I Love You So Much For This Oml

I love you so much for this oml 🫶

ok idk if i’m more of a freak than you but i just thought of really hot fic idea.

sub!art wakes up one morning really horny and doesn’t want to disturb dom!reader as they sleeps cuz she looks to peaceful in his opinion but after a bit, he starts to worship reader in their sleep which eventually leads to him eating her out. reader wakes up mid orgasm and teases art for not being able to wait and then punishes him with orgasm denial for touching them without permission.

hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself hun <3

cw (18+); somnophilia, sub!art donaldson, dom!reader, afab reader

AHH caityyy <33 i understand u.

somno <3 mmmmph. i love somno so much.

i can totally picture this.

i think art gets raging hard-ons when he wakes up and when he rolls over and sees that youre still sleeping, he can't bear to wake you. you just look so peaceful and pretty and he doesn't wanna bug you, so he slides down on his tummy and positions himself between your legs (moving his hands between your thighs to spread your limbs gently). he can't help himself anymore. the smell of you alone has him throbbing, so he just starts mouthing at you over your thin panties. he feels you start to stir, but he doesn't care. he can taste you leaking sticky fluids over his tongue through the fabric, and then hes grinding his clothed dick down on top of the mattress.

you do wake up eventually though -- albeit slightly confused and in the throes of climax -- after art had finally gotten the courage to push your underwear to the side and lick desperately at your bare heat. when you see his mop of curly blonde hair between your legs and finally process what's going on, you instantly place both hands on his shoulders so that you can easily roll your hips and grind yourself down against his nose and greedy tongue. after you're thoroughly done, art knows he's in trouble because he pulls his wet mouth from your body and sees a smirk on your lips that he knows all too well.

you make him sit between your legs, his back pressed against your chest and your hand down the front of his boxers, and you work him up until his legs shake.. only to halt your squeezing hand at the bottom of his cock the second his back starts to arch. he whines and shakes his head 'no, no no no', but you ignore him in favor of whispering against his ear, "good boys wake me up when they wanna cum.. and bad boys don't get to.."

The Alchemy I

jason todd x fem!reader

aka the progression of your relationship with the red hood

warnings: slow burn, mentions of attempted sa for reader, depictions of blood and injury, mentions of standard gotham violence

Dear fuck, he’s as heavy as he looks.

You use all of your weight to pull him backwards towards the couch, almost giving up when you realized you’d have to lift him up off the ground to actually get on it.

Getting him through the window was enough of a hassle, challenging the difficulty of the decision to bring him in here at all. 

Thankfully you don’t have to think too hard on it because you feel his body stiffen up suddenly. He jolts upright, though clearly pained to do so, hand flying to the gun holster on his side.

You take a step back, hands out in front of you. “Hey, it’s alright.”

“Who are you?” His voice is interrogative. 

You put your hands down, “You’re the one who passed out on my balcony, I think if anyone gets to ask that question it’s me.”

He stares at you, white lenses bearing into your soul.

Okay, yeah. You tell him your name. He doesn’t move. “You just looked like you needed some help..”

His posture loosens a bit, and his hand finally leaves the holster.

He glances down at his abdomen, a sizable tear in his suit and a nearly alarming amount of blood. “You got any bandages?”

“Uh, I—yeah, yeah, I do.” You dart down the hall into the bathroom, shuffling through your first aid kid. You toss a few wraps into your arms, along with some antiseptic spray you suspect he’ll need. You grab your hand towel and get it wet under warm water. 

When you return, he’s moved himself onto the sofa, lifting his shirt up to assess the damage. You round the couch, seeing more blood than you’d have hoped for.

“Can I?” You ask, motioning to his injury. 

He looks up at you for a long moment. He nods.

You kneel down in front of him and replace his hand in lifting up the shirt. It’s a cut, it doesn’t look terribly deep, but still not shallow enough that he could just leave it.

You take the rag and dab it around the wound, trying to clean up the blood as much as possible without making contact with it.

He’s very still as you work, and you get the strong impression he’s watching you carefully.

You grab the antiseptic spray, shaking it. “This’ll sting.”

He grunts.

You apply the antiseptic thoroughly and he doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t move his gaze from you for a second.

You unwrap one of the bandages and place it on firmly, making sure there’s no bleedthrough.

And not that you particularly want to be thinking about this right now, but the man is noticeably ripped. Stacked like a house of cards.

You rip away your gaze and stand up, hands on your hips, taking a deep breath. You look at him—at his helmet.

You don’t know how you can tell, but he’s studying you. Trying to get a read on you, maybe. Regardless, you’re eager to escape the gaze.

You shovel the remainder of your supplies back into your arms and bring them back to the bathroom, calling out, “I didn’t take off your helmet, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

There’s a short beat. 

“Do I seem like someone that worries often?” 

You peek your head out of the bathroom door. 

You look at him. “You seem like someone that doesn’t worry enough.”

He snorts. “You’re not far off.”

You make your way back once you’re done, looking at the disregarded meal you’d been interrupted from. “I have pasta if you…eat.”

“I do.”

“I can go in the other room if you—”

He clicks the lock on his helmet, taking it off. He’s left with a second mask underneath, covering his eyes and nose. His dark hair sticks up from the helmet, a white streak poking out in the front. He looks younger than you would’ve expected. Cuter, if his jaw is anything to go by.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Okay then.

You grab a second plate out of the cabinet and scoop on the rest of the pasta from the pan.

You hand him the plate, avoiding standing too close. 

“Thanks, sweetheart.” 

You turn back around as casually as possible after hearing the name, wanting to avoid letting your face give anything away.

This guy kills people, right?

You sit down in the armchair across from the couch, spooling the pasta on and off the fork. He doesn’t show the same hesitation in dining away that you do—you guess fighting crime would require some calorie exchange.

“You a nurse?” He asks after a few minutes. 

The question takes you by surprise. You hadn’t taken him as a small talk kind of person. “Huh? Oh, no, I’ve just taken a few first aid courses and stuff.”

He gives a short hum, thoughtful.

“What?”

“You’re good.” Hardly.

“I didn’t really do anything.”

“You did enough.” He says, not leaving much room for argument.

He stands up at once, walking past you to the kitchen. Your gaze follows him silently. He puts his empty plate in the sink and returns to the edge of the living room.

He looks at you once more and pops his helmet back on followed by the click of the lock.

“I’ll see ya.” He says shortly, before ducking out the window.

You’re left alone, sitting in your armchair, plate of cold pasta forgotten on your lap.

That could’ve gone very badly. Maybe not your most thought-through decision to literally drag the Red Hood into your apartment, but hey. Maybe you’re exercising your ability to be an upstanding, helpful person. Or maybe you were just hoping to prevent a vigilante being found dead on your fire escape.

Regardless, you close the window after him, leaving it unlocked. Just in case.

You wake in the middle of the night to the sounds of footsteps in your living room. You shoot upright, immediately spotting the lamp light flooding in from under your door.

Creeping to a stand, you grab the baseball bat next to your bed and slowly walk to the door.

You creep the door open as quietly as possible, inching out half a step at a time. A nearby creak on your floorboards had you swinging blindly, only to have your bat get stopped midair. You look up to see Mr. Hood himself, blocking the blow of your hit with his hand. 

“Wow. You and a bat against Gotham, huh, sweetheart?”

“Fuck!” You let go of the bat and drown your face in your hands. “What is wrong with you?”

“Apparently that I don’t carry enough baseball bats with me.” He says coolly, inspecting your bat. Though he’s got to admit, your bat is probably a hell of a lot more useful than his. 

You drop your arms at your side. “If I’d known bringing you into my apartment one time was going to be considered a free pass forever, I might’ve thought twice.”

“If I’d known I was going to nearly be concussed with a baseball bat, I might’ve too.” Barely. If you’re being honest with yourself, you’re still half asleep and it was not a very good swing.

He looks at you straight on for the first time. His helmet quickly drifts down and back up to your face just as fast.

You look down. T-Shirt, underwear, and…no that’s it. Not…ideal. You pull down on the unfortunately not at all oversized shirt, wanting to creep back into your room.

He turns his back, allowing you to do just that and scramble for some shorts to throw on. 

“Very gentlemanly of you.” You call out from your room, “And only thirty seconds after breaking into my apartment.”

“Okay, one, I’ve been here longer than that. In a non creepy way.”

“Right.”

“And two, I didn’t break anything. You live in the middle of Gotham and don’t lock your window?”

You reemerge in the doorway, “I live on the eighth floor.” 

He turns around to face you again, helmet in his hands. “Didn’t stop me.” No it did not. 

“Mm. So are you here specifically to judge my home security or was there something you needed?”

He takes a deep breath, “Actually yeah. I just need a place to rest for a minute.” 

“Rest from what?”

A series of gunshots echo from down the street.

“Next question.”

Concise.

You and Hood sit on the couch in the dark, per his insistence, because for some godforsaken reason, you have no curtains. It takes a few minutes for the silence to dissipate into forced conversation, which takes a few more minutes to fade into actual conversation.

“Can I be honest with you?” You ask him.

“Does it matter how I answer?”

“I don’t understand how you’re not dead.” You poke your head up, turning to him. “Are you human?”

He cranes his neck to look out the window, “Maybe getting shot at isn’t the worst thing that could happen tonight…”

You roll your eyes with a smile that you’re glad is hidden by the darkness. “Oh, fuck off.”

“You don’t have much in terms of self-preservation skills, do you?”

You ignore him as to not acknowledge that he’s probably right and roll through to your next curiosity, “Who the hell was shooting at you anyways?” Though, you don’t really expect an answer.

He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. They got ‘til sunrise anyway.”

You tilt your head, “‘Til sunri—” oh. Yeah. Come to think of it, he does have two guns on him right now. At least that you can see. You squint blankly at the wall, “You know, I’m placing a lot of trust in the hope that you’re not just as bad as those guys.”

“Yes you are.” He nods, not doing anything to convince you that he is in fact a good guy. He hasn’t tried to harm you in any way though, so you guess that’s a good sign.

You tilt your head at him. “Do you get paid to do this?” 

“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of people who would pay me not to do this.” 

You nod solemnly, mouth turned into an exaggerated frown. “So you have a day job?”

He looks over at you, “Do you always ask this many questions?”

“Are you always so dodgy about answering them?” You shoot back. If you’d thought for .5 seconds longer on that, you might not have said anything. But you feel comfortable here, in your apartment with a man whose face you’ve never seen, name you don’t know, and always has at least two loaded guns on him.

He huffs out a laugh, “Yeah. I am.” He looks over at you. “You live here by yourself?”

You look around at the empty apartment before turning back to him, “Seems that way.”

He shrugs, “Boyfriend could be out or something.”

“Well most people are asleep at one in the morning. Like I was. Remember that?”

“No.”

You sigh, curling up into a ball on your end of the couch, resting your chin on your knees. You’re quiet for a minute before piping up, “Do people actually break into apartments on high floors a lot?”

“Stupid people.” He pauses, looking over at the frown on your face. “Look, I’m in the neighborhood a lot. If I see somebody climbing your fire escape I’ll shoot them.”

You let a little smile out, “I’m thinking there’s other steps you could take before you get to that point.”

“If you want to waste time.” His gaze doubles back at you, “That was a joke, by the way.”

You bark out a tired laugh, “Yeah, I picked up on that, thanks.”

He removes his eyes from you, fixing on a set of pictures you have hanging on the wall.

Your eyes flutter and you move to rest your head on the arm of the couch. “Is this going to be a regular thing then?”

“You could lock your window.”

“Living on the eighth floor didn’t stop you, I can’t imagine a shitty lock will do much more.”

“If you don’t want me here, I won’t be here.” He says gruffly.

“If I don’t want you here, I’ll let you know.” You mumble, eyes closing.

You can barely make out a laugh from him, “Good to know.”

You’re not quite sure how much time goes by when he leaves, but you have a pretty strong feeling you’d fallen asleep. Your main indicator was feeling the blanket draped nicely over you that you could’ve sworn was on the chair across the room.

Maybe it’s ten o’clock at night and you’re sat on your kitchen floor, bawling your eyes out. Maybe you’re going to have to quit your job. Or maybe you’ll have to face a lawsuit. Maybe this is the worst day in the history of time. Maybe it’s about to get worse. 

The sound of your living room window sliding open has you startling into a rush, body panicking as if you’ve done something wrong and desperately need to cover the evidence. The past few weeks of sporadic visits leaves no question about who it is, and you just hope the kitchen island in front of you will be enough to convince Hood that you’re not in and he’ll leave.

But because today is today, that’s not how it goes down.

You can vaguely make out the sound of his footsteps approaching, a courtesy that you’re sure he incorporated on purpose.

“Oh fuck…” you mutter to yourself, wiping your eyes.

He rounds the counter, looking down at you. “Wha—what’s wrong?”

“Fuck. Nothing.” You say, standing up and adjusting your clothes. “Are you hurt?” He better fucking not be at only ten.

“No, I—why are you on the floor?” 

You roll your eyes, “I live alone, forgive me for assuming I would be given the privilege to cry on the floor in private.”

“Did something happen?” You’re trying really hard not to call him an idiot. 

You raise your eyebrows, giving a light nod. “Uh, yeah, I’d say so.”

He shifts in his stance, “Do I need to talk to someone?”

You scoff, knowing damn well his version of ‘talk to someone’ does not include talking to someone. “Why are you even here so early?” 

“Wanted to stop by before I went out.” he says quietly.

You’re about to snap something at him again, but the burning in your eyes takes immediate priority. You wrap your arms around your middle and try to calm yourself down, with very little success. The tears fall easily and your shoulders start shaking as you look at the floor, letting the melancholy take over. 

It feels like much longer than it probably was, but sometime after the first few tears fall he wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his chest. This only makes you cry harder, sobbing against his armor. Your arms stay wrapped around your center, while his hands remain completely still against your back, though firm. You don’t realize it immediately, but he’s holding a good portion of your weight up, you’d for sure collapse onto the floor otherwise. You kind of wish you would. Sitting on the floor felt nice, maybe falling down on it will feel even better.

You slowly start to regain your breathing, the well in your eyes drying up again. He waits for you to stop completely and slowly pulls back from you, hands momentarily still wavering next to you like he’s ready to catch you.

It takes you a minute to notice, but his helmet is locked on to the finger-shaped bruises on your forearm. You awkwardly move your opposite arm to cover them, looking around your apartment with nothing to search for.  

He’s quiet for a long while, clearly thinking hard. “What happened?”

You sniffle, “Some asshole at my job.”

“Some asshole?” He doesn’t believe you. Rightfully so, but he has no business being able to tell that you’re lying about one single word in that sentence.  

“My boss. Was very intent on successfully hitting on me.” You exhale deeply, “His approach could use some work though, if I’m honest.”

His posture remains statue-like. “Where do you work?”

You look at him straight on for the first time that night, “What does that matter?”

“I’ll take care of it.” He says simply.

You wave him off, “It’s fine.”

He waits a moment before letting you know, “I’m being polite by asking, I’m going to find out either way.”

You plop back down on the kitchen floor, knees to chest. “Well, then do it the hard way.”

About ten seconds of him staring down at you in silence go by, before he sits down next to you. It’s a bit funny how he tries to shrink himself down next to you, you’re assuming because he doesn’t want you to get panicked again because this massive stranger is sitting next to you in your kitchen in the dead of night.  

You don’t look at him as he clicks his helmet off and sets it on the other side of him. It’s quiet for another minute when he holds his gloved hand out to you, and you’re not quite sure how you know what he wants, but you do. You place your bruised arm in his hand, letting him gently pull it closer to him and scan over it. 

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” 

Again, you don’t know how, but you can tell he’s asking how far things went. “I started screaming and it freaked him out. He let me go.” you say numbly. 

You can see him nod out of the corner of your eye, bits of red making their way into your peripheral despite the discarded helmet. You turn slowly to look at him, finding him looking at you already.  

His face is more covered than it had been the first night, the same black mask covers his eyes but the lower half of his face is also hidden by a red mouthpiece. You’re in the lamp light and closer to him than you had been before and you’re counting out specks of green in his blue eyes. He lets you, to your surprise, and when you run out of emerald hues you take focus on his thick, dark eyelashes. Your gaze moves back ever so slightly to make eye contact with him and you tear your eyes away, zeroing in on the kitchen tiles. 

You sigh contemplatively, “I’m worried if you kill my boss it’ll be traced back to me and I’ll get pinned for it.”

He doesn’t laugh. But your delivery was a little dry in the wrong way so really it was on you.

“I’m not going to kill him.” he tells you, “I wouldn’t gamble with my pied-a-terre like that.”

Your head falls back, hitting the drawer behind you with a light thud. “Then why waste your time at all?” Maybe you should slow down with the snide comments.

He wants to, but he doesn’t call out the implied self-slighting in your words. “Maybe it’s a ‘me’ thing but I don’t particularly like men that hurt women.”

You let out a dry laugh. “In Gotham, it just might be.”

He sits with you on the linoleum tile of your kitchen until your eyes start to droop and he lightly corrals you to your bedroom before taking his exit through the window. You told him multiple times that he could go and you were fine, but he insisted that nothing important was happening in the city that time of night. You didn’t quite believe him though, because it was past midnight by the time he’d headed out.  

When you showed up to work the following day your boss wasn’t there. Wasn’t there the day after either. Or the day after. He didn’t make an appearance again until the following Monday. And when he did show face, he did so with a neck brace and a cast on his leg. But once more, he absolutely refused to make eye contact or speak to any of the female employees. It actually became a whole thing when he wouldn’t give instructions or feedback to any of you, and insisted on having his secretary replaced with a man, who he then used as a middle man to speak to all of the women for him. HR got involved three times in the span of the next five days, and by the Monday after, he’d been fired.

So to recap: yes, no, no, undecided, and hard no. 

Maybe you’re really starting to like this Red Hood guy.

Hard yes.

You’re slightly on guard upon hearing a clattering on the balcony, though if the past few weeks have been any indicator, you’re not in much danger.

Your posture slumps as you peer around the hallway corner, “Oh, it’s you.”

“Good to see you too.” he grumbles, dropping onto the floor.

“Well, I have to imagine I’m a step up from the last person you saw.” You say, looking him up and down, seeing what sure as hell looks like a gunshot wound on his chest armor. “What happened to you? The Mad Hatter uses guns now?”

He groans, “Ah, I said something about him being a heartless fuck, and I guess he took it personally.”

You sigh, “Jesus Christ, Hood.”

He waves you off, “It’s not that big of a deal.” 

You scoff, “He tried to shoot you in the heart.”

“Yeah, well, he missed.” He grumbles, adjusting his position on the couch. 

You exhale sharply, “How do you know?”

“How do I know?” He tilts his helmet at you, exasperated. 

You throw your arms up at your side, “I don’t know! I’m not equipped for this scenario.”

He huffs, “Look, it’s fine, it hit my armor. It’ll probably just be a bad bruise.”

“Probably?”

“I don’t think there’s blood. Could you…” he vaguely gestures to his torso, but it's enough for you to get the hint.

You shake the panic out of your head, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

You help him shrug off his jacket as he strips off his armor, and you lift his shirt up as slowly as you can in case the injury is worse than he thinks.

You’re not shocked to see that he has scars, that’s kind of a given in his line of work. What you are shocked to see is one very long scar that lines directly up the center of his body. It’s a deep scar, too.

And, oh. The long scar extends further, splitting off into a fork at his collar. That’s—oh. Oh. Oh. That is an autopsy scar. 

You’re not sure what to do. You’ve never seen a living person with an autopsy scar—though you have to imagine neither have most people.

He clearly does not want to talk about it and you’re happy to let him keep the skeleton in the closet.

You avert your gaze back over to his diaphragm at the area of reddened skin.

“There’s no blood, but…” You inspect it a bit closer, “I think there’s going to be a bad bruise. You might end up with bruising on your ribs, you need to get that looked at.”

“I am.” He says shortly.

You stand up straight, dropping your shoulders. “By someone who went to medical school. Or has taken more than one anatomy class in their life.” 

He yanks down his shirt, standing, apparently too quickly, and wobbling. You catch his arm as he sways, attempting to steady him. “You should sit down.”

“Need to go back out.” He grunts, trying to pull away from you with little force.

“To get killed? ‘Cause you’re going the right way about it.” 

He tilts his head at you like he’s daring you to be so bold again. At least that's what it felt like. You sigh, gesturing to the couch, “Sit down.”

You didn’t expect it to work but he does as told.

You look around, unsure of what to do next. “Do you need ice?”

“What?”

“You’re hurt.” You say slower. “Do you need ice?”

He falters for a second, “No, it’s—no.” A couple beats pass before he adds, “Thanks, sweetheart.” 

It’s impossible not to notice that he’s staring at you. You feel hot under his gaze, not knowing what to do with yourself. You clear your throat, telling him to hang on for a second. 

You call out behind you as you walk to the kitchen, “Take your helmet off, it’s rude.” You grab the painkillers from their new easily-accessible place on the kitchen counter and grab a water bottle from the fridge.

It was a joke but when you come back his helmet is off and he’s just wearing his domino eye mask. His hair is extra tousled, the white streak barely visible in the mess of loose curls. You toss the bottle of meds at him, followed by the capped bottle of water. He catches them easily, downing more than he probably should have but he got shot tonight so you figure you’ll give him a break about it.    

You plop down on the couch next to him, honestly closer than you’d meant to. Your knees and shoulders lightly brush against one anothers, though neither of you make any moves to scoot over. 

You both look straight ahead at the wall, simmering in the amity. “So did somebody else deal with the Hatter or when you get shot do you just bounce back like a T-1000?”

He scoffs, “No, getting shot at is a bit of an inconvenience for me.”

“Wrong line of work.”

He cocks an eyebrow, “You’re telling me.”

You turn your head to him, “Why do you do it then?” 

He looks back at you earnestly. “Someone has to.” 

“Someone does.”

He tenses up a bit at that, breaking eye contact. “Not well enough.” 

Your head slowly lulls and drops into a rest on his shoulder, causing him to stiffen up a bit more before almost completely relaxing.

“So violence is the answer to violence?” you ask, not argumentative, just genuinely musing. 

Hood sighs, “Half-assed reform programs didn’t do anything, shitty ‘crisis interventions’ didn’t do anything, the cops sure as hell don’t do anything.” He shrugs under you. “You run out of options eventually.”

“And that’s why you took it upon yourself to intervene?”

“Mm. ‘When reason fails, the devil helps.’” He says, quite melodramatically, in your opinion.

“I-Is that—” you squint, shooting off of his shoulder to look him in the eye. “You spend your nights getting in street fights and shootouts and you spend your days reading Crime and Punishment of all things?” You gawk at him, “That explains a lot about your disposition.”

He shrugs with a shake of his head. “It’s a rough world. Can’t afford to be reading about Hogwarts.”

You pause, combing through your next words, “‘Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.’”

His eyes crinkle under his mask as he smiles, clearly pleasantly surprised that you know your shit. “Touché.”

You grin back, pleased with yourself. 

There’s a brief recession where your smiles both get caught in the flicker between on and off, where your eyes take the opportunity to scan over each other’s faces. 

You realize that this may be the first time you’ve seen him properly smile and it’s so magnetizing. So much so that you don’t realize you’re staring at his lips until your eyes snap back up to his and find that his are on yours.

His eyes don’t leave yours as he nudges you a bit with his shoulder. It does just enough to break the trance, giving you the cue to rest your head on him again. This time you allow more of your weight to lean against him and he actually seems relaxed for once.

 You glance at the clock on the wall without moving and realize it’s almost four in the morning. “I’m tired, Hood.” you mumble into his shirt.

“You don’t—” he falters for a moment, “You don’t have to call me that.”

You squint at him, “What should I call you then?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “J.”

“J?” you whisper, like it’s a grave secret. You guess it kind of is.

He nods.

“Okay.” Your cheek flattens against his shoulder. “J.” 

You nearly think you’re imagining it when you feel him rest his head against yours.

“You don’t know how to protect yourself?”

You roll your eyes at him, “You saw the way I swung at you with the baseball bat, what do you think?”

It’s only just after sunset, you could still see some purple-pink hues in the sky if you looked out the window. He’s started showing up before patrol some nights, saying he felt bad about waking you up at 3 am multiple times a week. So now, he mostly only drops in late if he’s a manageable amount of injured.

You stand in the middle of your living room together, after you’d made a joke about needing him as a bodyguard in Gotham. As it turns out, that was a one way street to him finding out that you’re useless in a fight.

“I was hoping you were having an off night because you just woke up, but now I'm concerned.” He says, grimacing.

You shrug, “I carry pepper spray.” 

He grumbles, displeased. “Put your hands up.”

You drop your head to the side and glower at him, “Really?”

He raises his eyebrows at you. Just do it. 

Alright, you’ll humor him. You put your fists up and he holds his hands open in front of you in kind. You throw a light punch.

“Come on, put your weight behind it.”

You do, hitting his hand harder. “Hood—”

He tilts his head forward at that, looking at you through his brows.

You inhale impatiently, “J, Why do we have to do this? I don’t have any illusions that I could knock you out and I can’t imagine you do either.” 

He shakes his head, “It’s not about knocking someone out, it’s about defending yourself. Gonna be a hell of a lot harder to hurt you if you’re throwing punches. Harder.”

You give a raised hum, “Not if they have a gun…”

“Well, we’ll work on that too.”

You groan, throwing a half-assed hit. “Where’d you learn to fight?” You ask before throwing another.

“Turn your body into it.” He corrects. “My, uh, my dad taught me.”

You hum, hitting him again. “Are you guys close?”

“You’re being nosy again.” He grunts amidst a hit.

“You’re being evasive again.” You shoot back.  

He drops his hands, taking your wrists in his, “Here, put your hands in front of your face when you shoot so you can block counters.” He tells you, adjusting your stance accordingly.

You make a face, “I’m confused, am I fighting a mugger or a kickboxer?”  

He ignores you, moving his hands around to give you different angles to hit at. 

You go at it for a few minutes, taking his critiques with reluctant concedence. “Alright, that’s good.” He says, relaxing his body.

You perk up, “We’re done?” 

“No,” he shuts you down before asking earnestly, “Do you trust me?”

Your brain hadn’t even fully processed the question before you nod, mumbling a ‘yes’. He takes a measured step closer to you, watching carefully for your reaction. You almost back up in surprise, angling your head up further to look at him properly. You give no objection, so he continues, “I want you to try to get me on the ground.”

You let out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-scoff. “You’re twice my size.”      

He sighs, looking at you somberly. “Sweetheart, odds are you’re not going to be evenly matched against someone that wants to hurt you. You get ‘em on the ground ‘n you have the upper hand or it’ll give you time to get away.”

You throw your hands up at your sides, “I don’t—” You huff, “Fine, okay.” You try to trip him by sliding your leg behind his and kicking, but he blocks you expertly.

You, against better judgment, shove your shoulder into his side, though it does nothing to phase him, let alone knock him down. 

“You gotta get more creative than that.” He chastises with a tut. 

In response, you take a step back to reassess the situation. You try to maintain a poker face as you strategize in your head. You make a dive for his legs, wrapping your arms around the back of his legs and pulling hard to make him lose balance. You’re sure if he were actually trying for a damn you would immediately be done for afterwards, but it does make him wobble. You then throw all of your weight against him, pushing him backwards and causing him to hit the floor with a thud.

He probably allowed for gravity to come to your aid, but he lands on his back all the same. You land half on him, half on the carpet, your hand resting on his chest. He looks up at you nodding, “Good. That was good, sweetheart.”

You smile, quite proud of yourself, and start to stand up when he hooks his arm around the back of your knee and pulls you to the ground too, switching places with you. You hit the ground gently with a sigh, “Really?”

He has one hand rested next to your head to balance him in his place above you. He smirks down at you and lets a tussle of white hair hang over his forehead. “Can’t be getting cocky, sweetheart.”

You laugh sourly, “Coming from you?” 

You quickly push at the bend of his arm and use the distraction to adjust your position to wrap your legs around his center and push your arm against his chest in an attempt to rotate him off of you.

He counters you by pushing your shoulder down, holding you down to the floor. His opposite hand flies to pull your forearm away from his chest, pinning it next to your head, careful to avoid your hair. He moves so quickly that you have half a mind to think he acted on pure instinct. That, and the look on his face when the dust settles says that he hadn’t intended for you to end up in this position. 

Your legs are still wrapped around him and you’re too frozen in the moment to make any changes. He’s in no more of a rush to move, large frame towering over you. You feel his touch stutter against your shoulder, his eyes flickering across your face.

You gaze up at him, taking in the soft look in his eyes behind the mask. You think you can see more green than you did before. You unwrap your legs from around his waist and slowly start to sit up. He releases your wrist and eases the pressure on your shoulder. He leans back half as quickly as you move forward, stopping when you’re propped up on your elbows.

Your faces are only a few inches apart and it feels like your only option is to look down at his lips. You have a feeling he’s doing the same to you. The adrenaline of the hassle has long since faded but the rhythm in both of your chests remains quick.

He leans forward so barely, but it’s enough to make your breath hitch. “J…” you say breathily, not sure what implication you’re aiming for.

He stills and this time you’re sure he’s looking at your lips. He blinks a few times like he’s trying to come back to himself and inches his face away from yours slowly. 

You let the hold in your breath release, disappointed more than anything. He eases off the floor to a stand and holds his hand out to help you up too. You take it with more of a frown than you’d meant to let out and rise to your feet.

“Let’s, uh…” He looks at the ground before taking a step back and putting his hands up again. “Let’s try some combos.”

You blink up at him for a second before raising your hands too.  

Alright, one step at a time.   

If you haven’t already seen Mike in Pinball, do it now.

"you should move in with me" Art's voice echoes off the bathroom walls, it's all so relaxing: the heat of the water around your bodies, his chest pressed against your back and his arms wrapped around you are so comfortable that it takes a while for you to realize what he just said.

"what?"

"you heard me" he murmurs against your neck "come live with me" an incredulous laugh leaves your mouth and you try to turn completely towards him, but his arms clench tighter around you and prevent you from moving enough to do so.

"may I ask why you are asking this now?" you move slightly to the side to see his face emerging from the hollow of your neck.

"I feel like we're ready to do it" his eyes avoid yours and focus instead on his fingers as they start caressing your shoulder "and it's also the next logical step in our relationship."

"You think so?" this time, despite Art's protests, you turn towards him: your breasts press against the boy's chest and his eyes fall down quickly before being brought back to yours by the hand under his chin. The tease is evident on your face and Art feels his ears warm up quickly to the realization of being caught in the act.

"I know so" and kisses the smile off your lips to distract you.

"My answer is not a no, but how do we know that our relationship is ready for this?" you ask him and, without realizing it, the agitation inside you rises: how did you know if you were ready for this step? and if you break up because you went too fast?

The tennis player frowns "what do you mean?" and the sight in front of you distracts you for a second: Art sits back against the back of the tub to stand more upright and listen to you better, his arms, after moving his curly damp hair out of his face, leans on the edges of the tub, his wet and smooth chest shines and his legs are open and bent to the sides to give you more space between them. If you weren't so determined to finish the topic you were having, you'd kiss him to death, but you're a woman on a mission and you can't get distracted.

"I mean, some of my behaviors might irritate you or we might fight about serious things and then we wouldn't be able to run away from our problems by going back to our apartment, we'd have to deal with these situations and be mature about what bothers us and-"

"love, you're getting worked up over nothing" he says and his expression relaxes into a smile: now that he understood that your reasons are motivated only by insecurity and not by the fact that you don't want to take the next step with him, he feels it will be easier to convince you otherwise.

"You see? this is exactly what I'm talking about! if we move in together we can't belittle each other's feelings and concerns like this. It wouldn't be healthy and-"

"love," he interrupts you again, and your hands that were gesturing in the air fall on his chest, your eyes avoid his.

Out of your mouth comes a small "…yes?" that makes the man in front of you chuckle.

"we're ready" his calm tone makes its way into your chest "we're 24 years old and we've been together since we were 19, we both have a steady job and we already know everything about each other, there's nothing you can tell me that will change my mind".

"what if we fight?"

"I can't promise you we won't fight, we fight even now that we don't live together, but it seems to me that we are pretty good at making up, if we fight we will solve it as always" it's true, you never went beyond a day without talking to each other, even if you were angry.

"what if we break up?"

"It won't happen," he answers immediately, his fingers move the locks of hair behind your ears and then rest his hands on your face, his thumbs gently caressing your cheeks.

His head lowers to chain your eyes together and you look up to facilitate his task "I won't let it happen", the security in his eyes makes you exhale a breath you didn't know you were holding.

Your eyes move around to look at the bathroom, "but I wouldn't be able to pay half the rent of this apartment"

"I don't care about that".

"but-"

"If you really want to pay something, we can split the bills," he answers hastily, at the moment Art doesn't care about how to split the expenses, he would pay everything if it meant he could spend the rest of his life next to you… he just needs your 'yes'.

Your face gets close to his, your lips a few inches away.

"okay" his eyes still fixed in yours

"'ok' what?" his smile gets brighter, he wants to hear you say it.

"I'll move in with you" you smile too.

"that's what I like to ear" he kisses you again.

Now he only had to ask you to marry him… but that will have to wait a little longer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you guys will like it as much as I liked writing it! 🩷

(in this fic he still has long hair cause I said so)

life's a beach

pairing: patrick zweig x reader request: @diorrfairy: i can't stop thinking about patrick x reader who's an introvert, kinda shy but with a fiery temper just like him. and she knows it's better not to get involved with guys like him but she can't help it. and he's constantly teasing her trying to get on her nerves like … summary: a chain smoking tennis player disrupts your day on the beach and uproots your entire summer vacation. word count: 6.5k warnings: enemies to lovers (kinda… the reader folds like a paper airplane pretty quickly), smoking, no use of y/n, low speed police (pool security guard) chase, mentions of smoking, brief mention of alcohol, so much exposition, vague descriptions of sports, some kissing, patrick and reader are spoiled rich kids author’s note: this fic definitely got away from me, but i hope that you all enjoy it! also, i apologize in advance for any characterization issues, since i’ve only seen the movie once. with that being said, i’m still taking requests if you want to send me anything!

For all your life, the beach has been your happy place. The soothing, repetitive push and pull of the water and the endless crashing of the tide was a guaranteed way to make your loud mind quiet down. Next to the endless ocean, you were just a tiny little dot–not a girl who was a golf prodigy, or someone whose parents' financial power caused everyone around you to treat you like a delicate doll. In fact, that was part of the reason why your parents purchased the lot in the first place, as you insisted that the comfort of a semi-private beach was necessary for you to properly enjoy your vacation.

That was also what made your smoking companion on the beach all the more jarring.

You were fully reclined on a beach chair and deeply immersed in the novel in your hands when you first caught a whiff of the strong, putrid scent, which immediately left you annoyed. Turning your head to follow the scent, your face somehow fell further when it fell upon the culprit of the foul cigarette smell. The side profile of a man who was about your age, casually smoking as he stared out at the body of water across from you.

Perhaps you had become so immersed in your book that you’d failed to realize that only a few steps away from you, someone new had joined you on the sand. After all, when you sat down just an hour ago, you were completely alone. Somehow, that managed to make your mood sour even more. There was all this space on the beach, yet this man decided to sit down right next to you and smoke a cigarette!

You were sure that you were gawking at him at this point, if at nothing else, his sheer audacity. When he finally seemed to sense your seething gaze, you quickly looked back at your book as if it was the most interesting thing in the world—despite you completely losing your spot.

After a moment of pretending to resume your reading, the stale scent of the cigarette had lessened, indicating to you that the man next to you had finally stopped. Good. Maybe your simple glare had been more effective than you realized.

But nearly as soon as a self-satisfied smirk could find itself on your face, the scent returned in full force. You practically had to physically restrain yourself from uttering, “Seriously?” aloud.

Seeing as your first passive aggressive attempt at getting him to stop was futile, you decided to pull out the big guns.

With your all but abandoned novel in hand, you curled your unoccupied arm around your mouth and began to cough profusely. You put all your might into pulling out the most atrocious sounds you could muster from your lungs, and when you decided you were satisfied with this passive aggressive approach, you glanced over at your beach companion, only to find him looking back at you.

With him looking straight at you, you felt your stomach trip over itself. You’d always been a sucker for pretty men, and with one pointed look, you were sure that this would be no different. Yet, armed with the knowledge that you were the one who started this, you willed yourself not to give in to someone with good looks and cigarette breath.

You continued to stare him down, hoping that you were coming off as intimidating, rather than swooning. Though, the longer the two of you glared at each other, you swore you could see his lips mold into the look of a smirk, particularly as he took a pointedly long drag from his cigarette.

It quickly became abundantly clear to you that he wasn’t interpreting your gaze to be anything near threatening—if anything, he saw it as a challenge. Unluckily for him, you were incapable of backing down to a challenge.

As soon as you opened your mouth to form some sort of sassy remark, you were surprisingly beaten to the punch.

“Want one?” he asked, the smirk unwavering on his stupidly attractive face.

“Ew,” you replied, then immediately regretted it. Seriously? Ew? That was the best that you could do? You would think that years of dodging and delivering verbal daggers over family dinner would’ve better prepared you for this moment, but leave it to you to be tripped up by a pretty face.

You paused for a beat too long before retorting, “You can keep your lung disease, thank you very much.” You readjusted the book in your lap, still not feeling completely satisfied with your reply, but anything was better than your first statement. “Maybe go smoke somewhere that’s not right next to me, like,” you paused to gesture to the widely empty beach. “Literally anywhere else.”

“I didn’t realize that you were queen of this strip of beach. My apologies, Your Highness,” he shot back snarkily. You swore you could feel your blood boiling as it pumped through your veins.

“I’m not saying you can’t stay here,” you could feel your volume increasing as more adrenaline pumped through you, “I’m just asking that you don’t smoke.”

You watched as his brows raised questioningly the longer you spoke. “Or at least, don’t smoke next to me,” you clarified, folding under the pressure of a set of rather piercing blue eyes.

“Fine,” he agreed with a shrug, to your surprise. That hadn’t been so hard after all. Maybe he wasn’t all that bad. You bit back the part of you that wanted to feel triumphant at your clear victory over this random, pain-in-the-ass man.

Once more, you pretended to read your book while in your peripheral vision you watched him grab his few items, including his box of cigarettes, and stand up to move. What you weren’t expecting to see was him plant himself just a few feet further from you, sit down, then begin to aggressively tap his box of cigarettes, just loud enough to grab your attention. Naively believing that he wouldn’t actually have the audacity to begin smoking again, you were slightly scandalized when he pulled a stick out and returned to happily chain smoking.

He briefly glanced back over at you, the smug look on his face telling you that he was eagerly awaiting your reaction. As much as you didn’t want to humor him, you clearly couldn’t hide your annoyance.

“Oh my god,” you huffed, grabbing your tote bag and towel and standing up to head back towards your beach house. Maybe the beach just wasn’t in the cards for today. At least that man couldn’t bother you in your sunroom.

——————

One of the benefits of owning and spending your summer at your vacation home was being able to have your friends stop by and spend a few days with you. Seeing as your parents were utterly uninterested in spending any of your summer break together, it was also nice that you were basically able to do whatever you wanted over the summer.

As a teenager, this mainly meant parties and intense summer flings, but as your time in college began to mature you and your friends, the novelty of doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing began to wear off. What never seemed to wear off was your love for the local ice cream shop, with its sweet dairy scent lingering in the air and a waffle cone that was nothing short of to die for.

With one of your friends’ visits coming to an end, the two of you sat on the patio of this shop, racing against time and heat as you worked on your cones. In between gossip about which one of your classmates had to attend graduation with a baby bump, you caught your eye on someone exiting the shop to join you on the patio.

You practically had to hold back your groan as you processed who it was. Unfortunately, your enemy from the beach hadn’t felt nearly enough shame, and he openly waved at you.

Upon seeing your eyes wander, your friend turned around to see what it was that caught your eye. Just as quickly as she turned around to view the asshole, she turned right back to you with a newfound excitement.

“Oh my god, you know him?” your friend asked you, shock and elation written all over her face for a reason you couldn’t understand.

“Unfortunately,” you replied, taking a bite of a bit of exposed cone. “Do you know him? Did he go to your high school or something?”

She scoffed at your words as if you were missing the most obvious point in the world. “‘Did he go to my high school or something?’” she repeated in disbelief. “That’s Patrick Zweig. He’s about to go pro.”

You tilted your head and furrowed your brows, as if to ask for more context.

“In tennis? He’s like, the thing right now,” she explained.

“Maybe that’s why he’s such an asshole,” you glanced back over at him, only to find that he was unabashedly staring at you as he licked his own cone of ice cream. If you hadn’t had such a ridiculous encounter a week ago, you would’ve thought that he was being suggestive towards you.

“What happened that made him such an asshole?” she prodded, and you swore that she leaned forward as she asked.

“Please try to look a little less excited,” you laughed, entertained by your friend’s investment in your story about someone who was a celebrity in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologized disingenuously. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I was just trying to do some reading out on the beach, when he sat like, two feet away from me. Mind you, the entire beach was empty. He could’ve gone anywhere else.”

“Dick,” she interjected, though the unsubtle glance over in Patrick’s direction and her overzealous body language suggested to you that she might’ve meant the words less than she thought she did.

“Right,” you agreed. “But that clearly wasn’t enough. So he starts chain smoking. Right next to me.”

“Rude,” she added, doing her best to validate you as you told the story. Her ability to only add commentary in a monosyllabic manner was entertaining you, but you couldn’t focus too much on that now.

“So I called him out. I was like, ‘Hey, you dick. I know that you want black lung, but not everyone else does,’” you explained, embellishing your story to disguise your lackluster responses.

She giggled as you explained and you continued on. “Obviously, he was embarrassed that I called him out. So he looks me right in the eyes, and-“

“And what?” she asked, her eyes practically glimmering, as if you were about to tell her a story about some wild tryst that left you with a negative impression of him.

“Babe, I don’t think this story ends the way you think it does.”

“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug and a wink.

“Well, he got his ass up and started walking away. Internally, I’m celebrating. But then, he sits down pretty close to me… and starts smoking again. And he’s staring me down the whole time he does it.”

“Ugh! He is an asshole,” she shook her head as you wrapped up your story. “But like, isn’t he kinda…?”

“He could be the sexiest man alive and couldn’t seduce me with that personality,” you replied confidently, although you weren’t completely sure of your words.

“That’s certainly not stopping him from trying,” she glanced over her shoulder once more, where he was still looking at you while very intently eating his ice cream cone.

“Gross,” you replied, feigning a full-body shudder. “You couldn’t even pay me to go anywhere near him.”

“It’s probably for the best anyway. A friend of my friend said there was some super messy relationship drama with him recently.”

“Lovely,” you replied, trying your best to look and sound disinterested, but feeling curious regardless. “I feel bad for whoever has to spend any extended period of time with him,” you popped the bottom of your ice cream cone into your mouth, then crushed a paper towel in your hand. “Wanna head out?”

——————

After that, you truly tried your best to avoid Patrick. Like clockwork, he seemed to appear on the beach in your backyard during the late afternoon. You weren’t ashamed to admit that you had watched him through the windows of your bedroom more than a handful of times, and you could almost swear that his head was on a swivel, as if he were looking for someone before he settled into his spot.

Unfortunately for you, it felt like he seemed to pop up wherever you were. As you evaluated boxes of strawberries at the grocery store, you noticed him eyeing bunches of bananas not all that far away from you. Midway through a hike, you noticed a familiar set of distractingly muscular thighs and tried your best to hide, much to your friend’s confusion. While drinking a fruity cocktail at a bar, you noticed him and finished off your drink and threw down a bill at record speed.

You guessed that you never realized how small a town was until you were actively attempting to avoid someone. In a way, it was a little bit exciting to be dodging him so vehemently, though you’d never really admit that to yourself. At least, it was exciting until it became an utter annoyance, much like it was becoming at that very moment.

After you’d decided that you’d spent enough of your summer lounging around without practicing any golf, you decided to take it upon yourself to head to your local country club and take on the familiar course. Of course, you couldn’t play any golf without fueling up first, which left you in the restaurant of the club snacking on a cup of fries when you spotted the one person you had been trying desperately to dodge.

You averted your gaze down to your phone and acted as if you were reading the most interesting thing in the world, but not even that farce lasted long, as you were met with the sound of a chair scratching the floor across from you. You looked back up and were met with Patrick’s intense, searing stare.

“Are you following me, or something?” he asked, his brows furrowed at you as he looked at you with concern.

“What?!” you asked with disbelief. “You’re the one who keeps showing up around me and keeps licking ice cream seductively at me!”

“Seductively?” he laughed right in your face, and you could feel your face immediately warm up in embarrassment.

“Shut up,” you replied weakly, though you knew what you saw. “Who even are you?” you asked, despite now having the displeasure of knowing exactly who he was, thanks to your friend and a Google search.

He began to smirk, and it took everything in you to not want to wipe that smug smile right off of his face. “I’m Patrick, and you are?”

You introduced yourself while mentally berating yourself for the butterflies erupting in your stomach over his intent gaze. Unfortunately, Patrick was even better looking than you could’ve imagined up close, with sunkissed skin and freckles that seemed to go on for miles.

“Well if you’re not stalking me, what are you doing here?” he questioned, though it was clear from his crooked, goofy smile that he wasn’t being serious.

“I play golf,” you explained with a casual shrug, though the feelings you were having inside were far from casual. “So I’m here to do that. You?”

“I knew I’d heard that name before,” Patrick began before stealing a french fry from you and popping it into his mouth. “You won a championship recently?”

You nodded with what you hoped was a neutral expression on your face, hoping to brush him off despite the fireworks going off in your stomach and the heat returning to your face. Sure, it wasn’t the first time someone had recognized you for your accomplishments out on the golf course, but it felt different coming from him.

“I did,” you replied as casually as possible, not acknowledging his fry thievery or reciprocating your knowledge of his athletic achievements. It was always better to be more mysterious with the type of person who seemed to love the chase, and it seemed clear to you that Patrick was one of those people. “Anyway, I need to go practice so I can win the next championship.”

You pushed your unfinished dish of fries towards him and stood up before grabbing the golf bag propped up next to your feet. You pushed your chair in and didn’t even spare him a glance back in his direction as you walked away, secretly hoping to yourself that he was still watching you as intensely as he’d been watching you at the table.

You tried your hardest not to ruminate over your conversation and feelings too much, but as you walked out to the first hole, you couldn’t help but over analyze everything. The first and most confusing of which being your feelings towards Patrick. Clearly, you were attracted to him. Despite your terrible first impressions of each other and having what could arguably be described as a meet-ugly, you couldn’t pretend like his good looks and charming, yet cocky demeanor didn’t have an effect on you. It was clear from the way that the butterflies in your stomach decided to stop lying dormant every time he was in your vicinity.

What you still couldn’t quite place were his feelings towards you. It was obvious that he was getting some kick out of teasing you. Hell, it was obvious from the first interaction you had with him. And it seemed like he might be interested in you, based on the way he seemed to be magnetically drawn to you, and his less than appropriate treatment of his ice cream cone, which he could deny all he wanted, was definitely a shoddy attempt at flirting. Even your friend had noticed.

Just as you began to try to make sense of your previous interaction, you looked up to find a golf cart headed your way. The cart was manned by none other than the subject of your deep thoughts, and as Patrick got closer to you, you swore you could see a fiery excitement ignited in his body.

“Play with me?” Patrick asked once he parked, despite already being off the vehicle and reaching for his rented golf bag.

You paused for a moment, as if you were considering his proposition, despite you already knowing your answer. “As long as you don’t mind getting your ass whooped.”

You made sure to deliver on this promise, beating Patrick with ease. In a way, it felt like comeuppance for him being a nuisance towards you just a few weeks ago. But that didn’t mean your mini tournament was without its downsides for you. You tried desperately to fight the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl when he said something stupid and snarky, and to quiet your screaming brain during the many, many, times you corrected his stance.

What you were also surprised to find was that Patrick wasn’t all that terrible of company to keep. He seemed to know exactly what to say to make you laugh, despite your effort to be unimpressed with him, or how to throw you off right before you swung at a ball. More than once, you had to remind him that no amount of teasing would change the fact that he had a terrible score, but it certainly didn’t stop him from trying.

With your landslide victory clear and your game over, the two of you made your way back to the rental station.

“You definitely cheated,” Patrick commented as he put his equipment back.

“You’re such a sore loser,” you replied with a roll of your eyes and a laugh. You’d been doing a lot of eye rolling and laughing while playing golf with him, and it was oddly quite pleasant.

“I’m not!” he insisted, turning back to face you as if that would somehow prove his point.

“You are, though! You’re a dirty player, too. I don’t think anyone has ever come up behind me and yelled for me to focus before.”

“Whatever,” he dismissed you casually, “You would be eating your words right now if we were playing tennis.”

“Yeah?” you questioned with raised brows.

“Yeah,” he parroted back, taking a step towards you and locking that intense gaze on you once more.

Feeling bold, you matched his step forward, practically getting in his face. “Fine then. Let’s play.”

“Really?” he sounded shocked by your proposition, and looked utterly unintimidated by the fact that your faces were practically touching.

“Sure. There are some courts over by the pool,” you turned to look in the direction of the pool, taking that as an opportunity to step away from him. You feared what you might do if you stayed that close to him for any longer than you needed to. “Isn’t that what you came here to do anyway?”

“So you are stalking me?” he joked, referencing your earlier conversation.

You rolled your eyes once more. At this rate, your eyes were going to be stuck at the back of your head. “Do you want to play or not?”

If you were a beast on the golf course, Patrick was a sight to behold on the tennis court. The brief article you read online simply did not do the man across from you justice as he served balls at you that probably would have wiped your head clean off of your body if you had any slower reflexes.

While you were able to get a few good hits in, courtesy of the lessons your parents put you in before they realized that golf was your calling, none of them remotely compared to the man across the court.

But your embarrassing loss was rewarded by hearing the repetitive loop of grunts and groans from your competitor. It was somewhat of a miracle that you were able to keep it together without bursting out laughing or squeezing your thighs together. You were also handsomely rewarded by seeing those muscular thighs in action. To be completely frank, there were more than a few moments where you lost momentum due to distraction from Patrick’s good looks.

While Patrick had proved himself to be a sore loser while playing golf, he wasn’t a terrible winner. He only gloated about crushing you once the two of you had finished playing, but he did happen to revel in his win for the entire walk from the tennis courts to the locker rooms.

Surprisingly, you weren’t that annoyed by him. In fact, you were pretty sure that you were hovering around the feeling of endearment.

You sat out in the lobby, freshly showered and playing on your phone when a familiar presence joined you once more.

“Are you hungry?” Patrick asked you as he made himself right at home and sat down across from you.

Was he about to ask you out on a date?

“I could eat,” you replied, trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach once more.

“Let’s get dinner, then,” he suggested, and you tried your best not to look too excited. He was asking you out on a date. What an unexpected turn of events.

“Sure. There’s a place just up the street if you want to walk?”

The diner was slightly further than you remembered it being, but the time passed by quickly as the two of you divulged stories of your sports accomplishments on your trek over. Over dinner, the two of you instantly bonded over a similar upbringing of wealthy parents who couldn’t really be bothered to raise you, and backgrounds in boarding schools that prioritized your athletic skills over anything else.

After spending way too long at your booth and working through a spread of food that would send a shiver down your coaches’ spines, your waiter finally stopped by your table with an exhausted look on their face.

“One check or two?” they asked you.

“One,” Patrick replied before you had the chance to pipe up. The waiter turned around without inquiring anything more, clearly tired of having to serve the two of you.

“Wow,” you said with a giggle. “Chivalry is not dead.”

“I’m single-handedly keeping it alive,” he joked right along with you.

Feeling emboldened by your day of camaraderie and teasing each other, you decided to ask something. “Does that make this count as a date, then?” you asked it as a joke, though you were genuinely curious about the answer. While you’d previously found yourself intrigued with his looks, you’d now learned that he was far more than that. It was safe to say that you’d developed a full-blown crush over the span of the day.

“Do you want it to count as one?” he asked almost earnestly, and despite the fact that you were sitting, you swore you felt your knees go weak.

You shrugged nonchalantly, but the grin on your face was anything but. Fortunately, he was wearing a matching grin, and you almost swore there was a dusting of pink on his cheeks. You buckled under his gaze, and looked down into your nearly empty cup of water. “Sure.”

“Then it’s a date,” he confirmed.

“It’s so hot,” you huffed as the two of you stepped outside and into the humid night.

“Wanna cool off at the pool?” he suggested after holding the door open for you.

“Wow, you just don’t want this date to end, huh?” you teased. “The pool is definitely closed by now.”

“So?” he replied.

“So you want to break in?”

“Why not?” he shot back.

You stared at him for a moment with a mostly blank expression.

“You’re such a bad influence. Let’s go,” you conceded, heading in the direction of the city’s pool.

Once the two of you arrived at the locked gate, you stood expectantly, waiting for the next part of Patrick’s plan. You didn’t have to wait for too long, as with a brief confirmation that you were ready, he hoisted you up and over the fence. You then watched as he flung his own body over the fence, and you bit your lip as you attempted to distract yourself from how that image made you feel.

With both of you on the correct side of the fence, you took it upon yourself to shuck off your clothes—save for your underwear–before you dipped your toe in the cold water.

“How’s the water?” Patrick asked as he approached you, taking his shirt and shorts off in the process. You tried your best not to ogle too much, but his six-pack was definitely staring at you. Yeah, you were definitely ogling, and he was definitely noticing.

“You tell me,” you replied, then pushed him into the pool without really thinking. You probably wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t just been caught looking at the man like he was a piece of meat, but you had been doing exactly that, and panicked.

After a moment, he resurfaced and spat out the water that he’d swallowed from your surprise movement. Yet, as he came back to the surface, he didn’t say anything to you.

You eyed him nervously while he began to approach you in the water, and you opened up your mouth to apologize just as you felt a hand wrap around your ankle. With a yelp, you were dragged down into the water, luckily dodging the ledge on your way down.

Coming back up, spat out the chlorinated water and coughed out what you’d swallowed. “I deserved that.”

“You definitely did,” he agreed, lightly splashing you with water from where he stood.

You splashed him right back, putting a little more effort in and splashing him with slightly more force. “But you also deserved that.”

“And why is that?” that overconfident look appeared on his face once more. Just twenty-four hours ago, if you’d seen that look, you’d probably want to knock it right off of him. Now, you were tempted to keep prodding.

“Because you were being a dick about smoking not that long ago,” you replied, getting a little closer to him and matching his look with your own confident gaze.

“Huh,” he hummed. “Fair enough.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“Who knows. Maybe I just really wanted a smoke. Maybe I wanted to catch the attention of the cute girl on the beach.”

“Shut up,” you replied with clear disbelief. “I like how you try to flatter your way out of every sticky situation.”

“I mean it.”

“So you thought annoying me was the best way to get my attention?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

You couldn’t argue with that.

“What if I was allergic to cigarette smoke?”

“You weren’t.”

“What if I just didn’t react, then?”

“You did,” he said.

“Must’ve been fate,” you replied dryly.

“Must’ve,” he agreed earnestly. Immediately, you felt a tension in your chest, and you wondered if he felt the same way. You didn’t have a witty or sarcastic comeback, and his face was dangerously close to yours.

Unsure of what to do, you splashed him once more.

“What was that one for?”

For making me fall for you in the span of a day, you idiot.

You shrugged, unable to come up with a coherent answer with you realizing just how physically close the two of you were. Now that you were beginning to have a bit of clarity, you could hear the pounding of your heartbeat in your eardrums. Or maybe it was Patrick’s. With your bodies this close to each other, you couldn’t be too sure.

You wondered what was going through his mind, but if the quick glance to your lips and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he gulped was any indication of his thoughts, you were sure you were on the same page.

You found yourself in somewhat of a standoff as the two of you stood there, wordless and hearts pounding as you stood together in a freezing cold pool. You shut your eyes for a moment, and when you opened them, Patrick’s nose was practically pressing against yours. But just as you began to follow his lead, you were met with a blindingly bright flashlight.

“Hey!” a new voice yelled out, pulling the two of you out of your trance. “What’s going on here?”

Patrick’s eyes widened and you were sure yours did too.

“Shit, security,” you muttered to yourself as it occurred to you what was happening. The two of you immediately scurried to the side of the pool. “I don’t think they saw us, but they definitely heard us,” you whispered.

“Do you think you could outrun them?” he asked, matching your low tone as the light of the flashlight moved across the pool without

“What?”

“Come on,” he hoisted himself out of the pool and you did the same, trying your best to be quiet as the two of you grabbed your discarded clothes.

“Patrick…” you trailed off, glued to his side.

“Come on,” he repeated as he shepherded you to the fence. “I won’t let them get you. Now,” he gestured for you to come over so he could help you climb over again, and you did. As he climbed over, the security guard’s flashlight had finally caught up with the two of you.

“Hey!” the guard repeated, lunging in your direction just as Patrick made it over.

“Run!” you yelled at him as the two of you took off. All of that tennis training clearly paid off, as he was far faster than both you and the security guard.

“Get back here!” the guard shouted as he chased the two of you.

The two of you sprinted, your bare feet screaming at you as pebbles and sticks poked your soles. Running on pure adrenaline, you swore you could hear Patrick laughing as he ran ahead of you.

The two of you ended up by his car, parked safely at the country club. You desperately tried to catch your breath as you leaned against his car door, now completely sure that you’d lost the security guard who was chasing you.

“I hate you so much,” you got out in between panting heavily.

“No you don’t,” his chest rose and fell quickly as he corrected you.

“No I don’t,” you confirmed, taking satisfaction in hearing his heavy breaths next to you and knowing that you weren’t the only one affected by the chase.

It felt as if the two of you had been transported right back into the moment you were having in the pool, a heavy, undeniable tension settling over the two of you, with the adrenaline of the chase and your hearts still rapidly pumping blood from all that running. It was almost as if one second you were standing next to each other, and the next you were pinned up against his car door, kissing like your lives depended on it.

With one of his hands up your shirt, you somehow found the willpower to use the logical part of your brain. “Wait, stop,” you reluctantly said as you pulled away for air. “I don’t want another security guard chasing us.”

“They won’t,” Patrick insisted before leaning back in to kiss you.

“They will,” you disagreed, exerting all of your willpower to dodge his advance. “Take me home?”

Patrick’s hand sat securely on your thigh for the entire ride back to the beach house. With the tension between the two of you crackling and the excitement of successfully running away beginning to die down, the two of you were mostly quiet on your way over.

After he pulled into your driveway, he looked over at you with hesitance. If you didn’t know any better, you might even say that he looked a little nervous.

“Wanna come inside?” you broke the ice, knowing that was what he was surely thinking about, and just as you predicted, he seemed to light up at your invitation.

The heat of the moment seemed to have passed, with the two of you now safely in your home, and not coming off the heels of being chased down the street. Patrick sat on your living room couch while you poured two tumblers of a criminally expensive whiskey.

You returned to the living room and sat down on the far end of the couch, passing him one of the cups before extending your legs out. You were pleasantly surprised when he positioned your legs over his lap and began to soothingly rub up and down your calves.

“What a day,” you sighed, taking a long sip from your cup.

“You’re telling me,” he chuckled in response.

As you laid there, you realized that you were actually quite exhausted. A silence settled over you once more as you yawned, then Patrick yawned not too long after you.

“You know, you’re nothing like I expected you to be,” he said randomly.

“Oh?” you replied questioningly. “Should I be offended or flattered?”

“Up for interpretation,” he looked over to you to gauge your reaction, and you playfully pushed his thigh with your foot.

“Then I’m gonna interpret it in a good way.”

“I meant it in a good way,” he said after a beat.

You smiled softly as you peered at him. “I didn’t expect you to be like this, either. I actually had a lot of fun beating you in golf and running from security guards.”

“No way you’re still talking about golf after I absolutely demolished you in tennis,” he laughed, a sound that you’d grown rather fond of throughout the day.

“It was pretty amazing watching you play golf with such bad form. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone use that many strokes on that course.”

“You wanna talk about bad form?” Patrick laughed again. “It’s a miracle you didn’t pull something when we played tennis.”

“Hey! My form is not that bad. You know I was in tennis lessons as a kid, right?”

“And how long ago was that?” he probed, looking at you with a suspicious raise of a brow.

You tried your best to do some mental math, but you were far too tired to be precise. “I mean, it was a while ago…?”

“Clearly,” he shook his head.

“Rude,” you replied, though your tone carried across you not really caring. “I’m still here for a few more weeks. Maybe you could teach me.”

“Only if you teach me how to get better at golf. I’m gonna have to impress my fellow board members someday.”

“Deal,” you agreed. Part of you wanted to leap for joy after establishing that this wasn’t some sort of one-and-done thing, and that you could at least see Patrick until you went back home.

You watched as he leaned further against the couch and tilted his head against the cushioned back of the piece of furniture, his eyes fluttering shut as he did so.

“Want to go sleep on a real bed? The guest room is clean,” you offered.

“No, I’m comfortable here,” he yawned and patted your calf. You didn’t believe him in this slightest, with his long limbs and less than ideal sleeping position. But you were quite comfortable, so you didn’t bother with insisting he leave the couch.

In the morning, you woke up in the same position that you’d fallen asleep in, with your legs draped over Patrick’s lap as he sat up and snored.

You did your best not to disturb him as you got up and went about your morning routine, taking a shower and changing into something comfortable before heading back downstairs. You were surprised to find Patrick somehow still upright and asleep on your couch, but you didn’t question it too much. It had been a long day and night.

You brewed some coffee in the kitchen, making sure to leave a portion for your guest, before you grabbed the book you’d been reading and headed out to sit on your portion of the beach.

You’d lost track of time while sitting out there, listening to the sound of the ocean and getting caught up in the contents of your book. In fact, you’d gotten so lost in your book, that you hadn’t even noticed that you’d gained a presence on the beach.

After Patrick cleared his throat, you turned to look at him. A smile grew on your face as the two of you locked eyes, and you scooted to the left on your oversized beach chair. Surely, there was enough space for both of you.

He took your invitation and sat down next to you, glancing between you and the ocean as he settled in. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and occasionally peered down at your book, but otherwise didn’t bother you. The two of you fell into a comfortable rhythm, your chests rising and falling in sync with each other as the two of you lost track of time.

Maybe Patrick wasn’t such a terrible beach companion after all.

there's only so much a body can work out, a body can do

Art Donaldson was exhausted.

He was playing tennis for hours a day, exams were coming up, and with Patrick calling from a new time zone every week, he was barely getting any sleep. Even sliding facedown onto the bed next to you offered little relief for his aching muscles.

You let out a sympathetic cluck at his frustrated sigh, dropping your book and winding a hand into his shaggy hair to scratch reassuringly at his scalp. “Poor baby,” you said. “You’re wound up way too tight.”

He didn’t reply, but you could hear his exhale into the mattress. “You need to relax.” You continued, twisting a loose curl around your finger.

“I’m not so good at that.” He admitted in a muffled voice.

“You just need some help.” You paused for a moment, eyeing the tension in his shoulders, the slight arch of his back. “Why don’t you lie down?”

Art tilted his chin up to look at you. “I am lying down.”

“On your back.”

He scanned your eyes briefly before obeying, shirt riding up his toned stomach in the process. “Like this?”

“Yeah, just like that.” You agreed. You sat beside him and he shifted slightly to maintain better eye contact, bringing up an arm to rest behind his head. The movement drew your gaze to his taut bicep, and you couldn’t resist bending down to bite it, just barely hard enough to sting.

You smiled into Art’s skin at his surprised inhale, but you were the one caught off guard when his other arm swept you seamlessly into his lap.

“Hey!” You said, sitting up straight. “Hands to yourself.” He pouted, hand still gripping your hip, but you weren’t joking. When you started to lift yourself off, he caved.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” He said, propping himself up with both arms now. “You’re in charge.”

“Don’t forget it.” You warned. He watched, chastised, as you dropped your own hands to the hem of his shirt, pulling it up until it bunched at his collarbone. Then, finally, you leaned down to kiss him.

Art was a needy kisser, always waiting for you to guide him, chasing your mouth with his own any time you tried to pull back, whimpering when you licked at the inside of his mouth. You loved kissing him, loved how much it worked him up. He was still a teenage boy, after all.

Once you could feel him properly hard beneath you, you began to descend, teeth scraping his jawbone, his collarbone, his nipple, followed soothingly by your tongue each time. Art’s abdomen was tense beneath your mouth as you pressed open-mouthed kisses to his ribs, his navel, his hips.

The tip of his cock was already sticky when you pulled down his boxers and grasped him in your fist, and you wasted no time in leaning down to tongue his slit. Normally you’d tease him much longer, make him beg, but right now, you just wanted to make him feel better. Art could hardly believe his luck.

You pumped the base of him with one hand and cupped his balls with the other as you suckled at his head. A whine escaped from high in the back of Art’s throat, and it only encouraged you to swallow more of him down.

“Oh,” he gasped, hips bucking into your mouth. “Fuck, please, please.” You moved a hand to rub his thigh reassuringly, a wordless promise, and lowered yourself further until your nose nestled against his pelvis. Art was panting desperately above you, the noises so sweet you couldn’t stop yourself from grinding down against his leg. He moaned at the feeling of your wetness, which only spurred you on more. For a while, the only sounds in the room were your slurps and gags against Art's cries.

Before long, you could feel the familiar signs of his impending orgasm, and you popped off. It took Art a moment too long to comprehend that you were speaking, too mesmerized by the string of drool connecting you to his dick.

“Where do you want to come, baby?” You asked again, hand continuing your work. “Hmm?”

“Is this a trick question?” He asked between shallow breaths.

You couldn’t help but laugh, and Art’s chest flushed pink. “No.” You promised, ducking to mouth at his balls. “Anywhere you want. Do you want to come in my mouth? On my face, or on my tits?” His face was beautifully unforgettable when you glanced up, eyes dazed and cheeks glowing as he tried to form a thought. “Come on, princess, use your words.”

At that, Art’s cock twitched in your grasp and you took him back into your mouth, tongue working at the underside. “On your face,” he finally said above you, and your stomach swelled. “Wanna come on your face.”

“Okay, baby,” you murmured. “Anything for you.” You pulled off long enough to soak two fingers in your spit, simultaneously gulping him back down and pressing the pads of your fingers behind his balls. Art clenched down and let out a strangled moan as you rubbed over his hole. You teased him with the tip of a finger, nudging at the muscle but not quite penetrating him, soaking up the mewls that fell from his mouth.

“Fuck, baby, I’m gonna- you’re gonna make me come,” he panted. His thighs were quivering; he was so close, the tension ready to drain from his body. You gave an encouraging hum, swallowing around his cock, and Art’s gasp broke into a sob as he came. You kept him in your mouth for a moment, letting yourself swallow just a little before pulling off to let him splatter onto your face. Art’s whimpers were delicious as he watched himself coat your swollen lips, your long lashes.

“Good boy,” you cooed, fist still working his cock even as he began to flinch from the overstimulation. “That’s it, does that feel better?”

Art’s head was tipped back as he struggled to catch his breath, but even still, his eyes refused to move from the mess on your face. You kept your eyes on his as you lowered your mouth once more, lapping at the dribble of cum down his cock. He started to whine in protest, it was too much, but you took pity and let him go, rocking back on your heels.

“So much better,” he whispered. “That felt so good, I needed it, thank you."

“Good.” You said, licking your lips. “That’s what I like to hear.”