Bright Lights - Part Iv [dieter Bravo X Neurodivergent!f!reader]

bright lights - part iv [dieter bravo x neurodivergent!f!reader]

chapter summary: Everyone has an opinion about you and Dieter these days. ratings/warnings: E [age gap (reader is 32, Dieter is 47), dual/alternating POV, boss/employee relationship, flirting, overt criticisms of Twitter stan behavior, overt fatphobia, insecurity of the new romantic relationship variety, Pix has a conversation with her mother that goes poorly, ableism, some overt fatphobia because the internet is a garbage land, a little angst, SMUT, oral sex f receiving, difficulty orgasming, face riding, coming untouched, dry-humping (i'm going through a phase i fear), they're both switches but Dieter is very submissive this chapter, semi-public fooling around, they are extremely horny for each other, Dieter goes to therapy, Dieter has commitment issues, they are both trying their best] wc: 6.4k a/n: please go to @ezrasbirdie-updates to be notified of updates! Pretty sure life is conspiring against me lately, but I finally got this finished and I REALLY hope it's as fun to read as it was to write. I am asking y'all to bear with me (and Dieter--and Pix, too, tbh) and trust the process. that fear of commitment can be a bitch. all my love to @mothandpidgeon for giving me all the bonks I could ever ask for every time i start to doubt myself and for being a wonderful beta. i love you endlessly.

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The morning after is, in your experience, a delicate affair. Maybe if you were a different person, a chill girl with no need for answers to any of the questions swirling around the whirlpool of your mind, you could approach with a heavier hand. 

But you are not a chill girl. 

Maybe it’s lucky for you that Dieter Bravo is not a chill guy, either. His affection is not the usual type of cool, collected kiss on the forehead. There is no knowing smirk, no barely-there acknowledgment of what happened the night before. Instead, he clings to you like a needy sloth, pressing sloppy little kisses on every inch of bare skin he can find. 

He’s even more beautiful right now, haloed by all this golden sunlight with cherry blossom pink cheeks and pupils blown so wide and dark you can barely make out the dark brown irises. His tongue massages the column of your throat, hungry and pleading, but his hand hovers politely at the hem of your shirt. 

“What is it?” 

“Can I see you?” He rubs the seams between his thumb and forefinger. You frown at him, your sleepy, over-literal brain too slow to work out his question.

“Can you not see me now?” You ask, only understanding what he’s meant just as the last word of your question leaves your mouth. He buries a smile into your collarbone, waiting for you to catch up. “Oh. You mean…yes. Yeah.”

“You sure?” He asks, sensing your hesitation.  

“Well, just, um.”

Maybe there is some delicacy to this morning, after all. You try to phrase it in your brain, reordering sentences until you've been quiet too long. Dieter says nothing, though, just occupies himself by kissing all your fingers.

He likes you, doesn’t he?

Fuck it. 

“It’s just that my tits are like…real tits. Like they’re not perky, they’re just big, thirty-two year old tits, so if you’re thinking—”

But he’s already hiked your shirt up, groaning as he cups the aforementioned big, thirty-two year old tits his hands and massages them. “Fuck yeah, they are.” He wastes no time latching onto your nipple and letting out a garbled fuck as he swirls his tongue around the hardening bud.

“Fuck, Dee,” you whine. 

It’s embarrassing how desperate you are, how wet you’ve gotten already. You can feel him, too, though, hard and throbbing against your hip. 

He unlatches, gazing at you with big puppy eyes to ask, “Can I eat your pussy?”

“Yeah, Dieter, please,” you breathe.

You’re definitely not the only desperate one. He’s crawled down between your legs to pull your panties off before you can even finish saying yeah. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows to watch him. His fluffy hair sticks up over the curve of your belly as he positions your legs over his shoulders. He noses your thighs, kissing and nipping his way to your core as you squirm against him.

“Tease,” you murmur.

“Just wanna taste all of you,” he says, settling himself in front of your pussy. “Jesus Christ. You’re so wet, sweetheart.”

“Better do something about that, Bravo,” you order. “Before I do it—”

You jump at the sudden contact, his tongue pressing firmly against your clit. No curious kitten licks—he gets right to work. Most of the men you’ve been with need a moment to orient themselves, but Dieter knows exactly where he’s going. 

He listens well, too. All that talk about him being difficult to work with on set and here he is, taking direction perfectly. 

“Firmer,” you sigh, and he presses the flat of his tongue against your clit as he moves his head in circles. “Like that, yes, fuck—”

Dieter lets out a soft little whine at your praise, bringing his hand down to his cock and squeezing. You gaze at him with heavy-lidded eyes. He likes it when you praise him. 

A lot. 

It shouldn’t surprise you, really; the man lives off praise. But this is different. You’ve seen him shrug off criticism of his performances, but it feels like it would ruin him if he failed to please you. 

His fingers twitch against your thigh and your mouth waters at the thought of them inside of you. You really need something inside of you.

You clear your throat. “Dee—can I—your fingers—” 

Eloquence is not your friend right now.

“You want my finger, baby?” He asks, not looking up, barely taking his mouth off your pussy.

“Yeah,” you whine. “Yes. Fuck, please.”

Despite spending the last six months staring at those thick, steady fingers, but that hasn’t prepared you at all for the way just one stretches you out as he sinks it into your cunt. He growls at the sob you let out, curling his finger up and caressing something that has you seeing stars.

“Dee—”

“I know, baby,” he coos. “Can you take a second?”

“Please, fuck, please,” you beg, all breathy and girlish. 

He slides in a second finger and groans at the way you take it for him. It’s even more of a stretch, but he’s gentle with you, rubbing and massaging until you open up completely for him. It’s easier, you think, with all your arousal and his saliva and how relaxed he’s made you. 

“Look at her,” he says, pulling back for a breath. He’s not talking to you. “She’s so wet.”

He says it like he hasn’t been drooling on your pussy for the last twenty minutes, like he’s shocked he’s made you feel this good. 

A sudden dread pushes through your haze of pleasure and you glance back at the digital clock next to the bed. Twenty minutes? 

This is not the best realization, especially now that there’s been a realization. Now you’re in your head. This happens sometimes—sometimes, no matter how good it feels, you just need more pressure than that sweet little tongue of his can provide. 

Dieter doesn’t seem concerned, and he doesn’t seem to have noticed how much time has passed. You try to get out of your head; try not to worry about how easily he bruises even when it’s something silly. 

Of course it would happen the first time he’s eating you out.  

You could always fake it, but you don’t like lying to him. He’s always so open with you, it feels like more of a betrayal than a little lie. 

“C’mon, baby,” he urges. “Wanna feel you come all over my tongue.”

Shit.

His tone isn’t even impatient. If anything, he’s just trying to be sexy, but now you’re in your head and you’re not getting out of it. 

You stiffen as you throw your head back and squeeze your eyes shut, deciding to just go with the truth. “Sorry, I know it’s taking a while, it—sometimes that just happens, I guess, it feels really good, it’s okay if I don’t come.”

He stops and gazes up at you with those soft eyes, the bottom half of his face shiny with your arousal.

“It’s okay if it takes a while, baby. I’ll stay down here all day. What do you need from me?” He asks, pulling his fingers carefully from you and waiting for you to answer. “Faster, slower?”

Heat rushes up the back of your neck. They usually just stop.

“Um…it’s not really that. It’s usually, like, more pressure. Friction, I guess.”

He flashes a devilish little grin. “Mmm, okay. So you need something to rub up against, yeah? Like last night, huh? She just needs a little something more?”

“Jesus Christ, Dee,” you mutter, suddenly aware of how naked you are in more ways than. This is not usually something you discuss.

“C’mere,” he says, climbing up and laying back on the pillows. The fluffy robe has fallen open, and you can see his pretty skin shiny with perspiration. Your eyes wander down, biting your lip as your gaze lands on his cock. 

You’ve never seen it before, not even by accident, despite being warned. You make a mental note to ask—why’d he stay so dressed in front of you all this time? For now, though, you’re busy staring at it. 

It’s fucking pretty. Thick and long, his head bulging from his foreskin and leaking with arousal. You swallow harshly—you were in the middle of something, but now it’s all you can do not to sink down on it, even if it splits you in half. 

“Nuh uh,” he murmurs, wrapping his hand around the base. “You’re not near ready for that, sweetheart. Could barely take my fingers. Need more time.”

Your mouth rounds—you hadn’t even considered that he’d be worried about that. Guilt twinges in your gut—you’d assumed he’d be more selfish. 

He’s smirking when you meet his eyes, your face hot with desire, and that doesn’t surprise you in the slightest. You’re still not entirely sure what he wants you to do, though.

“What…”

You trail off.

“Come sit on my face,” he says.

Oh.

There is no denying that you’ve gotten off to the thought of riding that nose. The fact that he’s offering it so freely just to get you off makes your head spin.

“Okay,” you murmur. 

You straddle him first, pressing a kiss to his lips and sliding your hands through his hair. You haven’t gotten to touch him very much, and all you want is to feel him under your fingertips. 

Dieter licks into your mouth, wrapping his arms around your waist with a little delighted noise. You can feel his cock, hard and pulsing underneath you, slick with both your arousal. You spend some time kissing him; feeling him. Everything is wet and sloppy and smooth, and you like the way his soft belly meets yours. He whimpers when you cradle his jaw in your hands and pull on his hair, and again when you scratch your nails down his chest, leaving long, pink marks on his pecs. 

“Good noises?” You ask, just to make sure. 

“You have no idea,” he murmurs. “Now if you don’t fuck my face right now, I’m gonna lose my mind.”

He looks almost as excited as you feel when your thighs bracket his head.

“Baby,” he groans. “Please, sit on it, don’t make me beg.”

You kind of like making him beg, though.

“What if I want you to beg?”

“Then I’ll fucking do it.” His big, earnest eyes send a ripple of power through your chest.

“Then beg.”

“Please, Pix. Please put your pretty little pussy on my face,” he whines, sticking his tongue out of his mouth like he’s trying to taste you in the air. “Please, please, baby, please—”

You don’t have it in you to make him wait for long.

He makes an incoherent noise underneath you, sinking his fingers into your thighs to help you move back and forth. His tongue finds your hole quickly, fucking it as you find the perfect pressure for your clit on his nose.

“Oh,” you moan, grabbing the headboard to stabilize yourself. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck it’s—”

He growls, fingers digging harsh enough that there’ll be little marks on you, too. 

Your release sneaks up on you, clamping your thighs around his head and clenching around his tongue as stars burst behind your eyelids. You can hear yourself crying out, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from you. Dieter stills, moaning underneath you and holding the small of your back, like he’s trying to keep you upright.

Collapsing backward, you giggle with endorphins. Dieter’s climbing over you in seconds, kissing you with all your arousal sliding against your lips. “Fuck, you are so sexy, holy fuck,” he mutters.

“Do you need to, um…?”

His cheeks turn pink at the question. “I kinda, uh. When you were on my face.”

“Like, you jerked—”

“No.”

“Oh. Oh, Dee, that’s so—”

“I know, I’m sorry, you’re just—”

“Fucking hot,” you finish, running your fingers through his sweaty hair. “You taste like pussy.”

“Mmhmm. I’d fucking live in there if you let me. Curl up in a little ball and just—”

“You’re so fucking weird,” you tease, and he grins. He balances himself on his forearm, his other hand wandering down your body until he finds your soaked core. Two fingers slide in with ease, pulling a gasp from you. 

“You love it, though,” he murmurs, pumping slowly. 

He looks you in the eye, and you let him.

On Tuesday morning, your mother calls. This is not surprising—the surprising part is that she’d waited this long. 

“Did you see Twitter?” She asks. You haven’t, and anyone who knows you well knows not to inform you of anything like this unless you ask. Your mother, unfortunately, does not know you very well at all. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh. 

“Like…the app? The whole thing? What are you talking about?”

“You’re on it,” she says, elaborating on absolutely nothing. 

“Mom—”

“Just look at the link I sent!” 

“All right, all right.” With an apprehensive tap of your index finger, the link pops open to reveal a thumbnail zoomed into a mane of curls you’d recognize anywhere. 

And oh, for God’s sake, it’s trending, too.

“What’s going on there?” Your mother demands, as though you’ve betrayed her somehow.

“My boss is helping me up—”

“Did you fall?”

“Mother,” you sigh. “I just bent down to pick up some broken glass. He helped. That’s all.”

“That’s not what everyone’s saying,” she presses.

“Who the hell is everyone? I’m telling you what happened.”

You go around in circles with her, and after a while she seems to believe you. For now. “Imagine if you were dating Dieter Bravo,” she chuckles.

“I could pull Dieter Bravo,” you argue. She laughs some more, and you try to ignore it, but something about talking to her always turns you into a petulant fifteen-year-old.

“What’s so funny about that?” 

“Well, nothing, dear. You’re just—well, you’re different, you know. It’s not a bad thing.” 

“I know it’s not a bad thing.” But it feels like a bad thing right now. “Look, I gotta go. My boss who could never possibly be into me needs me to go fold his laundry. Love you.”

“Honey—”

Guilt creeps up on you the moment you end the call without letting her say goodbye. It’s just not fair. She can be as careless as she wants with her words and you’re the one who ends up feeling bad about it all. It’s so unfair that she’s never really gotten past the whole autistic daughter thing. 

You wipe your eyes, refusing to get so upset over something so stupid. And anyway, she’s wrong. You absolutely can pull Dieter Bravo. He’s been all over you since Sunday, even after the nerve-wracking “What are we?” conversation you couldn’t help but initiate last night in the middle of The Truman Show. 

“So…what, um, what is this?” You’d asked, just after Truman Burbank started falling, unscripted, for an extra. “Like, us?”

You’d barely gotten the words out and already you wished you could take them back. Why did you need to know that second? Why do you need to know everything, immediately, why can’t you ever just be cool?

You’d be a very different person then, you think.

Dieter had put his arm around you and set his chin on top of your head as a surge of hope spread through your chest. Your imagination had run wild—maybe he’d profess a love so big and beautiful he couldn’t stand to keep his mouth shut about it; that he’d been into you since the very second you walked into his life; that he wanted to be with you forever and ever.

“Well,” he’d sighed.

It hadn’t sounded like the start of any profession of love you’d ever heard.

“We should probably just…keep it casual for now. See where it goes. All this stuff going on, you know, might be a little much to start a whole thing in the middle of it.”

A little much.

You’d tried to quell the disappointed ache. No grand love profession for now, then. He’d tipped your chin to meet his gaze, and you’d rearrange your face into something passably placid.

“That okay?” He’d asked. You’d had to keep yourself from laughing, imagining his face if you’d said it wasn’t okay; that you didn’t want casual. That you wanted to be his. 

But you knew well enough what “That okay?” meant. It was like when someone asked how you were doing—you weren’t ever supposed to actually tell them how you were doing. 

You didn’t want to create problems for him now, either. He was stressed out enough.

“Totally,” you’d said. 

It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it felt sticky and sour on your tongue. 

But it’d been fine then, and fine after, and you’d both fallen asleep on his big couch, and you really should stop thinking about how nice it is to wake up with him wrapped around you.

You wonder what your mom would think about that.

The thing about wanting to know things is that curiosity will always get the better of you, dead cats be damned. What’s so special about this interaction between the two of you that it’s trending? 

And so, during some interview for Vanity Fair’s Youtube channel (you think, at least, you don’t keep up quite as well as Christina on these long press days), you spend a few minutes in his luxurious, if rather small, changing room investigating just what’s so interesting about him helping you stand up.

The video is thirty seconds long, but you’re sure it was at least a few minutes. The camera pulls away from Dieter’s curls as he whips his head around like there’s been a commotion. And there has, of course, with you dropping to the ground to scrounge for pieces of broken glass that, somehow, hadn’t cut your fingers to shreds. It finally irks you that the man who bumped you so hard didn’t even turn to look. 

Dieter moves quickly, kneeling with you in that outrageously expensive outfit, a literal knight in glittering armor, and tries to block you from the cameras. There’s only so much he could do from the side, you suppose. 

It’s a ridiculously romantic shot, one of his hands clasped over yours, the other cradling your elbow as he lifts you from the ground. His eyes sweep over you, squeezing your shoulders when he’s certain you’re steady and talking softly before turning back to the line of interviewers. And you, for your part, actually look great in that black department store suit. 

The moment looks so intimate, and despite having had this man between your legs, covered in your arousal, this is what makes your heart stutter and your cheeks burn. And it’s not just you projecting, either—the commenters are quick to confirm exactly what it looks like, for better or worse.

Who the fuck is that? Have we seen her before?

lol didn’t know he was into fat chicks

omg he’s into big girls??!!

he’s like in love with her

who IS that

She’s pretty, is she an actress?

Ugh he’ll fuck anything won’t he

“He’s not fucking you,” you mutter, happily recalling the way his tongue felt on your clit, the sharp hitch in his breath when you rubbed against his cock before climbing on his face. 

There are an alarming number of comments expressing excitement about him liking fat chicks—which, like, sure, but do they have to say it like that?

Morbid curiosity finds you digging deeper. Just who are Dieter Bravo’s most devoted fans? What do they know about him? And more importantly, what do they think they know about him? 

They’ve been busy, it seems, digging up blurry pictures of you leaving his house and carrying groceries and giggling as you accompany him to some fitting or another.

You give yourself a quick kudos for dressing as professionally as possible on your outings with him, despite his insistence that you be comfortable. He can wear all the dirty pajama pants and be as comfortable as he wants—that is not a luxury you can afford.

The speculation is endless—you’re his girlfriend, his cousin, his friend from college, his hair stylist, his personal chef, his secret wife. A part of you wants to participate and suggest the most ridiculous thing connection you can think of—salt lamp specialist comes to mind.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dieter bursts through the dressing room door, prompting you to snap the laptop shut, looking at him with much wider eyes than necessary.

“Nothing,” you say, straightening up.

He crosses his arms and leans against the door frame, unconvinced. “You watching porn?”

You laugh. “Here? No.”

“Then what is it? Tell me,” Dieter whines, closing the door. He drags the ‘e’ out and flops onto the little loveseat, settling his head in your lap. “I needed a break and came to see you.”

“Fine,” you sigh, handing him the laptop. Sometimes it’s impossible to say no to him. “It looks like your fans have figured some things out.”

You watch him for a reaction as he balances it on his little belly and squints. “Where are your glasses?” 

He waves you off.

As he reads through the comments, you chew your nails as quietly as you can. Is it weird that you’d gone looking? Would he be upset that you did?

He’s too quiet.

Your imagination starts running wild again. Maybe he’s considering their points. Maybe you’re really not good enough for him, you need to go back to just being his assistant. Actually, you’re fired, and he’ll just pay to break your contract.

“What’s wrong?” You ask as he sits up.

“They’re so mean to you,” he says, and you meet his gaze. It catches you off guard how softly it comes out, how round his eyes are.

“I mean, yeah,” you say. “Of course they are. Is this the first time you’ve read internet comments before?”

“No,” he says defensively. “I just don’t like how they’re talking about you. Like, fuck them, you know? They’re supposed to be my fans? Maybe I need to get some real security. I don’t like them fuckin’ poking around, looking for more pictures of you and shit.”

You can’t help the slow smile creeping across your face.

“What?” He asks, but he starts smiling, too.

“You’re protecting me,” you tease, rising from the couch and poking him in the chest.

“So what if I am?” He gesticulates wildly, your MacBook bouncing up and down as he flails his arms.

“You like me,” you accuse.

“Yeah, and?” He sets the MacBook down and closes the gap of space between the two of you. “That a problem?”

You swallow as he gets closer, his cologne giving you a headrush. He brings his hands to your face, cupping your jaw and brushing his thumbs over your cheeks.

“Hm?” He asks. You shake your head, suddenly lacking any teasing words at all. He turns your head to the side and nuzzles you. “You think I’d let anything happen to you?”

“No,” you whisper, your stomach doing flips as he presses a wet kiss to your cheek and trailing his lips down to your neck.

“You know I think you’re so fucking sexy, right? Wearing these little low cut shirts all the time?”

“Shit, Dee,” you gasp, giggling as his hand slips under your shirt and resting on your belly.

“Bossing me around,” he breathes. You let out a soft moan when he cups your breast, squeezing lightly.

“This is so inappropriate—”

“I’ll stop if you want me to stop,” he grins, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. You can feel his smile on your cheek.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” you sigh, eyes darting to the locked door.

“Oh, fuck yeah, baby, is that what you need right now? You need a little distraction? You want me to make you come?”

Your work phone rings, of course. At the same time, there’s a heavy knock at the door. “Mr. Bravo, we need you back in two minutes!”

You take a deep breath—it’s for sure the stylist trying to work out a time for tomorrow. He whines as you grasp his wrist and gently pull his hand from under your shirt.

“Goddammit,” he grunts. “Let me finger you while you’re on the phone.”

There is an absolutely ludicrous moment where you consider this, but you eventually shake your head and come to your senses. “Go finish up,” you order. He relents, but not before he gives you one of those sloppy, desperate little kisses he’s so fond of.

You are in far, far too deep.

Life might be overwhelming right now, but he can’t put therapy on hold, unfortunately.

Dieter started coming to Kristopher (“With a K,” he’d emphasized at their first meeting) a few months before Anika finally had enough. Kristopher’s office was sparsely decorated with just a few plants and couches and soft lighting. He usually did house calls, but ever since you’d started living in the guesthouse, Dieter came here instead. He doesn’t know why—you know he’s in therapy. You pay Kristopher out of Dieter’s account like every other bill he has. He just doesn’t want you to see him like this. 

He hasn’t unpacked that with Kristopher yet.  

Dieter pokes at the salt lamp on the side table while he waits for Kristopher. You would have some horribly un-fun fact about why it doesn’t do anything. He makes a mental note to ask.

Kristopher, he thinks, will either be very proud of him or very disappointed. He wipes his sweaty palms on his gray linen pants as the door opens.

“Good afternoon, Dieter,” Kristopher says brightly.

Kristopher is forty-two and married to a man named Derek. He wears silver wired-rimmed glasses and tight khaki pants, teetering on the line between professional and elder millennial hipster with his Chuck Taylors and the top two buttons of his dark green shirt undone.

He is also a frequent star of Dieter’s fantasies, talking him through some trauma or another while Dieter slowly jerks off. Dieter doesn’t know what that means, and it’s not really something he wants to examine. He should find a therapist he doesn’t want to jerk off to, but Kristopher is the only one he’s found who isn’t openly impressed by his star status. Like you, now that he thinks of it.

There must be something there, but he doesn’t want to talk about that, either.

Dieter looks away as Kristopher bends over to set something on his desk. “Hey,” Dieter says.

“How are we?”

Kristopher uses “we” when he means “you” or “I”. It makes Dieter itch. “Good,” he says. Kristopher sits and crosses his legs, peering at Dieter like he’s assessing him extra hard today.

“Even after Sunday?” Kristopher asks, and Dieter huffs a laugh.

“Even after Sunday,” he says.

“You were worried about that,” Kristopher points out. “About being upset. What changed?”

Kristopher has his opinions on Dieter’s “fascination” with you. If you knew how often he brings you up in therapy. 

“I…had some support,” Dieter says, acting cagey. He doesn’t want Kristopher to tell him this is a bad idea.

The other man doesn’t say anything. Instead, he scribbles something in a notebook and lets Dieter stew in his discomfort. He does this, and it always works.

Fuck.

“My assistant. Or temporary assistant. She’s my assistant’s assistant,” he explains unnecessarily. Kristopher says your name, his lips quirked upward. Dieter nods, feeling like he’s about to get chewed out.

“Well?” Kristopher prompts. He’s not getting out of this.

The damn breaks, and Dieter spills everything.

“It was really…great,” he finishes with a sigh.

Kristopher finishes scribbling and sets his notebook down. “So you’ve already had that ‘What are we’ conversation?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she brought it up. She’s…direct,” he says, smiling.

“And is that a positive thing for you, do you think?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Kristopher picks up the notebook and rifles through it, flipping back a dozen or so pages. “‘She’s a little mean sometimes’,” he quotes. “You said that in July. So is she mean or direct?”

“Direct,” Dieter asserts. “I just didn’t know her well enough.”

“Why do you think you took her directness as her being mean at first?” He asks. Dieter leans back and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. They’re about to get into something, he can feel it, and he doesn’t know if he has the strength.

“Probably because no one talks to me the way she does. Like they want to, not because they’re being paid to. I know she is, technically, but I don’t…she’s different. I’ve never met anyone like her.”

“What about Anika?” He asks softly. “She was direct.”

Dieter shrugs. “And I made her life hell.”

“But you won’t do that this time?”

Sometimes Dieter wants to get up in the middle of these sessions and leave. No, he won’t do that this time. He’ll be better this time. He is better this time.

“It’s not…it’s not the same,” Dieter insists.

“It doesn’t sound very casual to me, Dieter,” Kristopher says. “You told her that, right? To keep it casual for now?”

“Well, yeah,” Dieter says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I figured…I figured she’d tell me if there was a problem with that.”

“Because she’s direct,” he says. Dieter hates it when he does this, too. Kristopher is the opposite of direct, leading him around like a dog on a leash and not in a fun way. He has no idea what conclusion he’s supposed to be getting to here and it’s starting to infuriate him.

“You just have to come out and say it, man.”

Kristopher leans back and folds his hands over his flat stomach, squinting at the clock above Dieter’s head. “All right, well. In the interest of time. You don’t talk about this person in a casual way. You never have, not in any of the six months she’s been in your life. You mention her more than you do your family. You came in here three months ago distraught that you’d hurt her feelings. You didn’t get that upset when your wife left you. Not once. So I guess what I’m asking is, is casual the word you wanted to use? And does that mean the same thing to both of you?”

Dieter blinks a few times, trying to come up with any words at all. He swallows harshly. “I…guess it’s not the word I’d use.”

Kristopher’s alarm goes off—time’s up.

He walks Dieter to the door and squeezes his shoulder. “People don’t always tell us exactly what they want when they think they’ll lose something if they do. I just don’t want you to miss out on something that might be good for you.”

It’s late when he gets back. All the lights are off except for the dim glow of your little house in the backyard. He bites his lip, wondering if you’d be too mad at him for disturbing you.

Would you think it’s a hook up? That he’s just using you?

Are you okay with this whole thing?

Kristopher’s words stick in his head—does casual mean the same thing to you?

It’s so late. He just wants to see you.

It’s unseasonably warm, even for Los Angeles. This might explain why he finds you in a lounge chair, looking up at the clear sky.

“Hey, Dee.” You don’t look away from the sky.

“What if I was a murderer?” He asks.

“Then I’d be dead, I guess. How was your evening?”

“Mmhmm,” he says. “What’d you do?”

“Me and Ada had dinner together and watched When Harry Met Sally. She said she was missing Carrie Fisher. They were good friends. Can you imagine?”

“I worked with Carrie,” Dieter says.

“Of course you did,” you laugh. “C’mere.” You open your arms and he climbs between your legs. He likes when you hold him like this-there’s safety here he hasn’t felt with anyone in years.

“Did you get more Skittles?” He asks and you hum an affirmative, looking at the sky.

“Did you know that Skittles have titanium dioxide on the coating to keep them shiny?”

“They have what?”

“Titanium dioxide. It’s banned in Europe even though there’s not really a link to any risk, but isn’t that weird? And some of it just doesn’t break down in your body.”

Dieter looks at you, bumping your nose with his. “Why do you know that?”

You grin at him. “Don’t know, actually. Just do.”

Dieter kisses your forehead. “What else is in that big brain?”

“Memorizing facts doesn’t make you smart,” you say matter-of-factly.

“Kinda does,” he says. “What about salt lamps?”

“What about them?”

“What’s their deal?” He noses your neck and settles there, waiting for you to tell him everything you know.

“Nothing. They’re just pretty. But they don’t do anything.”

“No asbestos?” 

“I dunno. I’m no salt lamp expert. I just know it’s garbage.”

He presses his lips to yours—innocently, at first, he swears, he’d just missed you. But you make this noise—this soft little moan—and his cock springs to attention. He slides his tongue across the seam of your lips, but you’re already opening your mouth.

You lift your hips and press into him, and it’s over. No more innocent little kiss now. He slots his knee between your legs and presses his thigh to your cunt, precome already leaking from him.

There’s something forbidden about this, the two of you rubbing against each other like breathless, desperate teenagers.

“Dee,” you breathe. “You’re so hard already.”

“Doesn’t take a lot with you, sweetheart. Make me fuckin’ crazy,” he grunts, rutting against you. The fabric of his pants gives a pleasant friction he’d forgotten about. “Fuck. You wanna—fuck—you wanna go fool around? Let me eat your pussy? Oh, fuck, please let me eat your pussy.”

“Um, I might’ve just finished touching myself,” you giggle. You seem a little shy about it. “I didn’t know you when you’d be back.”

“Fuck me,” he breathes, grinding against your leg. “I’ll make you come again, c’mon.”

“No,” you say sharply. “I want you to come.”

He shudders at your request. “Jesus Christ, baby. Tell me what you thought about when you were touching yourself. Please.”

Dieter buries his face into your neck, desperate to breathe you in. He runs his teeth over the column of your throat—he wants to mark you, to sink his incisors into your skin and watch tiny bruises bloom.

He thinks you’d like it rough.

“Thought about you being a good boy for me,” you whisper into his ear, tugging on his hair and sending goosebumps down his spine. “Thought about you putting your big fucking cock inside of me and letting me ride you until I’m screaming—”

Sweat gathers on his brow, his hips moving faster at the tremor in your voice, like you’re so drunk on power and lust it’s hard to keep your own hips from grinding into his. “Holy fuck,” he groans.

“Thought about you doing exactly what I say. About pulling this pretty hair.” You tug again, harder this time, your fingers twisted into his curls and bringing tears to the corners of his eyes. “Thought about sucking that pretty dick, letting you come all over my face.”

He can’t speak, he can barely breathe; he wants it so, so bad.

“You’re a good boy, you know. Doing what I tell you, humping my leg outside all desperate.”

“I’d do more—I’d do whatever you want. I’d get naked, I don’t care.”

“Hmmm,” you tease. “Maybe next time. This still feel good?”

His pants, drenched with precome, press firmly against your bare leg. He wants to feel your skin, but he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah,” he croaks, because it still feels good. But you see right through him.

“You sure? You don’t want anything? Good boys don’t lie.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I want—can I feel you? Can I fuck your thigh this time?”

“Ohh,” you coo. “That’s my sweet boy, asking for what he wants. Take it out.”

He wastes no time pulling his cock out.

“Let me see,” you request. He sits back on his knees and holds it at the base, the bulbous tip red and throbbing and drooling precome. It takes all his strength not to stroke himself. “Oh, baby, look at you. Come on, honey, finish.”

Dieter falls forward, groaning when his cock meets your soft warm thigh. He hides his face in your neck again, whimpering and wishing he could feel you, too.

He asks, because you’d told him to.

“Can I touch your pussy? Please, sweetheart?”

You don’t say a word as you take his hand and slide it under your sleep shorts. You’re not wearing panties and you’re fucking soaked. You keen as he sinks his fingers into you, your heat clenching around him.

It’s over so much sooner than he wants it to be. 

He tries to warn you about his sudden release, but you don’t seem to mind the surprise, cooing softly as he bucks against you. “My good boy, oh, fuck—that’s it, come on, baby, you’re so—fucking—good—”

He lays there for only a moment, sticky spend cooling between his belly and yours, because he has work to do. He can still feel you clenching around him, and he thinks he could do it. You deserve it. He hasn’t even caught his breath when he presses his palm against your clit, fingers seeking curling up and finding something that makes your eyes roll back. 

“C’mon, baby,” he groans. “You come for me now. I got you now, honey, don’t worry about a thing. I know you can, know you want to, you’re so fucking tight—”

“Dee,” you moan, pressing into his palm, and goddammit, he’s never gonna get tired of that.

“That’s my girl. Just let it happen.”

Your mouth falls open, quiet as you spasm around his fingers. He’s never seen anything so beautiful. He wants to paint you like this, the furrow of your brow, your slack jaw, the glow of the pool lights bouncing from your skin. 

He’ll take to you bed with him, curl himself around you, and tomorrow he’ll talk to you. He’ll tell you everything. 

He won’t fuck this up—he won’t, he won’t, he won’t.

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ezra + bath oil + titties

GO

You absolute menace ily hahaha. Initially I was just going to do a short lil drabble that was a continuation of our disgusting musings about this man, but then I said why not make this into an entire feature in honor of @swiftiscruff's Friendship Exchange? You know, give our boy Ezra some real time to shine, and all in the name of celebrating friendships formed over that little verbose slut?

So, here is my Ezra oil shower titty fic dedicated to the lovely Kelli in celebration of the Friendship Exchange.

𝗔𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂

PAIRING(s): Ezra x fem!reader RATING: explicit material | 18+ WORD COUNT: 3k CONTENT: AU where Cee doesn't exist sorry lmao, established relationship, titty fixation, edible/food safe bathing oils, Ezra comes with his own warning, egalitarian assplay, cumplay, fabric washcloth used as gripping agent

Your nose for the most part had become blind to Ezra’s signature, tangy musk that edged into a ripe stench on hotter days. Even though you’d settled into the outskirts of a modest trading town and begun taking on the doldrums of keeping house, Ezra hadn’t fallen from his habit of going a little too long in between bath days. In times past he would go unshowered due to lack of amenities – the worlds you’d traveled and harvested from had hardly offered much in the way of hygienic routine – but now there was no such obstacle. He could bathe any time he wished and take as long as he pleased. You had your own home together now, one you were building upon each and every day, but the transient, unpredictable life that had become so ingrained into him was hard to shake. The notion of permanence was fleeting no matter how many days passed under your roof.

You, on the other hand, had become part fish since putting down roots here. There was a bathtub and a separate shower, and you craved the warm pool of water to soak in after a long day. Ezra liked to give you grief for wasting such a precious resource as water even though this planet was abundant in it. And yet, his admonishing never kept him from slipping into the wash room to ogle your bare form in the bath. You just wish every now and then he’d partake himself.

“The suns in all their unwavering glory has me feeling wrung of every bit of moisture,” he huffs as he fills a glass with something to wet his tongue and flood his scratchy, dry throat. “It’s good fortune that we needn’t adorn ourselves in protective suits here. I can only imagine the sort of foul fog that would cling to me then.”

You’re well aware of the second sun’s habit of becoming unbearable in these few weeks that your now home planet rotates closer to it. Your skin is sticky and wet with exertion, but at least all the growth pods you and Ezra have worked so tirelessly to establish are flourishing. They needed as much extra attention as any human on this planet did during these hotter spells. Soon enough you will forget all about the vehement heat when you and Ezra take your yields to the market during The Great Exchange and come home with lighter wagons and heavier pockets.

You accept the glass from Ezra and drink down whatever he’d poured. The cool creep of it down your throat already feels one step closer to equilibrium. “I guess we should wash up before we get the entire house dirty,” you reason.

“Hm, I suppose we should.”

You trod upstairs to the bathroom and bite back a scream when you see Ezra procure one entirely too small washcloth from the cabinet.

“You’re only washing at the sink?” you ask in what you pray isn’t a too panicked timbre.

“You don’t think the sink is robust enough to address my filth?”

You scrunch your nose, and that’s all the answer he needs. He chuckles a little and sets the singular washcloth aside. It already has smudges of who knows what just from him handling it.

“Tell me what you propose, my Little Gem.” He has an easy smile and those dangerous, glittery eyes fixed onto you.

“I mean, if you’re too tired I could, you know, I wouldn’t mind getting you washed up.” You shrug as though it’s enough to offset your way too eager proposition.

“You believe my own efforts are inferior?” he teases. “My Little Gem needs to take matters into her own hands and not rely on the fates?”

“Well, you’re always talking about wasting water. Wouldn’t it be saving water if we showered together?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “You would forgo your hallowed soak just to bathe with me, Little Gem?”

“I’m way too gross to just get into a bath. It’d just be sitting in a pool of my own funk. This level of gross calls for a full on shower, I think.”

“And you’ll tend to me in there?” he purrs as he steps closer to you and curves his hands over your hips. The pungent tang of his body makes your nose scrunch again.

“Much to tend to, it seems,” he remarks in response to your overt repulsion.

You need to take Ezra up on his noncommittal commitment of getting into the shower with you before he changes his mind. You quickly concoct a plan to hold his attention and agreeability in the small shower. You grab the soaking oil you drizzle into your baths on especially achy days and prop it on the shower ledge. You start peeling off grimy, damp layers of clothing and nod to Ezra, who begins doing the same.

You cross the room to where you stow your accessories and extras and grab a few items to pin your hair back. The last thing you need is something getting in the way of you giving him a thorough scrub down. Ezra saunters after you like a cat on the prowl, eyes roaming greedily up and down. Before he can derail the entire enterprise, you slink into the shower and start the water.

The initially cool spray is a contrary sensation to the heat emanating from your skin, but it quickly warms to a soothing slip. The stall darkens as he steps inside, broad shoulders blocking out the light struggling to filter in through the expanse of him. His frame was a thickened amalgamation of corded musculature padded in the softened flesh of a satiating supper every evening. The work here kept him lean for the most part, but you much preferred this iteration of him – all brawn and lithe but with the markers of an untroubled life.

“It seems all displeasure with my hygiene is forgotten once I’m naked as the day I was born,” he murmurs low and self-satisfied.

You roll your eyes but know he’s correct. A lover as competent and enthusiastic as Ezra meant overlooking other personal drawbacks wasn’t too difficult. “I’m sizing up my work,” you protest.

“And what do you make of its sizing?” he purrs with a gentle roll of his hips against you.

You knew this was where things would go almost immediately, and yet you still had the nerve to be caught off guard. “Ezra,” you grit out. You guide him under the stream and tell him to stay put while you grab the stack of washcloths you’ll need.

Upon your return you note the ashen brown water falling from him and circling the drain. “I must admit–” he says through the water rushing over him. Your eyes catch the flex of his biceps as he raises his arms up to work the water through his hair and scalp. “–There is something quite divine about the ritual. All sins washed away. A clean slate. A pure soul ready to be defiled once again. Isn’t that right, Little Gem?”

“What?” you mumble absentmindedly, too preoccupied on ogling the trail of water snaking down his torso and into the thicket of brown coarse hairs below his waist.

He only grins with a devious slant to his mouth and pulls you under the spray with him. His hands wander across your body in a lazy exploration. The only thing keeping you from abandoning your task altogether and just letting him take you right there in the shower is the persistent odor still clinging to him, now taking on a damp quality that only heightens the earthy grub and grit components within.

“Take a seat on the ledge, Ezra.”

He gropes the curve of your ass and presses a few kisses to the column of your neck before complying. “I’m at your disposal.” He spreads his arms open, inviting the work and focus of your hands on him.

You avoid looking at his half hard cock bobbing gently with every movement and soap up the first cloth. You try to avoid the snare of his gaze as you begin scrubbing his face, but he catches you with it as you lather through his beard. The corner of his mouth pulls up, an instant reassurance that he knows exactly the effect he has on you.

His face is a brighter, pinker vision once you rinse it, and it solidifies your resolve to scrub every inch of this man while he’s indulging your whim. His hands roam up and down your legs as you scratch and scour his hair. The fragrance of the soap combined with the purged dirt fills the space. You move to your hands and knees and start scrubbing from toe to knee then thigh to groin. He surprisingly doesn’t make too much of a fuss, which is good considering it takes three separate washcloths to get that section entirely cleaned.

“Surely I’ve indulged your caretaking long enough to have earned a different kind of corporeal attention?” He leans forward and noses at your neck and earlobe, and your body shivers despite the warm rush of water trailing down your back.

“Grab that bottle to your left,” you order as you start scrubbing down his torso. Your breath catches when your wrist bumps into his fully hardened, weeping cock, and you catch the curve of a smirk playing on his mouth. He holds up the unlabeled bottle and gives it a questioning shake. 

“An aphrodisiac?” His eyebrow cocks in devilish curiosity.

“Bath oil,” you snort. “You can, um, put some on me while I’m working on you. You know, just so it has time to soak in before I wash up, too. If you don’t mind.”

His eyes narrow and pull the edge of his mouth upward. He sees right through you, just like he always does. “Here I was thinking my purest Little Gem wouldn’t resort to such lowly deceit and bribery.” He pops the cap of the bath oil open and drizzles a moderate amount into his hand before setting the bottle aside again. He’s clearly amused with the ruse you’ve concocted, but unfettered exploration of your body is apparently a bribe he’s willing to accept.

“Resume your venture to free me from all the remnants of my labors,” he obliges.

“You know, you could just say ‘keep scrubbing me because I know I still smell’, Ez.”

He grins and raises his hands until they hover above your chest, little trickling lines of oil falling onto the slope of your breasts and dripping down slowly. You push your tongue against the back of your teeth to keep yourself grounded. If Ezra decided to start toying with you, you didn’t stand a chance at resisting his efforts.

You slather his arms from wrist to shoulder and work your way to his torso. Meanwhile he grazes a slick finger against your nipples in a ghost of a touch that has you subconsciously chasing his hand. You finish underneath each of his armpits, and, just when he’s behaved himself long enough to catch you off guard, he flicks one of your nipples hard with the edge of a fingernail. A shaky gasp of sharp pleasure flies from your throat quickly followed by a second one when he does it to the other side.

“See to my hindparts, won’t you?” he solicits with a deceptively innocent expression.

You clench your teeth together and take a step forward so you can reach over his shoulders and wash his back. He dips his head and takes as much of your breast into his mouth as he can and suctions with as much strength as he can exert. You yelp and attempt to release the clutch of his mouth from your sensitive bud, but he only sucks harder with a satisfied groan. His arms circle around each of your legs and cause you to lose your footing, which he uses as a distraction to switch sides.

Little pinpricks of purple have cropped up in a bloom of red from where he already sucked, and the force of his pull now promises no different for the other side. He loved to do this to you – get you off kilter, overstimulated, and seeking out more, often all at once. Your breaths come out whiny as he latches and pulls on your nipples and tissue.

“Ez,” you gasp. “I’m–I have to–to finish.”

He grips the flesh of your ass and pulls one cheek aside so that he can deftly push a thick fingertip into your puckering rim. It glides in with no resistance, and you almost think the oil wasn’t even necessary with how much you ached for him to fill you there. He pulls away just enough to disorient you with his intoxicating diction.

“Perhaps before our wash is complete, you’ll be beseeching me just to feel the breadth of me cleaving you apart,” he husks. “Nearly weeping for me to bury my cock in this hole just as you did only two nights ago.”

 “It feels good,” you mewl weakly. 

He hums low and gravelly in agreement as he resumes his ministrations on your breasts. The tip of his finger plunges shallow, a slow in and out, and you know it’s just to tease you for what you won’t get until you are begging him for it. You think that he must revel in the sway he has over you when he so fervently succumbs to you. There’s something so raw and vulnerable in the way he cannot deny his devotion and attachment to you, and so he must have some part of you in the same way as to not feel entirely powerless.

You’re panting despite exerting very little energy at the moment. “I-I really need to finish washing you u—”

He pops off with a loud smack and abruptly stands. He crowds you against the corner and props a foot up on the ledge, caging you in with his cock right at your eye level. Your hands rush with a washcloth and soap, now more greedy to feel him than cleanse him. You lather his entire groin area and resist the urge to lick up the beads of precum dribbling from his ruddy tip. Your eyes keep traveling up to meet his where he watches down on you with an almost omnipotent, divine consideration.

The last washcloth falls to the shower floor, and Ezra slowly walks backward into the water to rinse himself. It’s probably just a trick of the mind, but you swear he appears less hazy than usual with all the grime cleared from him. Your mouth is slack as you watch from your hands and knees on the shower floor, impossibly cramped into the corner of the small space. He smiles down at you. You know how much he loves seeing you on your knees in front of him.

Without a word, he moves the shower head to the side so that it pelts against the tile instead of spraying down on you both before turning around and hitching his other leg up on the ledge. He braces himself on the wall and the wobbly metal and glass door on the other side.

“Reap the benefits of your work, Little Gem,” he says over his shoulder.

You frantically douse your hand with a generous dab of the bath oil and walk on your knees until your mouth is flush against the cleft of his ass. A strangled whimper ekes out of him as you reach a hand between his legs and stroke his neglected cock with the slippery pull of the oil. You entrench your face into him until your flicking tongue delves into his asshole. You massage and prod into it, eyes rolling back when you feel how it clenches in delight at your motions.

Ezra turns again to face you now with what can only be described as a wild, hungry look in his eye. He takes the neatly stacked pile of used washcloths and tosses them onto the floor. You have no time to question his motives because he’s grabbing the bottle of oil and squeezing globs of it onto your breasts, barely returning the bottle to its place on the shelf before he’s massaging them and awkwardly shoving his cock between them and rutting against their pillowy, fleshy tightness.

“Shit,” he hisses. “That ass. That asshole of yours. These tits.” He sounds pained just trying to speak. His face screws up as he fucks between them, moaning appreciatively when you use your hands to press them closer together for him to fuck.

“You like my tits?” you ask a little breathlessly.

He makes a noise of great effort, eyes pinching shut at your goading question. He frees his cock and takes the flat of his hand to slap against your peaked buds. You cry out in pleasure at the sharp, blissful sting. “Bet I could make you come for me just like this. Couldn’t I, Little Gem?” he grits.

“Y-Yes,” you moan.

He makes some unhinged noise and slaps against your breasts in quick succession, barking out an order for you to touch yourself, and teeth glinting in the light with a manic grin as you climax. He starts fisting his length over your face, breaths coming fast and heavy.

“Open wide now,” he pants as he tugs his cock faster. The tip of it knocks against your lip, and you open wider with your tongue jutting flat and spread out for him to cover.

“Just like that Little Gem,” he rasps. “Hold it open and drink me.”

A few short strokes is all it takes before he’s moaning and erupting all over your face and mouth, the hot, thick bands of his spend sticking to your skin wherever they land. He doesn’t stop jerking himself until every last drop is spent. When he’s finally done, he smears his softening cock against your face, collecting his cum in sloppy swipes.

“Now look who is soiled, Little Gem,” he hums. “Clean up the mess you’ve made.” He watches you with half-lidded eyes and a heaving chest. “Wouldn’t want to leave things filthy, would you?”

You oblige and take him into your mouth, sucking and licking until every trace of his spend has been swallowed.

I adore the vividness of this little world! It’s so wonderful to watch her heal and warm up to the cabin and the little family. And Din’s competency and knowledge about the farm animals is too hot.

On the road, he enjoys this time best alone. He likes watching the moonrise, a sweet secret of the dark just for him. But here? Suddenly he has the absurd notion that if you possess smiles like this one, what the hell does he need the moon for?

THIS part!!! I scrambled to read this last night before I went to bed, and I’ve been thinking of this part all morning. Din is so sweet and devoted already! 🥰🥰

Western Skies: Ch 4

Din Djarin x F!Reader. Western!AU. Series Masterlist. Masterlist.

Warnings: Grief; allusions to trauma (none occurs, implications are that Reader expects abuse due to past abuse); fake marriage/marriage of convenience; Reader is described as having hair and a menstrual cycle.

Summary: While you prepare to stay, Din prepares to leave, or: yearning for things we cannot have.

WC: 6.2k

Note: Follow @jules-onpaper for updates! Dividers by @mykento. Thanks so much to @frannyzooey for the encouraging beta read and the Van ladies for their constant support 🩵 Tagging cowboy girlies (gn) below (let me know if you would prefer not to be tagged):

@secretelephanttattoo @imaswellkid @fuckyeahdindjarin @goodwithcheese @maggiemayhemnj @kedsandtubesocks

Din has needed to leave for days now. Karga had been insistent the last time he had visited town. The window of opportunity was closing.

Instead he stays put, observing you closely without watching, tracking your movements through the house and the yard by the swish of your skirt, the trail of water drips you leave behind, the low chatter to the kid. Mostly he sticks by the barn, mending leather; you do not come outside as often if he trails the yard.

Din thinks he catches you watching him too. He feels it seep through the windows, your doubt and irritation and all of the clear signs you’re exactly where you don’t want to be, mourning everything you’ve ever had, and rightfully resenting his making you stay here when you could be on your way to the only other family you’ve ever known. You do not know he has the money to have sent you on your way already, though he certainly does – that it’s only your bargain and his selfishness keeping you here.

If you do suspect it, you don’t bother voicing your displeasure. You’re busy working yourself to the bone in chores and housework. In fact, your first few days at the homestead, he wavers on the knife’s edge of physically stopping you.

You get up so early he wonders if you’re sleeping at all. You haul water for the washing up. He sees you at it, up and about before he is, smoke from your hearth trickling in a lazy trail up into the speckled dome of early dawn, your shoulders wavering to and fro under the weight of the buckets. You’re so small beneath the weight of the yoke, it takes everything in him not to step to you and take it from you. But he knows you want work of your own to feel useful, knows that you resent the weight of your grief and you are fighting it tooth and nail. He doesn’t know if you are winning, but he knows it is a battle worth fighting.

So when you’ve returned, sweating and rubbing at your shoulders with a wince, he calls you over. That morning he teaches you how to feed and care for the cuckoo hens, and the next day, to feed the cows and hogs.

The next time he catches you up with the dawn, he teaches you to milk.

“C’mon,” he jerks his head toward the barn. You freeze like a hunted thing as you always do when he speaks to you, but you let your bundle of logs fall back onto the pile with a wooden clatter and follow him without protest.

The barn’s hay smell does only a little to cover the smells of the animals, but if it perturbs your city sensibilities you don’t comment on it. Din leads you over to the spotted Jersey and pats her down a bit, letting her get used to him.

He sets down the pail and squares up on the stool, tugging a few fine streams of milk into the dirt to clear out any debris from the teat. There’s a thin metallic sound as white streams trickle rhythmically into its tin bottom. You watch him for a bit, and then in a frigid morning whisper,

“She won’t kick me?”

Din shakes his head, bristled cheek rubbing against the cow’s warm side. “No, s’long as you go slow and let her know where you are. She’s gentle, this one.”

“Does she have a name?”

“No.”

There’s a small pause. 

“Why not?”

Instead of answering, he stands with a grunt and beckons you over to the stool. You approach warily, despite his reassurance that the bovine placidly chewing her cud wouldn’t harm you.

“All right, you try.”

Biting your lip, you do. You tug, but nothing happens. Your forehead creases. You try again and the cow snorts gently, as though perplexed at the holdup. He sinks to one knee beside you to watch. Ah, that’s it. You’re squeezing your little hand around the teat with all of your fingers, tweaking your wrist deftly, as though you’re–

“Here.” It comes out more gruffly than intended, and you stiffen for a second as he wraps his hand around your cold little fingers, showing you which grip to use, the pressure, the movement, firmly insisting his thoughts not wander and therefore filling his own head with images of your nimble fingers he’s going to see branded behind his eyelids tonight, he’s sure. With his help, the milk lets down. Once you’ve got it, he rises to his feet and watches you fill the pail.

When you’re done, you pat the cow’s side as if to thank her for behaving during your first milking, and the soft little secret smile he catches you wearing makes his chest fill with something that satisfies. Something like pride. Something like–

He sighs, scrubs his beard with the back of his hand, looks out into the pinkening sky with a deep inhale. The cool morning air clears his head. Somewhat.

After that, he gives you the charge of the chickens and milking, standing by to help if you need it. With a full load of chores, he’d hoped that you would tire yourself out and take a well-earned break at last, but he hasn’t found you out by the creek once since your first morning here. Morning, noon, and night, you cook meals of dubious consistencies. All day, you chase after the kid – much more deftly with your new moccasins, he notes – as though nervous he’ll disappear.

When at last his frustrated concern outweighs his sense and he offers to haul water and logs, you give him a steely no, thank you and continue to do it yourself, no matter how long it takes you to stagger through the yard. You won’t let him near the hearth either; it has quickly become your territory. Should he even step close to it, he can feel your glare burning into the hairs on the back of his neck. It raises his hackles just the same as a wolf’s eyes on him out on the trail. Now, as then, he steers himself and the kid well clear of the threat and keeps an eye out for any mischief.

You’re a little less wary with the animals each day, but you cook meals and you wash dishes with a focus that ought to leave burn marks behind you. Your hands are red and raw after, as though you’re attempting to scrub yourself clean of some evil he has no idea how you could have come to possess. During your first week you take on what you call “fall cleaning”, despite the fact that the prairie’s heat has barely dipped from oppressive to brisk and the September days are sunny and bright.

Whatever “fall cleaning” is, what results is a cataclysm, with many plumes of dirt any prairie dust up would envy and much moving of furniture and scattering of quite settled families of bugs and spiders. Din takes Grogu into the barn and fixes harnesses. He senses that you’re beating at something harder to reach than the cobwebs, and surmises that you want to be alone for it. 

Also, he thinks wryly, rescuing the curious child from the cuckoo cockerel (or rather vice versa, he hardly knows which cawing heathen is worse off) for the third time, it’s perhaps a kindness that the kid’s well out of your way for a day. He’s certainly felt the benefits of having long hours free from having to check every two minutes for a small hand to be where it shouldn’t, to feel the first stab of anxiety at every cry lest it be really bad this time, to feed or clean or soothe. It’s one more item on the list of things he doesn’t know how to express gratitude to you for.

That evening when it seems safe to approach, he has to admit the cabin does look more tidy, though he hardly sees what all the fuss was about. You’ve beaten away the dust and rearranged the room to your liking. The rug that usually caught all the crumbs from dinner now lies in front of the hearth. He doesn’t have much in the way of dishes, but you’ve arranged the nicer ones, two of cheap tin and two of chipped porcelain – in a row on the mantel. They glimmer gently in the evening light, making the place look more like a proper parlor than it’s ever been.

You ask him in a roundabout way if he might hang the nails for the cooking utensils lower, so you can reach them. He agrees at once. He’s ready to do anything you need to get you comfortable here if it will get you out from under that shroud of weariness, ease the hollows beneath your eyes that he fears if touched would bruise and blister like fruit gone to seed too soon. 

But that evening, you fall asleep right at the table, your cheek squished flat on one hand, the fork with your last piece of pancake you’d been drowsily offering the kid drooping from the other. Grogu watches with solemn disdain as the food drops uselessly onto the plank floor.

It takes several calls to wake you. “Girl. Girl.” He almost reaches for the delicate curve of your shoulder, the wrinkle of cotton where the borrowed dress doesn’t quite fit you. When you do wake up it’s with a start, a huff of annoyance as your tired gaze slides to his and he looks away, mindful of the beast he has woken.

“What? Now you have nothing to say? You look as though you do.”

Din works his jaw and looks down at his tin plate. It’s still something he’s getting used to, being observed bare faced like this by you. Your eyes are so bright and direct, staring him down as though you have every intention of seeing him clean through to the blood and sinew, through to every mistake and sin he’s ever committed. But this time, instead of wishing for the cover of his hat, his bandana, he steels himself and meets your eyes. His heart thumps uncomfortably hard in his chest.

“I want you to take it easy from now on. You’ve done enough. You’re pushin’ things too hard. Gonna hurt yourself.”

Now as always, your lips part quickly, baring your teeth. He thinks you feared he would strike you during your first days here. If you had ever had cause to be struck by that dead husband of yours, Din privately considers him better off lying washed up somewhere on the riverbank. But now that you’re seemingly satisfied that Din’s not going to do anything close to beating you, your teeth are sharp and ready to bite.

This time, though, he’s ready, even as you begin by sharpening words out of his own mouth.

“You said it was going to be a hard winter, I’m doing my part. You still have to show me how to pickle the vegetables, and I still don’t know how to make jam, and-”

“No,” he cuts you off sharply. Your expression breaks and freezes. He’s never been this firm with you. He sighs through his nose, glances at the kid. Unafraid, but curious at his tone, no doubt. Kid’s eyes are like planets.

“There’s some time,” he says more calmly. “We’ve got time ‘til all that.” When you’re about to protest again, he presses, “Ain’t gonna make spring come faster for working yourself half to death. Can’t do nothin’ for the winter or for the kid if you’re laid up. Cabin’s clean enough, so just worry about the regular chores a while. The rest will keep.”

Your eyes get very bright, almost glassy in the firelight, and if you were another woman he suspects you might have cried. But you’re not weeping. You’re wringing your brain for any other excuse to get what you want.

It’s surprising, really, that he finds your indignation somewhat endearing. You’re just like Grogu when he’s prevented from something he wants. Hot and determined that you’re going to have it, and hang what Din says. So he doubles down. He’ll take the snips you give him, the way you try, subtly, to draw him into a fight that you will lose. Maker be thanked you have no idea how much practice he has at resisting exactly that. May you never know. You’d run a thousand miles away.

“It’s final.”

He returns to his plate. It’s best if he reminds everyone at this table who’s in charge here. He needs to keep you both safe, healthy, and he will not let you work yourself into an illness or injury that Maker knows might kill you out here.

Your scowl deepens, but you rise from the table with the dishes without further argument.

He tries to go on chewing. His appetite has waned, and the… whatever it is you’ve put on his plate isn’t helping. It used to be meat, he thinks. Something squeaks against his back molars and he pauses a moment. Swallows. He’s had worse and survived. Besides, he didn’t keep rat poison in stock on account of the kid. And now because of you.

Din snorts to himself, and earns a look from you. Not a glare, but suspicious all the same, like the moon’s fingernail peeking over the horizon; the bright of your eyes over the smooth curve of your shoulder. Quickly, he goes back to chewing over the meat.

What are you thinking? He has no idea, except that you’d clearly prefer if he wasn’t close by. You have people back East. Are you fond of them? They of you? Do you miss them, or do you return to them out of duty and obligation, because there is simply no one else who would shelter you at their hearth?

It must be a little like being a foundling in the covert, he thinks, except that the rules are different among your people. Women without husbands or fathers or brothers to protect them lose status, as though the ability of a man to care for them made them more virtuous. Your women are not permitted to be warriors in their own right.

This is a shame, in his opinion. If you knew any better, if you had any concept of what a Child of the Watch was truly capable of, would you take pride in being a Mandalorian’s wife? He doesn’t know of any Mandalorian women who are not trained in combat, but supposedly there were some once, before the Fall. 

Devoted. Strong. Mothers of warriors.

Needless to say, he doesn’t tell you this; you don’t want to hear it. And he shouldn’t be thinking about the dreams of a younger man, anyway. He hands you his plate.

“Thank you for the meal,” he says, as he has each time before. 

No response. Just a tired look, as if you wonder why the hell he’s bothering. The tin plates clatter together noisily.

He says goodnight and again, you do not answer. On his bedroll in the lean-to, he watches the smoke from the hearth dissipate slowly and thinks of you lying in bed. Do you cry there? Do you mourn the man you lost? Or do you simply think, as he does? Perhaps you’re also awake, staring sightlessly, imagining the patterns of the stars hidden from your eyes above.

He half-expects you not to, but you heed his order to take it more slowly. At least, you look less feral at the dinner table the evening after next. You chat with Grogu, encouraging him to eat the peas on his plate rather than mash them to a green pulp coating in his hands. The baby shows you his milky teeth in a shy smile. You almost smile back, your forehead softens. The dead look seems to leave your eyes for several minutes after that.

Day by day, you’re taut with the stubborn will to live, hollow with a readiness to die. It’s still difficult to watch your grief and have nothing to stem it with but food and shelter and his poor attempts at lightening your load and occupying your time. You wear your pain deeply, yet with a stoicism he recognizes by instinct. He watches as the wound begins to knit and scar. He keeps his distance. He lets you snarl and chew, adjust to things in your own time, lest you jerk from even the most gentle of hands and gut yourself further, a snared rabbit in a trap, your soft body tinged with a red that stains. 

Slowly, very slowly, the hollowness fades. Your sharp tongue eases from a weapon of brute force to a mistrustful tool of laceration. Yes, the rest seems to do you good.

You’ve seemed to bond with the child. He had observed the tear tracks and the exhaustion on both of your faces that first day, and determined it best not to ask too much about it. The kid was fine, after all. 

He clings to your skirts now, watches you while you mutter at the fire as though daring it to go out. And while you still stumbled and sighed and tried to keep him occupied, it was with the kind of patience you did not offer anything else, including Din himself. And then, you had looked so solemn when you said, I’ll keep him safe. He had believed you. Still did. And not many had earned that trust so quickly.

Maybe that is why he senses the cracks within himself the first time he sees your smile. Not some hidden or halfhearted twitch of lips, but the real thing. 

It’s at the kid, of course, but it’s while he’s perched on Din’s shoulder as he’s walking indoors, and your grin is so broad, so sweet and affectionate and gentle that it hits him full throttle in the chest. That stretch of your fine, pretty lips echoes through his body like buckshot. He is as rattled as though you had meant to offer it to him, and not the baby with the fistful of prairie blooms: blue aster, wild bergamot, prairie rose.

“You got some pretty little flowers, didn’t you? Did you eat any bugs today?” you coo, reaching up as the kid caws at you, wearing your own precious gift on your face. When Din only stands there in the doorway, frozen, you glance at him in question.

He catches himself, lowers the kid into your waiting arms. It’s your routine by now; you take Grogu before evening chores, he takes the kid after dinner while you do the washing up.

He just hadn’t expected it, that’s all. How the simple gesture transformed you, made you look beautiful, no, vibrant. Maybe if you had smiled sooner in the day, or later, it might not have caught him so unawares. But there’s something special about this time, he has always thought. He has always felt cloaked and safe as the evening as the stars swell, when the sun retreats behind the curtains of the hills, when the crickets chirp and everything begins to still.

On the road, he enjoys this time best alone. He likes watching the moonrise, a sweet secret of the dark just for him. But here? Suddenly he has the absurd notion that if you possess smiles like this one, what the hell does he need the moon for?

But the smile is not for him. So he leaves it be.

There is so much you don’t know.

Your smile reminds him of that moon so much he thinks he might never sever the connection, and it startles him.

He needs to leave.

A few days after Din demands that you take it more slowly, he decides to punish you for it in an unexpected way. Of course, just as you had begun to feel you’d gotten the first real rest you’d had in weeks, begun to swing into a pattern, it all goes to hell.

“Well hey there, neighbor!” caws the voice from the wagon. Peli scoffs impatiently at your stunned face and brushes past you, hauling a large basket in her arms. Din descends from the wagon, somewhat shamefaced at the glare you aim his way. He had said nothing about anyone coming to the homestead. For kriff’s sake, you’re wearing these strange, comfortable shoes and there had been no hair pins in the box Mrs. Shackleton sent; your hair was braided long down your back and tied with the store twine. You’re still wearing the same damn dress. You look like a heathen.

“Well, girl, where you keep your bread tin at?” Peli calls from within.

“We’re baking bread?” you ask, still staring Din down. Clearing his throat, he passes by you without answering, his bandana and hat masking all but his dark eyes, which he does not give you, either. He sets another basket, this one full of small jars, on the kitchen table with a clinking rattle and touches the rim of his hat with two fingers. 

Peli waves him off out of his own house with authority. “Get on, Mando, we won’t be needin’ ya.”

He goes, but not as though in a hurry. This time, he meets your eyes, a golden-brown gleam. 

You stare after him for a few seconds, your heartbeat returning to normal, skipping as it usually did when he got close to you. Leftover fear, you guessed, from being around Leo’s unpredictable moods. “Gonna check the chickens, Peli,” you say suddenly then, and follow him out the door.

He’s already at the barn tacking up Razor when you approach.

“What’s she here for?” 

He buckles and re-buckles the strap at Razor’s belly, shifts the horse blanket, the saddle bags. The horse’s ears flick, perturbed. He checks the saddle once more before swinging up, his strong legs lifting him easily. “Visit,” he says at last, not looking at you.

“And you?” You scoff, fold your arms. “You don’t want to welcome your visitor too?”

“Rather not.”

Rage settles into your chest. You would also rather not, and yet here he was, getting to slip away to do Maker knew what, getting to hide behind saddle and bandana, while the sharp-tongued biddy inside was apparently more than ready to turn your day upside down.

“Only be in the way. ‘Sides, I have business in town today with the mayor.” He finally meets your eyes. “Not sure if I’ll be back tonight. Peli’s gonna stay if I can’t make it.”

You balk. “But what about the-”

“Don’t worry about anythin’, hear?” He jerks his chin towards the barn. “They’ll keep. I don’t want you goin’ in there without Peli or me.”

“Fine,” you bite.

He nods, touches the rim of his hat again, but doesn’t move. Razor snorts and paws, eager to go, but Din sits there, watching from beneath the shadow of his hat as you pout below like a child.

“I’ll keep him safe,” you say at last. Of course you would. The only thing that has kept you tethered to where you are, what you’re doing, keeps you from wandering in mind and body are the soft giggles and curious antics of his child.

He nods, solemn, and beckons the horse with his calves.

Your morning with Peli turns out to be a better experience than you feared. Though the two of you had had sharp tongues whetted to lacerate each other the first time you met, upon further reflection, you realize this may have been in large part your own doing. After all, hadn’t she been practically and calmly laying out your options, hadn’t she given you her bed and fed you?

In a few minutes you find yourself relaxing. She is nothing like the women that run the general store, the Shackletons, with their feathered hats that wouldn’t be out of place in your mother’s tailor shop, the women beneath them tutting and fretting at your buttonholes to save a few cents off the asking price. But Peli pays absolutely no mind to your strange footwear or lack of proper stockings and hair. Peli fixes a pair of wired spectacles around her goggling eyes, sets her hands on her hips, and instead of remarking on the mismatched china on the mantel, compliments how well you have scrubbed the floor. Then she takes several minutes to coo and fuss about the baby, bouncing him on her knee and saying things like,

“Look at those ears! Oh, you little prairie rat, it would be a shame not to grow into those. Here’s hopin’, huh? Tiny thing, you don’t seem to grow up much, do you? What have they fed you?”

Well, after that it’s pretty hard not to like her, as odd as she is. You even find yourself chuckling as the two of them chatter; only under your breath, but still. The vibration in your chest grates in your ribs, unfamiliar, and pausing over the coffeepot you feel a pang of shame. You shouldn’t be laughing, surely, with your husband dead only this short while?

The oppressive weight that had collapsed your lungs with shock and grief is easing from a bloodied death grip to a battle-ready fist. You’re surprised, actually, at how far you’ve come in a spare couple of weeks. You slept through the night with hardly any crying most nights, and when you did have a nightmare, it was brief and you could sometimes sleep again afterwards. When you couldn’t, you watched the baby sleep, his little puffs between plump lips and warm cheeks a sweeter vision than the ones rippling behind your eyelids when you shut them.

Peli seems to echo your thoughts as you set down a weak cup of coffee to the first and only guest you’ve ever had as a married woman; you’re also embarrassed to note you have nothing to offer with it, having broken the milk jug. Your mother would have turned up her nose and refused it, but Peli slurps the hot liquid with gusto and carries on talking. “You seem a mite more rested n’ when I saw you last, girl.”

“I am, thank you.”

“Been settlin’ in?”

“Yes.”

She levels you a dry, doubtful look over her coffee mug. She frowns a little, eyes narrowing at you. The cup makes a gentle clink against the sturdy wooden table. “Girl–” the sigh is as fond as it is exasperated. “Dunno why you won’t admit to it. Shoot, when I lost my daddy I was a wreck for many a day.”

You blink, surprised.

“It’s hard to watch somebody leave this world. Harder still I reckon to have it sudden-like, like you did, and him bein’ so young, yeah? No infirm old man comes out here for a livin’.” Peli’s amber eyes, creased with laugh lines but with no dull to their sparkle, flicker with sadness, but that’s not what loosens your shoulders. It’s the inwardness; she’s remembering a loss perhaps very far away in space and time. And it haunts her still.

Is that what you had looked like?

What did you look like now?

“I’m…” I’m fine, thank you for asking. I’m doing better. I’m all right, thank you kindly ma’am. The polite lies wither on your tongue. “I’m getting on, a little,” you admit. It still feels wrong, but it’s the closest your poor abilities can come to describing how you feel.

You tell her about learning to milk, feeding the chickens. You tell her about learning to handle Grogu. You tell her about the disastrous first instance of your cooking, and the fretfulness you had worked up in yourself over ensuring it did not happen again.

Peli’s gentle chuckles rise to a full belly laugh over your repeated plights in the cooking department, and when you grumble over the baby’s hair full of grits, she cackles and reaches down to tug the ear of the little one, as though congratulating him.

“It’s not funny,” you insist, though the corner of your mouth twitches. “It’s one of the main things I ought to be doing, taking care of the baby and cooking and-”

Peli’s arms fold comfortably. “Mando say so?”

You balk. “No.”

“Give you plenty of chores to do, then? Got you plumb beat?”

You hesitate, unsure from her matter-of-fact tone whether she expects the answer to be in the negative. Peli shuffles in her seat to get even more settled, resting her folded hands on her belly as though she intended to stay there all day. Below the table, Grogu coos over her shoe buckles.

“When Mando first came to town, I was the on’y one – the on’y one, mind – to open my door to his business. Coins are coins, in my opinion, and he had ‘em. Had this little prairie rat too,” she adds, with another fond tweak of the kid’s ear. “Took a shine to him I guess ‘cause he was polite and had a half-pint little rugrat to care for. No proper home as far as I could tell. He wanted me to fix up his wagon. Said he would be gone a few days, would I keep after the little one?”

She grins. “Well, his coin was good,” but she glances down at Grogu adoringly. “The dogs liked him, though Mando doesn’t seem to care for dogs much.”

“What did –” you hesitate over using his name. Did Peli not know Din’s name? That seemed ridiculous, but perhaps this was a nickname the two of them shared… though that didn’t seem to fit either of their personalities very well. You avoid the question. “What did he go off to do?”

Peli shrugs. “Not my business. Coin was good. Came back after a day or so, as he said.”

“And then he stayed?”

“Oh, no.” She takes a long draft of her coffee and smacks her lips. “Came and went for a few months, same as many do. I could tell folks about was as mistrustful of him as they used to be of my daddy, but just like I did, they came around when his business was clean.”

“Has he always…?” you chew on your question, uncertain.

“Covered his face? Sure. Never asked,” she tells you smoothly. “Impolite. Well, I guess he had some hullabaloo about town with some strange folk, and it was all the sheriff could do to help him clear it out. After that, the mayor was grateful enough to hand him a package of land. Good land too,” she adds, glancing out at the window. “Not that he seems of a mind to put it to much.”

“I noticed.” It was strange to Peli too, then, that a homesteader had no farm and few livestock. And, it seemed, the little cache of coins you had found did likely belong to Din, and he had had the money before the land and built that little hideaway to keep it safe. So where did he get it from? Surely a poor little pioneer town like this one hadn’t enough money to reward a stranger that handsomely?

“Well, to tell a man his business is wasted breath,” Peli says sagely. “That’s somethin’ Mando knows well too, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

Her eyebrows fold; pity? Or more exasperation at your clear inexperience? “Girl, you ain’t got a clue what you’re doin’ out here. When he dropped you at my doorstep you were hardly more’n a ghost. Like your body had come outta that river and left somethin’ missin’. Seems to me he’s grateful you’re here at all, never mind what you can do. You’re luckier than most to be alive, girl, and here you are fussin’ about a bachelor’s kitchen?” 

She snorts. “Well, I guess he ain’t a bachelor any more. Still, though, little thing like you.” She leaves it there as you note with skepticism that you have several inches on her.

“You’ll get on, girl.”

You look up. Your thoughts had wandered back to Din, wondering where he was now on his errand, if he really thought you as fragile as Peli implied. You wonder if you are. After all, what tenuous threads tie you together? The responsibility you were beginning to feel for Grogu? The promise of more work to distract you from your thoughts? 

“I guess so,” you offer. It’s the best you can do for now.

She’s looking at you with a stiff jaw, as though her compassion comes at a price she did not often pay. “I ain’t guessin’.”

You sit there and share that thought between you. That you will survive. The knowledge that you will, because you must. Maybe it’ll never be the same, but it’ll be. “And having a little one by to care for don’t hurt none,” she adds, with a bright look for the small hands using her skirt to lift the dark-eyed baby to his feet. The baby inspects the table for treats, and finding none, huffs in a wry tone beyond his years, as if to ask what on earth the point was, without any treats to get by on?

Watching you stroke your fingers gently over his pudgy cheek, Peli declares him as wise a prairie rat as she ever saw, and why didn’t the two of you make him somethin’ to eat? In a matter of minutes after that, she’s teaching you how to make bread, how to dollop cookies into a plate in the oven and throw coals on the lid to bake them. She blathers on about all the jams she’s ever made as she whips up a batch of that too, calling out ingredient for you to fetch, never minding your scurried attempts to follow along.

Once the bread is actually in the oven, though, you’re surprised by how simple it is, this visit with Peli. You show her the paper piecing you’ve traced to make yourself a nightdress and new gown. She peers at the pencil marks and huffs. For the first time, she looks rather impressed. “Maybe you do know somethin’, girl.”

Then she digs into her box that Din had brought and tells you she’s going to piece a quilt, and you seem to be handy with a needle. So you take the shears and the precious bolt of fabric for your gown, and she sits in the chair by the door and bounces Grogu on her knee.

It turns out the stitching is easy and companionable work, but you’re fascinated as she describes the intricate needlework on quilts she’s seen from some of the more skilled women in town. Patchworks of all sizes and descriptions. She asks if you’ve ever made a pinwheel like the one she’s brought, and you say you have not; your mother after all kept enough quilts at home, and the ones you had packed into your wagon had been made by your sister and mother as part of your hastily thrown together trousseau.

“Well, next time I come,” Peli exclaims, “I’ll be setting you to work! You’re quick with a needle, girl, and you’ll be a mighty help for these old eyes. Could sell, if you liked. But for now, let’s get this rugrat fed and to bed.”

Your heart leaps. Sell your sewing? Perhaps to the general store? How much money might that earn you? Would it be enough for a train ticket, or-?

But Peli heaves herself up with a grunt and carries herself to the cold storage, returning with a wrapper of beef, and tells you you’ll be making stew, everybody ought to know how to make stew. The question of sewing falls to the wayside.

Like the bread, it turns out to be simple when patiently explained over Peli’s quick, haphazard movements near the hearth. Surely she didn’t come all this way just to teach you to do that? No, that’s absurd, but it’s the strangest call you’ve ever received or witnessed.

As you sew, your thoughts return to Din. The longer you got to know him the more questions you had. His saddle, his belt, his holster, his boots – every strip of leather on him was carefully maintained, and you had seen him oiling them carefully until each one gleamed. You wondered if he was waiting for the cowhide to flash his reflection back at him.

You’ll ask him about selling some sewing to the store, you vow suddenly, your mood well improved by the full, comfortable stomach of stew and bread. It seems clear Din will not return tonight. You try and fail to coax Peli from the rocking chair, and instead settle her with a spare blanket and take Grogu into bed.

Yes. Oce you’re safely under the covers, the smell of baking helping you drift more quickly than you have in days, you resolve that in the morning you’ll ask him. You’ll be able to pay him back at least for the dress materials, for the costs you must be incurring him, if you could sell little things from the scraps at a profit. Tomorrow.

Dreams take you. For the first time, you sleep through the night.

Din doesn’t return for four days.

husband's grandmother mailed me that grocery store pedro magazine.

hilarious for many reasons, and does lead me to ask

How did she know I was this into p???

why did she mail it, we live a mile away from each other?

i know it when i see it - part 8

masterlist | ao3

pairing: pornstar!joel miller x fem!reader

rating: explicit 18+ minors dni

word count: 11.5k

warnings: discussions of assault, minor injuries, victim blaming, hurt/comfort, sexual tension, voyeurism, oral sex, car sex, finally some candid conversations

summary: you wake up in joel's bed. there are worse places to be.

a/n: thanks for your patience. love you guys.

full chapter available on ao3

I’m so obsessed with this!!!!

reached down to grasp him, but his hand caught yours and pushed it into the bedding above your head. "Let me do it. I wanna watch your face when I put it in," he confessed, resting his weight on top of you as he reached down with his other hand to guide himself in.

HELP!! I levitated reading this part. Tender taboo Frankie is so delicious.

Next time!!!! I love that they both know this isn’t a one off thing.

the confession! Such wonderful resolution to all the tension built up in the first part!

I adore the reassurance. There’s something so lovely about Frankie overcoming the fear and potential regret of the situation, and still choosing to be comforting. This whole thing is crafted so beautifully, I can’t wait to read over and over again!! ❤️

Down the Hall

Frankie Morales x f!reader

Tags: Explicit, age gap because you know what I'm about (Frankie is your mom’s boyfriend, he is in his 40s, you are in your mid-20s)

A/N: Yea….so this is dedicated to @intheorangebedroom who inspired this entire idea and to @whatsnewalycat whose beautiful brain and writing inspired me as well. Thank you to @astroboots for cheering me on, to @bageldaddy for the super in depth beta and to @the-ginger-hedge-witch who soothed by "does this hit" worries — your minds are golden and I am so happy you support this utter filth. Ily ❤️

He thought that dating someone his own age would ground him, steady him. Not that he ever paid much attention to the age of the women he dated, but he thought with someone who had their own shit figured out, he might be inspired to do the same. 

Unmoored and unattached since he joined the army in his twenties, he was pushing forty now and craved some kind of routine. Living alone gave him too much time for thinking, too many hours spent inside his own head. He knew that living like that for too long could lead to bad decisions and thought he might hold himself to a higher standard when he saw how they held themselves to one. 

He met her at a bar – the most cliche of meeting places, but for good reason. She was out with friends after work and from the start, he was attracted to the way she smiled with her whole mouth. Everything about her seemed sensuous and fun, so inviting that he found himself drawn in and when he asked if he could take the seat next to her, he matched her smile with one of his own. 

When she invited him home that night, he buried himself deep while feasting on that generous mouth. 

He stayed that night, and then one night became twice a week, became three – and before he knew it, his lease was up on his apartment and he moved in. It was nice to come home to someone after work. To know that someone was there, wondering how his day went. To have a warm body curled up next to him in bed. 

She was so independent, so driven. A corporate job that required her to dress in slippery blouses and pretty skirts with heels; the same he loved to strip from her when she came home all stressed out the way she did sometimes. And she had a kid – a daughter – already in college somewhere on the east coast, but that didn’t bother him. Dating in his forties meant people already had their own histories, and he was no exception. 

Sometimes after she fell asleep and he had time alone to think, he still felt something that itched beneath his skin. Something that pulled at him from within, something that remained unsettled. He told himself that it was just an adjustment period after so many years of being unattached, and shoved those feelings deep down inside of him, determined to ignore them until he taught himself a new way to live. 

Her breathing deep and steady beside him, he told himself that she was good for him. 

That was what counted.

He was all for it when she told him her daughter was coming home to stay the summer between semesters. He liked the idea of having another person in the house – another distraction, another responsibility to take him out of his own head. 

He worked odd hours, and during his off days, Frankie took up the task of preparing her daughter’s old room. Light pink walls, a creamy bedspread dotted with delicate flowers: his mind supplied an automatic image of the little girl that lined the hallway in frames. He knew she was older than that now, but the way her mom talked about her, he couldn’t help imagining a little kid. 

Tasked with picking her up from the airport the day she arrived, he had just stepped out of the shower when he heard the doorbell. Frowning, he tugged a shirt over his damp curls, and opened the door.

Jesus Christ. Speechless, he stared at the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. 

“Sorry I didn’t call,” you apologized, tugging a heavy bag higher up on your shoulder. “I got in early and thought an Uber would be faster.”

He stood there for a moment, just staring, his mouth slightly parted in confusion. And then he saw it: the shape of your eyes, the curve of your lush mouth. The resemblance stamped across your delicate features.

“I couldn’t find my key.” You stood there, looking uneasy on your own doorstep. “You must be Frankie. Or is it Francisco? My mom said you’d be here. It’s nice to meet you.”

At the rounded sound of his full name coming from your mouth, his gaze snapped back to meet your eyes while you hung there, clearly waiting for him to say something. His body was slow to catch up with his brain, the little girl his mind supplied was gone, replaced by the vision that stood in front of him. Still young and fresh-faced, but grown nonetheless and so, so fucking beautiful. 

When you gestured towards the house behind him, he finally shook himself from the initial shock.

“Shit,” he apologized, stepping back out of your way. “Yea, it’s Frankie. Nice to meet you.” You gave him a half smile, and when you stepped inside, he reached for your bag. “Here, let me grab that.”

His hand dragging through his curls, he stood in the entryway and watched you make yourself at home: your shoes immediately kicked off on the doormat, your jacket hung neatly next to his own like it had always belonged there. 

“Do you know when my mom gets home?”

He cleared his throat, trying not to stare at the length of your legs underneath the hem of your shorts. “Uh, she said probably around six? That’s when she usually gets home.”

You nodded, holding your hand out for your bag and for a split second, he wondered if he should bring it upstairs for you. It would be the polite thing to do, but the idea of entering your room now felt like overstepping. You weren’t a kid, you didn’t need him like that. The boundaries had suddenly blurred and shifted, and he whisked away the image of you settling into your bedroom just as fast as it popped into his head. 

When you grabbed the bag from him, he felt relief. 

It was easy to avoid you for the afternoon while you got settled. Instead, he mowed the lawn, prepared dinner, all the while with his ears attuned to the sound of you walking around above him. He felt on edge, anxious. The excitement he thought he would feel with someone else in the house had turned into unease. 

He made himself an outsider, even more so when your mom came home. Not wanting to intrude on your time together, he stayed in the kitchen to cook dinner for the two of you and delivered it to the living room, placing your plates on the coffee table. 

“Thank you, baby, that’s so nice.” Your mother scooted forward, tilting her chin up towards him in a silent request for a kiss. 

Granting it to her, he felt her familiar hold slip around the back of his neck to keep him in place for a moment, keenly aware of the way you were right there. For a split second while his lips were still on hers, he glanced up at you and it was clear that he caught you watching by the way you hastily looked away the second he met your eyes. 

He fucked her hard that night, his hand over her mouth so you wouldn’t hear. 

She was gone in the morning when he made his way downstairs, and he was pleasantly surprised to find coffee already in the pot. 

“I made extra,” you said, from your perch on the chair at the table. Sleep shorts high on your thighs, an oversized tee shirt covering your top half. The way it engulfed you made you look younger than you were. 

He looked away, busying himself with pouring a cup. 

“I drink a lot, so I made a lot,” you explained with shy self-deprecation. 

“Sounds good to me,” he replied, sitting down at the table. “Got any plans for today? Or for the summer, I guess?” 

Wading the tentative waters of getting to know someone, he watched your fingers play with the edge of the paper. 

“Just relax for a bit, I think? Catch up with some old friends? No plan really. I just didn’t want to hang out on a deserted campus.”

He nodded. “Makes sense.” 

And so began the morning routine you would both share for the next few weeks. Hesitant and quiet around each other in the beginning, sliding into something normal fairly fast. Your mother was early to rise and early to bed, but he had never been and neither were you. 

He joined you in the late morning at the kitchen table, the curve of your soft cheek highlighted in the slant of light through the window. On the couch at night, a different kind of illumination from the light of the TV, yet hitting your cheek just the same. Your things scattered around the living room, your toothbrush next to his in the bathroom, your clothes mixed with his in the wash. 

Your proximity was what he blamed for the constant thoughts he had about you. 

Every morning he admired how rumpled you looked, how sleepy and soft and inviting. It was endearing, but soon other thoughts edged out the more innocent ones: thoughts about your legs wrapped around his waist, your slender fingers wrapped around something other than a coffee cup. 

The want he felt for you pooled in various places inside him: his brain, his chest, between his thighs. It spilled down the shower drain and spilled hot across his stomach. 

It flooded your mother’s mouth, and she was none the wiser.

Afterwards, she tucked her face into the meat of his shoulder, pressing a kiss against the skin there. Sated and content, she curled herself around him. “Let’s do something this weekend together. Actually make use of that pool we have for once.”

A barbecue. She’d been talking about having one for a while. 

“We’ve been working so hard. I feel like I barely even see you, honey.” 

Something akin to guilt tugged at him, thinking of the shifts he had been picking up in an effort to avoid you. Your eyes, your smile, your stupid sleep shorts.

He hummed his agreement and she kissed him in thanks, her breaths eventually evening out as she fell asleep. 

Frankie lay awake, the image of your closed bedroom door stuck in his mind. 

–

“Jesus Christ,” you murmured as you watched Frankie climb out of the pool. 

Broad, bare shoulders, tanned swathes of skin, cute little dimples just above his ass. Water ran down over his tanned skin, the thin material of his swim shorts stuck to his ass and when he turned around to grab a towel off a nearby chair, you were glad for your sunglasses.

Fuck me. 

The material of his shorts molded to every inch of his thick cock, the shape clearly outlined. Oblivious, he ran the towel over his curls, over his shoulders and arms, down his torso – and when his hand gingerly pulled the material away from his crotch, you memorized the swirl of dark hair that surrounded his navel and led down.  

“Can you help me with the grill, honey?”

Your mom’s voice pulled your attention away from him. 

Her boyfriend, you reminded yourself. Frankie was her boyfriend.

“Yea,” he called back, chucking his towel on the chair. “Be right there. Let me put a shirt on.”

The shirt he shrugged over his head was the same one you folded that morning. The material was threadbare and super soft, the muscles of his back shifting underneath the thin fabric as he sauntered over to the grill. You knew the way it felt in your hands, and at the thought of his body heat through the material, you pressed your thighs together. 

The afternoon sun bathed you in warmth, but it was nothing compared to the heat that pooled inside your bottoms as you continued to watch him from your recline by the pool. His brown curls glinted in the sun, his throat bobbing with a swallow when your mother brought him a beer. 

When his eyes flashed over to you, you finally looked away. 

You saw those deep, doleful brown eyes in your sleep. 

You felt them on you all the time: in the dark living room during family movie time, your mother curled up against his side. In the kitchen after dinner, when you loaded the dishwasher while he put away the food. In the mornings, when you pretended to read the paper while he snuck hooded peeks at you and drank you in. 

Startled by his handsomeness from the very first time you laid eyes on him, your crush only grew with every passing day spent in his company. He was so thoughtful, so attentive and kind, but it was something else buried within his gaze that drew you in. 

A barely restrained want that shone clear on his face every time he looked at you. A need simmering under the surface, you saw the way he fought it. 

You thought about him constantly: imagined him crowding you against the counter in the kitchen, saw him pulling back the shower curtain to join you, pretended your fingers were his in your bed at night. 

Born out of your own need, you pushed him. Played with the limits of his self control, desperate for him to make a move. No action overt enough to be blatant, the way he stared at you made you feel confident, bold. The want pouring off his skin when you hung around him was obvious and thick, filling the space between the two of you until he inevitably excused himself. 

When it’s time to eat, you take a seat next to him on the bench, your thigh pressed hot against his. You waited for him to pull away, but he never did and the intimate sensation of the hair on his leg brushing against your own smoother skin made it hard to eat, though you missed it when he got up. 

Your mother, one margarita too many and giggly and loose, pulled him into a dance under the stars that had just begun to come out. He humored her, wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her close, smiling at every murmured secret she slipped into his ear. 

You watched the scene unfold right in front of you with a fond, humoring expression, and his eyes kept finding yours, flashing in the darkness. 

You pretended nonchalance, but the entire time, you wanted. 

He took her to bed while you cleaned up the kitchen. 

You knew he fucked her – you heard it sometimes. They tried to be quiet for your sake but sometimes a whimper would slip down the hall, the deep reverberation of a groan in the dark. 

Climbing into bed that night, your mind lingered on the image of his wet swim trunks. The dark swirl of hair, the heft in the outline. 

You wondered what he fucked like with a cock like that. 

–

“Something’s going on in the Arizona market,” your mom explained, tossing items into her suitcase. A silk blouse spilled over the side, and you tucked it back in with the rest. “I’ll be gone through Thursday, maybe Friday? Hopefully not the weekend, but I’ll let you know.”

“Do you need a ride to the airport?” 

Smiling at you, she stepped forward and cupped your cheek with her hand for a moment. “That’s sweet, honey, but I’m good. Frankie’s got it.”

Apprehension swirled with anticipation, the joint feelings settled low in your gut. You’d been alone with him before, but never for this long. Never truly alone, for days on end. 

The man himself poked his head around the corner of the doorway, the width of his shoulders filling out the frame. He glanced at you, and then his watch. “You about ready, baby?” 

She bustled around the room, tossing things here and there onto the bed and he looked at you again, a slight frown pulling between his brows. 

His expression gave something akin to frustration, and for a split second, you thought it was because of the time your mom was taking. When you felt his dark eyes drop down the length of your body involuntarily and then back up again, you turned away with a small smile, knowing it to be something else. 

–

For the first couple days, he stayed away from the house as much as he could. Kept his distance until he ran out of errands, until he drove down the same stretch of road too many times. He didn’t trust himself to be alone with you, and he hated himself for it. 

Self loathing creeped in every time he thought about the way his jeans tightened even thinking of you alone in the house. His girlfriend’s fucking daughter, half his age. The whole thing was fucked up. 

And yet, he couldn’t stop. 

He felt bad, thinking of you suddenly being all alone after spending so much time with people around, but he told himself that you probably loved having the space to yourself. 

He came in the shower that morning to the thought of your mouth wrapped around the base of his cock, and he was unable to look you in the eye when he saw you in the kitchen afterward. Your hopeful expression lingered in his mind all day as he stretched out the hours. 

The sky turned from light blue to dark, and he finally caved. He couldn’t stay away forever. 

The house was quiet when he walked in, tossing his keys on the entryway table. He crept around, looking for any sign of your presence, until he heard the shower running upstairs. Light spilled down the staircase, and heading into the kitchen, he tried to push down the thoughts running rampant in his head. 

He drank a glass of water, listening. 

The shower turning off (your naked body, damp and warm), your footsteps padding down the hall (that smooth skin, hidden under your towel), your bedroom door shutting (the towel dropping onto your floor). 

He stayed downstairs, turning the TV on to distract himself, the air in the house charged with a magnetic pull from your room. He waited until there had been nothing but silence for the better part of a half hour, then dared to venture upstairs. 

He’d just say goodnight, that’s all. Just so you knew you weren’t alone. 

His knuckles rapped against your door, and he pushed it open when he heard you say come in. 

“Hey,” you greeted him, slight surprise on your face. Stretched out in bed, the inviting cloud of your comforter was plush underneath your body. You paused the movie you were watching, and sat up on your elbows. “Haven’t seen you in a couple days.”

“Yea,” he replied, leaning against the frame of your door. His eyes followed a slow path up your bare legs. 

“Work been crazy or something?” you asked.

“Something like that, yea,” he answered. His hand stayed on the knob of your door, an anchor that kept him from crossing a line. “I actually just stopped by to say goodnight. I’m gonna turn in.”

“Already?” you teased. “It’s pretty early, isn’t it? Aren’t you gonna live it up while my mom is gone?”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “I’ve lived it up enough. I’m an old man, remember? We don’t do that kind of stuff.”

“Forty-five is hardly an old man,” you scolded with a smile. “You wanna watch a movie instead?”

You patted the bed next to you, and his face sobered. You didn’t see it, instead reaching for the lotion on your bedside table to work some into your hands and the image of you jerking his cock with that same lotion flashed across his mind. He frowned. 

“In here?” 

You shrugged, laying back down. “I mean, I’m already all set up in here…”

You left the offer hanging, and even though he knew - he fucking knew he shouldn’t - he found himself nodding. 

You looked surprised at his answer for a split second, and then pleased. 

“Let me go get changed.”

He walked down the hall towards his room, scolding himself the entire time. Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t go back into that fucking room. Don’t think about how smooth her skin is and how much you want to kiss her.  Don’t think about how her sheets smell like her, don’t think about how much you want to lick her cunt. 

The thoughts ran on a loop as he peeled off his work clothes. 

They echoed in his head as he pulled on his sweats. 

They followed him out of his bedroom and all the way down the hall, stopping at your doorway.

You turned your head, looking at him expectantly, looking so fucking lush and innocent, so eager to have him join you. 

He swallowed hard, mouth watering and left his guilt in the hallway, joining you in bed.

–

Pretending to ignore the heavy blanket of tension pulsing between your bodies, you kept your eyes fixed on the screen. 

Stretched out next to you, he kept a respectable distance, but you felt the heat that poured off of his skin. He looked so large in your bed, so much like a man. His long limbs splayed out over your girlish comforter, his masculine scent filled the space and when he crossed his arms, you admired the way the hem of his sleeve stretched around his bicep. 

Lightheaded and trembling with a heady want that ached between your thighs, you made it through the whole movie – until the room descended into darkness, until the credits rolled and the screen went black  

Until it was just the two of you sitting side by side in the dark. 

The sheets rustled when you rolled onto your side to face him. 

“What did you think?” you asked quietly. 

He looked down at you from his slouch on the bed, and your fingers twitched with the need to smooth away the crease that rested permanently between his brows. You would think he was mad if not for his eyes: those always look conflicted more than anything. Constant turmoil, roiling deep within the dark depths. 

Not answering, he stared down at you for a long moment before shrugging. 

“Okay, I guess. Well, have a good night.”

He then started to slide off the bed. 

Disappointment flooded your chest, the tension that you’d been feeling for the last two hours releasing restlessly through your limbs. Already making plans to get your vibrator from your side table to use while burying your face into the sheets he was just sitting on, he stilled. 

Your eyes fixed on his broad back, you could almost see the decision being made and he quickly turned before he could convince himself to stop. 

Bending down, he kissed you. 

It was consuming. The brush of his mustache, the taste of his mouth, the weight of his solid body as he pushed you into the bedding, draping it over yours. His tongue slipped into your mouth to slide against your own, and he swallowed the soft sound that caught in the back of your throat. Pushing himself into the cradle between your thighs, he forced them open wider as he deepened the kiss, and his dry, calloused hand slid underneath the hem of your shirt, wrapping around your hip. 

You knew you should push him away, but your hands only dragged him closer, grabbing everything you could touch: the slip of his curls, the curve of his whiskered jaw, the rounds of his broad shoulders. You dug your fingertips into his sides as he ground his hips against yours and your knees hitched higher around his torso. 

His hand wrapped around the top of your shin, pushing down to hold you in place.  

“Jesus,” he breathed into your mouth between kisses, his fingers tightening in their hold before sliding down to touch everything he can: the meat of your hips, his big hand cupping your ass with a greedy squeeze. Need rolled off of him in waves, his touch betraying just how long he had thought about this and his mouth shifted down to devour the long line of your neck, tasting the sweet hollow of your throat. 

Your pulse beat fast under his tongue, speeding up when he let out a groan against the sensitive skin. 

“Take – take this off–” he sat back on his ankles, his hands fumbling with your shirt.

As soon as you pulled it over your head, his mouth latched onto your nipple. His tongue swirled around it, sliding over the peaked bud with a suck. His beard scraped across your sensitive skin, leaving a wet path that glistened over the plane of your chest as he dragged his mouth to your other breast and his heavy hand reached down to cup you wholly over your sleep shorts. 

His fingers dug into the dip of your entrance and the heel of his hand ground hard against your clit. 

“I can’t stop thinking about this pussy,” he confessed. His fingers rubbed harder, and he groaned hot against your skin. “I can already feel how soaked she is for me. How much she wants it.”

You nodded with a whimper, rolling your hips into his touch. “God yes. Please.”

He pulled back just enough to stare down at your face, his pitch black eyes sliding over your features to settle on your open mouth. “Tell me you want this. Tell me how much you want my cock.”

“Yes. Please, please,” you begged.

“It’s gonna be a lot, baby.” He wetted his bottom lip with his tongue, his hand working, working, working. “She’s gonna need to be wet to take what I need her to take.”

A fresh wave of arousal washed through you, and your sleep shorts clung to your center with every grind of his palm. His thick fingers nudged the fabric to the side, exploring. 

“Oh fuck,” he groaned, releasing a heavy breath. “Fuck.” 

His eyes fluttered shut with a frown as his touch slid through your soaked seam and kissing you again, he timed the slide of his tongue with the slick stretch of two fingers. 

Your thighs opened wider around his waist, a whine crawling out of your throat when he pushed them deeper and when he started a smooth, audible stroke, you started to ride his hand. 

You’d been watching his fingers for months: wrapped around the steering wheel in the car, loosely cradling the neck of a beer bottle, drumming against his thigh when he watched TV sometimes. You’d imagined them tucked inside you so many times, buried in your mouth or your cunt, and as he worked a third one in, you let out a filthy moan. 

“I gotta work it open, baby,” he soothed, pulling your earlobe between his lips. “It’ll be okay. I know you can take it.”

His hips started to follow the rhythmic roll of his hand and when he seemed satisfied with how much you could take, he slid his fingers out, reaching to tear his shirt off over his head. When he pushed his fingers into his mouth for a moment, his lips wrapping around his knuckles as he sucked your taste off the thick digits, his hooded eyes took in the way you scrambled to take your sleep shorts off. 

Following your lead, he dumped everything onto the floor beside your bed, and it felt like heaven when you felt his bare skin against the inside of your thighs. So broad, so firm and strong, his body pressed you into the mattress and you felt the hot, pulsing heft of his cock pushing against your cunt. You clenched at the teasing sensation of what was to come, and reached down to grasp him, but his hand caught yours and pushed it into the bedding above your head. 

“Let me do it. I wanna watch your face when I put it in,” he confessed, resting his weight on top of you as he reached down with his other hand to guide himself in. 

Sticky slick smeared between the both of you, and when the tip of his cock forced you to bloom around him, his eyes fixed on your face. Greedily, he devoured the sight of your mouth dropping open, a tiny tiny frown appearing between your brows and he thickened inside you, pushing forward.

“Fuck,” you moaned. “It’s so much.” So much more than you ever thought it would be, even with all the months spent imagining it. 

He bottomed out and the air froze in your lungs, your cunt stuffed fuller than it’s ever been. 

“Shhh,” he soothed, staying in place to let you adjust. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re so fucking tight, baby. So tight.”

Squirming underneath him, you hitched your knees higher around his torso and he rocked his hips to slide halfway out before grinding back in with a weighted push. He gave you a minute: a tense minute, a minute thick and full of wanting, a minute where all you could focus on was the stretch of his cock and the heated bulk of his body and the firmness of his chest pressed against yours. 

He brushed his lips against yours, and gently rolled his hips. 

“Do you know how much I’ve thought about this? About fucking you, in this bed?” His voice deep and breathless, it sounded overwhelmingly intimate breathed against your cheek. 

You shook your head. 

“I thought I was the only one,” you admitted. “I used to think – oh fuck – I used to think about you coming down the hallway in the night. Crawling into my bed and fucking me just like this. Just like I can hear you fuck her.”

“You listen to me fuck her?” His hips rocked forward a little faster, picking up pace. 

“I can’t help it,” you whined. “The sounds – the sounds you make. I wanted to make you make them. I wanted to be the reason.”

His fingers pushed through the hold of your own, locking your hands together above your head and he dug his knees into the bed for leverage. Your breasts shifted underneath him, bouncing lightly as he fucked into you harder and his eyes dropped down to watch. “You are, baby. You are. I think about you all the time.”

Building steadily underneath him, your head pushed back into the bedding and his mouth found your throat, his teeth scraping against the tender skin. His hips never stopping their filling grind, you pushed your fingers through his curls and when he bit down with a suck, a slurred yes slipped out of your outstretched throat. 

You imagined your mom seeing it, asking you if you went on a date with someone. 

His strokes got harder, harsher, his hips snapping against yours and digging your fingers into the soft globes of his ass, you forced him deeper. When you clenched around his thick length, he looked down at you, wrecked and desperate. 

“I wish I tasted you,” he groaned. “Next time, okay?”

You frantically nodded, unable to focus on anything but the bright, shining edge of your release. 

He could see it, feel it in the squeeze of your soaked cunt and his vision blurred around the edges, his own want building at the base of his spine. 

“You gonna come?”

You are. The sounds he’s making above you and the way he feels inside you and the scent and need rolling off his skin and those fucking pitch black eyes that have been in your dreams for months – 

Slick dripped down the curve of your ass, your hips locking up underneath him and when you came with a silent cry, he groaned deep and loud, fucking you right through it. 

“Tell me I can fucking come inside you. Say it,” he pleaded, fingers gripped on your chin to hold your gaze on his. His words punctuated by the snap of his hips, you nod your head. 

“Do it,” you whined.

Your fingers threaded through his curls, it’s the tug that you give that does it. Coming harder than he had in his fucking life, he filled your tight cunt with thick ropes of his spend. Endless, smeared over the shaft of his thick cock as he continued to pump into you because he couldn’t stop, slipping out to drip onto the delicate sheets below. 

“Christ,” he groaned, his jaw clenched as the veins in his neck strained above you, his hips stuttering. Slowing them into a languid roll against your own, his softening cock was still a thick, filling weight inside and when he looked down at you, you recognized the guilt that already flooded the brown depths. 

You stared right back, holding him tight. 

“Stay,” you murmured, holding him in place when he started to roll off of you. 

You wanted to remember this. The hot press of his skin against yours, tacky and slick with sweat. The warm gust of his breath over your lips, the rapid beat of his pulse under his flushed neck. The wild curls that stuck damply along his hairline, the brush of his fingers as he tenderly thumbed at the curve of your jaw. 

He swallowed and you could see the war in his eyes, something you recognized as being there from the start. His hand curled over the crown of your head, and you pressed a kiss to his throat. 

“You can’t –” he started, eyes fluttering shut at the press of your mouth. “You can’t tell your mom about this, okay. We can’t say anything.”

We. You reveled in the sound of the word, your head nodding underneath him. A secret to share. Something for the two of you alone. 

“I won’t,” you promised. “Just don’t leave, okay?”

You felt small and vulnerable asking, and when he looked down at you, a glimpse of the girl he imagined on that very first day tugged at his memory. Not the age he pictured of course, but the way you needed him. 

The way he wanted you to need him all along. 

His face nuzzled yours, his nose sliding across your cheek. A kiss pressed against the soft, youthful curve of your cheek that he had admired for months, he nodded with your sweet taste still lingering on his tongue. 

“I won’t, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”