Filling An Empty Vase - Roy Kent X Reader
filling an empty vase - roy kent x reader
pairing: roy kent x reader
word count: 3.4k (genuinely don't know how that happened)
warnings: language (duh) and some suggestive themes. the word shagging, which is too british not to include i'm afraid
a/n: this was an anonymous request that i'm not going to put here because it kinda ruins the whole plot! but it was such a fabulous request, so thank you anon, for giving me so much space to play. if you're not sure this is your request, you mentioned "Mr I Never Smile Kent" which funnily enough, made me smile!! enjoy sunflowers <3
---
You were such a professional in so many ways, but yet again you found your focus drifting during your meeting with the rest of the coaches. Your eyes find Roy’s face with such ease, lingering on the newly thicker beard he’s been sporting recently, then travelling down to broad shoulders, ones that fill out the door frame so nicely when he folds his arms. You’re so lucky he’s always folding his arms.
Before you can move onto admiring those arms, you see his head turn towards you and you look away before you can be caught. Instead of glancing at his face to see if he’s still looking at you, you decide it’s easier to join the conversation. As the goalkeeping coach, there isn’t always much you can contribute to these discussions, but they’re very insistent on including you.
“The only thing you need to be careful of is their counter-press,” you chime in, “Mind that the boys don’t get complacent in possession or my guy will be a sitting duck out there.”
“Good thinkin, Abe Lincoln. Why don’t we add that to our pre-game talk, coach, make sure someone’s watchin’ Zoreaux’s back at all times?”
“Already writing it down, coach,” Beard replied, gaining a double thumbs up from Ted who then continued talking. Even though you’d hardly been listening, you knew to do enough research beforehand so that you were free to let your mind wander and only speak up with a few key points.
You tune back in when you recognise the gruff tone of the very man you’re trying not to admire again.
“No. Y/N stole my fucking thing. I’ve gone over the rest in training,” he says dryly, and you duck your head to your lap to hide your smirk. Of course the two of you were on the same page about strategy, you always were. Usually he got to say it before you though, “Can we go now?”
“Unless anyone’s got anythin’ they want to add?” Ted looks around at everyone’s blank and frankly, very tired faces, “Not even somethin’ personal? Deep dark secret? Scandalous love affair, that kinda thing? Higgins, you look like there’s somethin’ right on the tip of that tongue.”
“I’m leaving,” Roy announced, walking into his office and shutting the door, even going so far as to shut the blinds on both windows before he presumably sat at his desk. You sighed and got up from your perch on the desk to take a step towards the dressing room.
“Afraid I’ve got some work to get done before I go home too,” you say, trying to be at least slightly nicer than Roy about it, “We can get personal tomorrow, alright Ted?”
He agrees with a happy grin on his face and you say goodbye to him, Beard and Trent collectively with a salute before turning on your heel and waving a goodbye to any of the team still around as you leave. You don’t go far. Unable to help yourself, you knock on Roy’s office door from the other side and shuffle your weight between your feet as you wait.
“Fuck off,” comes the greeting, so you open the door and slip inside.
“Even if it’s me?”
His head turns at the sound of your voice and suddenly his features look a special kind of soft, even in the harsh overhead lighting. He swivels his chair fully to face you, but makes no other move.
“Especially if it’s you,” he confirms, folding his arms again like he knew the effect he had on you, “You’re a fucking pervert.”
You gasp, clutching at the door handle behind you in a show of shock.
“I’m a what?”
“You heard me. Staring at me like you do in meetings wasn’t in your job description when we hired you, last I checked.”
“Last I checked, shagging your goalkeeping coach wasn’t in your job description, but you made pretty quick work of it.”
That was enough to get him moving. He’s quick out of his chair for a man with a bad knee, quick to crowd you against the wall just next to the door. Someone would have to really peer in to see the two of you, something he’d probably calculated even though your mind was already blank at the new proximity.
“You’re right,” he says, voice sinfully low, hands either side of your hips but not touching you yet, “And I was staring at you the whole fucking meeting anyway, so I’m a pervert and a hypocrite.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can keep on with you if you’re both. One of them, maybe I can look past it, but both?”
Finally, one hand comes off the wall to stroke a line down your side with the backs of his knuckles. You try not to give him the satisfaction of shivering, but fail miserably.
“Think you can brave it?” he murmurs, that same hand brushing along your cheekbone, still all rough knuckles instead of his palm, “I’ll take you to Big Tesco later.”
Your whole face brightens despite the heavy tension that had settled like a mist in the room. You reach up to gently hold his wrist, stroking a thumb back and forth over the pulse that jumped there.
“Shit, you know the way to a girl’s heart, Kent,” you whisper, syrupy and cloying, “I take it all back. We can go as long as you like.”
The innuendo drew the growl from him that you’d been hoping for. The hand at your cheek was quick to turn until he was cupping your face and pulling you into him, kissing you deep and slow and longingly. Each kiss with him was better than the last. Yes, it had started hot and desperate after a month of unbearable electricity between you, a rushed encounter at a hotel after a particularly adrenaline-filled away game.
Ever since, Roy had slowed things down. Not in the way you’d perhaps expected - he was still hot and heavy whenever the two of you got the chance, but he was taking his time with you. Teasing and learning. Nobody had ever treated you like this before, like you were something to be revered. Worshipped.
It was the same now, as he anchored himself with a hand on your back, pulling you further in, kissing you with genuine hunger.
“Roy? Can I come and get my stuff.”
Trent. It was always Trent. You liked the man so much, spent a lot of time with him, in fact, but if he interrupted you and Roy one more time, you had half a mind to hide his manuscript or something.
Roy did his special silent groan that he did whenever he couldn’t groan aloud, where he glared at the ceiling as he broke away from you and then clenched his fists in front of him. It was adorable, not that you would tell him that.
“All good,” you whisper, despite it definitely not being all good. It was entirely a joint decision not to tell the team about the two of you yet, but sometimes you wished you could announce it to the whole fucking world if it would get you some alone time.
You squeeze his hand and slip away to the adjoining door between his and Ted’s office. You hear Roy grunt for Ted to come in behind you, but you squeeze through into the other room before you hear any more of their inevitably one-sided conversation. Ted turns to you brightly as you enter.
“Decided you wanted to get personal sooner, Y/N?” he grins, and you can tell he isn’t really serious.
“Just forgot my keys,” you said sheepishly, retrieving them from the desk where you’d left them completely on purpose. It was always good to have a back-up plan and Roy wasn’t the only quick thinker between you, “See you tomorrow, Coach.”
“Can’t wait, coach!”
As you exit for real this time, glancing into Roy’s office as you pass, you take out your phone to shoot him a text. You’re saved under an unassuming name in his phone, so even if Trent sees it, he’ll be none the wiser.
We’re still on for tonight, right? The way I navigate a Big Tesco will blow your mind x
You press send with a smile to yourself, continuing on towards your office to pack up for the evening. Your phone buzzes before you even get there.
You blow my mind every fucking day. See you soon x
God, you could clutch your phone to your chest and squeal in the corridor, but instead, you speed up your walk to get home as quickly as possible. There was no harm in getting all dressed up to go to the supermarket when you were going with an insanely fit professional footballer, you reasoned.
---
Big Tesco. The place dreams are made of, or at least it was when you were younger and felt like you could get lost in the aisles and never return. Nowadays, it was likely nostalgia that kept you coming back, but it still felt like your first Big Tesco trip with Roy was a pretty big deal.
Mainly you needed snacks for movie night, but Roy was happy to indulge you and drive twenty minutes away for this if that’s what you wanted.
“If we’re doing Julia Roberts, we have to do Pretty Woman, obviously.”
“And Erin fucking Brockovich,” Roy agreed, “But if we do Sandra Bullock, we get the modern day masterpiece that is Miss Congeniality.”
“Oh, I still need to see that one!”
Roy stops, Pringles tube hovering above the trolley. He looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time and he doesn’t like what he sees.
“Right, we’re doing Bullock then, if I have to fucking culture you as well as buy your snacks.”
“We’re splitting the snacks-”
“The fuck we are,” he cut in, already contradicting himself, “I was fucking joking, please can we not get into another snack debate. You bought them last time.”
“Fine. And I’m happy with Sandy, too, so you win twice, buddy,” you grin at him, not expecting him to grin back but ecstatic when he does. You have half a mind to press him up against the Doritos and finish what you’d started earlier, but you have plenty of time for that in appropriate places later.
You had all night, in fact, post-Sandra Bullock marathon. The thought brings a particular movie to mind.
“As long as we throw Two Weeks Notice in there too.”
“Hugh Grant? No.”
“Oh come on, he’s a national treasure,” you argue, sliding your arm through his as the two of you continue your journey through the aisles.
“He’s a fucking idiot, is what he is,” Roy bites back, as he picks up the chocolate he knows you love, “I’ll allow The Proposal.”
“You know what, that’s a better choice anyway. We have a deal if we can make a stop in the homeware section after this?” you say hopefully, excited when he sighs and nods. You kiss his shoulder as you continue walking, “We’re so fucking good at this compromising shit!”
You lean away from him enough to hold your hand up for a high five. He indulges you reluctantly with a light slap from his own.
“We are. It’s cause I’m so fucking nice.”
“To me,” you add, staring up at him as he slows the trolley to a stop beside the biscuits. He takes your face in his hands after a moment.
“To you, yeah,” he agrees, voice all soft like it had been earlier. You’re not going to kiss him senseless in a supermarket, the two of you had some shame and a lot of love for privacy, but it was nice to indulge in something like this, a sweet moment shared without fear of anyone seeing the two of you. You turn your head to kiss his palm, “You’ve sent me all fucking soft.”
“You love it.”
“Love you, more like,” he says, for the first fucking time, in a Big Tesco. You’d found out you were getting a party bus for your 10th birthday here too, so it was a location for big occasions. You kiss his palm; once, twice, three times.
“You have to say the I or it doesn’t mean anything,” you tease, but you’re beaming up at him as he strokes the skin underneath your eyes and you almost let them flutter shut.
“Who fucking told you that? Sounds like shit Jamie would say.”
“Jan Maas.”
“Fucking prick,” he says, then a moment later, “I love you, then, if you fucking insist.”
“I do insist,” you giggle, leaning forward until your face is in his chest so you can safely say: “I love you too.”
Its a little muffled, but thankfully he doesn’t ask you to repeat it again like you think he will. He just wraps his arms around your shoulders and keeps you close to him for a long while.
“Roy? Hey boyo!!”
You freeze in place, face still hidden. If anything, Roy’s arms tighten around you rather than letting go as he turns to see Colin waving at him, alongside Sam, Isaac, Jamie and the aforementioned Jan Maas. They all pile over towards him and you know its a matter of time before they realise its you. Jamie’s already bounding over as if he’s won the lottery.
“Roy’s got a girl! A real woman, like!” Jamie exclaims as he reaches them and you decide to get this over with sooner than later, lifting your head to stare at him wearily. He frowns, “Oh. Y/N, hiya.”
Of course he isn’t connecting any dots. He isn’t quite the connecting type, however much you love him to little pieces. Sam is staring at you a lot more knowingly, Isaac stuck with his mouth open. They’ve all caught on a little quicker than Jamie.
“The two of you together,” Jan muses, “I do not believe this is a pairing made to last.”
“Oi, Jan Maas,” Isaac pipes up, especially as Roy’s already stepped forward to threaten him, “Not cool.”
“I am just telling you the truth. You are both a little grumpy, you will not have the needed balance.”
“We’re balancing perfectly fucking well, thank you,” Roy says, and you can hear that he’s gritting his teeth, “As a team. Of coaches. Because that’s what we fucking are.”
Oh, he was going to play the ‘it wasn’t what it looked like’ card? You weren’t expecting it, but you’d happily back him up if he wanted you to.
“You are telling me that was a friend hug?” Sam asks, voice full of disbelief. You look up at Roy to see what he’ll say to that, but he’s already looking down at you with an untraceable look on his face. When he finally looks back at the boys, he takes your hand in his.
“No. It was a fucking boyfriend-girlfriend hug, alright? Any of you tell anyone before we do and I’ll feed you to a fucking monitor lizard.”
You’d watched a documentary about them last night that had likely led to that threat. Jamie’s snickering but tries to sober up when Roy immediately turns to him. He holds his hands up in surrender.
“I’m sorry mate, I am, I’ve jus’ never heard a grown man say ‘boyfriend-girlfriend’ before,” he says, back to giggling by the end of his sentence and Jan Maas is quick to dissolve into full blown laughter. You bring a hand up to your mouth to hide your own amusement, lest Roy feel betrayed by it.
“Right, fuck off and leave us alone then. We’re on a tight fucking movie night schedule and I won’t have you twats throwing us off.”
“Hey! That’s why we’re here! If we’re all doing movie night, why don’t you join us?” Sam asks, and you can see he’s teasing even if Roy can’t tell. Still, you take it as an opportunity to stake your claim as you wrap an arm around Roy’s bicep and cling to him.
“Look, you lot hog this man all day every day. I’m taking him home and we’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”
It was very Roy of you, just with the addition of a wink at the end that told the boys you were half-joking. Jamie seemed almost impressed, while Sam was trying not to laugh at you. That man never took you seriously, and you loved it.
“We’ll leave you to it then,” Isaac decided, dragging Jamie backwards a little by the collar when he opened his mouth to tease Roy one final time, “Enjoy your night, yeah? See you tomorrow.”
Roy grunted his goodbye, but you waved back at them when they waved, mostly at you. Jamie mouthed something at Roy but, luckily for you both, Roy couldn’t work it out.
“Pricks,” he mutters once they’re far away enough not to hear him and you let out a little snort.
“They were very nice about that, you know? I was expecting a lot worse,” you said, pleasantly surprised at the lack of proper teasing. You knew there was likely more to come once they’d had a while to process it, but still. There was a certain weight lifted knowing that someone had finally been told.
“Do people not say boyfriend-girlfriend anymore?” he asks abruptly, looking down at you from where you’re still clinging to him. You grin at up at him.
“We should bring it back. I love boyfriend-girlfriend. I think that’s how we should introduce ourselves to people from now on.”
He rolled his eyes at the sarcasm in your voice, but tugged you into a quick, public appropriate kiss nonetheless.
“Let’s get you some fucking hobnobs and then we can go and look at fancy glassware, yeah?,” he announces, shaking his head with such obvious fondness when you cheer and turn to the biscuits. He stays close, a hand hovering near your back, and you’re a little worried movie night might be forgotten when you get home given how handsy the two of you have been all day. You resume your shopping tucked into his side, and only bump into the boys twice more on your trip around the wonders of Big Tesco.
Later, when you’re eventually curled into Roy’s side during a movie night that started way later than intended, your phone buzzes a few too many times in a row to ignore. You glance at Roy quizzically as you grab it, seeing a bunch of texts coming in from Sam.
Couldn’t resist. Don’t let Roy hate me. I’ve deleted them on my phone now, so they’re just yours. Lunch tomorrow?
Roy grumbled a little beside you as he read over your shoulder, but really he should have gotten used to your occasional lunch plans with Sam by now, even if he liked having you all to himself for at least one hour during the day. You settle into him even more as you scroll through a bunch of photos Sam’s attached with wide eyes.
You staring up at Roy. Roy kissing you. The grins on both your faces when you part. Then one that has you reeling, where you’re facing the biscuits with your hands on your hips and Roy is looking at you. Enthralled. You’re not even fucking doing anything.
“That little shit,” Roy breathes, squeezing your thigh where his hand was already resting.
“I love them,” you say instead of responding, tilting your head back to look at Roy, “Our first proper photos together.”
“They look like a fucking pap took them,” he complains, but he's still studying them and you can tell he likes them really.
“Look how happy we look," you’re stuck on how he looks at you when you’re not even looking at him. When there’s nothing to be gained from it. You glance at the new vase sitting on your coffee table, with fresh flowers Roy had insisted on because 'if we're getting a fucking vase we have to fucking fill it'. Here he was, filling your life with so many little pieces of joy.
“Well we are fucking happy, aren’t we?”
There's a little bit of vulnerability in his question, like he needs confirmation. You lock your phone and toss it to the side, knowing you can reply to Sam in a bit. For now, you pause the movie and clamber to straddle Roy’s lap, seeing that look on his face again as he stares up at you. It only spurs you on.
“We’re very fucking happy, Roy.”
He grins, which is rare, but then he kisses you and that’s not rare at all.
(roy makes a mental note to thank sam for the pictures tomorrow, even if he tells him to do extra laps in the same sentence to maintain the balance)
More Posts from M14mags and Others
Three
Note: This has been an idea for a lot of characters and it just...really fits Jack I think. There is also a version coming for Robby.
Warnings: Angst, Fem!Reader, regular trauma related violence, gun violence, death, established relationship, no beta.
Summary: You and Jack have your own silent way to communicate the love you have for each other which comes in handy after you're injured at Pitt Fest.
It was subtle the way that it started, a way for Jack and yourself to say 'I love you' without saying it. As the only ward clerk allowed at Central, because you were the only truly trusted one, you had grown close to Jack, ensuring that orders, be it medication or imaging, or even admissions, were entered correctly into the Epic system for the night shift team, taking some of the load off of the nurses and at the same time, making sure that all records were accurate, particularly for the billing side of things, lest Gloria have an aneurysm if something was missed that could have been billed for. Day shift had an equivalent of you, but they were new and not as trusted. It was not uncommon for Robby to stay late just to ask you to ensure that his final orders for the night were followed.
Because of this a relationship with Jack grew, the stoic, former soldier, but still a soldier at heart, cracking a small smile here and there. You would bring him coffee to start the night (while also being the official brewer of coffee for the staff lounge), ground him when he lost patients, and eventually you found yourself grabbing breakfast with him most mornings. About 6 months into the job, Jesse collects his winnings on the running bet of when you would finally admit that you were together. There was no big revelation. One night, you were both off (somehow you just happened to be on the same shift schedule as Jack, something that was not lost on you) sitting in the living room of your small apartment watching movies. You were always at your place and not his because yours was 'homey' according to him. You had been leaning on the arm of the couch, legs covered by a blanket and his head in your lap, your fingers carding through his greying hair.
You had looked down at him to find him staring at you. "My lease is up in a month, I have to decide if I'm signing again or not." You had mumbled. The corner of his mouth quirked, "Yeah?" You simply nodded. "You should move into my place, add some personality, and no rent." He had replied. "You think so? Your room or the spare?" You asked with a raised brow.
"Mine of course."
You moved in ten days later and never left. One year later, you were married. That was three years ago.
—
The first 'I love you' came after the anniversary of his wife's death, after you'd lived with him three months. He had understandably had a bad day, thankfully it was not a workday for him and he could take it easy. He saw his therapist, showed up back at home and cornered you in the kitchen where you had been preparing dinner for the two of you. Backing you into the counter, he wrapped his arms around you, kissing your forehead and holding you close before whispering a soft "I love you." You're not ashamed to say you cried a little before telling him that you did in fact love him too.
At work, you kept things professional. Anyone not new, knew that you were together, knew that you lived in the same house and knew that Jack was incredibly protective, but they also knew that they were the ultimate professionals, with only subtle changes. If he was hanging out by your workstation, asking you to add orders, a hand would be on your shoulder, or your waist if he was sitting, and if they were really paying attention...they would see the three soft taps or squeezes that you would leave on one another. Always three. Your silent way of saying I love you. It was integrated into everyday life, even at home when watching TV.
Dana had witnessed it once as she was coming into work one morning. The shift had been hard, four patients had been lost, and one had been only a couple of months old. Jack had retreated to the lounge, attempting to escape everything without heading to the roof, he didn't think that he was at that point yet. You had followed closely, standing in front of him, trying to ground him with soft words. Dana had walked in to put her lunch in the fridge as you'd raised a hand to his chest, tapping three times on his chest just over his heart. He'd pulled you close then, arms wrapping around you, tapping your hip three times in response as you stood quietly. Dana had decided that her lunch could go in the fridge later.
—
The morning of Pitt Fest, you were excited. Both you and Jack had the night off, Jack wouldn't be going, but he'd gotten yourself and your best friends passes for your anniversary. You were dead tired but chugged a can of Monster while packing another for the road. After getting yourself ready you kissed him goodbye, gave him three quick taps on the chest and made your way out the door where Christy and Samantha were waiting for you in Christy's car. Jack showered and went to bed for the day. 30 minutes after leaving you were coffeed up, energized and ready to party. Jack was out cold, his police scanner on for white noise in the background. Every so often you sent Jack a text, knowing he'd have it on do not disturb unless it was a phone call from yourself or the hospital. You sent updates, photos and videos. Jack finally started responding around 3:30 pm, finally giving up on sleep after briefly waking at 2. A simple thumbs up emoji was sent in response to everything you had sent. You sent back a heart, chugged another Monster and went back to the music, running into Jake and his girlfriend Leah briefly around 4.
It was just after 5:30 when things went sideways. You and your friends were close to the stage, listening to a lesser-known local band, but one that you knew well when you heard the first pops of what you thought were firecrackers...they could have been pyrotechnics, but this band didn't have the budget for that. Your head tilted, the band didn't stop so everything had to be, okay? Right?
Wrong, you were so very wrong. One moment you had turned to Christy, intending to ask if she'd heard the pops, and the next thing you knew your face was covered in blood and half of Christy's was...no longer there. Screams erupted as you dropped to the ground, grabbing Samantha by the hand and pulling her flat. Some people were running, some were taking cover, but you knew you couldn't stay where you were.
"What the actual fuck?!" You heard Samantha say. "What the fuck is happening? Y/N. We have to get Christy; we can't leave Christy!" Samantha was panicking, so were you, but working in the Emergency Department had trained you to stay calm, or as calm as you could, but this was different. You shook your head. "We can't help Christy." You said, pulling Samantha with you as you carefully maneuvered closer to the stage, intending to go under it for cover, staying low as you went.
"What the fuck do you mean we can't help Christy?" You sighed, turning slightly but not stopping as people dropped around you. You didn't speak again until yourself and Samantha were under the stage, others following your example. You turned to fully look at Samantha, pale, her eyes wide, clear signs of shock. "Sammy, I need you to focus. Christy is dead, okay, very, very dead." The fact that your best friend since childhood was gone had set in but you couldn't let yourself fall apart, you could do that later when you were safe at home in Jack's arms.
You quickly realized that you couldn't stay where you were, despite being covered from above, the sides of the stage were open, and it would be easy to shoot underneath it. You crawled to the other side of the stage, slowly, listening as the gunshots continued, getting closer and closer to the stage. Every so often you looked behind you to make sure Samantha was still following, she was. When you got to the edge of the stage you realized that there was a new problem. The closest exit was the entrance to the venue...which was on the other side of the field. The rest of the area was contained with a chain-link fence, you could climb it, but that would leave you exposed. No matter what you did, to get out you needed to leave your cover and make a run for it. Taking a deep breath, you pulled your phone from your pocket, shooting off a quick text to Jack, not having time to call him.
Shooter at Pitt Fest. I'm trying. I love you.
—
Jack had been staring at the ceiling, having not moved from the bed, when the police scanner went off. 'All units, multiple reports of shots fired at Pitt Fest, unknown number of suspects, unknown number of casualties.'
For a moment Jack's heart stopped and his blood froze. You were there. You and your friends. You, who had begged him to come along but he hadn't wanted any part of the crowds, noise and well...all of it. You were there. He was not. He shook it off, and steeled himself, slipping into combat mode, grabbing his phone and his go bag before rushing to his truck. He checked his phone to see if you'd messaged him, you hadn't, and he hesitated over the call button, only stopping because he knew your phone would not be on silent and a ringing phone could make you a target. He was out of the driveway barrelling towards PTMC in less than two minutes.
30 minutes later he received your text, he was elbow deep in a patient trying to save them.
—
Mel was taking half a second to breathe in the ambulance bay, ready for her next patient with Shen, seemingly unflappable, by her side as the next load of cars came in. As the SUV pulled to a screeching halt in front of her, Shen was by her side, swinging the door open as a Samantha immediately jumped out, blood all over her and pressing her sweater into your chest. Mel had no idea who you were, it was her first day, she just needed to triage you and get you inside, Shen however, froze. Mel noticed and her eyes widened. "No, I don't like that face. Dr. Shen?"
Shen quickly assessed you. "Fuck, she's a red..." He turned to Mel. "Help me get her in there and do NOT let Abbot have this one." Mel cocked her head to the side. "Why can't Dr. Abbot have her?"
Shen took a breath. "She works here; she's one of us. Most importantly? She's his wife."
He did not stop Samantha from following.
—
Jack had barely looked up when Shen came in with the next victim, he was busy with his own patient, it registered in his brain that the patient was being handed off to Robby, which meant they were in good hands. It was Robby shouting "fuck" that got his attention. His head lifted and when he looked at Robby, the older man was doing chest compressions, but his eyes were on Jack. Jack felt a pit settle in his gut, and then he spotted Samantha. He knew. Immediately he turned to Mohan. "Take over, now!"
Heart hammering in his chest he didn't give Mohan a moment to argue before he was rushing over to Robby, Samantha spotting him and wrapping her arms around him for a second. "I-I'm s-sorry Jack. Its m-my fault, s-she was covering m-me when she was hit...Christy's dead. Fuck, I'm sorry." Samantha was spiralling, internally so was he, he could only hear the blood in his ears. No man's land. You were hit in no man's land.
Robby wouldn't let him help, couldn't let him help. Not just for ethical reasons but if you died and Jack was working on you, well...Jack wouldn't survive that. Jack likely wouldn't survive either way, but at least if it was Robby, Jack wouldn't hate himself. Not as much. Jack watched as they were able to stabilize you just enough to send you off to surgery, Jack following close behind with Robby hot on his heels. They stopped the gurney at the OR doors, just long enough for Jack to lean down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, his hand squeezing yours three times, even though you couldn't respond.
"Don't you fucking leave me, I can't go through this again."
Jack went back to work with the promise from Garcia that as soon as there was an update, he would have it. This was a MASH unit and there was no time to stop.
—
It's hours later when the darkness starts to fade from your consciousness. You're on your back, and part of you panics when you realize that the discomfort in your throat is from being intubated, the instinct to fight the machine helping you breathe running rampant. You reached up, grabbing for the offending tube and ignoring the pain you were suddenly feeling. You barely register the scrapping of a chair being moved as a shadow moved into your view, grabbing for your hand to stop you.
"Hey! Hey, no, none of that baby, you need that right now." You froze, unable to fight the strong grip he had on you. Your eyes focused, and there was your Jack, staring down at you, looking exhausted and like he'd aged about 30 years. His hair looked like he hadn't stopped running his hands through it. He leaned over you, letting go of your hand when he realized that you were relaxing a bit, his hand moving to tuck some of your hair out of your face and behind your ear.
"You're okay, scared the fuck out of me, but you're okay." His voice was gruff, tired and soft all the same time, cracking a bit near the end like he was holding back tears. "My therapist is going to have a field day." He said with a bitter chuckle.
You reached up as best you could, tracing your fingers over his face wearily. You felt the tears fall before you could stop them, and brought your hand to his chest, just over his heart and tapped him three times. You watched Jack's lip tremble a bit as he reached for your hand, clearing his throat.
"I know." He squeezed your hand gently three times.
I love you.
I.R.I.S // Jake Seresin
Summary: When Jake Deadman Seresin spilled some drinks on you at the Hard Deck, the last thing he thought would come of that would be an entanglement that could ruin his entire career.
Warnings: Age Gap. Jake Seresin x Younger!Mitchell Reader. Smut! (18+ Content) Bradley Bradshaw x Platonic!Mitchell reader.
Chapter One: Hangman Head // Jake gets a blowie in the car park after he spills his beer on you, only to find out he’s your TopGun Instructor.
Chapter Two: Locker Room Meltdown // Jake has an existential crisis in the men’s locker room.
Chapter Three: Shower Sex // You and Jake come to an agreement that ends up with you both caving and getting into more trouble in a spare shower stall.
Chapter Four: Backyard Brodown Barbecue // After being lured into your bedroom to receive some of the best head of his life. Jake is subjected to your mischievous ways around your dad and uncles.
Jake Gets Distracted
Chapter Five: Premeditated Murder // You send Jake a risque picture of yourself while he is sitting in the Rec room with your dad.
Chapter Six: hiding In Plain Sight // After a confrontation turned sour which turned into you giving Hangman head under your dads desk, you overhear something you probably shouldn’t.
Pre Flight fight
Chapter Seven: H_ngm_n’s Sleep T // Mav goes to investigate why you haven’t gotten out of bed on a morning you have to be on base at 8am. Only to discover you’re wearing a certain someone’s shirt.
Chapter Eight: Lunchtime Lovers // When Jake finds out you quit the TopGun program, he goes to your house—only then does he realise he forgot his lunch.
Are Iris & Deadman exclusive?
Chapter Nine: The Mitchell Effect // You and Jake make things a little more official and Jake confirms his suspicions. He’s addicted the the thrill of being found out.
Chapter Ten: Snowballing // People are finding out left and right about your relationship with Jake and it all comes to a head when Phoenix gets wind of the situation.
Chapter Eleven: Implosion // Things take a turn for the worst when Rebound sees you lock lips with Lieutenant Commander Seresin right before a training session.
Look Out For Her
Summary: 4 years later and your almost done with residency. But it feels like your relationship with Jack may be coming to an end too. That is until you’re hurt and he has to come to your rescue, that he reveals his true feelings for you.
Warnings: Established relationship, implied age gap, strong language, sexual assault, mentions of alcohol, possessiveness, mostly fluff
This is possibly a Chapter 1!
———————————————————————
You were half way through your 4th and final year of ER residency. Somehow still learning the ropes of being cheif resident. It wasn’t easy to have the respect of your fellow co-residents and interns when you were in a relationship with Dr. Jack Abbott, an ER attending but, he made it worth it. Most of the time at least.
Getting to this point in your relationship wasn’t always easy in anyway. What started as hook ups, turned into arguements during every shift you worked together until you cut it off. But when 3rd year came around, you guys got close again, he let you in and you let him in.
A year and a half. In your mind, this was the start of forever. At least that’s what you thought.
For the past month, Abbotts been distant and you didn’t understand why. Picking up shifts on the days you were both off, date nights were becoming a rarity, bailing on nights out with your friends.
You had a week off coming up and wanted to see if you could make it up to him, for whatever you did even though you didn’t even know where to begin.
You moved in with him 6 months into the relationship. Everyone told you it was quick but, it felt like the right decision at the time.
You woke up early while he was still at work to go pick up breakfast from his favorite spot downtown. Got home made your famous homemade peanut butter cookies that he loved. Had his favorite movies lined up, ready to play. Even put on lingerie under your clothes, ready for whatever he wanted.
You heard keys in the door and were excited for him to see what was waiting for him.
There he was. Silver curls. Black scrubs. Go-bag over one shoulder. You could look at him forever.
“There’s my favorite guy.” You ran up to him to give him a hg and kiss.
He hugged you back but, swerved his head ever so slightly when you went in to kiss him.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Just had a long night. Not really in the mood for anything.”
“I planned out quite the morning for us.” You smiled at him.
“Think I’m just gonna go hop in the shower then head to bed for a little bit.” He started to walk away.
You quickly turned around to him. “Okay, no, what is your problem? Did I do something? Cause for the past month you’ve been acting cold. Blowing me off ever chance you get.”
He stopped in his tracks and slowly turned to face you. He looked pissed. You’d only ever seen him angry like that once during a stupid fight you guys had at the beginning of the relationship.
“You left your laptop open.”
“Okay and? I’m I supposed to know what that means?”
“Were you going to tell me that you have a bunch of interviews for attending jobs at other hospitals? Or were you just going to tell me you were leaving one day?”
“Jack everyone goes to multiple interviews. You literally did the same when you were in my position.”
“One of those is across the country.”, he paused, “Were you gonna pack up and fly over there without telling me?”
“Thought maybe you could come with me and we could make a trip out of it actually.”
He put his head in his hands. “Do you want to leave?” His voice cracked.
“What? Why would I want to leave you Jack? I literally have an interview with Robby in 2 weeks for a spot here. I’m just trying to see what else is out there too.”
“But you have everything you could need right here! Why do you wanna give it all up!He raised his voice at you.”
You took a step back.
“Don’t yell at me.” You felt your breathing become faster, chest heavy.
“Why would you not tell me? This is something we should be talking about together. This isn’t just about you.”
“And it’s not just about you. It’s my future Jack. My career we’re talking about.” You said sternly.
“So where do I fit into that future then?”
You didn’t know how to answer. “You know I love you.”
“I sense a but coming here.”
You took a deep breath. “But there’s an emergency medicine research fellowship in California. They’re really interested in me Jack. Like really interested.”
“Sounds like you made up your mind already.” He walked away and went into the bedroom.
“Jack please. I didn’t say yes to anything yet. I still have to go over there and meet with them. I might end up hating it.”
He was throwing clothes into his go-bag. You grabbed his arm and he swiftly pulled away.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave? Where are you even going?”
He held both hands up in the air. “I just need some air.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know. I- I just can’t do this with you right now.”
“So if not now, then when. Jack. Come on we talked about this. Never leave mad at each other.”
“I’m not mad.”, he looked down at you, “Just disappointed.”
He grabbed his bag and walked out of the room. You felt the tears start to run down your face.
“Jack please.” You begged.
You heard him pick his keys up off the table and door slam closed behind him.
You broke. Tears streaming down your face. You sat on the edge of the bed, head in hands. Your reached into your pocket for your phone and tried to call him.
Once. Twice. Three times with no answer. Straight to voicemail.
You laid in bed, crying. Eyes already swelling. After went felt like an eternity, you fell asleep.
You woke to the sound of a text message.
Please be Jack.
It wasn’t. Just Langdon.
He knew you were planning Jacks favorites for the morning and wanted to know how it went. You typed out as much of what just happened as you could. He called immediately.
He could hear you crying again.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
“Frank, I- I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where he went. He turned his location off. He won’t answer my calls or texts. I just wanna know that he’s okay.” You voice broke as you tried to get the words out.
“Hey look I’m just gonna come over okay?” Gimme like 20 minutes, I’ll be right there. Please just hold on.”
“Okay.” He hung up.
You got out of bed and threw on one of Jacks sweaters. Beers of the Burgh. Him and Robby went together every year. You hated beer so you never went, just let them have their special guy time.
You went into the bathroom and saw how bloodshot your eyes had become. Splashed some water on your face and went into the living room.
Almost exactly 20 minutes later. A knock on your front door. Langdon.
You opened the door.
“Hey kid.” He always called you could since the first day you met even though he was only 4 years older.
Tears again. You almost fell to the floor. He caught you and lifted you up.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I got you.”
He walked you into the kitchen, had you sit at one of the bar stools and went to get you a glass of water. He knew his way around. Afterall he did help you move in and came over often for movie nights when Jack was at work.
You spent the next hour trying to explain what happened. Talking. Crying. He listened to it all.
“Have you tried to call him again?”
You sniffled. “No, if he doesn’t want to talk to me, I can’t make him.”
“He has to come back eventually you know?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” You wiped your eyes onto your sleeve.
“Hey, me and some of the others from work were gonna go out later for some drinks downtown. Probably do some bar hopping. Maybe you should come? Get your mind off of things for a little bit?”
“What if he comes back and I’m not here?”
“Maybe that’d be for the best. Think you both need some time to cool off.”
You agreed. “Yeah sure why the hell not. He never wants to come out with me anyway.”
“Alright, go get ready then.”
“It’s early.”
“Its 5:30 and you definitely take forever to get ready. Plus you gotta unpuff your eyes.”
You quickly turned to the clock on the kitchen wall. Shit, how long were you asleep for? How long was he gone for?
“Okay alright then. Are you gonna stay here?”
“Yeah I’ll just watch some tv or something while you get ready. I’ll drive us.”
You went into the bedroom, scavenging the closet for something to wear. Red dress. Jack picked it out one day when you two were at the mall a couple months ago. You hadn’t worn it yet. You were waiting until he finally decided to go out-out with you. Which obviously never came.
You grabbed the dress, his favorite matching bra and pantie set and went to shower. There was a part of you that wanted him to come home to see you. But at the same time you just wanted to forget about all that happened just a few hours earlier.
Out the shower. Quickly dried your hair. Threw some light curls in it. Jacks favorite hairstyle on you. You didn’t like makeup but, put some mascara and lipgloss on anyway.
You walked into the bedroom to grab your little black heels. And walked back out into the kitchen.
Langdon was laying on your couch on his phone.
“Ugh, told you you were gonna take forever. It’s time to go, everyone’s of there way to the first place.” He sat up and turned around. “Damn kid, you clean up nice.”
“Well thanks Frank.” You gave him a side eye.
“You hoping to run into him tonight or something?”
“I- don’t know, it’s just that he picked this outfit out so, I don’t know maybe I guess.”
It’s almost as if Jack knew you were talking about him. Keys jingled in the door. It’s him.
He opened the door to see you standing there in the dress he picked out.
You both stared at each other while Langdon looked back and forth, unsure if he should leave you two alone.
“You look good. Really good.” He scanned you top to bottom.
Your heart was about to jump out of your chest. “Thanks.”
You turned towards Langdon, “We gotta go.”
“Yeah sure.” He jumped up and walked towards the door. He stopped in front of Jack.
“Gimme a second with her.”
Langdon shook his head and walked passed Jack and out into the hallway.
“Can we talk?”
“Now’s clearly not the time.” You walked into the bedroom, grabbed his sweater off the bed and walked out. “I have places to be.”
“Where exactly are you going anyway?”
“Why does it matter to you? I didn’t know where you were all damn day.”
“I was at the park. The park I asked you to be my girlfriend in.”
“You just sat there in your scrubs all day?”
He looked down at his clothes. “I’m actually going back in tonight for a shift.”
You scoffed. “Typical. Anything to avoid me huh?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I? I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m clearly not Jack. Please just let me through.”
“Just be safe. Okay?” He stepped out of the doorway and out of your way.
“Always.” And you left.
Langdon was waiting in the hall for you. You walked right passed him.
“Hey.” He stopped Langdon. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“I shouldn’t have to.” And with that you were both on your way.
At the first bar you met up with other coworkers. Nurses, coresidents, EMTs. And apparently more people were on the way.
“Didn’t realize how many people were coming tonight?” You yelled over the music.
“Yeah me either.” Shrugged Langdon.
After the first 2 drinks and tequila shot, you realized you had ate all day. And you can’t handle your liquor.
You sat alone at the bar sipping water, looking down at your phone lock screen. A picture of you and Jack at a concert together, happy. He wasn’t into live music but, if it were for you, he’d listen to anything.
“Boyfriend couldn’t make it?”said the bartender nodding down at your phone.
“Yeah something like that.”
“That’s his problem. You look good.”
You smiled. Langdon came up behind you.
“Hey we’re heading across the street. Heard it’s 90s music night over there.”
You got up and went with the group. Thought you’d feel better by now. That you’d be able to distract yourself by talking to everyone, drinking, and listening to the music while dancing. It wasn’t working well.
Here you had 2 more drinks. 2 more shots.
Onto the next bar.
By this time, well over a a dozen people were apart of the group.
Fourth bar. More drinks. More shots. And you could feel it. But the more you drank the more you thought about him.
You went to sit at the bar alone. You checked you phone to see that he turned his location back on. The hospital, of course.
One the nurses came up to you. “Come on girl! Let’s go dance!”
“Yeah I’ll be right there.”
No texts or calls from him.
You took a deep breath and another sip of water. As you got up, you saw a guy watching you from the corner of the room. He winked and nodded his head at you. You politely smiled and went to your friends.
No matter what, Jack wouldn’t leave your mind.
There he was. The guy watching you across the room.
“Hey baby, looking good tonight.”
“Haha, thanks.” You were uncomfortable with how close he was to your face but didn’t want any problems.
“You got a man?”
“Yeah I do a actually.”
He scanned the room. “Guess he’s not here tonight huh?”
“He couldn’t make it. Working.”
“Well that’s his loss.”
Langdon spotted you across the dance floor.
“Hey, you gotta go see Donnie playing darts. It’s crazy!”
“Yeah sure.” You turned to the stranger and half waved goodbye.
“See you later.” He winked at you.
“Who the hell was that?”
“No idea.”
“Come on, stay close.”
“What about the darts?”
“They don’t even have darts here.”
It was now 1AM. You head pounding. Each room spinning. One last bar. One more drink. You lost count.
“Come on, one more tequila shot girl!”
“Yeah sure whatever.” You took it hoping the alcohol would down the feelings out of you.
Everyone was dancing, having a good time. You just wanted to be in Jacks arms, in your bed, in the apartment you had shared for over a year.
You looked over at a couple of your friends. “I’ll be right back.” Those who heard you nodded their heads.
You went outside. Alone. Still carrying Jakcs sweater, you decided to put it on. Not zipping it up but, just wrapping it around your body. You stood up against the wall on the side of the bar. Out of view.
Took out your phone. Stared. And finally dialed Jack’s number. No answer. Try one more time. Nothing.
But the thrid time you left a voicemail.
“Jack, it’s me. Um you probably knew that already, you know caller ID and everything. B-but,” your words one slipping into another, “I think I just want to say I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you about leaving. I’m stupid I know. But I love you. I always have. I- always will. I don’t want to leave you. Ever. You’re it for me Jack Abbott. I don’t want anyone else, or anything else. You’re the person I’ve been looking for my whole life. You make me a better person. I want you forever. Please just pick up the god damn phone. I need to hear your voice,”
You heard the bar door open behind you. The music rushed out into the street before becoming quiet again.
The stranger. Back again.
“Hey you get lost out here?”
“Jack I gotta go, I’ll see you soon.” You hung up.
“Not lost, just needed some air.”
“Yeah, yeah. It can get so hot in there.” He stepped closer to your body. “You know when I said you looked good tonight, baby I meant it.” He licked his lips.
“Thanks again.” You tried to step around him to go back inside.
He blocked you.
“Where you rushing off to? Not like your man is here to take care of you.”
“I gotta get back to my friends.”
“It’s okay I can take care of you out here.” He wrapped his arm around your waist pulling you closer to him.
Your body now pressed against his. Heart pounding in your ears. He grabbed your waist with his other had before reaching down to cup your ass.
You tried to pull away. But his grip was tight. He pushed you against the cold brick wall, pinning you body with his. One hand on your waist. The other holding your arm against the wall. Scraping the skin on the back of your arm right off.
He leaned down into your ear. “Come on sweetheart. I can treat you better then he can.” His hand sliding to meet the bottom of that red dress. “I’ll show you want a real man looks like.” You felt his cold hand on your thigh.
This can’t be happening. Not like this. Not right in front of the bar. Where is everybody? Langdon? Oh god, where’s Jack?
All the thoughts ran through your head.
He kissed your cheek. You flinched.
“Damn sweetheart, wanna play hard to get I see. I can play along with that.”
He let go of your arm. He started to reach for your neck.
You pushed him. Hard. He stumbled back.
“You dumb bitch. You’re gonna have to pay for that.” He took a step towards you.
Pain. Throbbing pain was the next thing you remembered. Then blood. Yours? Or his?
Both.
You punched him. Right in the face.
You used to kickbox not long ago. Guess you still remember how to swing.
“Fucking bitch.”
You screamed. Loud. Loud enough for the security guards to hear you inside the bar. They came running around the corner.
Blood was pouring out of his crooked nose. Blood dripping down your arm from your knuckles.
One security guard grabbed him. “Guess you met you match huh? Come on, got some cops that are gonna love your ass.” He took him away.
“You alright? Come on let’s get you inside and get that cleaned up.” He walked you inside.
———————————————————————
Jack got your voicemail. Almost right after you hung up. He tried to call you back. No answer.
So he called Langdon, who was still inside the bar.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Langdon was drunk.
“Dude I can smell the alcohol on your breath from here.”
“Yeah well you should be here! It’s a great time!”
“Where is she?”
“You gotta be more specific broo”
“My girlfriend. You know the one you’re supposed to be looking out for. She called me. Left a voicemail actually. Sounded like she was talking to someone. Then hung up. Where is she?”
Langdon scanned the room. “Uh I don’t know man.”
“Can you go find her please? She sounded drunk , almost as drunk as you. I’m worried. She doesn’t handle her liquor well.”
“Yeah man, I gotchu, I’ll go find her.”
“Alright call me when you find her. I wanna talk to her.”
“Aye aye captain.”
And Langdon hung up.
He walked around the room. Asking anyone and everyone if they had seen you. No one knew where you went.
That was until you walked back in with security.
———————————————————————
Everyone immediately saw you.
Red dress with blood down the side. Blood running down your forearm. Knuckles bruised and swollen already.
You heard a murmur of “what the fucks” and “oh shits”
Langdon came running over almost immediately sobering him up seeing you like that.
“What the fuck happened?!” He reached to grab your blooded fist.
You winced in pain. Mascara running down you face. “The guy from the other bar.” Yo could barely get the words out.
He looked over your shoulder and saw the guy standing outside with security and blood running down his face.
“Oh I’m gonna go kick his ass!” He tried to get passed you.
“No, no, Langdon, stop, the police are already coming.”
“I don’t give a fuck, I’m gonna break his nose some more.”
“Please, just go get me some ice.”
“What’d he do to you?”
“Ice, Frank, please.”
He went up to the bar for your ice. You could see the police lights shining through the window.
3 police cars. 6 police officers.
You told everyone to stay inside while you went to talk to them. Langdon begged to go with you so you gave in and let him.
At this point, the guy was already sitting in the back of one of their cars. Hands cuffed behind his back.
You told them exactly what happened as you held the ice pack against your knuckles.
Langdons eyes teared up hearing what happened. He was supposed to protect you.
“You wanna press charges?” said one of the officers.
“Of fucking course she does.” Said Langdon.
“I need to hear it from her.”
You shook your head yes.
“You can either come to the station now. Or you can come in the morning.”
“What she needs is to go to the hospital. The hand is broken. Definitely in multiple places.”
“No, it’s not, I’m fine.”
“I’m literally a doctor, how are you gonna tell me it’s not broken? Have you not looked at your own hand?”
You took the ice off. Your hand was basically twice its original size. Fuck. He was right.
“Well that guy wants to go to the hospital too. Can’t take y’all to the same place so where you wanna go so we can send him somewhere else?”
“Can you take me to Pittsburgh Trauma?”
“Yeah let’s go.” You gestured to the police cruiser and opened up the door for you.
“Can I come with?” Langdon asked him.
“Absolutely not. Get a ride or call an Uber. You’re drunk. Drive yourself and I’ll have you arrested.”
“I’ll be right there, okay? I promise you.”
He went back inside the bar.
———————————————————————
All you could think about on the ride there was Jack. How he had to see you like this.
You finally checked your cellphone.
5 unread texts messages. 7 missed phone calls. And one voicemail. All from him.
You presssed play.
“Hey, it’s me. I know you probably don’t wanna hear from me right now and even if you do it’s just the alcohol talking. But look, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted the way that I did. I guess I’m just scared. I don’t want you to go. I can’t afford to lose you. Of course I want you to pursue whatever career opportunities you want, but I don’t think I can live without you. You make me want to be a better man. You make everyone around here better. I love you. I want to spend my life with you. I want to marry you. Have a family with you. All here, all in Pittsburgh. I want whatever you’ll give me. I- I just need to to stay. Please. Look I gotta get back to work but call me back when you get this okay? Love you babygirl. See you soon.”
You didn’t know if your tears where from the throbbing pain shooting down your arm or from his words.
You got to the ambulance bay. You swung your legs out of the car. Feet killing you from the heels. The officer helped you out of the car and walked you inside barefoot.
One of your coresidents spotted you.
“What the fuck? Do I even want to know what happened here?”
“Get Jack, please.” You said practically begging.
You waited for what felt like an eternity from him to find Jack in a patients room.
“This better be important. I was in the middle of something.” Jack snapped his off into the trash.
He looked up and his eyes caught yours.
“What the fu-“ he ran over to you.
He grabbed your arm as you winced and pulled back in pain.
“Babygirl what happened to you?” He leaned down to look into your eyes.
You broke. Immediately tears poured down your face.
“Come here, come here. I got you, you’re alright. No one gonna hurt you. You’re safe with me here.”
He held you in his arms while caressing your hair. The smell of alcohol of your breath obvious. “Come on, let’s go.” He wrapped his arm around you and walked you into a room and sat you down on the bed.
Your coresident ran to get all the supplies needed to clean and bandage you up.
“Get the hell out. I got this. Close the door of your way out.”
It was now just the two of you. Alone.
“Babygirl I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there with you. I shouldn’t have let you go.”
He started to clean the now dry blood off of you.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Do you wanna tell me how this happened?”
So you told him all of it. Every single detail.
“I’m gonna find that motherfucker, I swear to god. I’m gonna break his fucking kneecaps.”
“Jack, calm down.”
“No, he hurt you. I’m gonna hurt him.”
“His nose is already broken Jack.”
“I don’t give a fuck. He’s gonna get way worse than that from me.”
“Jack.” He kept cleaning your hand.
“Jack look at me.”
He slowly lifted his head until his eyes met yours.
“I’m gonna press charges. Whichever ones I can. I want them all.”
There was a knock of the door. One of the favorite night shift nurses.
“Hey sweetie brought you a fresh pair of scrubs and our finest grippy socks. X-rays ready for you. Just come out to the hall when your ready darling.”
“Thank you.”
“You need me to help you?”
“I can get dressed myself. You have other patients anyway.”
“Those patients don’t matter to me. You’re the only one I care about here.”
“Can I just have a minute alone Jack?”
He left you to change.you looked at your fist for the first time since you got to the hospital. Looked slightly better without all the blood.
You went into the hall and the nurse walked you down to xray as Jack waited by your room. Thank god the pain meds kicked in with the alcohol because you could barely open your hand.
As you walked back, you heard yelling.
“You were supposed to be fucking watching her! Not getting filthy fucking drunk and letting her wonder off alone!” Jack was throwing his hands in the air.
Langdon stepped up to his face. “I shouldn’t have to watch her for you. You’re here fucking boyfriend. You should’ve been there yourself. Or better yet, she should’ve wanted to stay at home with you!”
“You think you can judge my relationship? Last time I checked I’m not the one in the middle of a divorce and custody battle.”
“Jack!” You yelled down the hall. “Don’t.”
You walked over and pushed him into your room.
“Frank, I don’t blame you for any of this. I need you to know that.”
“No, he’s right, I should’ve been keeping my eyes on you. This shouldn’t have happened.”
“But it did happen. I’m okay. Or at least I will be. I’m not a kid, you don’t need to keep me on a leash. I shouldn’t have gone out there alone. No ones here to blame except the man who did this okay?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” You hugged him and walked back into your room.
Jack was pacing back and forth.
“I’m okay Jack. You can calm down.”
Another knock on the door. “X-rays are up.”
He walked over to the computer to open them up.
“What do you see?”
“Boxers fracture.” You pointed to the obvious gap between your bones.
“Gotta go get ortho to come set it in place.”
“Can you just do it?”
“I’ve hurt you enough tonight.”
He left and came back with an ortho resident who reset your hand and put it in a brace. “Gonna need another xray in 3 weeks to see how it’s healing. In the meantime just rest, ice and elevate. You got a lot of swelling so take it easy please.”
Just you and Jack alone again.
“Jack can we talk about what you said?”
“Which part?”
“On the phone. Your voicemail.”
He knew exactly which part you were referring to but, wanted you to say it.
“The part where I said I want you to stay?”
You shook your head no.
“Then which part?”
“The part where you said you that you want to marry me. Have kids with me. Build a life with me here.”
“I meant it all. Every last part.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m going to cancel all the other interviews. I wanna stay here. With you.”
“You don’t need to do that for me. This is your career we’re talking about here. You can’t give up these opportunities. They won’t come around again.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for us. Jack you’re more important than some job. This all means a lot to me but, it won’t mean anything if I can’t come home to you every night for the rest of my life.”
He leaned in a kissed you passionately. He pulled away and looked softly into your eyes.
“So Jack Abbott wants to marry me huh?” You said jokingly.
“Don’t worry I’m not gonna pull out a ring right now or anything. You gotta finish your residency first babygirl.”
“Well now I’ll be expecting a ring the day after I’m done.”
“Guess I better start working on that. But for now let’s get you and that broken hand home.”
“Your shift isn’t over for another 3 hours?”
“They’re gonna cover for me. Gotta get my lady home.”
The drive home was pretty silent. He just put your favorite Radiohead album on for you. He helped you out of his truck and lead you upstairs.
He helped you pick out your favorite pajamas and you went to take another shower. Forgot you had been wearing his favorite matching set under the dress when you left. Thought the night would be ending differently for you two.
Of course you were glad that you were on good terms now. But when he put his hand on your back as you were leaving the hospital, you flinched. And he definitely noticed.
Once the booze started to wear off, you started to realize the extent of what happening to you tonight.
You cried again in the shower. Used the hot water to wash away your tears for you. Put some drops in your eyes to hide the redness.
You took a deep breath before walking out to him in the kitchen. He was holding up the breakfast bagel you bought him that morning.
“Didn’t even see that you bought these.”
“You could always just eat it now if you want. Think I’m just gonna head to bed if that’s alright.”
He open the fridge and put the bagel back inside. “Yeah let’s go. I’m just gonna jump in the shower real quick.”
You climbed into bed. Curled yourself into a ball, facing away from where he would be laying. You were holding back tears. You wanted to be strong for him. There’s was already so much going on in your lives. The last thing he needed was to be worried about you more than he already was.
You head the bathroom door open and his footsteps coming closer. You closed you eyes and preteded to be asleep.
He peeked over to see you. Eyes closed. You felt as he crawled quietly into the bed to face you.
“Hey I know you’re not sleeping. We’ve been in the same bed for almost 2 years now. You never fall asleep that fast.”
You let out a cry.
“Hey, come here. What’s wrong?” He put his hand on your back and you squirmed away as fast as you possibly could.
“I-I’m sorry”, you whimpered out.
“Can you look at me?”
You wiped the tears flowing down your cheek and rolled over to face him.
“You wanna talk about it yet?” He knew there was more going through your mind.
You shook your head. “I need you to hold me. Bu-but I’m scared for you to touch me. It’s not you, I- I don’t know what wrong with me right now. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this is your fault, okay?”
You sat up, “Can you just put your arm out?”
“Like this?” He put right arm straight out.
You laid down so that his arm was between your head and shoulder.
“Wrap your arms around me, please Jack.”
He brought you as close as you could get to him. You cried into his chest.
“I got you, I got you. Nobody’s gonna hurt you ever again alright?”
You nodded and lifted you head up. He wiped away your tears.
“I love you so much babygirl. So much.”
“I love you too.” You laid back down into his chest.
Jack was wrong you could fall asleep fast. But only when you were in his arms.
Things were gonna be different from now on. Cause you ever trust anyone to put their hands on you again?
———————————————————————
Probably gonna end up making this a short series! Maybe just one more part! Let know what you guys think!
Mine, Yours, Ours
Jake “Hangman” Seresin x Bradshaw!Reader
Jake Seresin isn't really sure what he's searching for. Answers? Closure? A relationship with his biological father? The bar wasn't exactly set very high after learning that his biological mother wanted nothing to do with him. It's an early morning here in San Diego. Jake runs his fingers through his cropped blonde hair, aviators resting on the bridge of his nose
Warnings: 18+, NSFW content,language, sex, adoption, family drama
One
Two
Overactive Empathy
Pairing: Dr. Jack Abbot x Nurse!Reader
Summary: A story of an ex-army doctor still haunted by his past who strives to maintain control of his emotions at every turn and a nurse with a sixth sense for the emotions of others that everyone has come to rely on- will a traumatic event force them to confront their true feelings for each other or pull them apart forever?
Tags/Warnings: age gap, yearning, too scared to admit they're in love, empath!reader, angst, panic attacks, comfort, descriptions of blood and pittfest, trauma, happy ending
Word Count: 4.3K & AO3 link
Author’s Note: This may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I could not stop thinking about writing this. I also have absolutely no medical knowledge so enjoy!
The Pitt - Night Shift
The faint beeping of monitors and clicks of the keyboard mesh with the sounds of patients and staff. The fluorescent lights aren’t the only thing landing on your skin, you feel his stare from chairs away. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable, quite the opposite, it sends a warm feeling rushing through you and when you peek up you catch sight of his silver curls twinkling in the light.
Dr. Jack Abbott can’t help it, after two years of working alongside you he doesn’t get tired of tracing the slope of your nose or watching the way you bite your lip in concentration. He stopped trying to be discreet a long time ago even after repeatedly being caught by Dr. Robby or Dr. Ellis. You’re both snapped out of your thoughts by the sirens approaching the ambulance bay. By the time the EMTs enter the Pitt you’re standing next to Jack at the ready.
“Man in his late sixties- disoriented and aggressive. He was distributing patrons outside of a nightclub and eventually someone knocked him down,” the EMT summarized as they wheeled in the man who was strapped down to the gurney. He wasn’t saying anything comprehensible, only letting out grunts as he attempted to free himself.
“Psych eval?” Jack tilts his head.
“Yup, no ID or other identification found with him. Probably homeless and off his meds,” the EMT replied.
“Give me a moment with him,” you step forward, not entirely convinced. Jack’s eyes narrow slightly at the patient who began to twist in his restraints again. Unease grows in his gut but he learned a long time ago not to question you.
“Don’t get too close to him yet, we may need sedation.”
He stands at the door watching the interaction closely, his body taut in preparation to intervene. The soldier inside him never left him, those instincts embedded into his bones.
Slowly you approach the older man, quietly assessing him. Jack watches your hand hover over the patient’s arm for a moment, but what you do is still a mystery to him.
Eventually it becomes clear to you what he needs. “You must be very tired and thirsty. It’s been a long day,” you murmur softly. This made the man go still, eyes widening as he nodded urgently. He was mute, everything he wanted to say stuck inside him at this moment but his emotions were clear.
“We’re here to help you,” you give him a reassuring smile as you back away towards the door. The moment you turn, you’re face to face with Jack. You force yourself to stay concentrated on your task and not on Jack’s handsome features. “He’s not homeless, he feels lost and he misses home. He’s also extremely thirsty, so he’s dehydrated which is why he was disoriented and acting out. He wasn’t able to ask for help because he’s mute,” you explain.
“Not a Psych case then,” he concurs, impressed once more.
“The usual tests will let us know how dehydrated he is and if there’s other underlying causes. This is a case for the night shift social worker to help with, they just need to find out who he is and where he lives. I think he has family,” you reach for the IV kit.
“Thanks Sherlock Holmes.”
There’s no malice or sarcasm in his tone, just his usual dry wit which you’ve come to love. You can see the wheels turning in his head and although he’s never asked questions, you know he keeps trying to figure out how you’re so good at reading patients.
Intuition, your grandmother winked at you one day when you asked if she had what you had. A curse, your mother declared before she had left for good, not able to handle what she was born with. Overactive empathy was what you had come to call it. It had been overwhelming at first, discovering that as you got in close proximity to someone you could identify their emotions and feel them yourself, all of them. It took many years to build up your control to a point where you felt you could be around people. Out of nursing school you spent your first few years in hospice care, holding the hand of those making their way out of this world, watching the hazy colors around them fade into nothing. Soon the time came to try something new and you found yourself standing in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Emergency Department, hoping to make a difference and make use of your ability in a new way.
It was an open secret, the little trick you had up your sleeve. No one put a specific label on it and on one questioned it. Anytime you interacted with a patient who needed that extra level of support, with a simple glance or press of your hand to their shoulder you seemed to read their emotions to a tee. It had also helped de-escalate potentially dangerous situations, preventing many fights in the halls of the Pitt. In this world, it was all about the patient and being able to read them was an asset. Their feelings and experiences are half of the story when they walk in through the doors.
Grabbing your backpack from your locker you take your time walking back to the nursing station to clock out. It gives you time to admire Jack who stands at the counter, his blue eyes flickering across the screen. Dr. Abbot - the broody, stalwart and incredibly selfless man who captured your heart. Not that you would ever admit it, you were years younger and convinced he could do much better. What catches your attention is his posture, he’s leaning heavily against the counter hoping no one can notice his discomfort.
“Is it bothering you again?” you whisper as you stand next to him. Jack grimaces as he flexes the prosthetic foot under his khakis, internally kicking himself for showing a trace of weakness.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he grits out.
“Liar,” you muse, swiping your badge to clock out for the night.
His face turns stoic as he stares you down, intimidating as hell to others but not to you. You stare right back, waiting until one of you inevitably cracks. His dimples pop out as he lets out a hearty laugh. Several people send you curious looks, an Abbot laugh was rare.
“It's not fair if you use that trick on me,” he pretends to sound mad. Not that you would ever intentionally violate his privacy by delving further than his surface area emotions.
“It’s not like I can read minds.”
“It’s close enough.”
“I don’t have to use anything on you Abbot. It's clear as day.”
He feels that familiar swoop in his stomach at your words, forcing himself to not say anything stupid.
“Will you be here tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here, just in case you pick up another shift,” you tease, finally starting to walk away. He winks at you and you feel like you’re floating on clouds all the way home.
The Pitt - Day Shift
Today was a never ending roller coaster and it was going to give you whiplash. Angry patients, argumentative family members, interpersonal drama, fucking rats. Then Dana had gotten punched, which had rattled all of the nurses. It had brought you to tears seeing her bruised face and bloody nose, your mentor and dear friend. She had shushed you in a motherly fashion, assuring you and everyone else she would live long enough to finish the shift as long as she had another cigarette.
It was also the first day for new residents and medical students, another layer to the never ending day. You took it in stride as always offering helpful advice and keeping an eye on them for Robby making sure they didn’t mess up too badly. Some had already latched onto you, King and Whittaker frequently asking you to join them on patient care.
You could immediately sense that today was an off day for Robby, as you assisted with his difficult cases you could see the strain behind his eyes and his increasing use of the word fuck. He also kept asking you about what the patients were feeling long after they had died. It wasn’t a good sign.
“Is he asking you about dead people again?” Dana hands you a cup of tea. You nod.
“Christ Almighty he’s a morbid one,” she shakes her head with a sad smile. “Wish Collins hadn’t left early, she knows how to get him back on track.”
....
“Do you think he feels anything? Even if he’s brain dead?” Robby asked you as you stood side by side, about to enter to give the parents of the overdose victim the final verdict on their son.
“No...he doesn’t feel anything. There’s nothing,” you replied truthfully.
“What do you think she felt while she drowned?” he asked as they wheeled the young girl's body out of the trauma room. You think back to when you had held onto her tiny cold hand as they worked to bring her back.
“She felt scared and exhausted but she also felt certain. Certain that she had saved her sister.”
Robby finds comfort in your candidness to his morbid questions, you’ve always been honest with him and a shoulder for him to lean on. He knew he was being extra hard on you today and he would apologize with your favorite snack by the end of the shift.
None of this compared to what came next.
“What’s going on?” you can feel the anxiety spike in the room as phones and pagers go off. Gloria is talking to Robby and Dana on the side in a serious manner, their faces pinching with worry. Shooting, Pittfest, mass casualties, are words that fill the air. It seems to suck the oxygen out of the room, a sobering reminder of the world you lived in. Taking a deep breath you steady your nerves as instructions are being shared to the whole team. Suddenly a familiar warmth settles next to you, calloused hands brushing against yours.
“You okay?” Jack asks quietly.
“I’m fine...but all of those people that are going to come in-,” you shudder at the thought.
“You don’t have to, you know, get too close to them if it gets too much,” he finally faces you as people start to rush around you. With his eyes trained on you it feels like you’re both in your own world for a moment.
“I know, but I want to help them. Anyway I can,” you reply, eyes filling with determination. It reminds him why he does this job, why he comes back.
Reality breaks apart your bubble as Dana calls out your name and Robby pulls Jack towards the team of doctors. Everything after that is a whirlwind, a mass casualty event hitting an already understaffed ED like a hurricane. Every ounce of training is in use as you work tirelessly alongside your colleagues to save every life that passed through those doors. It soon becomes clear there's not enough blood, medications or supplies. Only sheer willpower will get you all through this.
“Everyone please use the sedatives and morphine sparingly! More is coming but it's minutes out!” Dana shouted from the nurses station.
Following her announcement, a flurry of movement caught your attention in the Red Zone. The patient was thrashing on the gurney, arms flying around wildly as she shouted in pain, begging them to stop from pressing against her broken legs. Without hesitation you rushed over, hands slipping into the fray until they pressed against the woman’s face. Jack watched as you brought your head closely against hers, eyes scrunching tightly in concentration.
“You feel tired, so tired,” you repeated softly over and over again.
Slowly her shouts became nothing but disgruntled murmurs, her eyes closing and arms falling sluggishly at her side. No one else seemed to notice what you had done, preoccupied with her impending blood loss and shattered bones. Jack could do nothing more than send you a grateful nod before you slipped away once more to assist on the next patient.
Unfortunately she had not been the last patient you had helped calm down, dozens more streamed into the Pitt in various states of emotional distress and you did your best to keep them from overwhelming the rest of the staff. It was starting to wear you down, drain your energy reserves as you still ran from zone to zone, arms full of supplies and bags of blood. Dry blood mixed with your sweat caked your arms, and your lungs burned from the smell of antiseptic and alcohol in the air. Give me strength, you begged the universe.
You had been standing by the ambulance bay doors, replenishing supplies for the Red Zone when another wave of gurneys and patients flooded in once more. You hadn’t even had a chance to set down the IV bags in your hands when a tall man stumbled straight into your body. Blood stained hands clasped onto your shoulders with such force you could feel the bruises start to form. His eyes were wild and he kept repeating someone's name over and over. Time seemed to slow around you as his emotions flowed into your body like a dam had broken- hair raising panic, paralyzing fear, and pain that brought you to your knees. Your vision swam, all you could see now was bodies piled upon each other and hear the cries of those hit by the spray of bullets. A high pitched ringing filled your ears and your throat was suddenly raw.
Your ear splitting screams snapped Jack out of his concentration, his heart lurching at the scene before him. He barely had time to make sure Dr. Mohan had a handle on the patient before he was running full speed towards you, Robby at his side. The man was ripped away from you by Robby and one of the security guards who wrangled him onto a gurney. All you could do was cover your eyes as if that would stop the horrific visions in your head.
“Look at me, you gotta breathe (Y/N),” Jack begged as he stood in front of you, hands hovering over your shoulders not wanting to make it worse. His heart was beating a million miles per minute and he felt as if he was staring in the mirror, the traumatized medic in the throes of a panic attack staring back at him. Except now it was you.
You shook your head, stumbling backwards blindly into the wall. There was only one option he could think of at that moment. Without missing a beat, Jack grabbed you by the waist and hoisted you over his shoulder as you let out another desperate cry. The whole Pitt had frozen, shocked at the turn of events.
“Get back to work dammit!” Jack roared, making everyone flinch as they rushed to return back to the task at hand, averting their eyes.
In a few strides he made it to the end of the wing and into the empty on-call bathroom, slamming the door behind him with his foot. By this point you had gone limp over his shoulder, letting out the occasional whimper. He set you down lightly onto the shower floor, hand reaching up to the shower knob.
“I’m sorry baby but it will help I promise,” Jack couldn’t stop the term of endearment from slipping out.
You seemed to be stuck in some sort of trance, another agonizing scream slipping past your lips as you hunched over. Suddenly ice cold water flowed from the shower head hitting your body in a forceful gush. A high pitched gasp filled the air as your eyes flew open from the shock. Shivering hands immediately reached out to find Jack’s arms, needing something to ground you as the temperature of the water numbed your frayed nerves.
“Jack.”
“You’re safe, you’re in the bathroom now. You’re not there,” he assured you, hand smoothing your drenched hair out of your face. Tears swam in your eyes and you nodded numbly, trying to reorient yourself. His hand settled on your cheek, watching the water pour down your red cheeks. Even now, he thought you were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was only a few short seconds away from climbing into the shower with you when the door squeaked open.
“Dr. Abbot, they need you out there,” Princess frowns as she takes in your state. He gives her his harshest stare, about to protest but you push his arms weakly.
“Go,” you say. “Princess and I will handle it from here,” you look up at her. She gives a nod of affirmation.
“I’ll get her cleaned up, Dr. Abbot,” she promises, reaching for towels.
I need to stay with you and protect you, he wants to say to you. I can’t live another moment without you.
So many unsaid words stuck in his throat. Jack wishes you would just look into him and decipher his emotions so he wouldn’t have to say them out loud. It wasn’t the right time, it never was. He couldn’t stand risking everything you had just to lose you if you didn’t feel the same way. Instead of staying as his heart begged him to, he stands, ignoring the pain in his leg as he walks out without a word feeling like a coward.
Your heart squeezes painfully as you watch Jack go but you can’t stop him. By the time Princess helps you change into clean scrubs it feels like hours have passed. She stays silent the whole time, giving you space as you rebuild the mental blocks in your head. Eventually you walk out onto the floor which is still wet with blood, doctors and nurses running to and fro with urgency. Sirens blare in the distance without stopping. Smoothing your hands over your new scrubs you hoped you looked better than you felt.
“Go home,” Robby’s baritone voice is the first thing you hear.
“I don’t believe you can send me home Dr. Robby,” you glance up at him. He looks absolutely wrecked, likely the same as you.
“Dana-,” he turns to Dana who is by your side next. Dana knows you well, knows you wouldn't be standing here if you couldn’t handle it.
“I can’t force her to leave Robby. Trust that she knows her own limits,” Dana squeezes your hand. You squeeze it back in thanks. “We still have patients to help, let’s go kiddo,” she guides you back into the disaster zone, arm over your shoulder.
It’s when the emergency protocol is finally at an end and the last Pittfest patient is stabilized that you spot Robby again. Robby had been walking on a tight line today, Leah’s death finally pushing him over the edge. You had heard the terrible things Jake had yelled at him moments ago.
“Hard day yeah?”
“For both of us I’d say,” he laughs dryly, tears beginning to leak once again from the corners of his eyes.
“You’ve shouldered the burden of so much today Robby. Let me help you,” you extend your hand to him.
“I can’t do that to you,” he shakes his head, knowing what you’re offering.
“This may be the only time I offer this to you Robby. Trust me,” you say. He shifts uneasily in place before finally making his decision. He takes your hand. The colors around him darken, his frustration, grief, anger and disappointment swirling around him like a storm.
“Go home soon and sleep. It will come easy tonight,” you say. Robby feels a warm sensation run up his arm, filling his chest with a lightness he hadn’t felt in years. The tension in his shoulders visibly eases and he feels like he can properly breathe again. Before he can thank you, you’re gone.
You hand found a quiet space in the supply closet to unwind, taking advantage of the day shift and night shift switching places. Sitting in the dim room you allow the events of the day to wash over you, taking steadying breaths to settle your emotions. Then you would find Jack and hope he didn’t look at you differently like you were something that had been crushed into tiny pieces.
You hadn’t left Jack’s mind since he had left you in the shower, your screams echoing in his mind. Compartmentalizing all of his emotions and stuffing them into the back of his mind was the only thing that kept him sane for the remaining shift. The moment he finally handed off the last patient to Shen and Ellis he was on the lookout for you. Unable to find you yet, Jack makes his way up to the roof as he does after most shifts, muscle memory taking over. He’s not surprised to see Robby staring at the city skyline from the ledge.
“I think I finally understand why I keep coming back now,” Jack calls out to Robby. “It's in our DNA. It's what we do. We can't help it. Not everyone can do it, it takes a special type of person,” he says, thinking of you.
“Maybe you, not me,” Robby shakes his head as he steps back onto the roof.
“What are you talking about?” Jack’s tone is incredulous.
“You know damn well what I'm talking about. I broke. I shut down. At the moment everybody needed me the most, I wasn't there. I couldn't do it. I choked,” Robby hangs his head.
“Don’t say that you broke in there because if that was you breaking apart then that means (Y/N)-,” he stops himself, unable to finish the sentence. “You’re not broken, you’re just human. We all are.”
Robby sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You’re stronger than you think. She’s stronger than she thinks. Just because you both got overwhelmed today doesn’t mean you’re broken, not even close,” Jack says. “I used to think there was a weakness in feeling too much. Never allowed myself to cry or grieve even when-,” he pauses thinking back to his time after he came back from the army, what had happened to his ex wife and her untimely death years ago.
“This is starting to sound less like a pep talk and more like you need to go find her,” Robby crosses his arms. Jack remains silent, running his hand through his messy curls as he paces back and forth.
“What are you going to do Jack? It’s been months of you pining after her. We all saw it on that karaoke night-.”
“Don’t even,” Jack scowls at the memory which makes Robby laugh for the first time tonight.
You had been singing alongside Dana and McKay, your smile infectious as you swayed your hips to the beat. Jack had scoffed at the idea of karaoke night with the team but seeing you up there, he was entranced by the lights making your skin shimmer, your smudged lipstick and sweet voice. The only thing that snapped him out of it was watching a young guy approach you with a shot and a flirtatious grin. It had taken both Robby and Shen to hold him back, dragging him back to the booth by the scruff of his neck.
There wasn’t anything more to say so they descended back down to reality, one step at a time. By the time he and Robby exit the Pitt doors, there was only one thing on Jack’s mind.
“You gonna grab a beer with us?” Robby asks as they cross the street but he already knows the answer.
“I have to do something first. Something long overdue,” Jack stations himself at the entrance of the park.
“Fucking finally,” Robby claps his shoulder. “Tell her I said goodnight.”
“I heard you’ve been asking her about dead people again, not cool man!”
“Sorry! Sorry, I’ll make an effort to stop that,” Robby throws his hands up before disappearing into the park.
Jack steels himself in place, waiting and praying he hadn’t missed you. His instincts were correct as usual, you soon appeared before him with a tired smile gracing your lips, backpack hanging off your hand. For a moment the only sound is the wind rustling through the trees. Slowly he takes measured steps closer to you, until he can see the small scar on your top lip. You take the moment to admire the freckles that adorn his nose and cheeks. You were nervous seconds ago, but not anymore.
Finally Jack speaks. “You wanna know what I see when I look at you?” he whispers, his strong hand coming up to cup your cheek. “I see the woman that I love, who makes me want to live life, not just survive it. I see a woman with the endless capacity to help others, the strongest person I know.”
“I- you saw what happened to me today. It may not always be easy,” your voice is thick with emotion.
“You know me better than anyone, it won’t be easy with me either, but we have each other.”
“That’s all I need - you.”
Lifting yourself on your tiptoes you press your nose to his, your lips hovering over one another. Electricity crackles between you, months of yearning and unspoken tension threatening to break free. His muscular arm wraps around your waist, tethering you to him.
“Come home with me, where you belong.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” you whisper.
Then something blooms in his chest, a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time - hope. You can see the fuzzy color around him lighten into a beautiful blue color, like the sky on a sunny day.
“Feel it with me?”
You wrap your arms around his neck, letting the mental blocks down momentarily. The moments your lips touch bursts of colors fill your mind and you feel it all. His love encompasses you, his hope for the future with you and passion makes your skin tingle.
“I love you Jack Abbot.”
“I love you more."
Miscellaneous
*= NSFW/NSFW(ish)
Sons of Anarchy
Strip that Down - by @recklesslonelyblond ~ Chibs
Half-Ass - by @basickassandra ~ Tig
* Dirty Talk - by @underratedcharactersimagines ~ Preference
Crush - ^^^ ~ Chibs
Pregnant - ^^^ ~ Chibs
Your Daughter Calls Tig Dad For the First Time - by @samcroimagine ~ Tig (I know it’s 2 years old but I have a weakness)
Dating Tig - by @imagine-samcro ~ Tig (Again 2 years old but It’s too cute)
Little Avocado - by @wombatwrites ~ Happy
How He Kisses You - by @differentandrebel ~ Preference
NCIS
A Bath Shared is A Problem Solved - by @spaceemonkeyyxd ~ Gibbs
Game of Thrones
Tormund Imagine - by @thranduilsperkybutt ~ Tormund
Failed Proposal … Times Three - by @megsironthrone ~ Jaime
Star Trek
Jumping to Conclusions - by @writingwithadinosaur ~ Bones
Plan Z - by @mybullshitsensesaretingling ~ Spock
Sleeping Preference - by @lots-of-character-imagines
Trouble Sleeping - iguess-theyre-mymess ~ Jim
Knew I Loved You Then - by @kaitymccoy123 ~ Scotty
Criminal Minds
Risky Actions by @readyreadywriteywritey ~ Hotch
Training Day - by @reidbyers ~ JJ
* Shower Sex - by @of-badges-and-guns ~ Hotch
I Needed to Hear Your Voice - by @lucifersagents ~ Morgan
Supernatural
* Sinful Sunday Drabble - by @kittenofdoomage ~ Gadreel
* Sinful Sunday Drabble - ^^^ ~ Benny
My Lords and Ladies - ^^^ ~ Charlie
Drabble - by @girl-next-door-writes ~ Crowley
* Bliss - by @atari-writes ~ Benny
Other
* NSFW Alphabet - by @atari-writes ~ Grady Travis (Fury)
Previous Lists: Marvel | Miscellaneous | Star Trek (Now part of Miscellaneous)
You Know Where You Are 1/3
Not all fics have adult content, but this blog is 18+. Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x f!Musician!Reader Angst/Established Relationship Part II | Part III
The Pitt Playlist located here The Pitt Masterlist
Synopsis: Dr. Robby's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day started before he even made it to PTMC. He was supposed to go to Pittfest to support his girlfriend's band with Jake, but decided to flake and give his ticket to Jake's girlfriend. You are less than thrilled with his lack of communication. Word Count: 965 Content Warning: Arguing; Reader is in her 30's A/N: This will be a three-parter.
“Why is an alarm going off?” You grumbled into Robby’s warm chest as the jingle from his phone repeated itself. Robby groaned as he reached over to the nightstand to turn it off. He was silent for a few beats, his other hand coming up to rub your back gently. “Mikey?”
“I’m goin’ in today.” He mumbled into the crown of your head.
“You’re what?” Sitting up in a hurry, you pushed yourself off him, but kept your eyes pinpointed on his. Michael was looking anywhere else in the room but at you. “No. No, Mike! You said you weren’t going to do this.”
“I know.” He responded gently, his eyes breaking from yours.
“You know.” Scoffing, you started to get off the bed, but was stopped by his hand gently grabbing your thigh, squeezing it in a way that told you he did not want this to get blown into an argument. Not today. “What about Jake? You can’t just ditch him.”
“Giving him my pass for his girlfriend. They’ll have a blast and apparently she’s a huge fan of you guys.” He tried to soften the blow. All it did was build the irritation that was growing inside of you.
“And me?” Your question hung in the air.
“I’m sorry.”
“Absolutely not.” Gently prying his hand off your leg, you stood and threw on some random clothes he had in the second drawer that housed various t-shirts, jeans and leggings that you’d left over time. “Genuinely don’t know what I was expecting.” You muttered under your breath as you pulled a t-shirt over your head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He had the nerve to sound indignant.
“It means that I am a very reasonable person who rolls with the punches when it comes to you, but god forbid something on my end -pre planned well in advance, mind you- is important to me and it gets thrown by the wayside.”
“Today is-” You held up your hand to stop him.
“-I know what today is.” Your voice took on a somber tone. “And I am so incredibly sorry that you have to carry this with you, Mike. I am. I love you and I support you wholeheartedly, but you obviously knew you were going to do this well before this morning and you chose not to tell me. A heads up is all that I’m asking for here.”
“Had I known missing this set was going to be a huge deal-”
“It’s not about the set!” Your voice rose. “I don’t care about the set, Mike! My life is set after set. I cared about spending time with you and Jake. The set is an hour out of my day. Both of us are stupidly busy people with demanding careers who don’t get to see a whole lot of each other outside of some quick takeout and going to bed -if we’re even in the same state!” It wasn’t meant to be a jab, but Robby felt it all the same.
“You’ve never had a problem with me having to cancel for work.” His voice was starting to get an irritated tone to it, one that you knew he knew he was wrong, but was doubling down.
“That’s not what this is!” You snapped, “I’m not mad because you get called in to work, Mike! You did this on purpose. They didn’t call you in, you are choosing to go in on a day that you already arranged to have off for no other reason than you won’t communicate!” He winced -you don’t communicate was repeated like a broken record through just about every failed relationship he had. “I don’t understand how you don’t see why I’m frustrated with this and, quite frankly, it’s pissing me off even more than I was to begin with because I can’t tell if you know what you’re doing or if this is just a defensive reflex!”
Grabbing your phone off the nightstand on your side, you sighed when you saw how early it actually was. Deciding that removing yourself from Mike’s townhouse was the best option so you could cool off without figuratively ripping his head from his body, you grabbed your purse off his dresser.
“Where are you going?” Mike stood from the bed, pajama pants hanging low in his hips. There was clear panic in his eyes, but he couldn’t navigate himself out of the hole he had dug himself.
“Back to my place.” You didn’t bother to untie your sneakers as you shoved your feet into them, pulling roughly until they popped on.
“Come on,” He said your name softly, “-please just get back into bed-”
“Why?” You snapped, “You’re getting ready for work and I don’t have a reason to be here right now.” Mike winced, then inhaled deeply before nodding -not to agree with you, but to process the words that you just said to him.
“You don’t need a reason to be here.” He was nearly begging. You bit your bottom lip to keep yourself from going off the deep end.
“Fine, I don’t want to be here.” You ground out. And truthfully, you didn’t. Anger was a rarity coming from you -life happens- but this wasn’t “life happens”. This was “Robby happens” and when Robby happens...you shook your head.
“You coming back here tonight?” He knew it was a long shot, but he asked anyway.
“You know, Mike…” You shrugged, exasperated, arms swinging out from your sides, “-probably not.” Done with the conversation you left the bedroom, angry that this was how the day -a day that was supposed to be fun and a distraction from the shit Mike deals with- started in a fiery blaze.
“Don’t-” Not bothering to hear his response as you fled through the townhouse, you let the door slam closed behind you.
Part II
Please reblog, like and/or comment :)
The Pink Rose, part 1
*GIF creator unknown
Part One- July 4th, 74 ADD Pairing: Haymitch Abernathy x reader
Word Count: 2,462
Warnings: 18+, fluff and smut, nightmares, witnessed death, implication of death, alcoholism, unprotected sex, sex after drinking, age gap, heterosexual relationship
**** Almost all characters and parts of the storyline are not my original creation and are credited to Suzanne Collins. And please be nice… I’ve never written fanfic or spicy things before- we’re starting vanilla. I will mark where the 18+ part starts and ends.
The cold night air smelled like fire and salt. The arena for the 61st Hunger Games was set up like a quarry next to the sea. [Y/n] was the 15-year-old tribute from District 12. Taking advantage of the low light and tall grass, the only other tributes were in her line of sight and fighting to the death. Spruce Silentsong - District 7 - and Millie Forge - District 2, were engaged in battle and had no idea [Y/n] was watching. Spruce was armed with two hand axes, which served her well-being from the lumber district. Millie had a sword in one hand and a mace in the other. The sword had once been in [Y/n]’s possession, but when Millie and the other careers descended on the District 9, 11, and 12 alliance, [Y/n] was the only one who made it out; without her weapon.
The gurgle of someone choking on blood sounded, followed by the thud of a falling body. [Y/n] thought Spruce must have hesitated. She’d scored high in the assessment, but Millie thirsted for blood. The gong sounded, marking the death of another tribute. 22 down, 1 to go. [Y/n] was still about 12 yards from Millie, but she knew she needed to act while Millie caught her second wind. She looked down to double-check how many throwing knives she had. [Y/n] looked away for half a second and her face rose to lock eyes with a piercing blue set, inches from her face. [Y/n] screamed.
She thrashed for a moment before realizing she was in her bed. She’d left the arena 13 years ago, but the nightmares stuck around. [Y/n] breathed heavily as she sat up and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. Feeling the sheets next to her, she noticed they were cold and suddenly became aware of the early morning light streaming through the cracks in the curtains, highlighting the dust in the air.
Making her way downstairs, the familiar smell of hard liquor hit her nose. It’s too early for this- she thought as she scanned the room for her neighbor. Haymitch Abernathy was the only other living District 12 Victor. He’d won 11 years before her, and the last Victor from 12 was decades before him- it was just them to understand each other in their whole district. It was just them in Victor’s Village. Haymitch and [Y/n] had both lost their families due to their young defiance of President Snow and the Capitol. It wasn’t uncommon for one of them to stay at the other’s house in the month leading up to the Reaping. The closer the games got, the more frequent their demons seemed to visit. It was easier to help if they were under the same roof. In the last 2 years, they had taken to sleeping next to each other for comfort. Despite Haymitch’s frequent drunken stupor, they had developed a friendship built on sarcasm, life experience, and a unique outlook on the world that only a Hunger Games Victor could have. About 6 years of friendship later, the relationship turned platonic. This would seem odd to someone outside the relationship, but it was no bother to them. In his moments of being nearly sober, Haymitch was quite charming and a kind man with a sense of humor.
In the last two years, [Y/n] noticed that of all the people she interacted with in District 12, Haymitch was the one who could make her feel happy. He irritated the hell out of her sometimes, but she couldn’t deny that she had fallen for him. She didn’t expect him to return the feelings; people might not like the age gap and think her former mentor had taken advantage of her. Haymitch might be a good friend, but he may also be disgusted at the thought of any romance with someone he’d known since she was a teenager.
She stopped in the living room and found Haymitch asleep in the armchair with a bottle in one hand and what looked to be his shirt in the other. [Y/n] knew better than to get too close when waking up someone who’d been drinking. She stood a few feet away and threw a small couch cushion at him. Haymitch jumped and yelled at the sudden contact. “Dammit [Y/n]- what the hell are you doing?” he shouted after realizing where he was.
“Demons paid me a visit- do you have enough to share?” she nodded to the bottle that was still in Haymitch’s hand.
“Oh,” he faltered, “Help yourself, sweetheart,” She took a long swig before Haymitch reacted, “That bad, huh?”
“Don’t act like we don’t have the same dreams,” she pointed before taking another gulp.
The liquid had a comforting warmth as it ran down her throat but it still burned and created the feeling of stinging in her nostrils. The bittersweet feeling of downing alcohol was enough to take her mind off the Hunger Games. The more she drank, the more she understood why Haymitch kept himself in this state.
After almost an hour, [Y/n] could feel the heat in her cheeks and the chaotic feelings from earlier were almost gone. The dullness of her senses and her subdued anxiety were a treat. She looked over and noticed Haymitch was starting to nod off.
“Hey! Don’t leave me alone,” She said loud enough to bring Haymitch back.
Haymitch sighed, “What do you need sweetheart? You know I’m not the best company after drinking,”
Neither am I, she thought, “Hold me?” she suggested.
Haymitch stared at her before nodding his head and waving her over. [Y/n] climbed into his lap- he was larger than she was; this allowed him to envelope her in his arms with ease. She nuzzled her face into his chest. She could feel the old scars across his abdomen and tried not to think about when he got them. She was almost 5 during his games, but she remembered the vivid sight. Haymitch could feel [Y/n]’s slow, quiet tears run down his chest and he gave her a slight squeeze. Within half an hour, the inebriated duo was asleep.
Haymitch woke up, still mildly intoxicated, but much closer to sobriety than he was normally comfortable with. It was the day of the Reaping for the 74th Hunger Games. He heard the small woman in his lap begin to stir. She looked up at him with her deep [y/e/c] eyes and smiled. This girl- no- this woman was the closest thing he had to a family. He was the town drunk. He had business associates and people who tolerated him. Haymitch was a grown man, he never looked twice at the tributes or considered them family, much less friends. He’d hugged [Y/n] before, but this was different. For the first time in 24 years, Haymitch thought, What if she loved me?
He shook the thought from his head and felt disgusted with himself- she was so much younger than him and he didn’t want to ruin what they had spent the last 13 years building. When they met, he was already 27 and she was 15. The thought that they could be happy together would have been inappropriate then and it should be now. Right? Haymitch thought to himself that just because she was 28 and old enough to make her own decisions, that did not make a shift to intimacy okay. [Y/n] continued to smile at him; it had been a long time since anyone was happy to see him. He knew he irritated [Y/n], but she was never genuinely angry with him and still acknowledged him with kindness. They had developed some kind of relationship that was more than friends, but he couldn’t quite figure it out.
“Did you sleep alright this time, sweetheart?” he asked.
[Y/n] gave a soft chuckle, “I did- and it seems you did too,”
“What’s so funny?”
[Y/n] gave a little wiggle of her hips to emphasize that Haymitch had an erection and it was pressed right against her rear.
He gave a startled little jump and had a look of horror on his face, “I’m sorry-”
[Y/n] stopped him from getting up, “It’s okay, I don’t mind” She looked up at him through her eyelashes.
Haymitch raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side “Are you still drunk?”
[Y/n] laughed and quickly swung one leg over him so she was straddling him and he was situated right in front of her. He was so erect that he pressed against her stomach.
“No,” she leaned in and tickled his ear with a whisper, “But I’m quite wet,”
He gulped and tried to control his breathing. She was trying to… seduce him? But he’d been her mentor. But she was suggesting it. But he’d known her since she was 15. But she started this exchange. Conflicting thoughts raced through his mind. [y/n] saw the look on his face that was a mixture of shock and confusion- not someone who was willing to continue.
She turned her face away from him, “I’m sorry- I get it if I overstepped the boundary… I didn’t even ask,” she moved to get off him, but Haymitch grabbed her waist and told her to wait.
“[Y/n]- sweetheart- you’re beautiful and I’m not calming down,” he nodded down towards his erection, “But I’m not a good person. You deserve someone better- someone who won’t make you look bad in public. Not some drunk who takes advantage of a younger woman,”
[Y/n] didn’t know he felt this way. She grabbed his chin and demanded he look into her eyes.
“Haymitch Abernathy- I don’t deserve anything less than the man who is my greatest source of comfort, my biggest ally, my closest friend, and the person who currently has his cock in my lap,”
Haymitch was startled at her direct statement- he didn’t know she felt that way. He cupped her face with one hand and slightly tightened his grip on her waist. [Y/n] was more developed than most women in District 12. Haymitch couldn’t deny that he’d noticed her defined hourglass figure before, but who hadn’t?
“Kiss me” [Y/n] demanded quietly.
Haymitch nodded slowly, hesitated, and pressed his lips to hers. They started slow, and then [Y/n] traced his lips with her tongue. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gradually became less gentle in how she kissed him. She felt herself getting more excited and began to move her hips back and forth. Haymitch let out a deep sigh at the feeling of her against him. He ran his rough hands up her torso and his thumbs over her hard nipples. Her soft breasts filled his hands perfectly and felt so good as he cupped them. [Y/n] pulled her face away and swiftly removed her nightshirt. She hadn’t worn pants to bed so she now sat on top of him in her panties. She pulled his face back to hers in the neediest way she could muster.
“Haymitch, I need you,”
“You have me,”
“I need you inside me,” she clarified.
Haymitch’s eyes widened as he paused, but he wasted no time lifting her off his lap to rip off his pants. [Y/n] used this moment to remove her underwear as she noticed he didn’t have any either. They stood there naked for less than a second before Haymitch guided her a few feet over to the sofa. She lay down and Haymitch crawled on top of her. He reached between her legs and ran his thumb in soft slow circles as he made eye contact and used his other hand to line up his aching length with her entrance.
“Are you sure you want this?” He asked hesitantly
[Y/n] nodded.
“You have to say it,” he said seriously.
“Yes Haymitch, I want you- are you comfortable with this?” she asked.
“Yes,” he didn’t even hesitate; he hoped he wasn’t coming off as desperate- but that look she gave him was enough encouragement. Haymitch’s eyes turned dark as he slowly slipped into her. [Y/n] gasped as he pushed the rest of his length inside her soaking wet entrance. Haymitch was a little longer than average, but his girth filled her up as he thrust into her. He slowly picked up his pace- [Y/n] leaned her head back and moaned. Her plump lips made the perfect “O” shape before she said his name.
To see the way she reacted to his touch and hear how she moaned his name, Haymitch didn’t want this to stop- but he could feel the blood flowing and the heightened emotions. He didn’t want to be the first one to finish. He started to slow down and [Y/n] gave him a look of confusion. He cupped her cheek, removed himself from her body, and slid down making his face even with hips. [Y/n] looked down at Haymitch and smiled mischievously, biting her lip. Haymitch hooked his arms under her thighs so her knees were over his shoulders. He smiled up at her and then plunged his tongue into her folds. [Y/n] felt the jolt of electricity from the contact with her clit. Her hips bucked closer to his face and her head fell back.
“Oh my days, Haymitch,” she whined.
“How do you want it sweetheart?” he said with his mouth still against her.
[Y/n] smirked, turned around, and said, “Just fuck me, Haymitch,”
He quickly stood up and bent her over. She was so wet that it was much easier to dive his whole length inside her. Making her moan his name more, Haymitch gave it his all with quick hard thrusts. In the back of his mind, he prayed that this felt as good for her as it did for him.
Feeling her whole body tense up, [Y/n] groaned through gritted teeth, “Fuck, I’m cumming!”
Haymitch was almost there too, “Yes, beautiful, cum on this cock,”
Suddenly the door flew open, “Haymitch you better not - AHH!!” Effie Trinket covered her eyes and ran out of the room with an impressive speed for someone wearing heels that high.
Haymitch and [Y/n] froze how they were. Still inside her, Haymitch said, “Well that’s an experience I never thought I’d have,”
[Y/n] looked over her shoulder and asked, “What? Fucking me or getting caught doing it?”
Haymitch sighed, “Cumming at the moment I got caught by her,”
They both laughed as Haymitch stood up and walked over to the kitchen to get a towel. They needed to clean up and clear the air with Effie.
Masterlist
Semper Fi Masterlist
Dr. Jack Abbot x f!doctor!reader
eight parts + epilogue; ongoing
Series Summary: You’re the ray of sunshine to Jack’s rain cloud. What do they say about opposites attracting?
Most of my works are 18+ due to adult language and content.
Series Warnings: age gap (reader is late 20s, Jack is late 40s), foul language, ptsd mentions, descriptions of hospitals/patients and mentions of violence at said hospital, violence against healthcare workers, medical errors bc I am a simple bitch, blood/mild gore/gun violence (Pittfest), sexual content/smut (afab!reader/female anatomy described), angst, mutual pining, mentions of difference in power dynamic, sunshine/grumpy dynamic, Jack lacking some emotional intelligence/bottled up feelings, mild suicide ideation/jokes. Mature themes.
— Anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. Minors dni.
— All work is my own. Please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.* (coming soon)
updated 04/06/2025
[ Main Masterlist ]
Father Figure
Pairing: dbf!Joel x Reader
Summary: Parents’ Weekend looks a little different this year with Joel showing up in the place of your father.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected piv. Dad[dy] kink. Age gap. Oral (m!receiving). Premature ejaculation (Joel cums in his pants while he’s kissing you AS REAL LOVERS DO). Drinking and drug use. Gratuitous dad rock references.
Note: We all saw that video. This was begging to be written.
Another note: For a more immersive read of the pregame, listen to my freshman year Kegs & Eggs playlist (yes, it sucks).
Word count: 19.0k
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Freud would’ve had a field day with this shit.
Really, there was no sane explanation for the obsession that seized you and your friends come Parents’ Weekend every year. But there it went. Again. Like clockwork, all the forty- to fifty-something fathers arrived for their first meal on campus. Like the cock-starved coed she was, your roommate bumped your shoulder as you walked and nodded to the first set of families approaching the dining hall. Out of the pack, you spotted four grey heads.
“Would, would, would, and would,” Aly observed, almost clinically. Her strides were long and resolved in their path
“That one could get it.” Her brother shrugged on your other side. He tipped his chin up, then added: “Look.”
And look you did. The batch of men, women, and all their college-aged children struck you as little more fun to ogle than your average wall of paint waiting to dry. Though the moms and dads were, admittedly, the kind of attractive you rarely saw outside an L.L. Bean magazine—as were all the rest of the kempt and polished crowd that populated your school—you were hungry as fuck. You’d agreed to join your roommate’s family for the kickoff banquet of the weekend, and you needed food. On top of that, you’d sworn off middle-aged men forever.
Aly and her brother didn’t know that, though, so you played the game and trudged ahead. When a handsome blue-eyed man born in 1970-something stood back and held the door open for your trio going in, you had to fight back a smirk at the look Aly gave him after thanking him.
“Oh, he wanted me bad,” she hissed once safely inside.
“Looks a bit like Rob Lowe,” you offered noncommittally.
“What about your dad? Is he gonna be here tonight?”
That last fragment of conversation had come from Aly’s brother, and the curiosity in it was sincere. Then he’d wiggled two dark brows your way and said he bet your dad was a silver fox like no other, and you’d had to roll your eyes before strolling into the wide open dining area. You were late; the food, evidently, was all already served.
“My dad’s at home with a broken femur, so…no,” you answered slowly. Starting to weave your way through a sea of round tables and following Aly’s lead as you did, “Probably not your type. Just old. Very embarrassing.”
You stuck your index in your mouth and pantomimed gagging, and the sophomore beside you just laughed.
“Yeah? Desperate, too?” he challenged.
“Pathetic, really,” you replied.
For a second, you felt a pang of guilt at the way you were describing your father. Surely he couldn’t deserve being characterized like that. Then you recalled how he’d boned your mom’s best friend while he was married, had never really made amends after the fact, and was still fucking said mistress’s brains out on the reg to this day.
You’d done plenty of wrong behind his back, to be sure, but that kind of took the cake for fucked up betrayals. He could stand for a little bit of ribbing every now and then.
Presently, Aly was paving the way straight toward a pair of bright and beaming faces at a table near the back.
“Our parents named us after a goddamn Grateful Dead song and the city they first saw the band in concert. Nobody does pathetic better than Scott and Michelle.” She waved her arm in a wide arc and grinned over there.
And you would’ve gladly countered that no, that actually makes them very fucking funny and cool, but the chance to do that was gone in a moment—the next had you approaching their table and meeting with big hugs.
Even for you, who had never seen these people before in your life, there was a warm welcome. You got long, suffocating embraces and cheery greetings of, ‘Oh, you must be Aly’s roommate!’ and ‘We’re sorry you got stuck with our shithead kid’ before you had a grin plastered on again and were being ushered to sit down.
You took note of the little placards opposite each chair, counted four, five, six of them altogether, with an empty spot beside your own, per usual, and you took your seat.
“Dallas, honey, I love you,” the woman across the table, Michelle, said with all the restraint she could conjure up, “I love you to pieces, but what the hell are you wearing?”
That steered the conversation in a decidedly light, playful direction from the start, with Aly’s brother defending his decision to be decked out in full school-sponsored athleisure tooth and nail. He’d been recruited to play lacrosse, so naturally, wearing the far-too-tight crimson lycra was all part of the deal. Aly insisted that he just wanted to show off the biceps he didn’t have, Scott hypothesized it was the crisp, wintry Boston air that had made his son dress like a total douche, and Dallas tried bringing the inquisition to a speedy end by lifting one middle finger up and flipping his napkin into his lap.
“Fuck you guys, I’m hungry,” he declared, emphatic. Fighting the urge to laugh along then grabbing a fork.
Just as fast as he’d picked it up to dig in, though, his mom was slapping the silver utensil out of his hand.
“Not yet,” she chided.
“Why? We’re all here,” Dallas groaned.
“Because,” his father returned, scrubbing at the stubble on his chin before casting a quick look around him, “We’re still waiting on one more to join us. See?”
With that, Scott nodded toward the card next to you, and immediately, your cheeks warmed. You shook your head, mouth working a little less fluidly than you would’ve liked as you piped up and told them—assured them all, rather:
“My dad’s not coming. He got a little, uh…hurt at work.”
And you were certain that would be the end of it. You’d just moved to grab a fork yourself, eyeing the plate full of food in front of you then, when another hand stopped you on the spot. It was Aly beside you, grip insistent as she gave your wrist a little shake, and in your periphery, you could see her tilt her head the opposite direction.
She was staring, silent—totally unlike herself.
Normally when something crossed her path nearby to make her twist her whole fucking neck to get a glimpse, it was followed by a dry remark. A comment, a compliment, or a lewd invitation to fuck me, please.
While the last of the three clearly wasn’t an option to use around her parents, you at least would’ve expected to hear something. When nothing came, you turned your head too, having just snagged a bite of roast beef on your fork and shoveled it in before looking that way.
You followed her gaze and nearly inhaled the food.
With a startled gasp and a ‘Christ!’, your eyes widened to find a man who wasn’t your father at all—just his best friend and your ex-fuckbuddy, Joel Miller, walking over.
It was a sight you weren’t prepared to see in a million years. What the everliving fuck this man was doing two thousand miles from Austin, Texas, on your college campus, striding into the very first meal of Parents’ Weekend, looking like that, was so far beyond your comprehension you couldn’t speak. You just stared and sucked in the sharpest, strangled breath, fought back a cough, and tried not to die swallowing a cube of meat.
From the way that man was approaching you now, asphyxiation might not be the worst, you thought idly.
Joel’s here.
Joel’s here, and he’s wearing slacks and a button-up.
Joel’s wearing business casual, and he’s walking over.
Who the fuck does this man even think he’s trying to—
“Sorry I’m late,” Joel cut in, smile bright and easy on his face. Then, stepping behind your chair, leaning down:
“Hey, sweetie. How are ya?”
He kissed the top of your head.
The tone sealed his fate completely.
Joel was pretending to be your father.
This wasn’t his brightest idea.
Call him sick, insane, selfish, besotted, or rotten straight down to his core, Joel Miller was no longer one to care. He had a goal in his head. Less than a week ago, you’d left him high and dry in Austin after having told him you loved him—in the middle of climax, but aloud, no less—and the month before that, you’d left him again. Back to college, where you could happily pretend he didn’t exist.
Tonight, he wasn’t letting that happen. This weekend, Parents’ Weekend, was of course reserved for families, but Joel knew your father wasn’t coming. He knew you wouldn’t be expecting your dad or anyone else to be there, and since you’d taken to the usual course of ignoring all his calls and texts, he felt he’d had no choice.
You couldn’t stay closed off like this forever.
Eventually, you’d both have to reckon with what this was and how to move forward, or the mess of the last month would never change. You would never believe he saw you any differently from a one-off hookup or a taboo outlet of pleasure. And if that was all you saw him as, so be it. But he had to get the truth of it out now, one way or another.
Even if he had to roleplay the father figure and play the most fucked up game of paternal charades known to man, he’d get the answers he needed this weekend.
You were good at games. Unfortunately, Joel was better.
He’d take this fake-out to the max and be the best faux father you’d never asked for. Maybe you’d hate him for it.
As he’d squeezed your shoulder and sat down beside you at the table, felt your gaze heavy and stunned on his, he also couldn’t help but hope you might still love him after.
“Scott Ingram. Pleasure to meet you.” The broad hand had been extended his way before he was even fully seated. The face across from him was kind. Intrigued. Tinged with a faint trace of curiosity, “So you’re dad?”
“Stepdad, yeah.” Joel had had to leave a bit more room for plausibility before he’d made his formal introduction.
Then he’d met Michelle. Aly. Dallas. The latter two more piqued with interest than the first, as though unsure of what they’d just been told, but willing to go on anyway.
“Old and pathetic my ass,” Dallas had murmured your way, low enough for Joel to know those words were meant for only you to hear. You stiffened in response.
“So glad you could make it up! Is your leg doing better?”
Aly had smiled warmly over at him, and Joel had only hesitated a second. Then he remembered his friend.
“Oh, my— yeah. Just…peachy. Yeah. All healed up.”
He didn’t flit a look to you; he could feel the searing imprint of your gaze and the way you hadn’t bothered to hide your frown when he’d referenced the leg he’d never broken. The way you could’ve pulverized the napkin in your lap to dust from how hard you were squeezing it in your fist—you didn’t like to admit it, but that was your nervous tic, and Joel knew it well. He propped his elbows on the table and didn’t miss the way a head turned his way from a neighboring group. Then another. He hated every starch white button-up he owned with a burning passion, but he couldn’t deny this one was eye-catching.
Not that it mattered, really, because the only glossy gaze he cared to snag was presently nailing him with daggers in its path. Still, it was a comfort to know he’d make a good-looking corpse if that look of yours ever did kill him
“Oh, my, my, oh hell YES—”
The sing-song trill of a baritone beside him roused him from his trance. He looked over and saw Scott grinning.
“—honey put on that pa-a-a-a-a-arty dress!”
It was Michelle that finished the line for him, while they both bobbed their heads along to the Tom Petty song blasting overhead. Evidently, dad rock would be alive and well all weekend. Joel wasn’t mad to see that happen.
“You a Tom Petty fan?” Scott jerked his chin up to him.
Before he could answer, though, Michelle interjected:
“I’d say he’s more of a Simon & Garfunkel guy.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Joel smiled.
“Mom, Dad. Please stop,” Aly moaned.
“Seriously.” Dallas’s mouth was full.
And, just as he fought to swallow the heaping glob of food he’d just crammed in, his dad snapped his fingers.
“No, I know it! You’re a Billy Joel man, Joel. No doubt.”
Joel blanched as white as the shirt on his back. You coughed. He hadn’t even noticed you’d chanced a bite of food beside him, but now you were sputtering—choking on a morsel of beef or mashed potatoes or something—and he didn’t think twice. He pivoted right to you and dropped a hand on your back in the space between your shoulder blades. He patted you twice, eyes a little wider.
“Hey, you OK?”
Fleeting memories of a night not too long ago flashed through his mind: driving town by town, state after state, blaring Billy Joel extra loud in his Bronco with you riding shotgun. It had been something special between you then. Now, your gaze was on him like you despised him.
“I’m fine,” you answered, tone clipped.
You shrugged his touch away. Joel blinked back to Scott.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he said, thoughts occupied by you all the while, but he reckoned it was something his neighbor had wanted to hear, because he saw a satisfied little smile cross his lips, ‘I told you, Michelle.’
“Everybody likes Billy Joel, dad.” Aly rolled her eyes.
And Joel would’ve liked to look your way again. Maybe dropped the fatherly moue for half a second and flashed an apologetic look shared just between you and him. But then the conversation shifted; the whole table began to eat, more pleasantries and questions about home life and backgrounds followed, and all the talk from there converged on where they were planning to go out after dinner—how they’d make the very most of Parents’ Weekend. You sat back and ate in silence, mostly. You wouldn’t meet his gaze for even a moment, and when you rose from your seat to get another drink, Joel felt himself stand too, as if out of habit. He hadn’t meant to.
It hadn’t been his intention to follow you out of the dining area, strides swift to try and keep up, but he did.
It hadn’t been his goal to corner you by the soda dispenser, either. Away from the eyes of everyone else, or at least in a private enough space not to be seen by too many people, Joel felt a little more at liberty to talk. He lowered his voice and drew even closer then to speak.
“Sweetheart—”
You’d filled a cup halfway with water. As soon as he’d said that word, ‘sweetheart,’ you turned and chucked its contents directly in his face. Liquid splashed up at him, and for a second, Joel had only to stand there with his eyes closed and his body completely frozen in place.
Water dripped in silence before he wiped at his chin.
At the same time, you were tossing your cup aside.
“Don’t you dare fuckin’ call me that,” you growled.
Then, shortly: “What the fuck is your problem?!”
Honestly, he didn’t know. He opened his eyes.
And, just as he raised both hands in a semi-conciliatory kind of gesture, you scowled and backed away from him.
“You’re sick, Joel. Pretending to be my goddamn da—”
“I know. I know,” Joel winced as he spoke, wrinkles no doubt creasing even deeper along his face as he saw yours fall. You weren’t happy to see him in the slightest. “I know it’s fucked up. I just…needed to talk to you, hon.”
“About what?!”
He could feel the heat rising to your cheeks. He wanted to cup them in his hands, or else kiss the frown off your lips in a way that would be totally inappropriate for a stepdad to do, but already, he sensed his resolve was eroding. It didn’t matter, anyway, because you weren’t letting him get within an inch of you, based off your look.
“Darlin’,” Joel sighed, “There’s just so much—”
Of course, the next moment was punctured by a voice. His words were cut short; you were both forced to turn.
“It’s all settled now,” Aly declared with cheery conviction. She snagged a cup and started filling it up with Sprite, “Pregame at Dallas’. Seven Oaks after. Lucky’s after that. Maybe a brief intermission at The Alley, if you’re up for it. Afters at A.J.’s, probably. Depends what the vibe is like.”
Joel had barely processed half of what was said, and it still sounded like a lot from where he stood. He blinked.
Then Aly’s eyes fell to his collar, and she lifted a brow.
“You got a little…drinking problem there, Joel?”
He glanced down at the mess on his shirt and tried to smile with her. It was hard to fight the color jumping to his cheeks simultaneously. He scrambled for the words.
“Oh, uh—”
“Dad’s real smooth with it,” you cut in, suddenly, like the paternal moniker was nothing at all. You didn’t look back, “I’m fine drinking wherever. Your parents coming, too?”
Aly’s grin stretched even wider. It looked devious.
“They wouldn’t miss this bingefest for the world.”
At just the intonation of those words, Joel’s pulse sped up. He saw a knowing look pass between you and your roommate, and in a second, he sensed he was fucked.
He really shouldn’t be drinking tonight.
A hundred shots probably wouldn’t have been enough to kill it—this ringing in your head hurt like a motherfucker.
Joel wanted to talk.
Of course he wanted to talk.
Just on his terms, on his time, with your closest friends and their family members all assuming he was your dad.
Because that made a lot of fucking sense.
You’d meant to split from Joel the second you showed up. Dallas’ off-campus house was many things, but small and quiet were not among those descriptors, and you planned to use all of its space to your advantage tonight.
Simply put, the place was a glorified playground for college degenerates. Afforded the distinct honor of housing eight members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity in 2,700 square feet for over fifty years, the Craftsman home was no small wonder to anyone who saw it standing today: the house was shit. Dallas loved it.
You’d enjoyed it, too, for at least the first year or two of college. Then you’d wisened up to the antics of a few too many numb-skulled Pikes, got tired of listening to the same ten tracks being blasted in your ears every other weekend, and decided you’d just stick to the bar scene, where at least patrons were prohibited from standing on elevated surfaces and breaking bottles over their heads.
When Dallas rushed, and eventually joined the fold last year, you’d been hesitant to go back. Then, when he’d promptly decked the first guy who tried dragging you up onto a table with him, you figured you could safely visit again and not have to worry while your friend was there. The kid did a pretty good job of weeding out assholes.
“My lady.” He stood and bowed before presenting you with a fifth of Pink Whitney like it was the finest wine.
The bottle was half empty. You’d been passing it back and forth for the last hour in between rounds of pong.
“Been sayin’ shit like that ever since he saw Gladiator II.” His housemate Cory called from closeby. He flicked his wrist once and sank his shot in the second to last cup.
“You are not General Acacius, brother,” Cory’s teammate Pete chimed in. With a lucky throw of his own, he hit the final Red Solo cup and shook his head like it was nothing.
You were all on the third floor, away from the noise downstairs. While the so-called ‘pregame’ surged ahead on first, in the basement, and outdoors, you’d managed to find relative quiet among eight or nine friends and acquaintances, plus a guy railing lines off a frisbee in the corner. Nobody knew where the fuck he’d gotten it from.
“I like to pretend,” Dallas said with a shrug. Then, once you’d taken a swig of the pink drink and handed it back: “My parents play next. Gavin, put the coke away, please.”
Gavin sniffed the air at least four times like he had a cold. Then he tucked his credit card back in his wallet, put the wallet in his pocket, and knocked the frisbee on the floor.
‘Yessir’ was all you heard before he was leaning back contentedly. The girls Cory and Pete had just played seemed equally indifferent as they sauntered off—likely looking to get their hands on whatever the hell else the redhead had in his jeans and quick to forget about the game. Blow was way too easy to spread at these parties, and clearly, no one gave a shit about redemption round.
“Gavin.” Dallas’ tone was a warning.
At the same time, his housemate had just snagged an ID where it was left on the table and held it up to the light.
“Hang on, it looks like this guy, uh…” Cory squinted to read the text on an apparently too-old driver’s license. “Looks like he called dibs on next round…Joel Miller.”
Your grip tightened on the spot. You said nothing. Cory was just then starting to remark that this dude’s the spittin’ fuckin’ image of that one guy from Game of Thrones, Dallas, come look, when the door to the room swung open, and in walked the man of the hour himself.
Joel was joined by Scott, Michelle, and a horde of others.
Well, maybe five in total. They were all freshmen girls.
Giggling, grinning freshmen girls who were quite literally hanging off his body on either side, or else trailing behind him, admiring him like he was the single greatest thing.
Where were all their fathers? That was your fake dad.
Christ, that sounded bad, and you hadn’t even said it.
When Dallas offered you the bottle again, you declined. You were more than just buzzed. And Joel was drunk.
Apparently.
And was he—well shit, were they trying to strip him?
One of the bubbliest girls from the group was tugging on Joel’s shirt. Three buttons were already undone, and a smooth, tanned patch of flesh glistened through the ‘V’ in the fabric. He’d been working up a sweat downstairs.
A sea of black-and-grey hairs peeking out through the trough of cotton was the last thing you saw before you had to look away. It was too familiar. And there you saw some girl fresh out of high school, feeling him, teasing at the material while she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“You are so lying!” she slurred, voice pitchy and shrill.
What was worse, you couldn’t even fault the girl for it. That had been you just a few short years ago, hadn’t it?
Beside her, her friend snagged his sleeve: “Show ussss!”
Scott and Michelle had approached the table where Dallas was setting up the cups for the next round and you were trying not to stare. You reckoned you were failing pretty miserably at the task when the next thing Mrs. Ingram did was lean in closer to you and whisper.
“Real hot commodity with the girls, isn’t he?” It was soft.
She was right.
You forced your gaze to your feet, pretending to assess the wet and sticky mess underneath them. You hummed.
“Yup. Real ladies’ man,” you answered quietly. Strained.
“They’re convinced he’s got some ink hidden under his shirt. That’s a creative way to get a man topless if I’ve ever seen one.” Scott chuckled next to you, tone teasing.
Something twisted in your chest, though you couldn’t quite place what it was. It hardly felt like jealousy at all—but that was worse, somehow. Joel was your stepfather in every other mind but yours and his, and here he was, soaking in all this attention that you couldn’t give to him.
Maybe that was for the best.
Joel deserved a woman he didn’t have to love in secret.
“OK, who’s up—Joel or mom and dad?” Dallas asked.
“I’m out. Joel can take my place. And don’t we—”
Pete snapped his fingers, then pointed at Cory.
“We forgot to grab the other keg, didn’t we?”
“Fuck me.”
“Let’s go.”
They were gone in a second. That left Joel, Scott, Michelle, plus one open spot. Dallas set the last cup.
“Who’s gonna be Joel’s partn—”
“ME!”
That had to have come from three girls, at least. One on the couch and two more on either side of Joel, along with a slew of hopeful looks from others in his orbit.
They’d dispersed some, thankfully. Though not physically clinging to your pseudo-stepfather and begging him to peel off his shirt, they stayed close.
One of them giggled and nudged her friend: “Maya can!”
The girl who’d just been playing tug-of-war with the front of Joel’s button up waved her hand in mock indignation.
“I suck at pong. You go, Claire,” she crooned.
It was clear from the sideways glance the first girl had flashed that she wanted Joel to protest. Maybe insist that she play anyway, if you had to guess. It was all so confusing—what with how this group was flirting, and fighting, and insisting simultaneously that they couldn’t possibly play, even though they’d like to, but maybe…
Your skull started ringing again.
You were just about to turn to leave, when Dallas cut in:
“Sorry, ladies. Gonna be a Daddy-Daughter duo tonight.”
Then he gestured to you, beckoned to Joel, and grinned. Your stomach could’ve plunged to that floor you’d just been pretending to study. You quickly jerked your head.
Even Joel, for all his calm and unaffected dealings, the pretty damp mop of hair hanging in ringlets against the sides of his face, and the way he kept pretending not to be concerned by the flock of girls, had to pause a beat. You saw his throat work. Before you could try and decipher the look that was crawling up his face, you made the split-second decision to interject yourself.
“No, Dallas. I’m not playing again.”
You tried to avoid grinding your molars.
This time, the tone he heard wasn’t one of a thinly veiled acceptance—something begging to be disputed when it tried to decline the offer—but instead an emphatic ‘no.’
No way were you playing another game with this man.
Joel already had your head fucked ten ways to Sunday by being here at all, and now you had to pretend to be platonic, his goddamn beer pong partner, while a gaggle of freshmen girls sat frothing at the mouth for his dick?
Yeah, but no.
Hard fucking pass.
You didn’t care what it looked like. You shot Dallas a look, grabbed a stray Solo off the table, and made your way to the door, calling something over your shoulder about being too tired to play, and offering your spot to Maya.
That should make your old man happy enough.
It wasn’t like he could do anything here with you.
And then you left. Before you did, though, you passed Gavin and the mysterious white bag he was starting to fish out of his pants, and without thinking, you grabbed his hand. You didn’t like doing coke, had never seen the point in taking your level of intoxication that far out on an ordinary night, but, all things considered, this evening was anything but normal. You deserved some relief. If that couldn’t come in the form of Joel packing all his shit and leaving, then so be it. But you weren’t about to hang around and play the nice and polite stepdaughter when all you wanted to do was scratch your fucking eyes out.
A few lines wouldn’t be the worst way to start the night.
Joel wasn’t drunk.
He wasn’t tipsy, either.
And even if he had been, he wouldn’t have appreciated the way this hazel-eyed firecracker had nearly crushed his toes from how hard she’d jumped up and down at hearing you abdicate your position. Maya had shrieked, and Scott and Michelle hadn’t been able to fight back smiles, and trying not to wince too hard, Joel had politely excused himself. He’d claimed that he needed some air.
The oxygen he found down the hallway a few minutes later was stale as shit, but he couldn’t exactly complain.
He’d asked for this, after all: the thumping bass, shaking floors, passageways that reeked of weed and cheap perfume, and girls that refused to let go of his neck.
Well. He hadn’t asked for that last thing.
Thirty years ago, he might’ve found it cute—what Maya and Claire and every other glossy-gazed Phi Mu seemed to be offering with every bat of their lashes. Now, if the arms latched around his throat weren’t yours, the idea just made him sick. He cleared his throat and walked.
And before long, his feet had carried him to the end of the hallway. Where in the hell had you gotten off to?
Would you be back soon?
And why had you taken that kid with you?
Joel’s palms were sweaty by his sides. He didn’t like being kept in the dark—didn’t think traveling some 2,000 miles to be closer to you would still leave him wondering like a fucking idiot if he would see you again.
Then he reached for the nearest door. A bathroom.
The door was just cracked, allowing a sliver of light to shine through and a peek at a sea of tile flooring to greet him. Joel pushed on the knob without thinking to knock.
When he stepped inside, he had to stop.
It was too much to process and walk at once.
For the first time in his life, he felt shell-shocked.
You were on your knees in front of that red-haired fucker. Stabilizing one hand on a denim-clad leg in front of you, patting his thigh, having him murmur something back—probably words of encouragement for how nice your mouth felt around him—and then tilting your head up.
Joel could only see you from behind. His vision was red.
“What the fuck are you DOING?!” he bellowed out.
The two of you leapt apart, your head jerking back.
He wasn’t thinking. Joel blew straight past you and went for him, the little pencil-dicked Pike who’d just had his dick down his stepdaughter’s throat, presumably, and he grabbed him by the shirt. He shoved him hard against the bathtub on the wall, watched him flail a few steps, and then, before the kid could recover his balance, Joel shoved him again. He might’ve tripped further back and fallen into the tub, had the older man not reached for him again—and reared back to punch him square in the face.
That blow never landed.
In the next instant, a smaller body was forcing itself in between him and the kid, and the only other thing Joel could see through his own blinding rage were your two eyes—wide and panicked and horror-stricken, clearly.
“JOEL.”
Still not prepared to retreat, Joel reached out again.
Your hand knocked his down in a blink. Hard.
“J— Dad. Dad. Stop. Please don’t hit him.”
Suddenly, that tone was approaching a plea. You must’ve caught a glimpse of the rage pulsing through his veins and sensed it might’ve been too much for him to control—but of course, Joel knew better. He could always stop.
He stepped off and turned to you at once, teeth bared.
“How the fuck could you even—” he started again.
“I’m sorry, dad,” you broke in, words sounding like a sob, “It’s not his fault. Really. I— I didn’t mean for you to see.”
Sucking some other guy’s cock. Yeah, of course not.
Joel’s face flared with an anger unlike anything he’d felt in years, and if it weren’t for the skittish sack of shit stumbling away, and the warning that was starting to radiate off your skin, he would’ve liked to knock him out.
He might’ve, if the kid hadn’t run out of the room.
If you hadn’t turned slightly, he might’ve yelled again.
And then he saw it, from where you’d pivoted—the toilet.
Sitting on the smooth white porcelain lid in three thick stripes, the sight greeted him like a punch in the gut.
He wasn’t sure what it meant for an excruciating second. He stared. Then he processed what that substance was.
You’d been crouched over the toilet doing a line of coke.
He wanted to feel relief. For a moment, maybe, he did.
When your eyes narrowed on his and you shook your head in a scowl, it didn’t feel like he should be happy. Or ready to celebrate this latest discovery. Instead, realizing that you hadn’t been blowing a guy in this bathroom but were simply doing drugs in front of him, Joel felt bile jump up his throat. It was like a knot the size of his fist, and he wasn’t sure how to react, but he couldn’t stand that look on your face. You were just as angry as him.
“What the hell was that all about, Joel?!” you snapped.
He opened his mouth to speak, but you cut back in:
“Sorry, sorry—I mean ‘dad.’ You fucking asshole.”
“And this is why you up and left?” Joel hissed.
“I just—”
“Do you realize how dangerous that is?”
“I didn’t—”
“What that could’ve been laced with?”
He pointed to the cocaine on the lid of the toilet—apparently there hadn’t been enough space on the skinny porcelain sink to set up your lines—and at the same time, to Joel’s amazement, you sank to your knees.
“Well, I don’t know, dad, why don’t we test some out?”
And then you swiped a casual touch through a line and lifted your index to your mouth. With your other hand, you pulled at your bottom lip a little, and were evidently about to test your drugs the old fashioned way: by rubbing the powder against your gums to see if it made them numb. Joel swatted at your wrist before you did.
“Don’t,” he growled. Without even realizing it, he reached and grabbed your chin. His fingers engulfed half your face in an authoritative, upward-tilting grip. “Put that stuff anywhere near your mouth, and you will regret it.”
That didn’t seem to stir you, but your hand stayed put.
Joel stepped away just as quickly. He went to the door.
He shut it.
And when he returned, you hadn’t moved from where you’d been knelt. He was glad. Something quiet and dull throbbed between his ears, though he wasn’t recovered enough from the shock of the last few minutes to really investigate that. He just stood back over you, frowning.
His voice was lower when he spoke again:
“What am I gonna do with you, honey?”
It was a question as much for himself as it was for you, and your lips twitched at the end of it. You shrugged, and you sank back onto your heels, peering up as you did.
“You thought—” you started, soft.
“I thought you were in here blowin’ that little shit.”
Your smile split into a grin. Your eyes glistened.
“Is that so?”
Joel didn’t have the strength or the presence of mind to answer, so instead, he just nodded. His scowl deepened.
“You and me,” he resumed, having just exhaled a breath, “We’re gonna have ourselves a little chat later. Got that?”
And he meant it. Not just about drugs and other men and the dangers of accepting cocaine from strangers. He had more to tell you tonight than his overwrought mind was likely capable of sharing right now, but he’d say it.
Soon.
Eventually.
Once he got this bulge in his slacks sorted out.
With you, it was never a conscious decision, and it rarely ever occurred at times it was appropriate to happen. Like when your friends and their family and half of the Pike fraternity weren’t all milling about around this house. When he hadn’t almost decked a kid for giving you coke.
When you weren’t shuffling on your knees to greet the growing erection in his pants with a grin on your face.
“Will this ‘chat’ come before or after you fuck Maya?”
That was it.
Joel seized hold of your head again—this time, from the back. One palm rounded the base of your skull and yanked your face forward, mushing your nose and your lips against the fabric of his pants in an obscene sort of kiss. He made you rub your face against the hardened tent there, and he groaned when you whimpered. The reverberations of it traveled from his groin to his brain in two milliseconds flat and made him think insane things.
Like having your mouth right now.
Taking from you here what he thought he’d almost lost.
The sight of your head hovering anywhere near another man’s crotch made it crystal-clear to him, though he’d known it well before: he wanted you. He needed to have you. How you could even crack the joke about a shred of his attention being elsewhere had him tightening his hand in a fist in your hair. He didn’t care if it felt wrong.
“You know what girls like Maya can do for me?” he said.
He tilted your head back so your gaze could find his. He didn’t let you answer, but he let you stare for a second, and then he worked your pretty parted lips over the front of his slacks again. He let the taut grey fabric tease the cusp of that opening, tasting a bit, before drawing back.
“That’s right,” Joel went on as if you’d just responded, “Nothing. Absolutely fuckin’ nothing. Open your mouth.”
And you did. Wider. From the look of it, there was spit pooling inside, and your tongue hovered just within it when your lips met the front of his pants. You cupped your mouth around his clothed erection and kissed it.
Your eyes were locked on his as you did. The sight felt extra obscene—Joel couldn’t ignore the fact that he was dressed in near-formal attire, and you had on jeans and a tight cropped tank. He looked polished and professional; you were a beaming pretty thing making space between his legs to kneel. You felt like a dream with your lips over his swollen, aching cock; Joel felt old. Paternal, almost.
Was it wrong to think you needed to be taught a lesson?
Of course it was. He wasn’t your dad. He didn’t do that.
But when you smiled up at him with your lips still brushing his straining bulge, Joel couldn’t resist the smallest impulse to wonder—what if he showed you?
What if he let you know exactly what he wanted, how he needed it done, and that he only ever craved it from you? If he couldn’t say it outright in words, he could guide you.
Teach you.
Your tongue traced the seam of his zip, and he groaned.
“Damn near gave your old man a stroke, y’know that?”
“I know,” you said softly. Kindly, “I’m sorry, daddy.”
His cock throbbed at that last affectionate word.
His hands couldn’t help themselves: one stayed planted on the back of your head, and the other made its way to his belt. He undid his buckle, button, and zip in a blink.
“And what was that prick’s name?” Joel grumbled.
“Gavin.”
Your mind seemed two million miles away from any shit-brained fratboy at the moment as your gaze fixed itself on the length he was working out of his pants just then.
When it bobbed out and got within an inch of your rapt expression, your lips parted on instinct; you leaned in.
Swiftly, Joel’s hand on your head halted the movement.
“Gavin, huh,” he returned, tone treading on patronizing. He knew you were salivating for that little pearl on his tip. He gripped your hair hard. “This what you’d do for him?”
You whimpered.
“No, daddy. No, just— just you.”
Joel hummed his approval but didn’t let you move. He watched you eye the head of his cock like there was no single sight more appetizing in the world, and then he saw you lick your lips. You’d get positive reinforcement.
He would take things slow, and by the end of it all, he hoped to have made it clear that this was what he wanted: you, and only you. That he didn’t want you doing this with anyone else other than him. Here, now, or ever.
The last was a lot to say, so he fed you an inch instead.
He let his cock slide between your lips and stretch them.
You breathed something soft and sweet at the first intrusion of his tip; your mouth cushioned that inch, and his head was immediately enveloped in warmth. Your tongue darted out to greet him in a gentle lick. Joel groaned again, and his fingers constricted in your hair.
“That’s it, honey,” he told you, “Suck on daddy.”
His hips hadn’t meant to jump, but the pleasure from just the cusp of your mouth was too much for him not to flinch a little. He stabbed another couple inches in that pliant ‘o’ and felt you work your jaw open to take him whole. You looked so obedient. You were doing so good.
You bobbed your head gently, and his hand didn’t need to coax you at all. You were hungry, mouth sliding up and down his thick, throbbing dick and leaving trails of spit in its wake. You wanted to please him now; he could feel it.
You had no idea what you did to him. All he wanted now. It was like trying to explain a color in words, and all the man could do was just hold your head in place and watch you take him. When your back straightened and one palm braced itself up against his thigh, the other about to curl around the base of his length, he shook his head.
He brushed that hand away and made it rest on his other leg, so you were left with just your mouth around him.
You peered up, confused. Joel was, too.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew he had to lead the way. Make you see what he wanted you to by guiding your motions and filling your mouth the way he needed. He tried as much by shifting his left hand to meet the right at the back of your head. Gently, he pushed your face forward to suck more in.
“Breathe through your nose, baby. Wanna feel you.”
Feel you deeper, he should’ve said. Either way, it made for a slow and painstaking slide down your tongue—sensing you flatten it and inhale a shallow breath as he worked his way in—and at the stretch, you gagged a bit.
Joel eased up, just enough to let you flit your gaze to his.
“You wanna feel me, too, sweetheart?” he asked gently.
You nodded, mouth still full of cock. Your eyes glistened in a way that said you might’ve guessed there was more to it, but you weren’t exactly in a position to ask just what. You let the fingers of both his big hands splay against the back of your head, and your jaw slackened more. Your gaze stayed on his as his cock slid deeper.
In that, there was wordless, tranquil reprieve. The sight of his spit-soaked length stuffing your mouth, skin all shiny and wet, and the way he kept going further and further and further, until your soft pert nose grazed the hairs of his belly, made Joel’s member swell harder still. There was scarcely an inch in between your lips and his heft of stomach. Your eyes were still fixed on him, and as the seconds ticked by, there was moisture welling at the corners. Joel moved his hands to thumb at those tears.
“Good girl. You’re doin’ so good for daddy,” he praised.
And something stirred in the depths of his body when he felt you try to nod again, like you were thrilled to be giving him pleasure and wanted to show it in some way.
Joel could’ve stayed like that for hours if his dick would only have let him. As it was, though, he felt the stir in his stomach accompanied by something else—a familiar pinch, and a warning jolt of pleasure. He cursed quietly.
You’d just started. He’d barely got an inch down your—
“Fuck,” he cursed again, when he sensed you swallow around his dick. The head of himself was breaching somewhere deep within your throat, and he felt it.
This wasn’t what he’d planned. You’d taken him deep before—at your father’s birthday bash last month, actually—but then you’d been blowing him under a table. He couldn’t hold your gaze or watch your throat open around him, couldn’t see the minuscule wince in your eyes or try to brush that discomfited look aside with his thumbs in the way he could now. He felt it in the pit of his gut, though: he would burst if he didn’t slow down.
With that one grounding thought, Joel tried pulling out.
Your body below him responded in sharp protest.
‘Daddy, no’ seemed almost to jump off your tongue, though it was presently weighted down by his cock. Your nails worked deeper into the fabric of his pants, like the tight, possessive grip was all you could manage to let your intentions be known to him. Then the look flared in your irises, too. They were begging him to stay in place.
Joel obeyed. Though it was you on your knees for him, lips, tongue, and throat pulsing and sucking to give him the utmost pleasure, he felt pangs of powerlessness, too.
He couldn’t help it when your lips stretched more, when your mouth opened wider, and your throat took him in all the way. He was fucked. He let out a sharp, hoarse grunt to let you know as much, and he cursed out loud again.
And then, completely axing his every well-laid plan, Joel felt the first rope of cum unload from his throbbing tip. Then another. And another. And another hot flurry of pleasure cropped up from that place your mouth was presently attached to him, and this time, the wave was too much to be overcome. The whole thing flooded him.
Without a hope of beating out that primal instinct, Joel just cupped your face in his palms and let his climax fill your throat. He couldn’t think, and while you seemed a tad surprised at how early it came, you didn’t fight it, either. You simply sat back, peered up, and let him fuck your mouth in the gentlest, most desperate thrusts, mind likely eager to feel his spend paint your open throat.
You hardly had to swallow at all—hardly could swallow, with how deep he’d gone. His cum jetted in milky strings through your plush, wet channel, and Joel could feel it gliding down with just a moment’s hitch of resistance.
Impaled as you were, you gagged once, and he withdrew in the next instant. He didn’t wait for you to catch your breath or for his cum to get down inside you. He felt too much to be troubled now; he yanked you to your feet and drew you into him. He pushed you back against the sink.
Your legs latched around the backs of his, and your body was thrust against the mirror. It was tender, somehow. Joel didn’t fight to claim your lips or invade your mouth with stifling kisses; he just pressed you to the reflective glass and hedged you in under him. He kissed you gently.
In between movements against your body, he mumbled:
“I’m sick of missin’ you all the damn time, sweet pea.”
He wasn’t sure where it came from. It just came.
Much like he had, except the stringy ropes of cum that had spurted from his dick seemed far less of a mess than whatever the fuck was coming out of his mouth right now. He felt exposed as soon as he’d spoken it you.
Then he saw your lips twitch. You kissed him back.
Someplace within where your mouth slotted over his, you were able to get out a couple murmured words yourself.
“I wish you didn’t have to,” you returned in a whisper.
You snaked your arms around the back of his neck and kept kissing him, over and over again, like your body was just starting to melt, and the heat was making you dizzy.
Joel could relate. Every time you touched him, he felt it.
He gripped your legs where they were still curled around his sides, and he held you tighter to him. He pressed his torso to yours until he was half-sure he was hampering your breaths, and then he pulled back. Briefly. Panting.
When he opened his mouth to speak, you cut in for him:
“I wish you could…be here. I wish we didn’t have to…”
Hide.
Your mouth seemed to have your mind and your usual reservations beat by a mile. It was moving fast, like his. Before you could stop yourself, your thighs constricted around his hips, you pulled him in closer, and just as you were about to finish that last quick, splintered thought—
“We’re leeeeeeeeav—OH! Shit!”
Aly Ingram’s sing-song tone was shortly supplanted by a shriek. She’d thrown open the door, unannounced, and when she saw the two of you collapsed against the sink, Joel’s undone pants hanging precariously over his hips and your mouths scarcely two inches apart, she jolted.
Or jumped, really.
She almost leapt through her skin, it seemed, and before she could even begin to recover, she just slapped her hands over her eyes and stumbled back. She was drunk.
“I didn’t see that! I did not seeee—”
“Aly!” you half-hissed, half-groaned.
“I literally didn’t see shit. You’re all g—”
Before either you or Joel could utter another sound, or attempt to split apart, Aly let out a second shrill yelp. This time, it was because she’d just tripped over a trash can backing out. She’d only very narrowly regained her bearings, had grabbed hold of the doorknob and was dragging the door shut, when the girl all but sang again:
“Have fun, be safe! Don’t make babies!!”
Joel scarcely knew how to react to that.
As it turned out, your roommate was open-minded.
Ply her with four or five shots of tequila and a couple High Noons, and she’d probably believe the moon was made of cheese if you told her in a serious enough tone.
But your goal tonight hadn’t been to convince her of a lie—it was to get a big, ugly truth off your chest that you’d been hoping to keep under wraps this entire weekend.
Now, after getting caught with your fake stepfather’s jizz drying in your throat, you had had to come clean about this thing. It wasn’t a story you’d wanted to tell, but it was one that needed sharing given the circumstances.
Aly had laughed her ass off when you told her everything.
Blame it on the strobe lights, the thumping music, or the thick, fetid air of the bar you’d just arrived at, but Aly had laughed a lot. She’d squeezed her eyes shut and slapped the tabletop beside her, like that was the single most insane thing she’d ever heard, and why don’t you write her a How-To? She’d love some tips on boning old men.
“He’s not that old!” you’d protested over your beverage.
She’d bought the drink. She said news like this was cause for celebration, and you couldn’t deny that. Smiling as you spoke, you figured this was good.
In fact, you thought getting caught by your closest friend was one of the best things that could’ve happened, all things considered, because now you knew at least one person was supportive and in your corner regarding Joel. On top of that, you had someone to help cover your ass—if a touch or a look between you two was too suspect, she’d tell you. From the second your group had Ubered to the bar, she’d been keen to see you close…though not too close. Presently, she grinned and squeezed your leg.
“I think you two would make a damn cute couple.”
“Huh?” You had to shout over the music to be heard.
“A cute couple!”
“Come again?”
You were really trying your best, but the blare of Bon Jovi overhead was a bit too much. You leaned in closer to her.
“YOU AND JOEL WOULD MAKE A CUTE COUPLE!”
And, as if on cue, Joel and Aly’s father reappeared at the table, holding the drinks they’d left to buy. Thankfully, the volume in the room was near-deafening, and neither seemed to have heard a word of hers. Scott was nursing some bottom shelf whiskey concoction while Joel double-fisted two shitty beers beside him. You had to admit, the latter looked good from where you sat: one more button was popped on his icy white shirt and a smile was plastered on his face, eyes straying to you more often than they should. The moment after that, you were doubly grateful for the blast of ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ in this bar—the next thing you knew, Joel was dropping his head casually and murmuring in your ear,
“Aly sure likes to stare, doesn’t she?”
Followed shortly by:
“Wanna give her somethin’ to watch?”
He was clearly joking. Your cheeks warmed anyway. Then, when he started to lift his head, he left a quick, parting kiss to your temple that could’ve been construed as a paternal gesture. To anyone else but you, him, and Aly, it likely was. Your gaze slid from Joel’s face to his forearms, where the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. He smelled like pine, sweat, and Natty Light, and you were just about to tell him that somehow that combo worked for him, when Scott interposed, loud as hell.
“You ask her yet?!” he bellowed.
He knocked shoulders with Joel in a playful way, and the pair nearly stumbled sideways. Scott elbowed his ribs.
“He’s drunk as shit,” Dallas observed idly.
“Well, what’s he—” you began to say.
Before you’d even finished the question, your answer came in the form of Joel nodding, visibly pretty buzzed himself, as he waved his friend off with a shove and a laugh. Scott just grinned bigger as Bon Jovi gave way to Steely Dan over the speakers. Joel leaned back to you.
“Scott invited us to go skiing out in Jackson, Wyoming.”
“He loves planning trips drunk,” Michelle added.
“Like they’re best friends,” Dallas chuckled.
You ignored Aly’s half-concealed smirk on hearing that; you were too stuck on the look Joel was giving you. Like he was drunk, but dead serious—like he’d agreed to this.
Something set for a future date, however nebulous and far-fetched and stupid the idea may have been, made your insides stir a little all the same. You tried tamping it down with another sip of your drink, but you still shared a glance with Joel. He was watching you more intently.
“Is that something you’d wanna do, hon?” he asked.
You might’ve liked to warn him that he was drawing too close—that his breaths were too warm on your cheek and Aly was straightening in her chair, blinking harder—but anything even approaching a remonstrance was evidently never meant to leave your mouth, as the next second had you nudged off your barstool, taken by the hand, and dragged toward the bustling crowd at the center of the room. Scott had suggested dancing; his son had readily agreed and was now leading you out to the crowd himself. You snagged one fleeting look at Joel.
Mr. Ingram had been dying to get out there, apparently. Behind you, the man spun his wife the best he could through the jam-packed dance floor of students and parents bumping their way through the very best of the ‘70s and ‘80s. He took a few graceless turns himself; while Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, and AC/DC reigned supreme over the wide open space, he pulled some mildly impressive moves. More importantly, though, he didn’t give a shit how he looked. This encouraged your group to let loose a little, too, and you somehow found yourself burrowing even further into the sea of people.
Your arms were compressed on either side of you. Your shoulders were bumped, and nudged, and given little more than a quarter of an inch for your chest to expand in the shallowest of breaths. Every pull of your lungs was an effort, and still, you couldn’t help but smile as you ran a quick look over the heads of everyone around. This was fun. Private, even. With dozens of nameless, faceless bodies gyrating in time with the music, you could blend right in. You could pretend that everything was normal.
Even with the press of a familiar form at your back, you could pretend it was just the crowd forcing him there—that Joel had just sauntered in behind you by accident.
It was risky, to be sure. The lights above flashed in bright white bursts, undulating with every pulse of the song being played, and it wasn’t too far from you that Aly and all the rest of them were strewn throughout the crowd.
But Joel hadn’t seemed to have noticed. Beneath the myriad limbs of the bargoers around you and him, he moved a hand to your waist. It hovered precariously for half a second, then tightened. It drew you closer to him.
You tried to push it away on instinct, heart jumping in your throat: what if Scott or Michelle or anyone else turned their heads at that moment and found him touching you there? What if the grasp their eyes caught wasn’t the wholesome, blameless kind that was meant to be shared between stepfather and stepdaughter? Who the hell was supposed to do the explaining to them then?
Clearly Joel wasn’t all that concerned about it; he slid his palm back up your side and gripped your hip hard after you’d nudged him off. He took a daring step forward, and you could feel him shake his head behind you. Smiling.
“And if I made a joke about father-daughter dances—”
“I would kill you with my two bare hands, Miller.”
Your backside glanced off his front. It wasn’t so much a deliberate move on your part but a byproduct of the rhythm. Some soft rock song was coming to an end, and your body rolled gently with his. The friction was minimal. This kind of proximity was easy to be explained away, if Dallas ever happened to look in your direction—
“Joel!”
Something hard pushed into your ass. You had to steel yourself quick, eyes darting furtively about to make sure no one had seen what you’d just felt between your legs. Then you tried wriggling away, off of him, and were rewarded with another hand on your side. It gripped the flesh just above your hipbone with a tender conviction.
Joel’s lips grazed your cheek briefly. His grip loosened.
“See what you do to me?” he murmured, and the fingers that he’d eased around your waist were turning you back.
Facing him now, away from your group. More bodies filled in between you and them, and the force of that influx pushed you closer to Joel. It shoved you together. It almost couldn’t be helped—that was what you kept telling yourself, anyway—when your frame melded to his, and his hands lowered to your hips, and one finger worked its way through your taut, denim belt loop in a manner completely unbecoming of a normal stepfather.
That callused finger held you firm to him with your jeans. It didn’t give an inch, and his eyes on yours did the same.
You were drifting further out. This didn’t matter as much. Anyone who saw you now would just have to guess that you were Joel’s, and Joel’s was yours—if only for now.
Your lips and his were gravitating closer then, too. You were just about to part yours to speak, when one soft, opening sequence broke out in the air, and you groaned.
No fucking way.
An all-too-familiar mid-tempo tune flooded the room and coursed in and out of your skull with a low, rhythmic tick.
It was eerie. Dreamy. Nearly haunting in the way it rang out right here, right now, with Joel’s hold on your sides tightening more and more with every passing second.
You hoped like hell he didn’t know this song, though you were half-certain this was a big hit from back in his day.
When Joel tipped his head back and fell right in step with the swaying cadence, you weren’t left guessing for long. Of course this slick bastard liked George Michael.
Of course he did.
What more of an appropriate song to be dancing to now, other than fucking ‘Father Figure’ of all the throwbacks?
Joel lifted both arms in a half-shimmy, half-slide and flashed a shit-eating grin down at you. It was smug.
‘For one moment, to be warm and naked at my side.’
Joel raised his brows with it, as if hearing the lyrics for the first time and being shocked. He wasn’t, clearly, as he rolled his shoulders in a stupid and seductive way, and dragged you closer to meet his body’s movements.
‘Sometimes I think that you’ll never understand me.’
Right. You would likely never understand Joel Miller.
‘But something tells me together we’d be happy.’
Well…as long as your father didn’t kill him first.
Emboldened by the pre-chorus beat and the ever-increasing swell of people around him, Joel snaked an arm around your waist. He let your body fall in line with his, rolling in gentle sorts of motions until he could find what kind suited you two the best, and he led the way.
When his head dipped to yours, you could feel it coming.
‘I will be your father figure. Put your tiny hand in mine.’
This time Joel was singing along, grin wide on his face. As if to mirror the lyrics, he took your hand and squeezed it. You might’ve rolled your eyes or pulled away when the man leaned down and slid his touch to your wrist. He kissed your palm. Then he kissed it again, sponging his lips to the skin in time with the rhythm of the song. It was both innocent and lewd. Wholesome and sensual.
Something trapped between perverted and polite, like Joel was testing the waters while trying not to make it seem that way at all. You kept moving in time together.
Joel’s other hand held you to him. His fingers flexed.
“You can’t…”
When his grip slid to your ass, you shook your head.
As much as you would’ve liked to indulge the urge that was currently flooding your system, the timing was off. The choice to give in now was wrong, and risky to make.
Your roommate and her family were no more than fifteen feet away. No matter how many strangers stood between you and them, Joel was toeing a dangerous line with his hand lowered to where it was. With his face only inches away and a sly grin spreading on his lips, it was clear he knew better than this. But he was eager to talk.
“You feel that, sweetheart?” he asked softly.
Where that single term of endearment had once made you bristle, you now sensed it warming your insides.
You nodded but were quick to add: “Joel, we can’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because…”
You found yourself trailing off again, just as you felt Joel’s erection grind into your front, somewhere close to the space between your legs. It rubbed right where you needed him. While another stream of airy, dreamlike notes floated out and a tenor’s voice crooned if you ever hunger, hunger for me, you peered up to find Joel deep in contemplation. He didn’t blink when you met his gaze.
Instead, he nudged you sideways. You inhaled a breath, and not long after that, you felt your back pressed to one of the lone barstools sitting at the outskirts of the room. You’d strayed far. And now, away from all the people that you’d come here with, you had two big hands sliding up the sides of your body. Cupping your face. Guiding your mouth to meet a warmer, more desperate set of lips than you’d ever been expecting to find. Joel’s kiss was rough.
It was open and aching—a wound not willing to be soothed by anything other than your tongue on his. Swiftly, he coaxed your jaw open and slid in. He licked in. He practically panted into your mouth, fingertips carving crescents in your cheeks from just how hard he was holding your face. He didn’t let up, and that hunger bled from his lips to yours. You felt a heady wave wash over your brain, and at the same time, your thighs tensed.
You pulled away.
Your lips were bitten numb. Your cunt was throbbing.
While your pulse thundered through your ears like a fucking kickdrum, your grip loosened on the front of Joel’s shirt, and you started to turn yourself from him.
What you needed to do was leave. What you couldn’t stand was getting caught again, and risk it being someone who wouldn’t take to it as kindly as Aly had.
But even as you walked, you felt a pulsing in your skull.
Between your legs, the feeling was worse, like there was something thrumming a frantic beat in that precious and defenseless place that you knew was needing him most. You were weak. You swiped a hand over your mouth like that would do anything, and you kept walking, knowing how closely Joel would be following you all the way out.
On such a clear, frigid night, the air outside should’ve been a relief. Instead, your pulse hammered and swelled. Your cheeks burned. You could’ve ground your teeth so hard that you cracked enamel, and it still wouldn’t have been enough to bite back the words inside your throat.
You turned to Joel wanting to tell him no. The expression that met yours said he was expecting as much—and was preparing to object—when you swiftly cut him off again.
It should end there. Nothing good ever came of you shedding your inhibitions or clothes with Joel Miller.
He reached out; you winced. You shouldn’t say it.
“Let’s go home, Joel.”
You were running again.
You’d nearly knocked him to the floor the second he’d turned the key in the door of his dingy little motel room, lips frantic over his and hands making fists in his shirt. It was exactly what he’d been hoping to see—part of why he’d booked this place and made the drive that weekend, to have you cradled in his arms again—but as he crossed the threshold with you all over him, Joel grew unsettled.
He couldn’t quite place the feeling, but something told him that you were only here to escape an unsavory urge. Like he was a bad habit to be flooded from your system.
You seemed to say it with every motion of your hands: skating down his front, clawing at the buttons, busying themselves with quickly trying to rid him of the fabric while your eyes stayed trained anywhere but on his face. It stung. Normally Joel wasn’t the type to ruminate on the reasons why a girl might be tearing his clothes off, but tonight, with you, this wasn’t what he usually did.
The ache unfurling in his chest wasn’t the kind to be imparted by just anyone, he kept reminding himself.
Which was why he took hold of both your wrists. Tightly. Just as you were about to try and peel his shirt from his shoulders and expose the whole naked expanse of his chest, he stopped you. He swallowed as you groaned.
“Joel.”
“You didn’t want me kissin’ you at all back there.”
In the bar, outside the building, in the car ride over here. You’d scarcely let him hold you for half a minute before begging to be taken home, and now that you were inside this room, alone, now you wanted to be touched by him.
Joel tried not to feel stupid saying it aloud, but hell, he felt pretty fucking pathetic peering down at you then.
You shook your head. Took a small step back from him.
“Yeah. Trying not to get us caught again, remember?”
And when you backed off, you stayed off, if only to start unfastening the little straps of your top and kick your shoes off your feet. You made your way over to the king-sized bed at the center of the room and sat down. Joel took off his own shoes but didn’t follow, opting instead to rest his weight on the old TV stand across from you.
He planted his hands on the hardwood surface on either side of him, watched you shuffle to the edge of the bed, and had to steel himself when the next pieces of clothing came sliding off your body. You were lifting your shirt over your head, then dragging your jeans down your legs.
Before you were stripped bare, Joel cleared his throat.
“I said we were gonna have a little chat later, too.”
He sounded like a dad. This really had to stop.
Instead of following his lead, you only kicked your pants off at your feet and leaned back. Joel approached the bed, and you greeted him with a coquettish look, like you already knew where this was going. But you couldn’t.
Joel made sure that you wouldn’t when he cupped your chin in his hand and made you tilt your face up to him.
“Honey,” he started, stern, while you reached for his belt.
You’d almost succeeded in threading your fingers through the leather and tugging it loose when Joel’s grip drew tighter. He jerked your chin up in a pinch, ignoring the roll of your eyes, and for yet another beat, he felt that obscure urge to discipline you again. Like you needed it.
If he could just control himself and play things right…
“Listen, I’m not trying to be your father.”
Wait. No. That came out wrong.
Your eyes widened some.
“Oh, really, daddy?”
Well, shit.
Joel straightened where he stood and tried not to puff out his chest like an old father-type might do, but the effort was useless—everything the man said and did was like the fucking calling card of a patriarch. He scrubbed a hand over his face and pretended not to see you grin up at him, your gaze bright and fiery as the Fourth of July.
He could hold important conversations and still not try to jump your bones immediately. He could control himself. He could slap on a semi-austere look and just tell you.
“I love you, you know that, right?” he blurted out.
Your eyes widened again, this time in alarm.
“Christ, Joel.”
You were sliding back on the bed. Shaking your head and pursing your lips in a grimace like this wasn’t happening.
“We’re not doing this again,” you added in a grave voice.
Joel was already making his way up after you—again, like a fucking moron, he felt—crawling on hands and knees across the moth-eaten, coral-colored bedspread and trying not to panic and failing miserably, per usual.
“‘S’alright if you don’t wanna say it back, I just—”
“I didn’t mean to say it in the first place, Joel!”
But there was a strain in your words. Denial.
You were working in earnest not to expose that sliver of self that wanted him, too. Joel could feel it. He planted his knees on the mattress and met you closer to the headboard, where your breaths were coming in faster. You shook your head, but you also didn’t stop him when he drew in even closer and lowered his body to yours.
He was hovering, almost.
Just as he’d been poised above your soft, beaming face all those weeks back in some little podunk town—at Balmaceda’s Mountain Lodge, where you’d been stuck together, only to fuck each other for the first time that night—he pressed a touch to your side. He rubbed his thumb just over your hipbone, where the panties you had on still clung to your skin, and he watched you tense up.
It was like before, only worse: now you knew his touch, and he knew yours, but there was a dread in your eyes.
As if you couldn’t stand to be under him, you slid back.
“Joel, please…don’t,” you murmured hoarsely.
“Don’t what?” His stomach dropped.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
That he loved you?
Joel never thought one string of words could hurt him so much, but there it was. While his heart unwound and his ego met with a swift and unceremonious death, he felt something like agitation twist inside him, too. Cruelly.
This was what he’d come this whole way to tell you.
The man could handle rejection; that wasn’t the problem. What bothered him now was how unflinchingly committed you seemed to misunderstand his intentions. Something surged in his chest again, and this time, it wasn’t all hurt—it was anger, too. Why you refused to accept that someone might love you was beyond him.
He didn’t reach for you again or crowd you further, but he raked a hand through his hair and heaved a hard sigh.
“Why won’t you believe me?” This time pleading.
“It’s not that I won’t—I just can’t, Joel. I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
You started to speak, but then that balloon of rage swelled bigger in his chest, and it wasn’t meant to be directed at you—it was only meant for himself, why wasn’t he enough—and he spit the words like venom.
“Haven’t I shown you that I mean it? That I— I— I care? I’m here. I came to see you. I’m telling you that I love you. How else am I supposed to show the woman I love that I care when you won’t let me in an inch, except when—”
“Except when you’re seven deep in me?” you scoffed.
It was bitter and derisive, and you slid farther back.
“For Christ’s sake,” Joel gritted through his teeth.
He didn’t even wait for you to interject, as he came back: “Is that all you think of me? Is that what I am to you?”
His voice was loud, and he hadn’t meant for it to be.
He was pushing off the bed, watching you sit back.
“I just think it’s real convenient,” you snapped again, “Betraying my trust by not telling me about dad’s affair, finding me in a weak moment, letting me believe you feel the same so you don’t have to deal with this…this…guilt.”
Joel couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You think I did all of this out of pity?”
“I think you’re trying to be a—”
“That I would lie about it?”
His heart rate was spiking. He felt his pulse thudding in his ears as he stalked around the footboard and scowled.
“Joel, I—”
“No.” He shook his head hard. He was sincerely trying not to fit the bill for ‘hot-headed, explosively angry father,’ but the efforts he made seemed all in vain. Joel could hardly talk now without raising his voice to a shout.
“I have—” he started, only to stop himself, swallowing.
His throat ached, and he almost choked on his words.
“I have been in love with you this whole fuckin’ time!”
His eyes burned. The sound came out angry, hoarse. Maybe he was; he just couldn’t contain it anymore. Silence filled the open space, and time distended.
He couldn’t stand the way you wouldn’t believe him, even now, as you straightened and shook your head.
“No, you haven’t.”
“I have.”
“You don’t mean—”
“You don’t get to tell me what I mean!”
He stared back and watched your gaze erupt in ire. Indignation. Lips drawing tight and teeth baring and hands gripping the bedspread beside you, as if enraged.
“I do. I can. You’re— you’re full of shit.”
Your words made him want to hurl something at a wall.
“Am I?!” he bellowed.
“Yes!” you spat.
“How can you say that?!”
And, without meaning to, Joel’s knee hit the side of the nightstand while he turned abruptly from you. The whole thing shook; the lamp nearly toppled, and the man immediately reached for it, then out to you. The gesture was a reflexive apology, but you responded by shoving his hands off. An angry sound racked through your body as you moved from him—“You—you don’t mean it, Joel.”
“I do. I mean it. Believe me, I do.”
That sound from his chest could’ve been half a sob.
He reached for you again, knees sinking with the springs of the mattress beneath him, and you shuffled further back. Your movements slowed. Suddenly, Joel’s stopped.
He couldn’t see it without a wince—your hands shaking. Your fingers tried making fists but failed, and in an effort to conceal the fear they held, you seized the comforter.
His throat ached, and that pain only soared in a second.
“You can’t…you can’t mean it if I’m just a secret to you.” Your tone was a rasp. The lips that spoke it were curled, revealing teeth still gritted. Eyes filling with more tears, “You can’t say you love me if…if you’re just gonna leave.”
By the end of it, your words were ground to a murmur. Your voice was hushed and slow and begging to be spared notice, as though every syllable hurt to say.
Your bottom lip was quivering too. He knew you were kicking yourself for it—could see the embarrassment etched into your gaze as you blinked back nothing, then one, then two, then a barrage of slow, hot tears—but no matter what you did to fight it off, your body trembled.
The whole thing was practically vibrating with hurt. Humiliation and anger had evidently joined the mix, and before he could even think to speak, you mumbled again:
“You’re gonna leave me, Joel.”
The hurt wouldn’t stop.
“You don’t love me.”
Your voice cracked to continue, pain clinched with a sob.
“You can’t.”
In the look that met his, he saw a wall of warring fears. It wasn’t all for him, either. There were wounds that were the work of years beneath the surface of your skin, ones entrenched in flesh since long before he’d ever known you or laid a finger on that part himself. It started young.
Your lashes battled to keep the tears at bay, but the floodgates had opened. Your secret was gone. There was no sense in feigning indifference when the truth was laid bare—that you didn’t deem yourself worthy of love, and likely never had. Regardless, you worked hard not to cry. You scrunched your nose, mashed your lips together, and stared anywhere but him, and the tears kept flowing. Gently, but without slowing, they streaked down in turn.
“No, sweet pea, I love you. I love you. I ain’t leavin’.”
It was all Joel could do to keep his own vision clear.
He already knew you wouldn’t believe him, but that didn’t stop him from saying the words all the same.
“I— I said it first,” he went on, words tumbling out.
You turned wet, sad eyes to him in utter silence, and that made him want to ramble on forever. As long as it took.
“At the fair, a month before you ever said it, I was trying to tell you I loved you then. You ran off before I could.”
That was the truth.
If Joel had any hope of regaining your trust, it would need to start there. And out of one truth came another.
“I already knew I loved you before that. I would’ve said it, except it just felt wrong, with all that…that stuff I knew.”
He meant knowing about his best friend, your father, and his little rekindled romance with his former mistress. It wasn’t right, keeping you in the dark about something like that, but he also hadn’t wanted to hurt you. There was more to the story that complicated things further, and frankly, Joel had been too swept up in the novelty of this thing you two had had to choose the smarter path.
That didn’t excuse what he did. Hell, it only hurt him worse seeing your eyes gloss over and stay fixed on his.
Knowing you’d trusted him not to hurt you—and he had.
If you didn’t accept what he told you now, he wouldn’t fault you for it. All he could do was slide off the bed and pull you to a perch on the edge, while he planted himself on the carpeted floor and kneeled in between your legs.
Cupping your tear-stained face in his hands, pleading:
“Baby.”
You blinked back at him but ventured nothing.
“Sweet pea, I am not keeping you a secret.”
A beat.
“I’m not leavin’. I want more—need more.”
And for some reason, that felt like a weightier admission than he’d even thought possible. He wasn’t good at this.
He wasn’t quite cut of a cloth to know just how to soothe you and make things right, but he did know that holding you felt right to him. So he did. He rubbed his thumbs in little circles over your warm, wet, puffy cheeks, and he pulled your face closer to his. He held your gaze and watched an internal war wage somewhere far behind your eyes as you tried to contend with this new feeling—that of being wanted and needed and loved as you were.
You sniffled between his two broad palms.
“I want you to stay,” you said softly.
Joel’s heart hammered at that.
He couldn’t hope to leave out the rest. He let go of your face then and felt an irresistible urge to go on, even if it was much too soon and he had meant to show you later. As stupid as the idea had been, he’d already made it, and there was no going back anyhow. He would tell you here.
He reached in his pocket for his wallet. He broke your gaze momentarily to take it out, flip it open, and then card his fingers through the bills a few aching moments before pulling it out—the thing he’d wanted to show you.
When he held it up, a set, he flitted a quick look to what he’d lifted between you and him, as if the sight might give him answers on what to say. Sadly, nothing came.
Joel was totally on his own in explaining what this was. Lucky for him, though, you didn’t seem keen to judge.
“They’re…they’re tickets,” he started. Stupid.
You raised a brow, trying to read, and he forged ahead. Just as the words first appeared to register in your mind, and the faintest look of shock took shape, he hurried out:
“Billy Joel’s got a show comin’ up in Austin this June. I…I thought— well, I hoped, I guess, that maybe we could…”
Spit it out, Miller.
Spit. It. Out.
He frowned.
“I’m no good at this. Sorry. I wanted us to go…together.”
And then…
“And I want your dad to know about us before then.”
There it is.
The last lynchpin in the man’s resolve was gone. He’d said it. There was no turning back from what he’d offered, or what it required, and now you knew he wanted things to be real and committed. Serious.
Terrifying.
Your eyes remained fixed on his. For a second, that look, and your whole upper half, appeared so still Joel thought you might’ve stopped breathing altogether. You blinked. Glancing down at the tickets in his hand and batting your lashes again, as if you weren’t quite sure how to answer.
Then, at last, he heard a sharp inhale—Or was it an exhale? He couldn’t tell—and before he could blink back or wonder so much as a thought, the breath was battered out of his own chest. You rushed him.
You’d moved so fast, hugged him so quick, Joel scarcely knew what was what until he felt your arms snake around his neck. You joined him on the filthy, soiled floor and dropped your knees on either side of his body in a kind of straddling hug. It was as swift as it was unexpected, and it took him a second to adjust. But no longer than that.
Joel was relieved to feel your warmth. Squeezing him. Choking him, almost. He didn’t think you’d ever held him that hard in his life, so he did all he could to soak it in.
It was only when he heard another sob that he paused.
“You…you want to?” Your voice was tiny against him.
“‘Course I do, darlin’,” Joel answered in a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He cupped the back of your head to him and held you tighter, “Of course I do.”
Then, because the impulse struck again: “I love you.”
He didn’t need you to say it back; a look was enough. When you drew back and met his gaze, eyes still doused with tears but smiling faintly at him, Joel was content to see your acceptance. Allowing love in in some small way.
And when your lips succeeded that look, meeting his in a soft kiss, and your body shifted up toward the bed, he didn’t protest. He kissed you back. Joel didn’t have to have love spelled out in words for him to feel what you meant. You said it gently, but somehow with even more force than when you’d stumbled into this room together, touch beckoning him in as you laid back on the mattress.
Admittedly, every inch of this place was seedy. On such short notice Joel hadn’t had much of a pick among his choice of accommodations, and the shortage showed. Still, when you slid up that old, worn bed and stretched yourself in wordless welcome, he couldn’t have asked for more. He only wished that he could give you more, but for right now, at least, that was out of the question. He leaned in and found your lips like second nature, slotting between your thighs and kissing you harder. The concert tickets had shortly been cast aside on the night stand.
“I love you.”
It slipped out again, and Joel didn’t care. His tongue chanced past the seam of your lips and, once inside, explored every contour, ridge, and crevice it could find.
While he did, a touch palmed your breasts over your bra. Your skin was warm; gaze soft, the last he’d seen of it. The scent of you rose to greet him like a mist of some wild intoxicant: citrus, mint, a tinge of sweat, and a liter of your favorite fruity drink, if he’d had to guess. You flooded his senses. It wasn’t enough for him simply to hold flesh in his hands and explore your body with his lips and tongue; Joel wanted to consume something more, though he hardly had the words to articulate it.
You unclasped your bra just as his mouth slid down to your neck. There was a beat—your sharp intake of breath when his teeth met skin and marked it with the tenderest bite—and then your arms reached out. You discarded your bra and bared yourself to him, and when Joel tilted his head to take in the view, he had to groan your name.
There was no other logical route for him to go.
You’d just begun to wind your fingers through his hair when he slid down to greet that newly-exposed place.
“I love you,” he repeated against your skin before drawing one nipple between his lips. He kissed it.
Your grip grew tighter.
“Joel, please.”
His teeth had only reappeared a second to tug the pebbled flesh between them, tongue hungry and wet and laving gently across that hardened peak, when your legs wound around him too. You pulled his body into you.
Joel was helpless to the inducement. His torso fell more heavily to yours and his lips suckled with a vigor that betrayed sheer desperation. He felt it strain in his pants. When he moved from one breast to the other, he heard a wet pop, and the whimper when he re-attached himself was enough to make the bulge he felt swell even bigger. His tongue caressed in laving, measured motions along the curve, and he tried not to grow overly eager from it.
Don’t get too excited. You need time. Lots and lots of—
“Joel,” you exhaled on a particularly harsh press of his mouth. Your ribs heaved with it. “Come— come here.”
He was clambering back up in an instant. The ministrations of his lips that had practically engulfed your skin and smeared it with his saliva were swapped in a blink with them returning to your chin, jaw, and cheeks, planting kisses in between the words he murmured next.
“Yeah? Every—” To the side of your mouth. “Everything OK, sweet pea?” Feeling guilty but also simply needing to calm himself down. “Too fast?” Another to your cheek.
It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t gone too far, too soon before. In fact, it was a pretty regular occurrence with the sex you had. Joel just needed a reset—had to make sure this was alright, and that he could cool down if needed.
He felt a pinch in his groin but ignored it.
Suddenly, your gaze was on his again.
Fingers carded through the sweat-damp, striated tufts of black and silver hair at the sides of his head, and you leaned in closer until your nose and his were touching.
“Here,” you pressed him, low. Need crept into those words, and your grasp constricted. “Stay here, please.”
It was clear you were inviting him back to your lips, to kiss them, so Joel did just that. He bracketed his arms on either side of your head and let his mouth explore as it had before. Where he resumed at equal force, you met him with still more warmth and wanting and open fervor, tongue curling around his in some soft and wordless plea
Below the belt, Joel was throbbing. He didn’t need to reflect long at all to know what that meant. Then your lips parted wider, your ankles dug deeper in the backs of his calves, and your hips started grinding against him.
Dry humping.
Whining at the friction.
“Feels…feels so good, Joel,” you told him breathlessly.
“You like that?” His lower half mimicked the motions.
Need blossomed across your face as the ridge of his cock rubbed in just the right way through his slacks. Something harder than he meant—a thrust, like he was fucking you into the bed—shook your frame, as well as the mattress underneath it. Springs creaked. Metal groaned. Warmth spread, from the pit of his stomach to where your body met his. The movements kept going.
You were slick beneath him. You must have been. Your whines had heightened to punctured gasps and your hips were so desperate, rubbing your barely-clothed core to the front of his pants and brows pinching as if—
You were already expecting this to end.
You didn’t think that he would stay.
“Baby,” Joel panted again.
By now, desire consumed him, but the urge to smooth that tiny crease of worry was coursing just as powerfully. He swallowed, gripped the linens beside your head in one hand a little harder, and opened his mouth to speak.
Another flick of your hips. Another sigh. Another whine.
Another pinch somewhere deep within him, and a groan.
Suddenly, your hands were on his shoulders, sliding up and toward his neck. Your fingers clawed for his hair.
“Joel,” you panted back.
Joel had tried to slow the motions of his lower half to talk, but yours had only sped up to grind yourself against him. He could feel the heat bleeding from you now. Wetness formed and expanded in a patch through your pink cotton panties and likely stained his front, or would.
His cock was swollen stiff and throbbing. Precum pearled at the tip of him, no doubt, and with every jerk of your body, he could feel it smearing and aching to slip in.
He wanted to be inside you. His balls twitched, his stomach ached, and his senses were suffused with you, a white-hot desire to paint your mouth, your skin, or your insides with his cum nearly as strong. But he had to stop.
Then you kissed him.
Joel’s lips were still parted when your mouth found his, kissing him sweetly and without reserve. Your fingers that had threaded through his hair pulled taut. Hard.
Your center slid up the length of his fully clothed cock, and with one more press of your legs, Joel felt you.
He’d never wanted anything more in his life, and still, he fought to speak—to reassure you that he wasn’t leaving.
“Joel—”
“I know, I know. Baby, I—fuck.” His breath hitched in his throat when his bulge pulsated again. His head swam.
With what meager resolve the man still possessed, he ventured another kiss, then drew back. His eyes dropped and searched your expression, half-crazed, and just when the words were taking shape again, you parted your lips and brought them to his. You rolled your hips, balled your fingers into fists through his hair, and with your mouth and his a quarter-inch apart in puckered, pretty ‘O’s, panting with every thrust that shook the bed:
“I love you, Joel.”
It was a breath, and the taste had never felt sweeter.
One more jerk of his hips and you were drawing in once again, panting in his mouth as if to make sure he heard.
“I— I love you. I love you so much,” you murmured, low.
His cum unloaded in thick, hot ropes. He couldn’t stop it.
Joel Miller, at the age, maturity, and level of experience he could boast, had never cum virtually untouched and in his own fucking pants since…he couldn’t remember when. But he was. His spend pulsed out from the head of his cock in dizzying bursts, and his stomach clenched. He gripped the bedspread and let out a guttural groan while he soaked the front of his boxers from inside them.
His dick throbbed and leaked, and his breathing slowed. He mumbled something back, quietly—‘I love you, too.’
Then he pushed up and off of you, out of the bed.
Seconds stretched; he didn’t feel it. Stars burst behind his eyes with every step, and he staggered that path to the bathroom like his life or his pride might depend on it.
As a matter of fact, the damage was already done. He’d jizzed in his pants like an overeager teen getting his dick touched or sucked for the very first time. What was worse, you hadn’t been doing either when he came; you’d told him you loved him, and that was enough.
Enough to make him look like a goddamn idiot, Joel thought without blinking. He kicked the door shut behind him and reached for the zip of his pants.
Sticky. Wet. A whole fucking shitshow below the belt.
He ran the tap. He had his undone slacks and boxers pulled down past his hips, and he was facing the sink in seconds, assessing the extent of the damage. Then his face flushed red at the sight of the sticky, milky mess swarming his groin and he could’ve kicked himself. He settled for yanking a towel out from one of the cubbies beneath the counter and running it under the water. He daubed quick and without much precision, gaze darting to find dozens more clumps of his spend strewn about than he thought possible. He’d cum an absurd amount.
Before he chastised himself, though, he had to pause.
“Joel?”
Your voice was soft. Sometime since he’d unzipped and started scrubbing his crotch in vicious circles, you’d appeared at the door, head peeking around curiously.
You must not have been standing there for long, because you actually drew closer to join him. Feeling comfortable enough in roughly thirty square feet of space, you shut the door again and leaned your hip against the counter.
If Joel didn’t know you better, and he wasn’t already occupied with wiping cum off of his cock and balls, he might’ve searched your face for a smile. A smirk, maybe.
It wasn’t like teasing each other was suddenly off-limits now that Joel was brimming with embarrassment. Half your communication was giving the other shit for little mishaps and quirks, and he expected that his last accident in the bedroom would be no different.
He flinched when you reached out instead.
Hooking your fingers under the waistband of his pants and his plaid boxers, you shuffled in closer to him and let out a breath. You tugged once, twice—gently, so as not to further disrupt the mess or make him wince—and then coaxed the fabric down his legs, lower and lower.
When you peered up at him, Joel couldn’t find so much as a trace of amusement in your eyes or on your lips. You just nudged his slacks to the tiled floor and hummed.
“It’ll be easier if we wash it off in there.”
You nodded to the shower behind him.
Joel turned slightly, as if considering or trying to get a glimpse of the freestanding shower with its wide-open, mildewed curtain seeming to beckon him in, then stopped. He turned back and chucked his towel.
“Alright,” he said while kicking his pants off at the ankles. Talking softly and not meeting your gaze, “That’s fine.”
He pivoted once more to peel his shirt off and make toward the shower by himself, and you surprised him, again, when you bypassed his much larger frame and hopped in first. You slid your panties off and tossed them into the pile of clothes by the sink, and you twisted the knob on the wall. You sidestepped the first stuttered sprays and drew the curtain back in wordless invitation.
Joel hovered, eyes scanning the cramped space.
“I don’t think we’re both gonna fit in here.”
Then, as though to emphasize his point:
“I can wash off by myself. It’s…fine.”
He hadn’t meant it to sound so stilted, but that was just how he felt: stiff and awkward and raw with feelings of recent embarrassment. He tilted his head to the side.
Your head tipped right back, and you raised a brow.
“Just get in, Miller. Freezin’ my fuckin’ ass off.”
And there was a smile: the first one. Faint.
Not mocking, snide, or condescending. Just the kind to usher him in and drag the curtain behind his hulking body, wipe a slick, wet hand over your mouth and grin—‘You do know I’ve seen you naked before, right?’—and that set his mind at ease. He almost smiled himself.
“So you remember that I’m a grower, not a shower.”
Joel cupped his hands over his softening length in faux protective fashion, as if you hadn’t seen the thing dozens of times by now. When he sidled up and cornered you between the soap tray and the shower stream, he found the edges of his lips kicking up a little, unable to help it.
You’d seen him hard, soft, and everything in between—mostly hard when near you. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that you were getting to experience him like this.
That made him lean in closer. Chance another joke.
“Looks like your old man’s stamina has taken a hit, too.”
Joel had meant it to sound playful. Suggestive, even. Instead, it came out dismal and gruff, like he was trying to overcompensate for something he was sorely lacking.
He might’ve wanted to kick himself again, were it not for the next move you pulled on him, which was enough to pluck his thoughts—and his breath—out of his body.
Without wasting a second to pretense or teasing, you simply brushed your hand down his front and touched him, gently. He was softer, smaller, and almost wholly spent from his last exertion; still, you reached and wrapped your fingers around his length with care.
Sparks ignited from the place where you trailed. Joel had to swallow a groan, oversensitive and fairly stunned, and his palm came to rest on the wall behind your head. His chin dipped toward his chest while his gaze dropped too.
He watched you stroke him once, rub your thumb along the tender skin, then bring your left hand to join the mix, carrying a bar of soap with it. You started from the base.
“Baby,” Joel rasped. The muscles of his stomach clenched while you drew circles to spread the soap.
“My old man,” you repeated affectionately.
It was artless and kind. Friendly and gentle. Most every other time he’d been touched where you had him, the hands had meant to arouse, and seek something else. Here, you were trying to help. Clean him sweetly and without concern for yourself while also drawing him in, like you always did. It made his chest hurt—and not in a way totally unconcerning for a man his age. Nonetheless, he leaned into that feeling and shifted his body to yours.
His head and your head were now doused with water, his hovering above so close that little droplets streaked from his chin down your slightly upturned face. Joel could feel you watching him. He flicked his own gaze back to meet yours, and as he did, your palm stroked him from root to tip. His hips jerked involuntarily; he swelled in your grip.
His cock stiffened but still remained far from fully erect. Joel swallowed, anchored his hand harder on the wall, and wished himself a decade or three younger, at least.
“You alright with this?” he muttered.
“With what?” you mumbled back.
Joel sucked in a breath just as your hand, and the soap, slid back down his length, and rubbed casually around it. You assumed a leisurely pace and scrubbed his tummy.
“My body ain’t what it was—”
“And it’s more than enough.”
Suddenly, your eyes weren’t just resting on his but pressing. Piercing. The circles working to clean his skin increased in pace and force, and you set the soap aside. You nudged him closer to the water, but all Joel felt was the urge to draw you with him. The shower stream pelted his chest, his belly, his freshly soaped lower half, and past the suds, a gradually hardening cock. Gradually.
You had him in your hand; you were rinsing him clean. Joel should’ve extended some murmured thanks, a calm and uncalculating touch coming to rest on one of your shoulders while you did him this innocent favor. Your lips twitched. His cock hardened. Then your back was flat on the shower wall, and Joel was hovering over your drenched and naked frame again, only his touch was descending to your hip instead. He held it firmly.
“You could have your pick of any guy—”
“Good thing I only want you.”
Your grip tightened too. Now that you’d scrubbed him clean, you seemed ready to let go in the next second, but old habits died hard. Joel leaned in to nose your cheek.
“That so?” His hand moved from your hip to what he knew would be a scorching heat between your thighs.
Two thick fingers glided through your folds and forced a whimper out of your throat. You were soaking wet, and not just from the shower’s spray. Joel rubbed that slick, delicate seam with all the self-control he could muster in the moment, and he kissed your cheek. Every inch he could feel of you was brimming with warmth and need.
You tilted your chin and caught his lips. You parted your legs and held his almost-fully erect length in your grasp.
“I— I mean it, Joel,” you answered him, surprisingly soft then. You kissed the sides of his mouth while you continued to stroke up and down. “I want you.”
Joel’s hips shifted involuntarily. As if moving of its own volition, his lower half stirred beneath your touch, and shortly, he had your legs spread wider and his body slotting in the gap between. His fingers pushed deeper.
And, just as his hand was all but cupping your mound and the wet heat of your cunt was pulsing against him, Joel slowed. He sucked in a breath and met your gaze.
“How do you want me, sweetheart?” he murmured.
In reply, you gripped his base and guided him closer. Flicked your thumb over the fat, leaking tip and sighed.
“Right…here.”
“Right here?”
Joel hadn’t meant to move you so quickly, but one blink and your hand was off him completely; your back was turned to him, and your ass was pressed flush with his groin. He had to hunch in the tight, wet, fog-infested enclosure with his chin jutting in over your shoulder and his palm splayed over your tummy. He spoke softly again:
“You want daddy in here, pretty girl?”
Your whine was all he needed to hear.
And perhaps it would’ve been wise to wait a beat or two. Work two fingers in and out of your aching cunt, drag his tongue through your folds, or else use his throbbing tip to ease you open for him. Before he could even think to make use of his hands, mouth, or head, though, you were reaching behind and taking him yourself. You pressed a palm to the wall and pushed up on the tips of your toes, and with impatience bleeding through your every movement, you slid back onto him. You did it quickly.
In the absence of adequate foreplay, entry wasn’t swift. Joel almost choked at the feeling of how tight you were around him—how rigid and warm and narrow you felt on that first slide. He planted a grounding hand next to your own out of sheer necessity. He held your hip in his other and swallowed a groan that seemed fit to nearly kill him.
“Sweetheart,” he panted against your neck, “Easy. Easy.”
You tried to nod your understanding but slid up just as fast. From a glimpse of your profile, Joel could make out some consternation fanning out. Your brows pinched.
The pretty, slick ‘o’ encircling his cock clenched again, and it was evident you were trying to force the motion back down against your body’s wishes. You whimpered a little and dropped your free hand between your legs.
Joel kissed your jaw. Your cheek. Your ear. Partly to remind you that he was fine to take things slow and partly to quiet his own hammering heart inside him.
It wasn’t working.
You were just so. fucking. tight.
“I— you gotta slow down, sweet pea,” he hissed through gritted teeth. Your walls pulsed again, and it nearly sent him spiraling. The second your ass met his hips and he was buried to the hilt, he stifled a groan into your neck.
“But I need you, daddy,” you whined, “Need you inside.”
Another grunt. Another moan. Another suffocating pulse.
“I’m gonna blow if we don’t slow down some, honey.”
It was mortifying, but it was the truth. Tonight, Joel just couldn’t seem to keep his cum confined to his balls like he normally could. Presently, they rested firm and heavy against the globes of your ass and were just then preparing to hit a rhythm as you rocked back and forth.
Your gaze flashed to his over your shoulder.
“That’s OK. You…you can— oh.”
Before you could finish that thought, your words were torn from your tongue and lost to a shuddering moan. His cock plunged deep within your soft and airtight channel, and your head lolled back a little more.
Out of habit, Joel pulled out and then plunged back in, feeling the wet clutch of you stretch around his cock.
“I can what, honey? What can daddy do?”
Lax as his voice made him sound, the man was coming apart at the seams; he had only to search your face for a fleeting, desperate moment, find you hungry as he was, and he thrusted even harder, absorbed the shockwaves of your pleasure while he fucked you up against the wall.
Gradually, the spatter of water on white glossy tile gave way to the sounds of your skin and his hitting again and again. Your face softened, and the once-taut walls eased to accommodate his girth. You squeezed Joel from base to tip, making the most obscene noises when he slid in and out, and from the look you gave him then, he could sense the need before it ever left your lips. He saw desire fill your pretty, glossy stare and felt compelled to sate it.
Again, it seemed you were begging him to stay.
Expression so pleading and sweet and soft.
“Daddy, I— I want you to cum inside me.”
Joel almost blew his load on the spot. His hips had to stutter in place—so taken aback by what you’d just said—but then you were bouncing back and forth again, neck craning to flash him the most winsome smile.
“Oh, honey…”
“Please.”
He’d finished in you before. It had been an accident. The night had ended with you and him hauling ass to the nearest CVS and hitting the Plan B like it owed you money. And now you were asking him to do it?
“I’m about to start my period. It’ll be fine.”
The half-starved look in your eyes said you’d been thinking about this for awhile. Maybe not with your rational brain, but certainly in earnest. Your smile said it.
Joel’s good sense was shot. He knew it was wrong. He was assured beyond a shadow of a doubt that if your dad ever learned he’d deliberately painted your insides white—or worse yet, knocked you up—his best friend would personally sever his dick and sauté it for lunch. Still, the urge to be joined with you in this brand new way was damn near debilitating. He couldn’t tell you no. So instead of doing what he should’ve done, he simply said:
“OK.”
For some reason, it felt wrong to finish in the shower. So he cut the water, toweled you both, and took you to bed. He slid under thin, sodden, wildly outdated motel sheets without letting his lips disconnect from yours once. He propped your legs around his hips and kissed you harder. He found a home within the furthest recesses of your body he could find, and his heart still throbbed for more. It was the best and worst agony, to be so delirious in the need for someone else, but each time you met him and accepted him in, his pleasure soared to new heights.
His cock dragged in and out of your heat in sloppy, shallow thrusts. He felt your wetness ease his passage and welcome him deeper, until the mouth of your cunt was stretched as taut against his base as it would go and your walls were pulsing with need. You squirmed underneath him. Your whines turned into whimpers, and the whimpers became ragged, hiccuping gasps as you clawed at his back and begged for more, more, more.
“‘M’so full. Feels so, so good, daddy,” you breathed.
“Yeah?” Joel said, and he glanced between your bodies to see you stretched and stuffed to the brim with cock. He groaned involuntarily. “I fit so nice, don’t I, baby?”
“You— you do, daddy. You do.”
“Can I fit a little more in?”
Your eyes widened.
As soon as realization dawned, you nodded your head and gripped him tighter. You hardly needed another stab of his hips, his thumb on your clit, or so much as a word spoken besides—at just the thought of being filled with his seed, your body seized in anticipation. It was you trembling, shuddering, clenching hard and reaching bliss before you even meant to get there, really. You were wholly overstimulated and clamoring for more, the pulses of your cunt milking his cock with all you had.
Joel scarcely had the presence of mind to get a syllable out, but he knew what he needed to say before his pleasure took hold. He smoothed a hand over your cheek, cupped it, and lowered his lips to yours, so only the cusp of his mouth and his stubble were grazing your open pout and the words he spoke were all yours to hear.
Sliding deeper. Meeting and holding your gaze with bare, uncontrived sincerity: “I’m yours, baby. I’m all yours.”
His balls tightened. He wanted to say more to set your mind at ease and assure you what you meant to him, but evidently, your bodies had other plans. In the next moment, he felt a familiar warmth spurt from his tip, and his hips jerked. His cock burrowed as deep within your wet, pliant walls as it could go, and he unloaded rope after rope of his cum. Joel let out a full-throated groan.
The wild hum of his pulse through his skull all but rendered him deaf to the sounds around him, but he knew he told you that he loved you; he knew you said it back. He felt you anchor your heels into the backs of his legs and accept him completely. You spent what felt like hours kissing, writhing, panting, and murmuring words of the warmest affection. In reality, this lasted seconds.
With you underneath him, in his arms, it didn’t matter.
“I love you, Joel,” you whispered again, smiling.
He grinned and kissed you, “I love you more.”
And he’d meant what he said: every inch of him was yours. Every moment you would let him have from that point forward, he’d spend showing you that he was there to stay. He didn’t care how long it would take to prove it.
For once, he didn’t care what your dad would have to say
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