer as you tried to twist in his lap. Unsuccessful, your legs still dangling over one of his as you sat sideways, a whine slipping free. To get more you’d have to stand, your hand raking seductively down his chest, nails scratching through the fabric of his shirt. You stood, or tried to, barely making it onto shaking feet before he was nipping at your lip with a cut-off grunt and tugging you right back into his body.

In one swift moment he was standing, cradling you sideways in his arms and carrying you across the room. A second later, you were lay on the bed, head pillowed by the quilts as he finally pulled back.

Those hands kept exploring, knees bracketing your body as he pushed your shirt up, up, up. He kissed at every newly exposed patch of skin, all across your stomach and over your breasts, reverent and tender, tongue swiping across your skin until you shivered, lips promising his love into your flesh. Until, you were sat up, slipping the top over your arms and letting him cast it away to the floor, his mouth working across your jaw, head tipped back to let him.

Your own hands went to his back, scratching down until you caught the hem, far less care and far more desperation as you yanked and tugged, pulling at the shirt until he was reaching behind his head to help you strip him of it, your fingertips falling back to the bare skin of his chest. Firm, warm muscles twitched under your touch, your back hitting the bed again as his mouth collided with your own, backed into the sheets and surrounded by every inch of him, his presence filling the room, filling the air you breathed.

“Tom…”

His grip shifted, one hand leaving the bedding to skim across your hip, under your body to the flat of your back, and lower. Cupping your arse he lifted your hips, just enough to slot himself between, and oh, delicious pleasure as his hips rocked into your own. Straining through the thick denim of his jeans, Tom pressed his hard cock into you, dragging every torturously clothed inch over your damp centre, ruined panties catching on the material and twisting, making it all the more thrilling.

He did it again, and again, your bodies rolling together, clothes the only barrier keeping you apart as his mouth claimed your own. Moans and whimpers bounced off of every wall, each deep, grunted sound he let out was like a high, ricocheting along your body and making your head spin.

“Fucking hell, babydoll,” His words were choked out, foreheads slick where they pressed together, panting breaths washing over your cheeks as he kept you moving against him, even as you became weak, even as the pleasure made you tremble, nearing that precipice already. “You’d walk away from this? Don’t you feel the way I do? You’re in my blood like a goddamn drug.”

Then, it was all ripped away, a pathetic wail falling from you as hot pleasure became cold disappointment, your hips dropped back to the bed. One of your shaking hands was cupped in his own as he pulled away, enough to sit up, kneeling between your spread thighs and dragging your hand to his chest.

Under solid muscle, his heart pounded, fast and irregular, beating like a drum. “For you, alright? This beats for you, and you alone.”

Like a knife through the tension, the haze was severed, a refreshing touch of cold on your sex-addled mind. Climbing up, into his lap as his hands gripped your hips, your own reached for his face, tugging him into the most tender and loving kiss you could muster in the heat of the moment.

His tongue slides over your own, your nails rake down his chest as you settle into his lap where he kneels, both of his hands kneading your ass. He shudders, your fingers grazing along the defined lines of his abs, and his breathing starts to shallow as your fingers press along the bulge in his jeans.

Bucking up, his lips stop working your own, letting you take control of the kiss as his strength starts to wane, your teasing touches along his cock making him squirm underneath you. Squeezing him through the denim, he moans into your mouth, loud and unashamed, and your smirk makes him bite at your lower lip until you gasp.

“I’m— fuck, I’m really trying to be romantic here, to make love to you, take it slow. You’re making that real fuckin’ hard for me.”

“I can feel how hard I’m making it for you, Tommy.”

It was unfair, perhaps, to taunt him so much when he was only doing what you’d asked, to show his affection rather than just assume you knew, to love you properly, but that's not what you wanted right now. Right now, as you’d stared him in the eye and faced the possibility of losing him, you just wanted him, in his rawest form.

“Tom, baby—”

“Stop teasing me.” He all but growled the words, hips rolling into your palm now as you squeezed with rhythm, one of his hands slipping beneath the layers of your clothes, sliding over your ass from behind until one fingertip circled your dripping entrance. “Stop teasing me, or you won’t come for hours, do you hear me? I’ll make you cry and beg and scream, I’ll drive you to the edge of your goddamn sanity the way you make me, and maybe I won’t even let you come then.”

With those final words, he plunged a single digit inside of you, your back arching against his chest as he hummed, lips tearing apart as your body bowed to his. Pumping slowly, he left peppered kisses along your exposed collarbones, his other hand trailing teasingly up your spine, undoing the clasp of your bra with a flick of his fingers.

Jerking it free from your body shakily, he let out a primal noise as you threw it away, lips wrapping around one nipple, teeth tugging the taut bud.

“Oh, fuck, Tommy…”

“That’s right, doll. Moan my fucking name.” He did it again, a second finger slipping inside of you, chasing out every sentient thought you had.

Your fingers were shaking as you reached for his jeans, tugging at the button and zipper until you could get them down. Finally, you pulled him free from the confines, and relished in the sound he made against your skin as you swept your thumb over the dripping head of his cock.

Sitting there, half in his lap as he finally brought you closer and closer to your ruined orgasm, you pumped his cock slowly, nuzzling your nose against his own, feeling the beat of his heart against your hand on his neck. Steady, thumping, a beat just for you as he promised.

His skin was wet under your touch, hot and soft and slick, your fist sliding over him, twisting just how you knew he liked. He may know your body like the back of his own hand, but you knew him too. You knew every trick that made him weak, every touch and spot that you could exploit to bring him to his knees before you, if you so wished. Tom Riddle may scare everyone away, may put on his façade to the world, but he was your lover, your heart and soul, and he bared himself to you alone in this vulnerability.

Tracing your thumb over the head, you squeezed his cock, another bead of precum, dribbling from the slit and lubricating his skin under your palm. His mouth left your skin, head tilted back. Those pretty brown curls were already plastered to his forehead, sex and love hanging heavy in the hot air, and when your eyes locked with his half-lidded ones, you knew you weren’t going anywhere.

Like a silent oath, one he could read in your gaze, he knew it too. It would never be so easy to leave, to walk away from him, from this. Things may need to change, but you’d work through them together, because you couldn't just leave him.

Your lips slammed together once more, passion and promise, sealed between your mouths as he moaned your name against your tongue.

It was just like that, with his body swearing his dedication into your flesh with every touch that you came, crying his name as you unravelled around his fingers, letting him whisper and coax you through it. Your body was shaking in his, leaning into him for support, his lips at your temple.

“Was that good, doll?”

“So good, Tommy.” Your breathless bliss was short-lived, before you could process it, he was pushing you backwards one hand on your chest firmly pressing you into the sheets, and a smirk on his lips as he looked down at you.

“Good, it’s only getting better from here.”

His movements showed no gentleness as he tore at the rest of your clothing, your body half dragged down the bed as he stripped you bare. Heat roared through your veins and a blush coated your cheeks, the same way it always did when he manhandled you in such ways. He stripped off his own clothes, nearly tearing the fabric from his body until he was as gloriously naked as you were, every inch of pale, scarred, perfect flesh exposed to you.

His grip on your thighs was bruising as he pressed them apart, hardly giving your foggy mind a moment to process, giving your body no chance to truly settle, before he was on his stomach before you, tongue swiping up the evidence of the orgasm he’d just wrung from you in his lap.

You jolted, one hand flying to his hair as the other gripped the sheets in your fingertips, a scream on your lips as he lapped the flat of his tongue across your sensitive clit. “Tom, oh, fuck!”

He moaned in response, the feeling buzzing across your skin as your hips ground up against his face, every part of your scrabbling for purchase as you sank into the pleasure of it. He went again and again, fingers gripping your thighs, holding them parted for him, before finally, he sucked your clit between his lips, and you sobbed out an attempt at his name.

“Tom, fuck, fuck— I can’t—”

“Oh, let’s not lie, doll.” He pulled back, a sharp smack across your clit, a skittering pain that made you clench around nothing, so hard you swore you’d cramp, “We both know you can, and you will. You’ll come all night if I decide it. Now, be a good girl.”

“You’ll be the death of me, Tom Riddle.” Your words were stuttered out between heavy, panted breaths, and he chuckled as he resumed his work. The dark declarations of adoration were always something he had loved, especially when he had you on his tongue, driving you mad.

Over and over he worked, kissing, licking, sucking, biting, until your eyes were rolled back in your head, writhing in the sheets, dripping just for him to lap it up, his name like a mantra, all you could think of. Your climax teetered on the brink, your hips rolled up unto his face, chasing with such wanton need that all shame went out of the window and your fingers twisted where they were buried in his dark hair.

“Tom, I’m—”

“Gonna’ come? You there already, doll?” You would feel embarrassed for his taunts if you weren’t so needy, like a bitch in heat, and you just nodded. A whine slipped free as he pulled back, tears in your eyes threatening to come free as you were denied once again. The bed dipped, and before you could curse, before you could hate him for taking it all away again, his thick cock parted your folds, slamming into you in one quick thrust, and you exploded.

His hips rocked, ever so gently, dragging out your orgasm until the flutters of it faded, leaving only blissful peace in its wake. Your hands hooked under his arms as he fisted the bedding on either side of your head, kisses left on your collarbones until your body finally calmed down, and he let his mouth trail up to your own, lips brushing.

“You belong to me, do you understand that? Just like I belong to you.” His body shifted, hips rolling back, until he was barely inside of you anymore, only for a single, deep thrust to have you crying his name, digging your nails into his flesh, praying for anything. “I’m all yours.”

Another thrust, another cry, scratches down his back that made him hiss in excitement.

“I don’t care how I prove it to you, I’ll carve your name into my goddamn skin if I must, whatever it takes for you to see it.”

He kept it up, the deep pace, the meaningful words, all whispered into your ear as he sucked bruises into your skin, marking you as his the way he promised he’d mark himself too. Your love with him was brutal, it was harsh and sometimes cold, but nobody loved hotter than Tom did either.

If you asked him to, there’s no line he wouldn't cross, nothing he wouldn't do for you, and his dedication showed. It showed in the way he fucked you, holding your gaze and stopping until you looked back to him, fighting the roll of your eyes to the back of your head, or the shaking of your body so hard you could barely breathe. It showed in the hand that slipped up your skin, fingers sealing around your throat as he began to lose control, fucking without sense as he chased his own high, your core squeezing around him so tight he could barely spit out his curses and praise before losing to the end too.

It showed in the way he hugged your body to his, skin to skin, everywhere you touched as his release filled you, dripping and escaping around his cock as he fucked the both of you through the final moments of shared ecstasy.

It showed in the way he collapsed down on top of you, all walls gone in these few moments, shaking as much as you were as his body smothered your own. Your hand in his damp hair, the other stroking up and down his back as he continued to whisper mindless adoration and poetic love in your skin, kisses and touches that made you understand his devoted worship.

“Tommy…”

“Right here, doll. M’right here with you, I’m all yours.”

He lifted himself at last, balanced on one weak elbow to look at you, smiling in that way only you ever saw as you tentatively brushed plastered curls away from his forehead. He leaned in, a peck left to your lips before he pulled out, wincing apologetically at the grumble that left your lips as he did.

“Let me get something to clean you up, alright? I’ll be back.”

You knew he would, he always was, and only moments later, he was reappearing from the bathroom with a cold cloth, parting your thighs much more gently now, and wiping your sensitive skin clean. “We forgot protection.” You mumbled, one hand coming up to rub across your forehead, too tired to care much now but a problem for the morning.

A problem he didn’t seem to appreciate, only smirking as he cleaned himself off, before pushing one hand over your stomach. “Maybe I should knock you up, I’d like to see you leave me then.”

“Tom!” His joke was not well received, even if his raspy laugh at your chastisement warmed your heart, your arm thrown over your eyes to block him out, to relish in peaceful darkness. The dirty cloth hit the floor somewhere with a squelch, another problem for the morning, as he tugged the covers out from under your body, collapsing down beside you a moment later and tugging them up over you both.

Then, he was peeling your arm from your face, rolling your head to the side to look at him. Gone was the smile, gone was the laughter, a serious look on his face as he studied you carefully.

Tom shuffled a little closer, delicately brushing hair from your brow before settling a hand along the curve of your waist.

“I like it when your cheeks get all rosy after. You look so pretty when you're glowing, just for me.” Your scoff was cut short by his lips, tugging you in until your naked body was pressed back up to his own, that palm scraping over your soft skin to hook your thigh up over his hip, and your arm lay over his shoulders lazily. “Something is telling me this isn’t over. Tell me I’m right?”

“I love—.”

“Tell me you’re staying.” He knew you too well, his grip around your waist tightening holding you to him like he feared you’d slip away. “Don’t tell me you love me unless you plan to keep doing it.”

His gaze pierced into your own, face still like stone but worry painted in his eyes, and you nuzzled your nose against his own. He bumped back, once, insistently. “I love you, Tom.”

He sighed, heavy and happy and bumped your noses together once again. A small smile pulled on his lips, and he nodded slightly as his eyes fluttered closed. “I love you too.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, though. I’ll still make you work for it.”

“I’d expect nothing less from a future Riddle woman.”

#tom riddle #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle/reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle/you #tom riddle x you smut #tom riddle x reader smut #tom riddle/you smut #tom riddle/reader smut #Harry Potter #slytherin boys

2K notes · View notes

swiftispunk · 1 day

Text

spring breaks loose | joel miller x f!reader

a your summer dream one shot

your summer dream masterlist | main masterlist | ao3 | follow @swiftispunkupdates and turn on notifications for updates

It's spring, you're young, you're lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.

–Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

prev | next

pairing: joel miller x f!reader rating: 18+ word count: 11.2k

series warnings etc: [NO OUTBREAK] we'll call him dad's buddy!joel, fairly soft!joel, age difference (28/50), angst, smut (will specify with each chapter), fluff, alcohol, food, secret relationship until it's not.

chapter summary: building bridges and starting fresh. it's springtime in austin. chapter warnings: smut, lots of fluff, a sprinkling of angst, consensual somnophilia, unprotected p in v sex, creampie, squirting, vaginal fingering, oral (m receiving), alcohol + intoxication, reader is so very eepy, food, discussions of infidelity, a whole lot of dialogue and tying up loose ends, heather comes with her own warning, in this house we hate chris, time hop, pov swapping. no use of y/n.

a/n: we have reached the penultimate chapter of ysd (for real this time). thank you to everyone who has stuck around this long. thank you to @frannyzooey for helping me work out a few things in this chapter, @joelscruff for beta'ing, and @5oh5, who offered me plant guidance many moons ago now. i also wanted to just boost the fact that i do have a kofi account, and while there is never any pressure to tip, life is hard rn and i always always appreciate the help. love ya'll sm.

*lastly: be sure to see the very end of this post for a special SNEAK PEEK of the upcoming final chapter of your summer dream.

january

"I'm really happy," you insist, and in spite of it all, Joel's lips twitch up at the corners. You've told him how happy you are about a thousand times, but watching you confidently profess it to your father is something else entirely.

"I'm really happy, okay?" you repeat, firm as you stare down the man across from him. Your father's face remains unchanged, stoic and blank as he nods. Joel swallows tightly as you nod back, and then you're gone.

Neither of the men utter a word until the back door swings shut behind you. Joel can feel your father's eyes on him, but he can't bring himself to meet them. He should say something. He clears his throat but then–

"Joel...since Costa Rica?" your father asks. He doesn't sound angry, Joel notes. No, he sounds…hurt.

At last, Joel looks up from the table, and your father stares back at him with obvious confusion in his eyes. Confusion and–as Joel had imagined–hurt.

Joel sighs.

"Yeah," he nods solemnly, shifting in his seat. "Yes."

Your dad just shakes his head, and Joel can practically see the cogs turning in his mind, playing back those days at the resort, piecing it all together in real time.

"That whole time we were there, you–?"

"No–" Joel cuts him off. "Not…not the whole time."

Like that makes it better. Your father doesn't look at him, still lost in thought, still shaking his head defiantly.

"I was…we were right across the hall. You–all that sneaking around–we–you–"

His rambling dissolves into incoherent sputtering until Joel finally chimes in again.

"I'm sorry," he says, and then he's shaking his head too, like he's just as much in disbelief about the whole thing as his best friend is. And he is, really. Couldn't believe it then, can hardly believe it now. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Goddamnit, Joel," your father suddenly exclaims, a palm coming down hard on the tabletop. His anger seems to catch up with him, as though Joel's quiet apology had somehow been the final nail in the coffin. "She's Sarah's age! I mean, that–that's my daughter!"

Joel swallows and sniffs back a heated flow of emotion. He knows he deserves it, deserves every bit of your father's ire. But that doesn't mean it doesn't sting, that feeling of being scolded by his oldest friend in the world. He shrinks a bit and crosses his arms over his chest defensively.

But he doesn't actually defend himself at all. For some reason, he digs the hole deeper. Maybe he's tired of lying.

"Younger," he grumbles, staring down at his hands.

"What?"

Joel clears his throat, cautiously daring to meet your father's accusatory glare.

"She's younger than Sarah."

There's a long and painful beat of silence as your father sits back in his chair with a heavy, exasperated sigh.

"What the hell is this, Joel?" he demands. Still biting, still cold, though not quite as infuriated.

Joel seizes the opportunity. He leans forward, elbows on the table, pleading. Where to begin? He thinks about what he'd want to hear if the roles were reversed–and starts there.

"Everythin' was mutual, right from the start–I swear," Joel begins. "And I...I mean, I couldn't even remember the last time I seen her before that day at the airport. I ain't never even thought about her like that before. Then we were–spendin' all this time together, which you wanted us to do–"

"Uh-uh, don't you go puttin' this on me," your dad cuts in. "You know damn well this ain't what I had in mind."

Joel nods.

"I know, I know," he agrees. "I didn't mean–sorry."

Your father doesn't respond. Joel sighs.

"Listen, she was hurtin', man–you don't know the half of what that boy did to her," Joel attempts to reason. "We got to talkin' about it all and I...I just wanted to be there for her, you know? And, sure, there was attraction there, she's a beautiful girl–"

"Alright, alright, alright," your father interrupts again, grimacing. "I don't need to hear about all that."

Joel nods again, swallowing back the words he'd been about to say–that the attraction had, miraculously, flown both ways. That you'd wanted him just as much as he'd wanted you. That he never would have sought you out if he hadn't known that was true.

He contemplates his next words carefully.

"Look, it wasn't right to keep it from you," Joel concedes eventually. "We–or, I–got caught up in it. You think I expected this? I mean she just–," Joel shakes his head, lost for words again as his cheeks warm and his lips curl into this fond little smile when he thinks of how completely and quickly you'd made a home for yourself in his heart, "She took me by surprise, man. But you know what it's like when you got a good thing goin'. You don't wanna risk losin' it."

Your dad just frowns, his mouth seemingly fused into a hard, unforgiving line.

"Costa Rica was months ago, Joel."

Joel sighs.

"I know. I know, okay? I wanted to tell you sooner. But she wasn't ready for that and I wasn't gonna go against her wishes."

Your father's jaw ticks as he chews on the inside of his cheek, thinking. Coldly assessing the man across from him like he's seeing him for the very first time. Joel crumbles under that stare, hates how it feels coming from someone he's known so long.

"You know me, man," Joel pleads, wide eyes boring desperately into your father's. "You know me. When have I ever gone for someone younger? When have I ever even wanted that?"

Your father's face doesn't change but he also doesn't argue, so Joel goes on.

"All I wanna do–all I have ever wanted to do for that girl–is take care of her. And I-I know maybe it's…uncomfortable–"

Your father scoffs at the understatement of the century, and Joel can't help the way his own lips twitch upwards too. It's a moment of genuine camaraderie, of two fathers well aware of the absurdity of their situation. Their matching grins quickly fade, but nevertheless, Joel feels somewhat more at ease when he next speaks.

"–but it's real," Joel concludes, "What we got. S'hard as it is to understand–and believe me, I ain't even sure I understand it, but…"

His voice trails off into a pensive sigh, mirrored by your father. There's another stretch of silence, but the air feels less tense now, a little less thick with disdain. Again, Joel ponders what he'd want to hear if he was in your father's shoes. What would give him the peace of mind to know this was okay?

"I'm…" he starts to say, but he's shocked to find the words get caught in his throat, obstructed by a sudden lump of emotion. He grunts past it, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders while your father looks on with furrowed brows.

"I'm in love with her," Joel finally manages, voice low and laced with devotion.

It's infinitesimal, but Joel could swear he sees your father's eyes soften.

"I ain't told her that yet," he continues. "But I think she knows. I think she's a smart girl, and I think she knows this is real, too. Hell, I don't think she'd'a stuck around this long if she didn't think I was serious about her. And so, I…I think you gotta trust her on this one. Even if you don't wanna trust me."

Your father crosses his arms over his chest and takes another long, weighty sigh.

"Jesus Christ, Joel," he mutters, shaking his head down at the table. But it doesn't sound angry or even hurt anymore. It almost sounds teasing, and Joel almost laughs.

"I know," he smirks. "Trust me, I know."

"S'pose I got no business tryna forbid it, do I?" your father says.

"She wouldn't let you even if you tried," Joel replies, grinning wider when he thinks of how you'd respond to that. You, so independent and sure of yourself. Yeah fucking right.

Your dad huffs out a single laugh. "Ain't that the truth."

Tentatively, both men sip at their drinks, falling back into something of a routine. It still feels…awkward. But the worst seems to have passed.

Meanwhile, Joel's heart is pounding in his chest as the reality of his admission catches up with him. He loves you. He's in love with you. He's never said it out loud before. His entire body suddenly aches with the need to see you, just so he can say it again and again and again.

Joel polishes off his drink, pursing his lips around the burn of whiskey on his tongue. The two men lock eyes, and Joel thinks maybe–maybe–he can see the early signs of forgiveness there.

"I get it f'you need some time," Joel says. "Guess I just…wanna make sure me n' you are gonna be alright."

Joel's best friend sighs, before nodding slowly and sympathetically.

"Yeah," he grunts. "Yeah, we'll be alright. C'mon–"

He cocks his head to the side as he rises up out of his chair and Joel hastily follows suit. Your father pulls him into an affable, if somewhat unsure, embrace, firmly patting his palms over Joel's upper back. Joel returns the hug instinctively.

"Don't fuck this up, Miller," your father grumbles over Joel's shoulder.

Joel chuckles, honestly grateful for the familiar ribbing. "Won't. Promise."

That's about the time you come charging back through the door.

four months later

A blanket of grey coats the early-April sky above, a telltale sign of rain to come. It's appropriately ominous, you think, considering what you're about to do.

Joel herds you toward his truck in the driveway with a hand on your lower back, but something in your periphery gives you pause. A glimpse of colour that hadn't been there before, stopping you in your tracks about halfway down his front steps.

"Those are new."

Joel stops too, following your eye line as he casually throws an arm across your shoulders. He smiles when he sees what you see, letting you guide him a little closer to what had once been an unassuming, mostly barren patch of dirt on his front lawn. Now, poking out from the otherwise lifeless bushes are a handful of tulips, vivid green stems giving way to pink and yellow petals, tentatively blooming in spite of the day's limited sunlight.

"Oh…yeah," Joel shrugs. "Sarah and I planted 'em. Years ago. Grow back every year around this time."

You're not sure why that stirs something in you. But it does.

Joel Miller has tulips in his garden.

Curiously, you inch towards them, crouching to delicately curl your fingers around the unfurling petals.

"They're beautiful," you muse. You turn to face him and find he's watching you with equal curiosity. "Pink and yellow?"

"She picked the pink."

"Adds up," you nod. "What made you go with yellow?"

He stares at your fingers fiddling with the stems, and shrugs. You think he seems a little shy.

"Can't remember," he says. "They're sunny, I guess. Bright."

A tightness knots in your throat as he reaches out beside you to touch his own fingers to the petals, softly running his thumbs against them, seemingly deep in thought. You think of a younger Joel Miller, picking out yellow tulip seeds to plant with his daughter because they reminded him of the sun. A younger Joel Miller digging holes in the Earth to lay down his roots, burying a memory only to watch it grow back, year after year. A sure thing, a constant. Always there even if you can't see them.

Of course Joel Miller has tulips in his garden.

"What?" he probes after a moment of prolonged silence. You clear your throat.

"Nothing," you smile, craning to kiss his cheek and feeling the low rumble of his responding chuckle against your lips. "I love you."

He cups a hand over your face before you can get too far, pressing his mouth to yours in a deeper, far less chaste kiss.

"I love you too," he murmurs as he pulls away.

You're still thinking about the tulips as Joel backs out of the driveway, and the first of the day's raindrops begin to hit his windshield. You make your way out of the safety of the cul-de-sac, and with the low hum of the radio playing in the background, you count the houses on the street outside your window in an attempt to calm your nervous mind.

Joel doesn't interrupt your silence. But as you merge onto the freeway, your heart begins to pound–and you decide you need a distraction.

"It's nice they grow back every year," you say absently out the window.

"Hm?" Joel's brows furrow as he glances over at you, sitting with your chin atop your fist and staring out at the steadily increasing rainfall. He quickly catches up with your train of thought. "Oh, the tulips. Yeah, it is nice. 'Specially after Sarah left. They always reminded me of her."

You nod and make some noncommittal humming sound. Talking was a stupid idea actually.

As ever, Joel notes your demeanour.

"You alright?" he asks, taking your hand across the centre console and squeezing three distinct times.

You sigh.

"Just nervous."

"You'll be fine," he insists lightly, not for the first time. "I reckon she's a lot more nervous'n you are."

You can't argue with that. Heather is the one who fucked your ex-boyfriend. Heather is the one working to make amends. Heather is the one who threw away your friendship and is now asking for it back.

"Yeah, that's probably true," you agree quietly.

Joel sighs. He lifts your conjoined hands to his mouth to lay a kiss against your knuckles, keeping his eyes on the road as he does.

"Just…remember, you're not goin' there to forgive her or to…pretend like nothin' happened," he says. "But I think you'll feel better once y'get this all hashed out."

"I know you're right," you nod, allowing the truth of his words to wash over you as you take another steadying breath and lean your head back into the seat behind you. "I just feel like I-I've been carrying the weight of this for too fucking long. I have to let it go. I'm doing the right thing."

It's a mantra you have to keep reminding yourself of–you're doing the right thing. Not just from a being the bigger person standpoint, but for you. You need to do this so you can close this chapter of your life for good.

"You're takin' the time to hear her out after all the shit she put you through," Joel goes on. "Makes you a better person than most people I know."

The pride and adoration in his voice makes warmth bloom in your tummy, but you roll your eyes all the same–out of habit more than anything else.

"I don't know about that."

"I do."

His gaze darts in your direction again, and there is no trace of a lie in that look. So you choose not to fight him, just smile tightly and accept his reassurance, falling back into comfortable quiet for the rest of your drive.

By the time he pulls up in front of the cafe you'd agreed to meet Heather at, your nerves have returned tenfold. Is she already inside? You're ten minutes early so maybe not. Is it better if you're here first or would that make her feel weird? Why are you worried about making her feel weird?

God, it never used to feel this terrifying to see your best friend. You have half a mind to ask Joel to wait with you but ultimately decide against it. You need to be a big girl about this.

"I can do this," you tell yourself instead.

"You can," Joel agrees, taking you in his arms and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "Call me if it goes south and I'll come pick y'up, alright?"

You nod resolutely as you unravel yourself from his hold.

"'Kay. Thank you."

"Good luck, baby girl."

With one last parting kiss, Joel lets you go, watching you from the driver's seat until you disappear behind the door of the cafe.

Heather is not there yet, as it turns out, and you can't tell if that makes this better or worse.

Now you're faced with new dilemmas. Should you order her a coffee? You haven't seen her in eight months; what if she takes it differently now?

She fucked your boyfriend–why would you buy her a coffee? the pettier part of you wonders.

And that's…true, you suppose.

So you buy yourself a latte and get it in a to-go cup, find a seat at a two-person table in the back of the dining room and wait. But not for long.

Barely five minutes later and Heather is coming through the door. She spots you and there's a moment of awkward uncertainty as you half-rise from your chair, the both of you waving at each other before Heather gestures to the line at the till. You nod and retake your seat.

You resist the urge to text Joel. You can do this. You can do this on your own.

Heather settles up, cautiously setting her coffee cup on the table beside yours and you're not sure why–instinct or something–but you stand when she gets there, and let her pull you into a hug.

"Hi, babe." Her voice is thick and her arms are tight around you. And, goddamnit, for everything she put you through, there is a familiarity in that embrace, something long-forgotten in the warmth of her voice.

"Hey," you murmur, letting her squeeze you in tighter before you both pull away. "Hey."

She assesses you with wide, wet eyes, hands still resting on your shoulders.

"You look amazing," she says.

"Thanks."

"I don't even know where to start," she shakes her head. "Thank you for seeing me."

"Of course." Like you hadn't stewed over it for literal weeks.

"Why don't I just–I mean, I have to–"

You can see her struggling, and you can't help but sympathize. She was always the more confident of the two of you, always more direct and brave–but in that warm kind of way that used to always put you at ease. Now, she seems completely lost, awkwardly taking a seat and waiting for you to do the same. She clutches her hands around her coffee cup and you don't think you've ever seen her look so small.

"I am…so fucking sorry," she finally says. She doesn't shy away from you when she says it, and you have to respect her courage for that. She looks you dead in the eyes and doesn't avert her stare even once.

You swallow tightly. "I know."

"Can I…would you let me explain?"

"Actually, Heather," you say, straightening in your seat a bit to steel yourself. Heather's face falls, until you go on, "Can I go first? I just need to say my piece and then, yes, you can explain."

She's nodding furiously before you even get the words out.

"Of course, yes, oh my god, please."

She sits back, probably gearing up for the lashing of a lifetime. It's not quite what you have planned but–

"You really hurt me. You and Chris. Whatever the story is, whatever went down, it doesn't change the fact that what you two did just... completely fucked me up. My entire life changed overnight because of you. I spent so many days crying, screaming, trying to just...figure out what I'd done to deserve that. Why wasn't I enough? Why wasn't I good enough for Chris? Why wasn't I a good enough friend to you? Like, if I was a better friend to you maybe you wouldn't have done that to me, you know?"

Fat tears slowly well in Heather's eyes as you speak, finally spilling over as you near the end of your monologue. But she doesn't interrupt or argue, and for that, you're grateful.

"I wondered about all of that for a really long time," you continue. "In those first few days when it was hardest...and for so many months after. But...I'm okay now. I think actually it all kind of worked out in the end, as crazy as that sounds."

At least it had all brought you to Joel.

"But I just needed you to know what it did to me. I think it's important that you know."

Heather hastily swipes at her tears, blinking them away and nodding her agreement.

"And that's it, that's all I have to say," you conclude. The weight on your shoulders feels lighter already. "You don't have to say anything back but...I do want to hear you out. You can...you can tell me what happened now."

That was the point of all this after all, you guess.

Heather takes a deep, shaky breath. You sip your coffee.

"Okay. Well, fuck. Okay. I had feelings for Chris," she begins. "But I never–I never dreamed of acting on them while you two were together, you have to know that. It wasn't premeditated or-or-or something I actively thought about–"

"I never thought that."

It's true. Heather's a lot of things, but she's not conniving.

"Okay," she nods, seeming genuinely relieved. "Good. I mean, it still doesn't make it right, I know that. But he–"

She cuts herself off, a nervous shiver passing over her. Her courage wanes, and she looks down at the table as she dives into the part of her story that neither of you wants you to relive.

"That night at your birthday party, he started telling me things. He…"

Her voice trails off again, and you can understand her fears, but you need to know this. Whatever it is.

"Heather, it's okay, you can tell me."

She glances up at you. You make your resolve as clear as possible on your face until you see her nod.

"What happened was…I was drunk and I-I told him how I felt," she continues. "I shouldn't have done that, I know that. But that's when he started saying all this stuff about how he wasn't happy and how he was planning to break up with you. He-he said he'd always wanted to be with me instead."

She stops, peeking up at you, but the only response you can offer her is a curt little,

"Oh."

Interesting. He'd made no indication of his unhappiness to you.

"In that moment, I just…I believed him. I should have just come straight to you but I let my stupid feelings get in the way and I–"

"He can definitely be very convincing," you say bitingly. Heather almost laughs, but quickly reins herself in.

"It's no excuse, and I know that," she says. "I just really thought he meant it. That he was going to end it with you and choose me instead. Not that that would have been okay either, but. God, in hindsight, I just was not thinking clearly at all."

Heather buries her face in her hands but it's getting hard to focus. You're flitting back through memories, trying to piece things together. Had there been signs? Since meeting Joel, you're acutely aware that you hadn't been as happy as you could have been with Chris, but you can't ever recall letting that on at the time. And you certainly can't recall Chris ever letting on his unhappiness. It doesn't add up.

"Then he did end it with you and you went to Costa Rica and I felt like, 'Okay, this is what he'd promised,' but…I could tell right away he was having second thoughts. All of a sudden, he's changing his tune, saying he wants to get back together with you and basically telling me I could just be like a-like a side piece or something."

At that, you scoff mirthlessly. Of course.

That's why he hadn't let anything on. He'd been trying to have his cake and eat it too. Motherfucker.

"Yeah," Heather goes on. "So I said, 'Fuck you' and I walked. I was already feeling terrible about what I'd done to you and that just settled it for me."

"Fuck," you sigh, pinching at a pressure point between your eyes.

"And I haven't talked to him once since then," Heather insists. She reaches across the table and wraps a hand around your wrist, and you let her. "I promise."

You place your own hand over hers–again operating on some kind of deep-seated instinct.

"Thank you," you tell her. "For–I don't know, for being honest."

"I would've told you everything sooner if you'd have let me–"

"I know."

"But I know–I know you needed your time. You didn't have to hear me out at all, and I would have deserved that. I take full responsibility, I do, but, my god, babe–," Heather's lips pull up in a smirk and you share a knowing glance, "–that guy fucking sucks."

You could try to fight the way your own face contorts into a grin, but you don't.

"Yeah," you agree. "He really fucking does."

There's a short beat of silence, filled with the sounds of your uncertain, quiet laughter.

"Are we okay?" Heather finally asks tentatively, letting your arm go. "Or–shit. Sorry. You don't have to answer that."

"No–it…I don't know yet," you say truthfully. "But, you know, I don't think you deserve what he did to you, either. And I'm sorry."

"I'm okay now. All I really care about is you."

You smile at each other tightly–uncertainly–and sip quietly at your coffees. She doesn't demand forgiveness or push the subject further. You think the air feels just a little clearer now, a little more like before.

"So what's new with you?" she chimes in after a moment. "How've you been? You never post on Instagram anymore."

Your smile turns a little shy as you debate telling her about Joel. But her gaze is so earnest and curious, it makes you want that normalcy, to be able to gush to your best friend about the man you've fallen in love with.

"Well," you shrug, sitting up a little straighter in your chair. "I'm seeing someone."

Heather's jaw drops in genuine delight, her eyes going wide with wonder.

"No way! Tell me everything."

And you do. You tell her all about Joel and Costa Rica, and every perfect moment since. Heather gasps and squeals at all the appropriate times and you find yourself remembering why it feels so good to have someone to talk about these things with. It's so validating to watch someone be as excited about your love life as you feel about it.

"Wait," she interrupts, early on in your retelling, "If he's your dad's friend–how old is he?"

You bite your lip, hardly bashful about it these days, but after the disaster that was telling your parents, you never know how someone could react anymore.

"He's in his fifties," you confess.

Heather's hands come up over her mouth, but her eyes are swimming with barely-contained glee.

"Shut up, oh my god," she exclaims. Her initial shock fades into awe, and when her hands fall from her face, you think she looks kind of impressed, "Damn, girl. That's hot. Is he hot?"

You smile. "He's so fucking hot."

When you're home later, you'll have to remember to tell Joel how good it had felt to brag about him. You're sure he'll act coy, but you know it'll make his ego bloom, just a little bit.

It goes on like that as the minutes pass, you catching Heather up on the whirlwind that the last eight months or so have been. She looks kind of proud, and that feels good too. You're so proud of Joel, proud of the life you've built together, the way he's taught you so much about yourself and helped you grow into this new, happier person. It's nice to have someone else see that.

"So, your mom still doesn't approve?" she asks once you've got her fully up to speed.

You shrug. "Not as far as I know. I haven't spoken to her since that night we told them."

"Oh, babe."

You just shrug again, pushing back on her sympathetic gaze.

"Maybe she just needs some time," Heather posits, "I mean, you seem so happy. She'll see that eventually."

"Maybe, yeah."

Heather offers you her own scoop after that, telling you all about how she's been busy working on herself, taking courses to get her yoga-teaching license and enjoying being single for the time being–though she does work in a few stories of some particularly exciting hook-ups. She seems well, and in spite of everything, you're happy for her.

What's more, you kind of don't want your time with her to end. She seems to sense it too.

"Hey, do you want to maybe grab a drink? Like, a real drink?" she offers once your take-out cups are empty and the cafe's traffic has slowed to an early-evening lull.

"Yeah, okay, fuck it," you agree with a shrug. Heather smiles excitedly before excusing herself to the bathroom, leaving you to check your phone for the first time in hours.

Everything good? reads a text from Joel.

all good, you reply, i'll be a little later than i thought.

Take yr time. Love you.

love you too.

A cocktail deep, pop music blaring, and a plate of nachos between you; this is true familiarity with Heather.

You're finally starting to feel some semblance of comfortable, and it feels fucking good. To laugh with an old friend, even if there's still that faint undercurrent of distrust there. You imagine it won't ever fully go away. The minutes tick by, and while that distant uncertainty never fades, it gets easier. It gets fun.

"So, be honest," Heather says, diving headfirst into her second blended margarita. Her eyes sparkle with a devious little glint and you already have a feeling what she's going to ask. "This guy…he's in his fifties, right?"

"Right," you grin.

"So like…what's the sex like?"

Your grin widens as a warmth floods your cheeks. You think about Joel, his patience and his generosity, his big cock and his skillful hands. His curiosity and his devotion, every new experience he's offered you and how genuinely thrilled he seems to do so. You try not to think about it for long, though, because your tummy is already fluttering in a way it really shouldn't be in public.

"Honestly," you say, sipping at your drink coyly. "I don't think it could possibly be any better."

Heather makes a delighted little noise, practically bouncing her chair.

"Oh my god, okay…but what about like, his stamina?"

"Um," you laugh. "Hasn't been an issue yet."

"I love this for you so much, babe," she smiles and it sounds like she really means it. "Can I see what he looks like?"

You have no qualms saying no to that. You may be stupidly in love, but you don't think it's biased of you to find Joel Miller beautiful. It's simply an objective truth. And it feels good to show him off.

You pull your phone out of your purse and flash Heather your lockscreen–a picture of Joel on the beach in Costa Rica, salt-and-pepper curls tousled in the breeze, soft belly poking out over his swim trunks, smiling at you over his broad shoulders.

"Oh my god," Heather repeats, yanking your phone right out of your hand for a better look. She taps the screen to keep it alive as she stares between the picture and you, smiling triumphantly across from her. "Whoa."

"Mhm," you smirk, your chest swelling with pride.

“That's a man, baby," she commends you, handing back your phone. You sneak a parting glance down at the image of Joel on your screen before locking it. Heather sits back against the booth behind her, shaking her head in wonder. "And he sounds like he's so good to you."

You nod, sighing dreamily. "Yeah...he's the best."

"Good. You deserve that."

It's honestly a touching sentiment, one that makes you warm and soft. You didn't know how nice it would feel to have just one person in your life accept your relationship with Joel without any convincing at all. You share a smile and clink your glasses.

"I need an older man," Heather jokes, the sincerity of the moment quickly dissipating. "I'm so sick of boys."

"Joel certainly puts Chris to shame, that's for sure," you admit candidly.

Heather huffs. "Yeah, well, that's not saying much, is it?"

You almost squirt your drink out through your nose.

"Sorry, oh my god," Heather laughs, but it's too late. And it's probably wrong, but you don't care. You both descend into a fit of giggles at your ex's expense, and something about it feels weirdly cathartic.

It's like old times after that. Easier to forget the drama when you're three drinks deep and laughing so much. You're comfortably drunk in a way you haven't been in a while, falling quickly back into your usual repartee with Heather. You feel lighter–freer–as you and Heather find your way to the dance floor and pick up basically where you'd left off nearly a year ago.

You also miss Joel.

He's being respectful, clearly trying to give you space, texting you to be safe when you'd let him know you'd be staying out a little longer. And that's nice and all, but you've talked about him so much tonight, and for all the fun you're having, you just want his arms around you and his lips on yours again.

"Didn't we go to high school with that guy?" Heather leans in close as you dance, effectively distracting you.

You follow her stare across the bar, averting your gaze the second you lock eyes with a handsome stranger leaning against the far wall. He's with a friend, and the two of them eye you and Heather with unabashed interest.

"Which one?" you giggle.

"The one on the left!"

You peek over at the men again, honing in on the one on the left. He does kind of look familiar. He's also still watching the two of you curiously.

"Uh…" you wrack your brain, trying to recall. It feels like a lifetime ago.

"Tom!" Heather exclaims. You shake your head.

"That doesn't sound right."

"No, it is! Tom from the basketball team, remember?"

You look over again, but it's still not clicking. Maybe you're drunker than you'd thought.

"He's kinda cute," Heather murmurs slyly in your ear. You grin.

The man is tall and lean, light-haired and certainly good-looking enough. A little older than both of you, but younger than the broader, burlier man beside him. You think maybe they could be brothers.

"Do you want to say hi?" you ask her.

Heather shakes her head.

"I have a better idea," she winks.

She grabs your hand and guides you to the bar, leaning against it and lengthening her body ever so. It doesn't take long before the men are coming up beside you like clockwork.

You could always count on Heather to find a way to get free drinks.

"What are you drinking, ladies?" the younger one implores confidently, placing an elbow on the bar top beside Heather. "Oh shit, do I know you?"

"I want a shot," Heather says, ignoring his question. "You guys want a shot?"

"Fuck, yeah–whiskey alright?"

"Tequila," Heather smirks definitively.

Despite being out of practice, you haven't lost the ability to recognize good vibes from bad. And the guys give off good vibes. Especially once you all collectively figure out that you did indeed go to high school together.

You shoot a pointed look at Heather when the younger one tells you his name is, in fact, Tim.

"From the basketball team, though, right?" Heather asks. Tim frowns.

"Actually, it was water polo," he says.

"Water polo!" Heather repeats, looking at you with open arms and winking. You try to conceal your giggling. "Of course, I remember now."

Tim grins bashfully, even though you are sure Heather most certainly does not remember.

You cheers to the Ravens and down your shots and then Tim ushers Heather back to the dance floor. You happily let her go. Tim seems kind of goofy, consistently making Heather throw her head back in laughter and it honestly feels nice to watch her look so content. You think about how Joel had made you feel those first few days in Costa Rica, when you'd still been reeling with all that heart ache.

You think about how much resentment you'd harboured for Heather back then, and while it's not totally gone, there's a sense of kinship there now too. Chris had hurt you both, and you know all too well how healing it had been to find someone willing to stitch up the wounds he'd left. You want that for Heather.

Goddamnit, you miss Joel.

You imagine showing him off to all your old high school friends like he was some kind of trophy husband at a class reunion. You'd walk into the gymnasium, hanging confidently off his arm and everyone there would turn and stare. They'd all whisper about his age, you bet. Call you mean names behind the bleachers and gossip about whether or not he was your sugar daddy. Thinking like that used to make you anxious, now it makes you grin.

"You want another drink?"

The other guy, Mike, is still sitting with you at the bar. He is Tim's brother, though you don't recognize him at all. Two years older and visiting from Philly, he's pretty clearly into you. But the conversation has been easy and he hasn't tried anything weird, so you don't think too much of it. You regale him about all your favourite local taquerias and what you studied in college, conscious of the way he seems just a little bit too interested in all of it.

But you definitely don't need another drink, bordering on the better side of too drunk, and as nice as he is, you think it's probably best not to lead him on any longer.

"Actually, I think I might head out soon."

"That's cool," Mike shrugs, polishing off the beer in his hand. "Wanna go grab a bite? Keep hangin' out?"

He sounds casual enough, but there's also an air of hopefulness in his voice.

"Oh, that's okay." You clear your throat, suddenly nervous at the thought of quashing that hope. "I'm, um, I'm actually spoken for."

Unconsciously, your fingers fly to the shell around your neck, fiddling idly with the chain. Mike's eyes follow the motion.

Much to your relief, Mike smiles, seemingly unbothered.

"Makes sense," he nods. His eyes trail up and down your body in a way that makes your cheeks burn. It also really makes you miss Joel. He's the only one you want looking at you like that.

"Well, he's a lucky guy, whoever he is," Mike says with a wink.

"Yeah," you agree fondly. "He is."

It's a quarter past eleven when Joel finally hears a car pull up outside. Two minutes later and your key is turning in the door, Henry bounding off the bed beside him to greet you downstairs.

"Hi, baby boy!"

Your voice, high-pitched and much too loud, cuts through the quiet of his home. He smiles to himself as he listens to you kick your shoes off, murmuring unintelligible nonsense to Henry as you both make your way back up to the bedroom. Joel sets his book on the nightstand and tilts his glasses down his nose, sitting up straighter until you emerge in the doorway with Henry in your arms and a crooked smile plastered across your face.

"Hey, sweetheart," he smirks.

You visibly soften at the sight of him, Henry spilling out of your grip.

"Hi," you whine.

Joel can't quite get a read on your energy, watching you curiously strip off your jeans and crawl up the mattress till you're splayed out on top of him.

"Mmmm, Joel," you sigh dreamily as you make yourself at home across his chest.

"I take it that went alright?" he asks, wrapping an arm around your neck to stroke the back of your head. You practically purr into his sternum and the sound makes his insides turn.

"Yes," you nod, before pressing both hands into his shoulders to push yourself up so you're straddling him, "But, Joel…"

Now face to face, you appear a bit dazed as you blink down at him, an adorable little pout painting your features. Joel smirks, raising his eyebrows expectantly as he waits for you to finish your thought.

"I missed you so much," you conclude, catching him off guard when you fist the front of his t-shirt and dive forward to slant your mouth over his.

You plunge your tongue between his lips and Joel can taste tequila there, can feel it too in the way you're kissing him; sloppy, hungry, eager.

"Only been gone a few hours, sweetheart," he chuckles against your lips.

"I know, but…after the cafe, we went drinking and–"

"No shit."

With what appears to be considerable effort, you push yourself off his chest and point an accusatory finger in his face. Your eyes narrow and Joel thinks you look a little too adorable for your own good.

"Watch it, Miller."

Joel grins.

"Mmmm, or what?" he hums, tracing his palms up and over your sides, which seems to distract you for a moment, your eyelids fluttering as a minute shiver visibly courses through you. You quickly pull yourself together.

Your blissful features quickly dissolve back into an overdone pout and Joel watches with amusement as you pry his fingers off your body. He could resist, but he doesn't, honestly just curious–and maybe a little turned on–as you collect his wrists in your hands and pin his arms down on the mattress beside his head.

Seemingly content with your work, you hold him there with eyebrows raised–and Joel decides to let you have the win.

"Can I finish my story, please?"

"Yes, ma'am," he smirks. You bristle at that but otherwise manage to stay on track.

"We went drinking, and it was really, really fun," you go on. You shift your weight slightly, and Joel smirks when he catches the moment you lose your train of thought at the feeling of his hardening cock beneath you.

"And?" he presses.

"I-I think I'm still mad at her…but it was…nice."

"That's good, baby," Joel murmurs, experimentally rolling his hips upwards just to watch your eyelids flutter. "I'm real proud of ya."

You exhale, making a sound that's almost a sob as you abandon your grip around his wrists to fold yourself over his chest again. You greedily kiss his neck and his ears and his face, and Joel lets you. Your drunken desperation is making him harder than he'd like to admit, and it's pretty fucking endearing to watch you suck your little marks into his skin with no inhibitions whatsoever.

"I talked about you a lot," you smile, clumsily resituating yourself so you're lying against his side, folding yourself in half so you're speaking the words against his belly.

"Yeah?" He rests his hand on the back of your skull, chuckling at the way you keen into his touch. "Talked about me how?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," you sneer just as you curl your fingers under the waistband of his boxers.

"What're you doin' there, baby girl?"

You peer up at him with a devastating puppy-dog stare, all wide-eyed and needy. "I missed your cock. I just wanna suck on it a little."

"Jesus," Joel breathes. He's powerless to fight you then as you tug his boxers down his thighs to reveal his semi-hard cock. He really shouldn't let you in this state but you're already wrapping your fingers around him and tonguing at his slit and it's too fucking late now. He stiffens fully in your grasp and promptly loses any will to stop you.

Then you close your lips around his length and take him as deep as you can, moaning like he's just given you the sweetest gift in the world.

"Fuck, yeah, you missed it," he grunts as you begin to bob, downright eager with it, if not lacking some of your usual finesse. You coat his cock with sloppy strings of saliva and move on him in an uneven rhythm but Joel's not gonna argue with a hot, wet mouth. Joel is more than happy to watch you take what you want from him.

"Messy girl," he remarks affectionately, stroking a palm down your spine to your ass, firmly cupping your cheek in his hand. "This all you wanted? Just to come home and let me stuff that pretty little mouth?"

"Mhm," you hum blissfully around him, spluttering a bit as you swallow him down again.

"Fuck, that's a good girl," he groans.

At that, you whimper, your cheek falling into his belly with your mouth still closed around his cock. You keep up the motions of your mouth for a moment, humming and moaning around him as you draw precum from his tip and suck it down greedily until he feels your jaw slowly begin to slacken.

He pets your hair and your body goes loose, heavy where it lays across his middle.

Joel can sense a shift in you then, your eagerness fading even as you continue to lap at his tip. Your fingers feel a little weaker around his shaft but you don't let up, lazily jerking him until he feels your hand go still, your lips barely grazing him anymore. You offer him a few wet, open-mouthed kisses to the head of his cock and then you go limp.

Joel waits a moment to be sure, peeking down at you questioningly.

Sure enough, you're asleep.

"Oh, baby," Joel sighs fondly. He squeezes your ass but you don't stir. Your slow, steady breathing lets him know you're really out, his hard cock forgotten in your grasp. You'll probably be embarrassed in the morning, but Joel's just stupidly endeared, hoisting you up into his arms and ignoring your half-conscious sounds of protest.

"C'mere, sweetheart, there you go."

He nestles up behind you, cradling you into his chest with his cock pressed against your ass. You shimmy back into him and Joel tries to ignore the ache, tells himself it'll feel better to fuck you in the morning when you've sobered up anyway. He reaches back to turn off the lamp on the nightstand and you whine at the loss of his body against yours.

"Joel," you whisper as he retakes his place behind you. "Did you come?"

He fights for his life not to burst out laughing. You're so goddamn cute.

"No, baby," he murmurs, kissing his favourite spot behind your ear. "Made me feel real fuckin' good, though. You can make me come tomorrow, alright?"

You hum contentedly, already drifting back to sleep. Joel pulls you in tighter, whispers that he loves you even though he doesn't think you can hear him, and it's not long before he's following behind you.

His alarm wakes him just as a beam of sunlight passes through his window, but it doesn't have the same effect on you.

You snooze peacefully with your back adhered to his chest, the gentle curve of your ass still flush against his cock. Your panties are gone; had you gotten up in the night? He can't remember now. It doesn't matter anyway, not when he can feel the heat of your body this close, bare flesh all soft and warm against him as the memory of the night before floods his senses. He'd fallen asleep with his dick still hard–aching–and within seconds of being awake, he's right back where you'd left him last night.

Not that it's uncommon for Joel to wake up horny when he sleeps next to you, but it's worse like this, worse that he's already felt your lips on his cock just a few hours prior, without getting the chance to come down your throat.

"Hey," he murmurs into your hair, but you don't wake up. You just move your hips backwards unconsciously, the hard length of his cock pressing warm between your cheeks. Driving him fucking crazy and you don't even know it.

Joel growls, a low, carnal sound he barely recognizes as he trails a hand down the side of your body. He cups your ass in his palm and spreads your cheeks apart, the tips of his fingers just barely grazing your hole. You shiver and Joel smirks. Sound asleep and you still respond to having your ass played with. Something about knowing you so well makes him that much harder.

Pliant and gone, you let him play with you, hands traversing every inch of your skin, up and over your belly to cup your breasts. His breath ragged in your ear, he gently twists your nipples just to feel them come alive under his touch. You squirm for him and Joel responds in turn, unable to help himself as he begins to slowly rut his hips against you.

"Sweet thing," he husks, feeling his touch grow rougher on your hipbone, your ass flush against his bulge as he grinds into you like a fucking teenager. "You don't even fuckin' know. Got no idea what you’re doin' to me, do you?"

He knows you can't hear him. Right now, he doesn't care.

He's wanted you like this since Costa Rica, too nervous to ask until you'd given him the okay all those months ago now. He's had you so many ways, and still you say you want more. He's not sure what he ever did to deserve you, but if one thing's been true from the start, it's that Joel Miller is not strong enough to deny you anything.

Something about this, though, feels decidedly selfish. His hand on your thigh, positioning your pliant muscles to his liking, bending your leg at the knee just so he can spread you open wider, slip his fingers between your ass cheeks and scrape them over your bare pussy; that's for him.

The sticky wetness he feels there–that's his.

Your spine arching in your sleep when he sinks two fingers into your warm, dripping hole–that's because of him.

"Still want it, baby?" he hums as he pumps his fingers in and out. "Still want this cock?"

He doesn't wait for you to answer. For once, he just takes.

You put up no resistance as he replaces his fingers with his cock, pulling your body back into him until his hips meet your ass.

"Fuck," he hisses as he bottoms out.

You're so warm, so tight and inviting and perfect around him.

You're so wet, slick pools of arousal coating the hairs on his lower belly, sticking to your skin where it touches his.

And you're so soft, all gooey and loose in his arms as he slowly rocks into you, as close as he can possibly get and somehow never close enough.

"S'my good girl," he breathes, "Take it just like that for me. Finish what you started, huh?"

He moves without haste, content just to feel you like this, close and confined under the covers. Experimentally, he reaches around you to touch his fingers to your clit, sighing in amazement when your pussy clenches on his cock, a wave of slick gathering at the place you're connected.

"Yeah? That feel good?" he says to no one as he gently circles your pearl. He's rewarded with a breathy little moan, the prettiest fucking sound he's ever heard. His hips snap against yours with more force now, jostling you with you every thrust. He can feel his control waning, and he's gonna wake you up soon if he's not careful.

Maybe he's done being careful.

Cock still buried inside you, he rolls you both so he's lying above you, your body prone to the mattress beneath him. Your fingers curl into little fists and then you gasp, eyelids fluttering against the light of morning. Something dark and animalistic twists in him when he watches the awareness creep across your face, the way your features contort and you strain to look back over your shoulder, piecing it all together.

"Oh my god," you whine when it clicks. "Joel, fuck, fuck–ohmygodJoel–"

"Shh, I know, baby, I know…I got you, you're okay," he babbles, folding over you to nip hungrily at your shoulders. You throw your head back and expose the column of your neck to him and Joel bites down there too just because he can. "Just had to feel you like this. You were so wet."

"Oh, fuck," you cry, voice still hoarse with sleep as Joel pounds into you harder. No reason to hold back now. "Fuck yes, Joel, take it."

"Yeah?"

"Please."

That's all he needs to hear.

With his arms wrapped firmly around your middle, Joel sits back onto his knees, taking you with him as he drapes you over his thighs and pulls you down onto his length. Your body still feels weak with sleep, almost passive in his grasp in a way he's not sure he should enjoy so much. He doesn't overthink it.

What he does is find your clit again, massaging his fingers over the bundle of nerves while he thrusts his cock up into you. A wanton moan pours from your throat and Joel catches it in a messy, open-mouthed kiss.

"There you go, there you go," Joel rambles when he feels you start to quiver, your pussy constricting around him as you spill listless, needy sounds of pleasure onto his lips. "Feels so good, don't it? Wakin' up with a cock inside you. This is what you wanted. Yeah? You gonna come?"

"Yesyes, fuck, yes Joel, I'm coming–"

"I know," he grins, "I know, baby."

He knows because he feels it. He feels you pulse around his length, feels your muscles seize and loosen, feels your little clit twitch beneath his fingers as he coaxes you through your high. He also feels something new, something wet and warm and sinful.

"Oh, good girl," he groans. "Fuck–look at that."

You're gushing for him, liquid pouring out over his fingers and his cock and his balls, staining the sheets beneath you. You writhe in his arms but Joel just keeps fucking you, fucks you until he's drawn every last drop from you. Fucks you until he's coming too, clutching you against him as his cock spasms between your walls and paints your insides with spend. Hot cum leaks out around his length, drips down your inner thighs, and makes a mess of your already messy pussy.

He comes and comes and then it ends, strangled moans fading into ragged breaths and heady grunts of release.

"Jesus," Joel pants into the hollow of your ear as he slowly comes down. "You alright?"

"Yes," you sigh. "Holy shit, thank you, Joel. Thank you."

He's got no fucking idea what for.

He pulls you off his cock and turns you in his lap to face him. Your arms coil around his neck and you cling to him like a koala, your face buried in his chest. He holds you there, because he thinks you might need that–and also because he wants to.

"How'd I get so lucky, huh?" he ponders as he gently strokes your hair.

"I'm lucky," you protest softly. "I was trying to tell you that last night."

"I thought you were tryin' to suck my cock."

You laugh breathlessly, unravelling yourself from him just enough to let him see your face. You curl your fingers into his hair in a possessive sort of way that would probably make him hard if he hadn't just come so thoroughly.

"That was supposed to be an act of gratitude."

"For what? I didn't do nothin'."

He tries to keep his tone as light as yours, but his insecurities always bleed through no matter how hard he tries. You sense the earnestness in his voice, and match it head on.

"That's not true. You've made everything better," you whisper, touching your forehead to his. "I'm so fucking happy you're in my life."

He's gonna have to ask you exactly what all went down with Heather. He figures for now it can wait.

You kiss him and he kisses you back, his furrowed brows softening as your lips move against his in a now-familiar dance. The sun rises over Austin and though he's not sure he'll ever have the words to tell you, Joel thinks he's pretty damn happy you're in his life too.

"So I was thinking," you say around a mouthful of eggs the following Saturday.

"Uh-oh," Joel grins.

You fix him with a look and his grin only widens.

"Anyway," you continue pointedly, shovelling another forkful of eggs into your mouth. "I was thinking–I'm kind of on a roll here. You know, in terms of, like, building bridges or whatever."

"Sure," Joel nods.

"And I'm thinking that…maybe I'm ready to talk to my mom."

Joel's eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, like…" you shrug, focusing on your breakfast as you talk out what's been on your mind since you'd seen Heather last weekend. Being with her and hearing her side of the story had given you some foundation with which to forgive her. It's been gnawing at you that you haven't really given your own mother that chance. Perhaps if she could just see how happy you are, she'd eventually come around.

You explain all this to Joel, who nods along and hums his agreement.

"I just feel like I've…closed myself off to her and it's not really fair for me to just expect her to magically see the light, you know? I mean, look at dad. He's been coming around more, he's been seeing us together. And he's basically okay with it all now. Maybe it's just me, you know? Maybe I need to let her in."

Joel shakes his head, smiling at you affectionately. "You're too good for your own good, you know that?"

You scoff and wave him off.

"Whatever. But don't you agree?"

He appears to mull it over, sipping his coffee for a long moment before eventually sighing.

"I do," he nods slowly. "But I also think…you got a right to protect your peace. Lettin' her in means exposin' yourself to all the shit that might come with that."

You bite your lip and nod. You know that. You know he's right. You know it might blow up in your face to try to repair that relationship. But some little voice in the back of your head keeps telling you to do it anyway. A cloying, aching need to just…put things back in place.

"I guess I'm just tired of feeling so angry all the time," you confess. "I'm just…walking around with all this unresolved bullshit hanging over me and it's…I mean, it's exhausting. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I saw Heather, you know? If I potentially have the power to do something about that, then I think…I think I should."

Joel smiles, his sweet brown eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Then I'm with you, baby," he says, reaching across the table to cover one of your hands with his own. "Whatever you gotta do."

You nod resolutely, spurred on, as ever, by his unwavering support.

On Sunday, it rains.

Heavy showers pelt against Joel's windshield, his truck parked in the driveway of your parents' home. A quick text to your mom the day before had confirmed she'd be home around this time and that she'd be more than okay with you stopping by for an afternoon coffee. Unlike when you'd sat outside the cafe in this same truck a week ago, you don't feel nervous to see your mother. Instead, you feel a strange sense of duty and an unflappable air of confidence. All you have to do is show off how happy Joel makes you for a couple of hours. What could possibly be easier than that?

Plus, you're not really worried about your mother coming at you with any kind of outward disdain. She can be oddly cordial when she thinks someone is mad at her.

"I'll stay close by," Joel tells you. "Take you home when you're done."

You frown. "What? You don't have to wait for me, that's silly."

Joel just shrugs. "Ain't no thing. Don't want you takin' the bus in this weather."

And Joel thinks you're too good.

"I wish you could just come in with me."

It had been the only stipulation your mother had outlined, or at least that's how you'd interpreted her text asking, It's just you coming, right?

You'd burned with rage at that, typed out an entire message in Joel's defense, but he had insisted it was fine. One thing at a time. He could sit this one out.

"Next time," he murmurs, leaning across the centre console to kiss your cheek.

"Yeah," you nod.

He wishes you good luck, offering you a goodbye kiss before you're pulling your hood up over your head and bounding through the downpour to the front door. Your mother is pulling it open before you've even stepped onto the welcome mat.

"Quick, quick, come on," she hastens you with a hand around your shoulders, guiding you inside and out of the pouring rain. You catch her look back at Joel pulling out of the driveway before she's closing the door behind you both.

"Oh, shoot, look at you," she tuts, prodding at the wet fabric of your hoodie. "Let me get you something else to wear–"

"It's fine, mom," you insist before she can go pulling you something hideous from her closet. You pull your damp sweater up over your head so you're in just your t-shirt, noting that hardly any of the rainwater had managed to leak through. "This is fine, see?"

"Alright," she smiles, sort of shyly. You've been apart so long, and it normally doesn't feel so weird falling back into that mother-daughter routine. Extenuating circumstances, you suppose. She glances down at the hoodie in your arms.

"Do you want to hang it up in the bathroom and let it dry? I'll get some coffee going."

You return her smile as best you can. It certainly sounds like she's trying. It certainly sounds like something a mother would say.

"Yeah, sure," you nod, already skirting around her to your way down the front hall. "Thanks."

You vaguely hear her hum something in response as she makes her way to the kitchen.

The main-floor bathroom is just down the hall, a renovation project that's been half-in-the-works for years, basically abandoned now that your parents almost exclusively use their en suite. Maybe they'd have finished it by now if you still lived here.

You flip the light on to find it looks much the same as it did the last time you were here; tiles partially laid, sink without a hot water knob. You carefully drape your hoodie up on the shower curtain rod still noticeably lacking a shower curtain.

You're flattening out the sleeves when you hear the doorbell chime.

Having grown up here, you respond instinctively to the familiar melody, poking your head out of the bathroom just in time to see your mother beat you to the door. She swings it open, and there on the front porch, soaked from his head to his shoulders, is Joel.

Your heart just about stops.

"Oh," your mother greets him, uncertainly looking back over her shoulder to where you're standing wide-eyed in the hallway.

"'Lo, ma'am,” Joel says. From here, you can barely hear him over the rain outside. "I don't mean to intrude. Just wanted to leave this."

You frown as he holds something out to your mother, something you can't see from this angle.

"Oh," she says again, sounding theatrically surprised. You roll your eyes.

"She left it in the truck. Just thought she might need it. That's all. I'll get outta your hair now."

He catches your eye over her shoulder then, quickly shooting you a sweet, heart-breaking smirk that makes your chest swell.

"Thank you, Joel," your mother says. "I'll, uh, make sure she gets it."

He smiles at her politely and offers her a parting wave, taking off at the same time she begins to close the door after him.

"What is it? What was that?" you ask, hurriedly emerging from the hallway to meet her in the entryway.

"Your umbrella," she tells you, hanging it up on a coat hook. "That was nice of him."

She says it absentmindedly as she makes her back to the kitchen, this time with you in tow.

Huh.

"Well, he's a really nice man," you say simply, leaning your elbows on the island while she tends to the coffee pot.

"Hm," she nods.

She busies herself, deep in thought in a way that makes you uneasy.

"What?" you press her.

She pours you a mug of coffee, preparing it just how you like with cream and sugar–the same way you've taken it for years. She hands it to you over the countertop, brows still furrowed together in apparent confusion.

"He drove you here?"

You frown. "Yes?"

"Kind of a far drive in the rain."

"So?"

She ignores you.

"What's he doing while you're here?"

You're struggling to follow her train of thought. But you think maybe you know what she's getting at. Why she can't understand Joel doing something so selfless, why she probably can't seem to understand you and Joel at all.

The thing about your mother is that there always needs to be something in it for her. Every favour, every helping hand; it can never be truly inconvenient for her, and it must always somehow benefit her in return. You know of people out there with mothers who are truly selfless, mothers who are there for them, mothers who would drop everything at a moment's notice if their children so much as asked.

But that is not your mother. That has never been your mother.

You'd forgiven her for that long ago, convinced yourself it had just made you that much more independent, that much more self-reliant. And it did, but at a cost. That cost being someone in your life you could always safely count on, someone you could always trust to be there when you needed them.

Someone who would drive you in the pouring rain to a house he could not enter, just so he could wait for you outside and bring you home when you were ready.

"I don't know," you tell her honestly. "He just said he'd stay close by and that he'd pick me up when we're done."

She's still frowning, seemingly perplexed at the notion. "He's just waiting out there in his truck?"

You shrug. "I told you, mom. He's a really nice man."

"Hm," she says again, staring down at her coffee and taking a long, contemplative sip. "I guess he is."

You grin. It's not much. It's hardly anything at all, really. But it's a start. A seed you're more than willing to water in the hopes that eventually, maybe, she'll come around.

A/N CONT'D: thank you for reading! and now...a special sneak peek of the upcoming summer season. continue reading for the first 500 words of the next and final chapter of your summer dream. i love you all.

chapter vibes:

Sometimes life really feels like a dream.

Even in the monotony, even in the mundane. The morning commutes and the tins of cat food, the Sunday afternoons spent cleaning and the Tuesday nights spent falling asleep on the couch. And it's funny, how just like a dream, you move through the days as though time means nothing at all, everything blurring together until all at once, a year has passed.

Summer blooms, softens and warms you from the inside out. The fan beside the bed blows cool air against your clammy skin, but is no match for the heat between your legs, the overwhelming sensation of Joel's mouth fused wetly over your cunt.

He drinks you down like you're his morning coffee, ravenous and greedy as he hooks your legs over his shoulders and snakes his arms around your thighs. But he is in no rush, languid in the way he makes out with your pussy, whimpering and groaning at every soft, needy moan he manages to draw from you.

But then you claw at his scalp, tug on those gorgeous greying curls and whine. Joel smirks.

"Impatient," he mutters.

He's been lapping lazily at your cunt for the better part of twenty minutes now. You are not impatient. Luckily, as you've come to discover, Joel will never tell you no unless you ask him to.

"S'alright," he whispers, barely letting his lips leave you as he sinks two thick fingers into your core. You keen at the welcome stretch, and Joel purrs between your thighs. "Yeah, there she is. There's my fuckin' girl. You want me to make this little pussy come? Never can just wait, can ya?"

"Waited–long enough," you groan weakly as he nudges at that perfect spot inside you. "Please. I've been good."

You feel him smile again before he's pressing a chaste little kiss to your clit, his moustache tickling your skin.

"Yeah, you have," he breathes, and then he gets to work.

His tongue moves in tandem with his fingers, expertly finding a familiar rhythm he knows like the back of his hand by now. In no time at all, warmth pools down your spine and settles in your tummy, courses rapidly through your veins and tenses all your muscles. You come with dazzling force, grinding your clit onto his willing tongue with that insistent fist still tangled in this hair. Joel loves that.

In these moments, the dream comes alive. The mundanity of every-day life splits open and you realize, there is in fact nothing monotonous about this life at all. How could there be? Joel is here–Joel is still here. A year since you first shook his hand in an airport parking lot, a year in which it feels as though everything changed; through it all, Joel remains. Like a tulip in soil, perennial.

"Wanna take you away somewhere," he rasps as he climbs up your body to kiss and nip at the side of your face. "What do you think? Wanna come away with me?"

You're not sure if he means forever or a day.

"Yes, please," you tell him either way.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #dbf!joel miller x reader #vacation!joel #your summer dream #joel miller one shot #joel miller series #dbf!joel

696 notes · View notes

txtistheloml · 2 months

Text

kang taehyun — as your sugar daddy (bf).

nsfw, mdni.

— “i’ll be back honey, ‘m gonna get to work now. left you some cash on the tabletop, get yourself something nice for breakfast okay?”

— busy ceo who works 9-5 on most days :/

— picks you up from your uni and part-time job at a cafe when he has time to spare while working

— obviously you’re only working because you’ve always wanted to be a barista, you’ve got a big strong man to pay your bills for you

— gets his secretary to get his coffee from the cafe you work at, specially brewed by you

— pampers you with so many little gifts

— if you need anything just tell daddy, he’ll get it for you~

— shopping every weekend is a must.

— fancy dinners at high-end restaurants occasionally has become the norm for you

— has you go with him to company dinners hehe

— he takes his role as a sugar daddy very seriously!!

— makes sure his princess is happy to every extent he can help with

— when he praises its so so full of love and adoration but when you get bratty..

— his punishments are pretty harsh too..!

— on nights where he has to work overtime he sends you a selfie of him looking absolutely scrumptious, captioning “touch yourself a little yeah? you’ll have to go to sleep without cock today.”

— is more than willing to give you head every day because he just is that down bad for you

— but he’ll never admit it~~

— you practically live in his luxurious apartment since you almost never go back to dorms, only when you need something

— whatever is his, is yours.

— do i ever mention enough that this man LOVES seeing you all ruined and submissive under him

— you’re his pillow princess because he says so

— “i’ve ruined you too good for anyone else huh? you love daddy’s cock don’t you? say it baby, wanna hear how good i make you feel.”

— loves dumbing you out because he's supposed to have the brains :3

— his aftercare (and usual treatment) feels like absolute royalty.

— “do you feel okay princess? need water or snacks?”

— “do you wanna have ice cream and watch sofia the first, honey?

— loves paying for your nails aaaa

— literally everyone envies you for having such a sweet bf (+ sugar daddy lol)

— just loves loves loveeees you sm like literally his heart could burst from how much love he holds for you in his heart (even though he has a pretty big heart...)

— you're the apple of his eye.

— expect nothing lesser than the best from the kang taehyun :p

author's note - happy birthday to the handsome n loving n kind n caring n cutie n sexy n adorable n sweetheart kang taehyun!! to our dear tyunie, i hope you have a wonderful birthday and be happy! i wish for all the best for you n i hope all your dreams will come through hehe. thank you so much for existing n coming into my life. even if you dont know of my existence, i know of yours and that is more than enough for me. i really hope youre always happy, healthy n safe, n i hope youre not overworking yourself. ill continue to love you as i always have and even more if my heart could handle it. happy birthday my prince💗

#txt smut #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #txt x reader #txt fics #txt imagines #taehyun smut #taehyun hard thoughts #taehyun hard hours #taehyun x reader #taehyun fics #taehyun imagines #taehyun headcanons #txt headcanons #evelyn's works ⭐️#i feel like i lowkey flopped with this #idk im sorry im a lil rusty #ugshgshg

535 notes · View notes

seonghwaddict · 2 months

Text

ateez’s favourite positions — masterlist

requested by anon. genre. hc, smut rating. mature. warnings. sexual content mdni, various sex positions, nicknames n stuff. wc. 768.

[ lilo’s notes . . . ] thank you for requesting~ i had to do research for this and like… why are there so many names for the same positions??? and some of these are such weird obscure names i genuinely stared at my screen so blankly cuz who came up with these- not only that but some of the positions i saw looked SO UNCOMFORTABLE??? anyways, moving on and if you aren’t familiar with these position… i suggest looking them up because i will NOTTTTT be providing any links 😁

hongjoong

face sitting. when he says sit on his face he means sit on it. he likes how his mouths drives you wild and how you have to stop yourself from just grinding on his face—he’d lift you for like two seconds to encourage you to do just that. and you see that couch in his studio? yeah i’m not gonna elaborate.

“baby, sit.”

seonghwa

missionary. when he’s not torturing you with his tongue, he likes to fuck you deep and slow. missionary may sound very plain, but occasionally he’ll throw in a blindfold or some restraints. almost if the time, though, he wants it to be just you and him. he likes this position so he can see your face clearly, watching the way you unravel with each frustratingly slow grind of his hips.

“hm, look at you… so pretty and all for me.”

yunho

backseat driver. he’s not very picky about positions, but he does like having you in his lap while he’s gaming. whether it’s him ending a game badly and needing relief right there or you wanting to tease and distract him, he will always revel in the subtle arch of your back and bounce of your tits, having to keep both you and himself quiet when he’s on a call and playing with his friends.

“keep it down, yeah? we don’t want everyone to hear you like this, now do we?”

yeosang

leap frog. he’s an ass guy idc what ANYONE says. if you’re telling me he won’t stare at the way your ass bounces against pelvis, you’re dead wrong. he likes to reach over and give your clit some attention too. yeosang also leans down to kiss your back sweetly while also fucking you like his life depends on it. guys i am DEEP in yeosang brain rot rn if i continue i fear i won’t be able to stop.

“get your face out of that pillow, pretty girl. let me hear you.”

san

spooning. i think that, yes, occasionally he’d like to be rough, but i will NEVER back down from my soft dom!san agenda. in this position, he’s able to hold you and keep you warm and make you feel good all over. the technicalities(?) of spooning you feels good for the two of you—your thighs pressed together making your walls hug him tighter. this is also a good position for him to gently fuck you to sleep at the end of the day. also: comforting kisses all over your shoulders and the back of your neck… he just wants to make you feel nice and comfortable and keep you safe in his arms :(

“just relax, baby… you know i’ll take care of you.”

mingi

tabletop. if no one’s around, he’ll risk taking you right on the kitchen counter. if that’s not possible, he’ll lick the bedroom door and sweep any items off his desk and take you there. there’s something about seeing you say somewhere and being the one standing between your legs and coaxing orgasm after orgasm out you that makes his insides feel all hot and tingly. this also give the two of you good access to kiss each other all over your torsos.

“i’ve got you, doll, just give me one more, i know you can do it.”

wooyoung

ballet dancer. specifically against a wall, or door, or window, or- you get the point. any vertical surface will do. one hand on your waist or breast or neck and the other hitching your thigh around his hips. sometimes he’ll be fucking you so well, your nails dig into the skin of his shoulders or chest—he really likes that.

“does that feel good, jagi? yeah? i’ll keep doing that then, but make sure i can hear those pretty sounds, hm?”

jongho

cowgirl. don’t be fooled, though you may be on top, he’s still in control. he lets you fuck yourself on his dick for a bit and when you close, he’ll flip you over so quickly you get whiplash. but that’s on days where he’s feeling like a menace. other than that, he does actually love the sight of you on top of him, claiming him as yours. he doesn’t have a preference for sitting or laying down, he’s perfectly happy as long he can see your fucked out and desperate face.

“there you go… you take me so well…”

　　[ networks ... ] @cromernet @wonderlandnet

　　[ perm taglist — open ... ] @ad0rechuu @sankatchu @mlink64 @yeosangsbb @seonghwasbbgirl @likexaxdaydream @dreamingofyeo

421 notes · View notes

archieimagines · 1 year

Text

antidote | chishiya shuntaro

Summary: A doctor is a lifeline. In the Jack of Hearts game, Chishiya strives to be yours.

yeah, i took the physician reveal and ran with it. i tried to get into his head to portray him as well as i could in writing this and accidentally fell head over heels. let me know if i did him justice? warnings: large helpings of anxiety, chishiya-esque emotional manipulation, though affectionate. mentions of sex, fwb setup, my attempt at sounding medically educated. word count: 2741 requested by: anon (thank you so much for this brilliant idea, i loved getting stuck into it. i don’t write smut, but i hope this still gets you a little riled.) written by: archie support me on ko-fi

It’s human nature to fuck up. He should’ve known to expect it from you.

It was beginning to wear him down, your constant knee bouncing and nail biting since the third hour of this game. All he needed to do was watch. He was wildly curious to see how this would all play out, and he knew he was safe. Knew you were safe.

All things considered, it was a low-risk game: only trust was required, and he’d scored that easily by taking you under his wing. However, The idea of the Jack of Hearts was a poison injected into the bloodstream of the prison’s population. The symptoms of distrust and paranoia would migrate through the ranks, and the masses would spiral and die.

It was a simple game. The key was to not let your protector get infected.

But the symptoms were visibly taking a hold of you. The cafeteria table shook with your anxious tics, the water in your bottle sloshing enough to disrupt his attention on the surrounding cafeteria. He wouldn’t complain though. You weren’t annoying, no, but you could soon put him on edge if he let you spiral like this, and then he’d be infected too.

“Chishiya,” you called softly, clearly nervous to disrupt his spectating.

He didn’t tear his eyes from the scheming girl in the dress. She was particularly interesting in this setting; and by his deductions, not likely to be the Jack. “Hm?”

Your voice came meeker than normal. “What’s my suit again?”

He turned slowly, a brow quirked over a relaxed eye as he finally gave you his attention. “You forgot?”

“No. Just tell me.”

He sighed silently through his nose, calculating your thoughts. To ask this after he’d told you twice already, you must’ve been anxious about one of two things. One, that your addled mind would fool you into speaking the wrong suit. Or two, that you couldn’t trust him.

“Heart,” was all he said.

And you nodded. Your eyes hardened, clearly visualising the shape before your eyes. ‘Heart,’ he could practically see your mind reciting. ‘Heart.’

Or… Was that a calculating look? He flexed his jaw. Were you possibly tallying up the likelihood that he’d lied to you?

He focused on the accidental downturn of his lips. He shouldn’t be double reading you like that - his own intuition was the only concrete thing he had. He’d never been wrong before. He’d kept the both of you alive for this long based on his skill alone, and he’d not let your lives slip away in a measly Jack’s game.

With a slow blink, he made the conscious choice not to chip away at his own trust in himself, as was undeniably the Jack’s aim in this game.

Chishiya’s gaze lowered to where your fingertips danced on the tabletop. A heart shape. Over and over. Frantic, disturbed. You were slipping.

Against his better judgement, he reached out a hand to clasp over your fingers, quietly amused when those sweet, round eyes fixed on his face. You were so scared, so anxious, and the part inside of him that felt for you lit a soft smile on his lips.

You’d never been good at heart games with that anxious disposition, but that was why he’d kept you by his side. You were an easy window into the minds of his surroundings with how easily he could read you. Your distress on the outside showed blatantly the fear of the people in this game. Everyone under the roof would be feeling it. Even the Jack… Especially the Jack.

Chishiya had found you early on in the games-- only the two of you had survived the Six of Hearts. You were entirely integral to his methods of survival that day, so he stole you away to the Beach and was sure to never let you have a game without him. Losing you as the key to his readings would surely damn him someday. Yet somewhere along the line, he grew… fond.

It must’ve been your consistent proximity, he’d reasoned at first. How your constant being around became a sense of ‘normal’ for both he and Kuina, how your raw, unapologetic humanity was a refreshing shift in his life, how you were a brilliant vessel in the games.

He’d protect you, and you’d provide him the opposite perspective as the control in his readings where everyone else was the variable. The perfect symbiotic relationship in this land.

And perhaps that may have been the case. Perhaps that was the foundation for which he felt appreciative of you, the foundation for a so-called friendship. But it didn’t explain how you’d developed into more for him.

His hold on your fingers tightened, gaze fixed on them as he recalled how they’d thread through his hair, night after night. How they’d unzip his hoodie at the Beach. How they’d scramble to tug the sheets over your naked body when a militant barged through the unlockable door to call him into an executive meeting. He couldn’t help the huff of amusement at the thought. Your eyes were as sweet and panicked then as they were now.

But it wasn’t the same. There, you had the safety of the blankets in his room. A sanctuary. Here, you must’ve felt so exposed to the Jack’s poison. Knee bouncing beneath the table and water bottle gripped tight in one hand, what he could swear was a thin sheen of sweat over your skin. You were really losing your nerve, and he needed to be your antidote.

“Follow me,” he murmured, his interest in the room’s population dissipated. With a gentle nod in a moment of reassurance, he let go of your fingers to let you take up your bottle of water and led you from the cafeteria.

His hands burrowed into his pockets as he walked. He took his slow time, sure to register his surroundings in his peripherals even as he gazed straight ahead, effortless as ever.

Your distinct footsteps followed close behind, audibly unsure and glancing around to the others as you tagged along. He knew you had no clue yet. You were playing it blind and suffering for it.

He took you aside into one of the prison’s meeting rooms where once upon a time, a board of directors would’ve gathered. They’d have administered handfuls of men’s fates, and they’d have considered them less than rats. Now this was where Chishiya would administer your own fate, purely because he held you dear.

He opened a palm to gesture to the end of the table. “Take a seat,” he spoke, ever relaxed, and watched you hop up onto the end of the table. It was rickety, chairs kicked and strewn about, the room only lit by the game-master’s searchlights that shone into the windows.

You looked far from comfortable perched up there, the glare lighting half of your face, and he found himself silent. He just looked at you for a moment. How beautiful you were.

He’d noticed many times, of course. The flutter of your lashes as you looked over his features in a fruitless attempt to read his face. Your parted lips channelling the oxygen that fuelled your body, though your lungs delivered it all shaky and uneven. You were stunning to him, even in the worst of times. Even when you were drenched in the crimson of lives you outlived.

But… There was something in this moment. Something about how right now, he was your lifeline. He held that beautiful existence in his hands and this time, he had the power to choose his method of helping. No supervisors to end your life with a swift letter, no list of priority to bump you down. Or at least, you were the priority.

“What is it?” You jerked him from his thoughts, your ankle bouncing once more where it swung below the table. “Chishiya?”

He gifted you a smile, but it didn’t soothe you.

Your eyes narrowed instead. “What are you hiding from me?”

A soft hum of laughter as he took slow, deliberate steps closer until he stood directly before you. A pinkness on your neck caught his eye and his head tipped in curiosity. He reached to slip a finger into your collar, lips pursed in question as he felt the irritated heat of your skin underneath. “Mm? Do you have a latex allergy?”

“Lat-? No.”

He pulled gently on the band at your neck, stepping even closer to peer at the line of irritation from the garment. It wasn’t until he finally removed his hold that he noted the moisture on his finger-- your sweat. The salt must have caught in the material and rubbed you raw, leading to irritation and the slightest blood spots beneath your skin.

“You’ve been pulling at the collar.”

“It’s tighter than when we started.”

Chishiya knew that wasn’t true. His was perfectly fine - comfortable, even - but he didn’t give a thought to argue. Your stress was having physical implications, making everything even worse for you. Anxiety really is a bitch, he mused.

“Water.” He held a hand out to the bottle and you placed it in his palm. His eyes fixed on yours as he opened it up-- and only at this point did he realise quite how close he was.

Your knees put a comfortable, familiar pressure on either side of his hips, his face uncommonly close to yours without the presence of a bed, but he had no intention of moving. He just took the space and owned it, relishing in the slightest hue of red that dusted your cheek, sure to notice it deepen as he raised your chin between his finger and thumb, guiding you to lift your face.

“This will be cold,” was all the warning he gave before trickling the water down your neck.

You hissed and jerked back, likely from the cold or the sting of the freshwater on your salted wounds. “Shit, Chishiya.”

He simply chuckled inwardly, lips hitched in a humoured smirk as he rinsed your skin. He let the little stream of water run across your throat, taking his time to work towards your other ear. His touch on your chin remained delicate as a doctor’s touch, directing you to look the other way for his ease.

This intimacy, he pondered. So rare in the home world. It was one thing to be a physician in a hospital, and another to use basic, opportunistic materials to heal someone who depended on him so wholly. A patient may fight to survive on their own accord, but here, in this game, with you… Everything rode on his word, on his actions. Everything.

A strange magnetism in his chest drew him ever closer to your skin, until his lips soon met the human warmth beneath your ear. It was a slow kiss, tender and deliberate, and he relished in how your body naturally leant into his.

His closed eyes let him hone on the quickened beat of your pulse, the ghost of a thrum against his lips. Your blood pumped the cortisol of your anxiety through the roof, and he remembered his mission to bring it back down, to calm you. He clung to this as a reason to retract from you. If this reaction was from his unsolicited affection, he should know better than to drive your adrenaline too high.

“Don’t touch it anymore,” he prescribed, voice level and cool, giving no hint as to how hard it was to lean back from you. “The irritation will lessen and you can focus more.”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m focusing on,” you spat in a whisper, uncommonly callous with your words despite the pink to your cheeks as you watched him close the bottle cap once more. He’d seen you panic before in many a heart’s game, but not like this, not after his sparing affection. This game really was frying your nerves.

“Focus on keeping your head,” he murmured, the slightest snort slipping out after. “In every sense of the word.”

“Shut the fuck up, Chishiya.”

It was endlessly amusing to see you like this. The fire that came from your lips right now had never been rivalled before, and any regret he’d had at choosing a Heart’s game for you quickly dissipated. Fascinating to see you lose your mind.

But, he couldn’t toy with you too far. He allowed you to hear his chuckle, low and rumbling in his chest, only audible with the proximity he kept. “Sincerely. Focus on staying calm. All you need to do is trust me.”

“Not so easy in a place like this.”

He took the chance to look surprised. This was his opening to seal any of his own concerns about you. “You think I’d feed you the wrong suit?”

He paid careful attention to how you hesitated, watching the thoughts dance their patterns behind your eyes. You were looking at him without seeing him, close enough that he could see his reflection in your irises. Calculations, calculations, ones that you so visibly struggled to work out. Would he dare tell you the wrong suit? Would it be out of choice or pre-emptive, lest you try to end him first, purely because you’d worried?

Moments passed, and the longer it went on, the more his worries tugged at his thoughts. He needed to prove himself to you to save his own skin. Both of your skins.

His hands settled lightly on your lower thighs, set snug on either side of his hips, and he gave a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t need to worry,” he murmured, voice low and soothing as butter on a wound, “We’ll survive this together.”

That endearing little tug between your brows encouraged him on, and he couldn’t help but take your chin in his hold again. To hold that sweet face, so trusting, so impressionable. He watched the hope shine in your features before turning your face the slightest degree, exposing your ear once more, to which he leant in. His breath just tickled your lobe as his nose nudged on your shell, words slow and deliberate. “I know who the Jack is.”

The change in your body language was instant. You jumped back to peer at his face, brows high and eyes wide, no longer slouched and dejected. Your hand gripped at his white jacket, fisted into the fabric to keep him close as you murmured, “Really?”

A slow nod. Relaxed eyes and knowing smirk shone in the searchlight, and he planned his next words carefully. He didn’t want you to know who his suspects were, in case you gave anything away and steered the game from its natural course. “I have two suspects, it’s just down to seeing which fails first.”

The elation in his chest at seeing your relief was disorienting. The way you sighed out with almost a laugh, head thrown back to let it escape you… It was an image he wouldn’t forget for a long time. The serenity of his antidote, saving you from the Jack’s poison.

His brows shot up as you snatched his shoulders into a tight, relieved hold, thighs tight on his waist and arms looped around his neck. Your face pressed into the junction of his shoulder, nestled against his hair. “Thank fuck,” you breathed, edging on tears. “You worked it out? I should’ve known. I should’ve!”

He didn’t say anything, only astounded that you might be so liberal in your affections outside his hotel room. But then, he did bridge that gap first. And there were no regrets. He allowed himself to indulge in it, his own arms finding their home around your waist and his nose in your hair. Of course it was a trick of psychological conditioning, but if he focused just right, he could almost smell the residue of chlorine from the days at the Beach.

He indulged in splaying a hand across your back, rubbing soothing circles over your form. This body… He knew the ins and outs of it. He knew where every mole dotted your skin, he could estimate the length of your lower ribs without flaw. His thumb pressed slow pulses in the flesh between the back of your ribs, imagining that he’d place his stethoscope there.

What a sound he’d hear. Each breath, the source of your survival.

Would it be too arrogant to consider himself such a thing too?

#chishiya x reader #chishiya imagine #shuntaro chishiya x reader #chishiya shuntaro x reader #nijiro murakami x reader #nijiro murakami imagine #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland headcanon #aib #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #nijiro murakami #written by archie

6K notes · View notes

sea-lanterns · 10 months

Note

BRO FEED ME SOME HICKEY PRANK ON DOM MIKO AND ARLECHINO🤡👁️👄👁️

IN CELEBRATION OF ARLECCHINO BEING LEAKED I WILL ANSWER THIS :D

love me some dominant, possessive women 🩷

nsfw under the cut—————————

oh, you picked the wrong pair of women to prank like this. miko and arlecchino are already possessive enough, yet you just had to push their buttons? tsk tsk, what a naughty partner you were, now you know what’s coming now…

miko is nasty. the moment she sees your neck covered in bruises and marks not left by her, she gets understandably mad. ears twitching with annoyance as her tail swishes back and forth in an angry motion that has you gulping.

electricity crackles in the air, the guuji’s nails are gripping the chair she was holding and puncturing the leather with just her strength alone. she pants, eyes downcast as the purple in her eyes spark with life. “those aren’t mine…” she purrs lowly, glaring up at you beneath half lidded eyes. “my marks are darker…”

the atmosphere grows tense as she strolls right over, her hands that almost broke the leather seat clasping your chin and forcing you to look at her. unbearable eye contact between you and your girlfriend, as she leans down and makes sure to give you a snarky smile hidden between her lips. “you let someone else mark you up, baby? that’s not very nice…”

her feminine and doting voice did not match her body language at all as the grip on your jaw tightens and pushes you over to a wall, opening her mouth as wide as she could and revealing the pointy canine teeth you always craved on top of you. strings of saliva connecting her pretty pink tongue to her teeth as she leans in and bites your neck with sudden force. the edges of her teeth probing your skin while the warm embers of her tongue swipe over the fake marks you put on yourself to lick away the makeup.

she knew it.

smirking to herself, miko allows her tongue to rub away the marks one by one, replacing them with her own, darker, more deeper bites that had you squirming and clawing her back for more…

arlecchino is wicked. she’s a sadist through and through and knows the bruises on your shoulders are nothing short but foolery. no matter how good you could forge it, arlecchino could always tell. they weren’t real.

“…come here.”

her tone is firm, gloved finger beckoning you over with one, alluring, waggle. she was sitting in her chair lazily with one foot resting on her knee, setting the wine goblet she held down on the tabletop. “don’t be afraid, come here.”

at her sharpened voice, you flinched and hurried over to where she was seated, two feet away from where she sat. “…did you do this?” she smirks tauntingly, poking a finger at your little make up job. “it’s fake, i can tell.”

you gulped at her acute sense of sight and she beckons you to come closer, pointing down at her lap before glaring at you.

“sit.”

like a dog, you followed obediently. plopping down on the knave’s lap and gasping when she suddenly lunged forward, grabbing onto your neck to squeeze ever so slightly.

“ah—! ghk—!”

you choked on your own surprise, your girlfriend’s thumb running over one of the marks and rubbing it off with satisfaction. her face curled up into that of a grin, as she put her thumb in her mouth to lick the evidence off her glove. “you can’t fool me, doll…” arlecchino murmurs, chuckling darkly at your shocked expression. “here, i’ll show you what a real mark is like.”

and then she lunged forward, sinking her teeth against your collarbone and pulling the strap of your top down, slowly sucking her way lower until she was able to taste breast…

#🫧hydration station #yae miko smut #yae smut #arlecchino smut #yae miko x reader #arlecchino x reader #genshin x reader #genshin imagines #genshin women x reader #genshin women smut

1K notes · View notes

bits-and-babs · 6 months

Text

✦ 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ✦

captain john price x f!reader (raven) | smut, 18+ | 4.2k

summary: when a seemingly bulletproof mission goes awry, captain price makes the vital mistake of pursuing the target alone and contributes to the chaos that almost claims the life of one of his men. When he returns, he lacks the humility to accept your reprimand lying down.

cw: mwiii spoiler free. war and violence, mentions of wounded, ooc price maybe a little? angst, enemies to enemies that fuck, reader is pathetically attracted to price because same, literally a voice kink fic disguised as a deep throating fic, very light degradation, bratty behaviour from reader, heavy face fucking, hair pulling, praise, gagging, very little aftercare.

price mlist | main mlist | taglist

It all goes tits up.

Shouts of distress arise across the coms in the CIA conference room, blaring through the headphones glued to the watchers’ heads. Ghost’s gruff voice calls out a casualty, leading General Shepard to launch out of his seat and crash his fist against the tabletop. Mugs of coffee tip over from the force of the impact, liquid bleeding into top secret documents- they aren’t his primary concern.

“Lieutenant, this is Gold Eagle. Is there an issue, Ghost?” Shepard’s voice snarls down the coms.

“Sir, it’s Soap- he’s been hit.”

Hanging your head between your shoulders, you barely register the orders that Shepard screams into the microphone of his headset, his spittle peppering the laptop screen where he oversees the mission descending into chaos. Your ears are ringing, your heart thumping wildly against your sternum. Further panic ensues, Gaz shouting a brief, hurried explanation of the mission breakdown. “… snipers in the mountain, sir. Had to dispatch them- I can’t see Captain Pri—”

“Bravo 2-6, this is Raven. Confirm Captain Price’s location,” you insist, swallowing the alarm that threatens to haemorrhage from your lips.

“Negative, Ma’am. Lost him while dispatching the snipers.”

“Fuck,” you mutter, feeling your blood boil at The Captain’s recklessness. “Fuck!”

Your fingers blur over your keyboard, focusing your attention on John Price’s coms. Again, Shepard barks orders at Ghost, but you can’t hear him over your own heavy breathing and pressing tone as you address Price in a fury.

“Captain Price, this is Raven; confirm your location immediately!”

Silence at first. Coffee drips from the edge of the tabletop by your feet, pooling into the navy-blue carpet. It stains like blood, a dark smear. You can imagine it in Price’s camo uniform, spreading thick and fast from a bullet wound- a direct hit to the chest.

“We’re gonna lose Hassan.”

“Captain Price,” you yell down the microphone, simultaneously relieved to hear his voice and enraged at his increasingly frequent decision to go AWOL, “We will most definitely lose Hassan if I must bury every member of 141! Return to Team Bravo immediately!”

You’re almost certain you can hear Price’s teeth grind together, the enamel straining under the weight of his fury and threatening to crack down to the root. “Are you tellin’ me we let him go?”

“Captain Price, I am telling you that we were given faulty intel. I am telling you that we are sustaining heavy losses and that Sergeant MacTavish is critically wounded, and I am calling for EVAC!” Your knuckles are bleached where your fists hover over the keyboard, nails digging into your palms so hard you’re sure the indents they leave burrow straight to the bone as you await confirmation of Price’s retreat. “Task Force 141 is a priceless tool against Al-Qatala. I cannot afford to lose every member for the sake of a man we will ultimately have to chance to apprehend again!”

Your eyes float to General Shepard. He’s furious, his irises swallowed by the hollow blackness of his pupils as he jerks his head in confirmation of permission to evacuate 141. It shouldn’t have come to this.

“Do you copy, Captain Price?” You yell down the microphone, finally losing your cool with the maddening Englishman that continued to defy your authority.

“… Yes, ma’am.”

The ticking minutes-hand of the analogue clock that hangs above your desk sweeps away half of the day before you have confirmation of 141’s safe return to American soil. A further two hours of urgent, life-saving surgery have you chewing your nails to the quick. By the time word reaches you of Soap’s stable condition, your nailbeds are bloody and raw.

“Intel confirms a convergence of Las Almas fighters on the Mexican-Guatemalan border. We believe they intend to smuggle Hassan out of Mexico and into Venezuela, where they would almost certainly grant him sanctuary. Air surveillance suggests that armed guards patrol the border twenty-four seven, concentrated significantly around a central point where we suggest they will attempt to help Hassan over it. Ghost and Soap will lead a special operations unit to kill all Las Almas fighters on sight. Captain Price and Gaz will handle Hassan and the fighters guarding him with the help of the Mexican Special Forces. Captain Price, you have execute authority, but we want Hassan alive for interrogation.”

Enraged by the complete breakdown of the mission, your mind replays your mission briefing repeatedly, scanning the tiniest of details in vain hope of understanding how such a concise and faultless plan had almost killed a vital member of your task force. You couldn’t have made it more transparent, having covered every possible eventuality. Even the risk of faulty intel had been accounted for, enough backup issued should teams Alpha and Bravo find themselves outnumbered, yet…

“Captain Price and Gaz will handle Hassan and the fighters guarding him.”

High-ranking officials sidestep you as you turn the corner to your offices, just barely escaping your warpath as you zero in on your target. The heels of your polished shoes crack against the lino flooring of the hallway like gunfire, the sound ricocheting off the walls and alerting those in your way to your fury.

Perhaps it would explain the wide-eyed shock already present in both Shepard and Captain Price aimed at the door of the General’s office when you throw it open with rage.

“John!”

“I fucked up--“he attempts to assure you of his guilty conscience, gesturing vaguely to his commanding officer, who no doubt had already laid into him over his poor decision-making. It does little to dispel the bubbling temper that churned in your stomach and coated your tongue with a sour taste.

“You’re damn right, you fucked up,” you scoff loudly, watching Price cross his thick, bulky arms across his chest as he surrenders to your verbal onslaught. “Your decision to ignore my plan and, arguably, go AWOL nearly cost Johnny his life! I’d issued a faultless mission briefing and paired you with Gaz against Hassan! With Gaz!”

General Shepard watched you chew up Price from his seat at his desk, lacing his fingers across the surface littered with pictures that looked as though they’d been ripped from the bodycam and air surveillance footage of the failed mission. Photographic evidence of Price’s incompetency—or rather, his blind faith in himself that he could singlehandedly take on a small army of Las Almas fighters and legendary terrorist fighter Major Hassan Zyani.

A bitter spark flashes across Captain Price’s cerulean eyes, his inflammatory retaliation worming its way between his gritted teeth and rumbling in his chest.

“It’s easy for you to criticise my split-second decisions when you sit behind a desk every mission, barkin’ orders with coffee in your hand.”

It’s a miracle that you restrain yourself, momentarily considering issuing a reminder of your military prowess in the form of hand-to-hand combat. If it weren’t for the haggard strain of John’s voice from his bellowed EVAC orders in a desperate attempt to save Soap’s life, you’d have connected your balled-up fists to his face. Instead, you spit in retaliation.

“Need I remind you that before I used to call the shots, I used to shoot people?”

Price lets out a bitter laugh, shaking his head at your comment and opening his mouth to argue. You don’t let him, smothering the threat of his stupid rebuttal of ‘with what, a water pistol?’.

“Your decision to pursue Hassan nearly killed Johnny,” you repeat the undeniable fact, punctuating it with a violent jab of your finger towards him, “Do you realise how close I was to calling into Scotland? How close I was to organising the coffin to bring him home in? How dare you undermine me- disrespect the resume that put me in that seat and the people I killed to get there, Captain.”

If it weren’t for you, Price’d be standing in the pews of a church in Glasgow, draped in black and drenched in red.

Clearing his throat suddenly from his seat, General Shepard just barely splits the brutal tension bludgeoning your skull in the form of a migraine that only seemed to arise in the presence of Captain John Price. It thumps against your temple when Shepard makes a show of standing from his seat and pointing to the door.

“I can leave you both here to sort out your differences. The last thing you will both do is undermine my authority by screaming like petulant children in the corridor in front of my colleagues. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” you both manage to address him, eyes still pinned to each other like a missile’s locking system. Shepard grunts, and you note the twitch of a muscle in Price’s lower eyelid, his anger threatening to claw its way out of his face before he erupted with it.

The door to Shepard’s office swings open, heavy footsteps passing the threshold. In a sick, comedic chain of events, he doesn’t bother to pull it closed again. Instead, it creaks as the hinge closes achingly slowly.

You feel sick when you stare at Price. Not because you fear the words he could aim towards you in a critical hit—instead, you felt nausea at the concept of hearing the gravelly tone of his voice alone, the stabling force of your commanding officer absent.

It’s a dirty little secret that you’d never allowed yourself to speak. Even four Proseccos deep into a rare Christmas gathering of 141, you’d swallowed the word bile down that threatened to use your inebriation to rid yourself of the guilt. Price had admonished your choice of alcohol that night, commenting on how you could have chosen something better- like whiskey. The rumble of his voice in his sarcastic assessment had pooled in your stomach like the liquid amber he had suggested.

How could you possibly admit that the tone of his voice, so gritty and deep, swelled in your clit when you went to bed at night. That you replayed the ridiculous, pathetic one-liners he’d utter over the coms to you. The one time you’d issued a warning of an incoming threat, and Price had offered thanks in the only form he knew to give you: “Tha’s a girl”. You’d made a late-night Amazon order for new bedsheets and a mattress protector that same evening.

Click.

The door shuts, and the sound makes you jump as though John had slammed his fist on a big, red nuclear button.

“Are you done?”

The swallow that drags down your throat at the husked whisper he’d started with is far more audible in the now silent room. The spiteful gaze you had levelled at Price melts away, transfixing on him instead with something akin to dumb-struck, doe-eyed idiocy.

“P-Pardon?” You stumble over the two-syllable word that had confidently come to mind. Working in a building that relied so much on manners, there was absolutely no excuse for butchering a word you used upwards of fifty times a day.

Price’s eyebrow arches pointedly at you, the flickering ember in his irises that had previously resembled an inextinguishable fury instead glows with an amused curiosity at your very sudden surrender.

“Are you done making me look like a rookie in front of General Shepard?” He clarifies, stalking forward. He crosses the space between you both with long, cocky strides that make your heart pump double time when he finally settles in front of you. “Are. You. Done?”

“Hah-!” You laugh. You mean for it to mock his ridiculous notion, but instead, it’s all choked, nervous and airy because that damn voice knocks the oxygen from your lungs like he’d rendered a sucker punch to your gut. Price’s eyes pin you to your spot on the floor, root your feet to the coffee-stained carpet.

It’s utterly infuriating how he tilts his head in a smug observation of your panicked expression. You can see the exact moment he notes the tremble of your inhaled breath and the heat of your arousal rolling off your body. Fuck-

“John-“

There it is. Comprehension. The glistening sweat at your temple, the wide-eyed nervousness in your expression, and the breathy whisper of his name all surged forward and lit the bulb of realisation in his mind. You can practically see the golden glow of it in his pupils, a switch tck’ing when he murmurs an ‘oh’.

His lips split into a toothy, wily grin, “Oh, look at you, Station Chief.”

You bristle with panic with the way he makes a point to emphasise your rank, your lips parting in shock when he reaches up to grasp your chin in his hand.

“Who are you to question my decisions? You don’t even know if you want my cock in your mouth or your cunt.”

The sheer filth he utters makes your head reel as though he’d fed you some of his mind-numbing whiskey. You’re confident you’re gawping at him when he smirks at your reaction, his calloused thumbpad brushing across the bridge of your jaw. It reminds you of the way he caresses the trigger of a sniper rifle before he fires it and how you’d spent so many nights imagining that touch when you circled your clit-

“How ’bout we start with your mouth?” He urges you with a smokiness that rivals the puffs of his cigar. You loathed him for his smoking habits when the acrid scent clung to your hair but worshipped him for it when you buried your nose into your pillows when you came with a silent cry of his name.

You see his smirk widen suddenly, and it takes you far too long to realise that you’d let out a devastating whine at his lurid suggestion. John’s fingers and thumb settle on the pillowy flesh of your cheeks on either side of your mouth, pushing against them until your lips are pursed. It’s undignified, far beneath your station, but then-

“Gunna wanna open that mouth nice an’ wide for me, Dove.”

You sink to the floor of your commanding officer’s office floor before your rational mind even has a chance to talk you out of the offence- or acknowledge the choice of pet name that cheekily undermined your call sign. Your perfectly tailored office trousers crease beneath the weight of your knees… But suffering through cleaning and ironing them again was worth the rumble of a groan that fell from John’s lips as he watched you kneel for him.

“Fuck,” Price hums in appreciation, those gorgeous sky-blue irises swallowed by the midnight black of his pupils once more, “Spend all your time issuin’ orders, but you just needed someone else to take control, didn’ you, Love?”

For a moment, you hesitate. It’s improper, the way your knees ache with the hard floor beneath them. A tiny, quiet voice urges you to stand and rush out of the room before you damage your reputation any further, but the clink of John’s standard-issue belt buckle has your jaw falling slack before the idea can truly take root.

“Look at you,” he stresses again as he pulls the length of the belt from its loops with a slow thwppp sound, “So greedy for my cock. Anyone would think you’d been desperate for it all this time.”

John drags down his zipper, watching you look at him through your lashes. You don’t dismiss his hypothesis, instead choosing to stick your tongue out for him in an obscene act of fervour. The haggard groan that lurches from John’s lungs settles deep inside your cunt.

“You filthy girl,” he gasps, hurrying his hand into his trousers. He doesn’t even strip the pants from his hips, instead fishing his cock from his boxers and settling his balls against their waistband. “You have, haven’t you? How often did you touch yourself beneath the table while I spoke to you over the comms? Hmm?”

You’re so far gone now, so drunk on the idea of the agitating, ridiculous, utterly infuriating Captain finally fucking you that you might have answered that question-- if you’d heard it. Instead, his voice, which previously captured every fibre of your attention, drowned into the background of the thumping pulse in your ears. His cock sits just in front of your face, and it’s like you can’t breathe.

Ruddy and red at the tip, his cock already drools precum down the curve of its shaft. Veins throb beneath the thin, velvety skin, their ridges glistening beneath the wet tracks that his leaking seed leaves. It settles at the base, where his heavy balls rest against his boxer’s elastic waistband.

His question dies in the thick tension in the air, and you lean forward on your knees to press your drooling tongue right at the base of John’s cock where his precum pools. Your unexpected starting position causes John to spit out a curse, his fingers flying out to grip the strands of hair at the crown of your skull. “S-Shit-“

Saltiness coats your tongue where you lap up his cum, flattening your tongue against the underside of his shaft to trace his pronounced frenulum. Dragging your tastebuds upwards, you collect the tracks the droplets had left behind until the tip of your tongue rests on the underside of his fat cockhead. It’s disgusting, the relieved whine that escapes your open throat, but the vibration tips Captain John Price over the edge.

“Fuck! Eyes on me, Dove. Wanna see your eyes- that’s it.” John’s face contorts, brows creasing, and the edges of his lips turned down beneath the coarse hair of his beard as you look up at him, kissing the head of his velvety dick and slipping it into your mouth.

“Take orders so well. So obedient,” he purrs, the rumbling sound edging into a moan when you ease more of him into your mouth. He’s trying to play off the power dynamic, you note. Getting off on the fact that you’re his superior, but that he held the authority like this. A playful resentment teases the edge of your mind, urging you to remind him of his place.

You drag the edges of your teeth over his shaft. Not hard enough to hurt- just enough for a singing hiss to echo in the quiet room when you pull back from his cock.

It’s a mistake.

John grasps your hair at the back of your head, winding the strands around your fingers and suddenly rocks his hips forward. The length of his cock slides deep down your throat, and you splutter as your nose crushes into his pubic bone. “Couldn’t fuckin’ help yourself, could you?”

His gravelly reprimand swirls a ghost-like touch around your clit, and you gag around the length that intrudes against your throat walls. Price tuts softly, feeling your nails dig into his flesh beneath the camo canvas still covering his muscular thighs. It’s only when tears cling to your lashes that he draws your head back with a pull of your hair.

Gasping down a heavy breath, you splutter when John groans loudly. His cock twitches, drooling more precum as you gasp for breath, and he drags his eyes across your face. “Good fuckin’ girl. Takin’ me like that- didn’t it feel good?”

God, you’re nodding pathetically, tongue already lolling from your lips in a silent plea for more. The heaviness of his cock against your tongue and the vibrations of his lurid tone are enough for you to cum on their own, and you want more of them. John groans, a chuckle settling somewhere between the sound as he grasps the nape of your neck.

“Jus’ like that, you dirty girl,” he urges you, his free hand tapping at his balls in a wordless order. This time, you obey, tonguing over his finger before taking one of his balls into your mouth. You can hear the shaky exhale that rattles in his lungs when you suck.

“So fuckin’ good for me. I’ll fuck you against that desk one day, you hear?” You see him point in the corner of your vision, his index finger aiming at General Shepard’s desk. Realisation slams into you and rocks your clit with arousal- Shepard could walk in at any second and see his right-hand man stuffing Captain Price’s cock down her throat in the ultimate show of disrespect. John doesn’t seem worried about it. In fact, it’s as though he gets off on the idea, his eyes darting to the door as he details his plans for you.

“Think you’d look real nice on it. Far better than ‘is tacky nameplate. We’d make a mess together, get our cum all over it so he can smell jus’ how wrecked I left you-“

Moaning around the length of his cock, your clit throbbing desperately with his words, the vibrations cause John’s hips to lurch forward again. The head of his dick prods the back of your throat, but John’s tight grip doesn’t allow you to pull back. He’s buried to the hilt, twitching against your palate.

“Fuckin’ droolin’ for it, Love. It’s dripping down your chin—Fuck, you look so pretty like this,” He’s slurring his words as he watches you bob your head up and down on his length, swallowing around him and just barely holding back your gag reflex. It’s quick, messy, and loud, the wet sounds ricocheting off the office’s walls.

“D’you think he’s got cameras in here?” John muses, his voice thick with his incoming orgasm. The sound of it, the arousal coating his tongue has you whining desperately, “Why don’t you touch yourself, hmm? Give ’im a show.”

You sob around his girth like he’d just offered you a miracle. Fumbling, you don’t even bother wasting time trying to shove your hand down your trousers. Your fingers find the vague outline of your cunt through the crotch, roughly circling your clit through the layers of material.

It’s all you need. Your eyes roll back into your skull at just how close you are to cumming, your thighs trembling beneath your weight. You soaked through your panties and into the crotch of your trousers.

“Fuckin’ slutty girl,” John gasps, and you feel his cock jump at the sight of you already teetering on the edge, “’s my voice getting’ you off? Fuck, you’re fuckin’ perfect-“

Stop. Stop; you need him to stop. Your orgasm is ebbing at the edges of your abdomen, threatening to swallow you whole and drawing up tight, but John won’t shut the fuck up.

“C’mon, Love. Deeper. Deeper, that’s it. I’ll fuckin’ lick your pretty pussy if yo-“

His promises drown out with the surge of bliss that roars in your ears. Price times it perfectly, rocking his cock further down your throat so that you gag around his length. The lack of oxygen causes your nerve endings to sing when it cracks down your spine, bursting through your abdomen and spidering across your limbs like white-hot plasma.

Everything is loose with ecstasy, and it allows Price to issue one, two, three more brutal thrusts of his hips before he’s choking out a haggard warning that he’s going to cum.

“F-Fuck-“He chokes out, holding the nape of your neck before burying himself as deep as he possibly can without choking you, hot ropes of cum spurting down your throat. Even in your post-orgasm haze, mind numb, you swallow him down greedily. Big, heavy gulps, even licking your lips when he removes his dick from your throat to milk out the last drops of his cum onto them.

“Tha’s my girl, good, don’t let a drop go to waste.”

Price’s hand pushes back the mess of your hair from your face, careful to remove the strands that had clung to your tear-soaked eyelashes. You hold your breath, heart stilling its rapid beat as he brushes his thumb across your cheekbone to swipe up the tear tracks that had leaked from your eyes during his assault on your throat. It’s a single moment of tenderness, barely there, before he withdraws his touch to stuff himself back into his pants.

“Can you stand?” Price asks, his voice even hoarser than when you’d first walked into the room, like the moans you’d elicited from him were like sandpaper in his already raw throat. He holds out a palm- but you’re not cock-dumb enough to believe it’s a makeshift olive branch.

“Yes,” you whisper, matching his brutalised tone with your own as you bat away the helping hand he offers you. Price can’t help but scoff at your dismissal. Turns out even a dick down your throat wasn’t enough to change your uptight attitude. He watches you stand on shaky feet, trying to smooth out your creased knees before Shepard could wonder how exactly you’d made such a mess of yourself.

Besides your heaving breaths, still desperately pulling oxygen in your lungs to soothe the burn, the room is silent. Price finishes righting himself, smoothing his fingers through his cropped hair.

“Don’t forget what I said,” he murmurs, eyes sliding over to the desk. His promise to fuck you on it only barely re-enters your mind following a pointed look. Satiated somewhat by the blistering orgasm that had ripped through you, your rage struggles to roar to life like it had when you’d entered this room. Now it smelt like sex, and your anger only simmers in the base of your stomach.

“That is not happening again,” you promise him firmly.

“Mhmm,” he hums, following Shepard’s footsteps towards the door, “We’ll see about that, Dove.”

cod mwii/kinktober taglist:

@mockerycrow @bubuslutty @cheezitwh0re @haunt3dh3art @levi-llama @thebiscuitsheep @maelstrom007 @alexxavicry @bug-sy-boy @glennrheesworld @kittenfrostt @luvfromkat @blingblong55 @whore4dilfs @wolfyland07 @doggydale @dog55teeth @cabreezer0117 @cathnoneofyourbusiness @marygraceee @thatchickwiththecamera @legend-o-zelda @whore-for-anime @i-love-ghost @cyberpr1m3 @mockerycrow @bubuslutty @lundenloves @cheezitwh0re @haunt3dh3art @babychoi03 @infectedkura @allekat1988 @whore-for-anime @soupbinsoup @passi0np1t @mockerycrow @cyberpr1m3 @i-love-ghost @allekat1988 @infectedkura @babychoi03 @freakquenci @maviee @yunggoblin @sleepystaarr @watyousayin @soupbinsoup @passi0np1t @damn-dean-blog @pheonyxmoon @magicalreviewphantom @limegreenbabx @johfaam0 @iaur @justsayk

@mortallyuniquepeach @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @crybaby-blue-blog @heart-atttack @pansa-1-san @maviee @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago @s-u-t @ghostslynx @solidly-indulgent @glitterypirateduck @gummyfang @bii-aan-ckaa @konigsblog @crissteetee @crissteetee67 @sylvanasthebansheequeen @akaym2 @exploremyworldsm @thriving-n-jiving @su57 @cabreezer0117 @cathnoneofyourbusiness @marygraceee @thatchickwiththecamera @legend-o-zelda @eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @tusk89 @bellasbees01 @dog55teeth

#꒰꒰ ‧₊˚ my works ˚₊· ꒱꒱#꒰ ‧₊˚ john price ˚₊· ꒱#john price smut #captain john price #captain john price x reader #john price #john price x reader #captain john price smut #modern warfare 2 #mw2 smut #price smut #cod smut #call of duty smut #call of duty #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #cod #barry sloane #barry sloane x reader

643 notes · View notes