Pedro Pascal Characters - Tumblr Posts

Ohhhh this was so sweet!!!!

😍😍😍

kissogram

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader rating: Teen (18+ only blog!) warnings: drunk Joel, soft possessive Joel, lovesick Joel, wingman Tommy, fluff, idiots in love and in denial word count: 1.8k summary: A familiar sound wakes you from the soft slumber you'd not long fallen into - sounds you'd dreamed about in the months since meeting Joel Miller. This time, as you creep down the stairs to come face-to-face with your intruder, you can be certain it's not a man decked out in plush red velvet.

A/N: happy birthday to Joel Miller, happy TLOU day to us, and, most importantly, happy GOD DAMN IT ARE YOU CLOSE TO SAYING YOU LOVE EACH OTHER YET day to these two babies.

I'll be back with more dress up!Joel in 5 weeks 💛

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics

A familiar sound wakes you from the soft slumber you'd not long fallen into. The click of a door. The woosh of your house decompressing. Muffled footsteps. They were sounds that your own ears hadn't heard in months, and yet ones you'd heard a hundred times over in your dreams since that first day you met Joel, decked out in plush red velvet in front of your Christmas tree.

It's why, when you fully come to and pull yourself up onto your elbows, you find yourself blinking in confusion in the dark. Dreams and reality are tricky things to figure out when you're on the precipice of both. And, while the sound of foreign footsteps on your living room floor was something you dreamed about - fantasized about - a feeling of unease is quickly creeping up your spine the longer you listen to the hushed tones coming from downstairs.

Whatever - whoever - it is, isn't even trying to be discreet, not by the way your door suddenly slams and something rattles against the wall.

You don't even try to be discreet either, jumping from your bed and stomping over to the door. It's stupid, maybe. Probably.

Almost definitely.

The first time may have worked out well for you by creeping down to find Joel in your house, but that didn't mean any other break-in was going to go as well for you. Now, all these months later, you didn't even have your old umbrella to arm yourself with as you throw open the door and fly downstairs, hoping the element of surprise will save you.

Slamming your hand against the wall, you drench your living room in artificial light so suddenly your eyes can barely adjust before you're screaming out into the room in a feeble attempt to scare off your intruders.

"Get ou- what the fuck?!"

"Jesu-"

"Fu-"

The scene in front of you is a mess. Mail you'd left on your coffee table earlier is strewn all over the floor, your bowl of knick-knacks over turned in the middle, and two of your sofa cushions dumped onto the floor.

Most baffling of all are the people in the room. You know them. Of course you do. Who else would it be. Joel Miller is stood - or rather, he's being propped up - in your living room, gripping onto his brother as he desperately tries to keep his legs beneath him.

"Tommy? Joel? What the fuck are you two doing here?"

Joel, who by now has caught the sound of your voice, has stopped trying to keep himself upright, and is instead staring dozily at you, a lopsided smile spreading across his face. Tommy, meanwhile, is now taking almost the full weight of his older brother, and suffering for it, barely keeping his own legs from buckling as grunts and groans.

"I dropped him home but he - shit man you're heavy, stop it - he kept wanderin' this way. Kept askin' about a goodnight kiss. Told him I'd give 'im one but -"

"Hi," Joel cuts in suddenly, slurring around the simple greeting as he moves toward you despite Tommy's protests.

"Joel," you say in warning, as the broad man stumbles toward you on drunken feet.

In response, he raises a single finger, clearly much slower than he intended to, and the smile on his face spreads even wider.

"No."

"No? What? Joel, look I think you sho-"

"Birthday Joel. 'm Birthday Joel," he grins, and you can't help but supress a laugh. This is maybe his most lackluster costume yet. He has a crumpled party hat on and the same clothes you saw him leave in earlier this evening, and it makes you wonder how long he's been keeping that one in tonight - whether he told his friends the same thing down at the bar, or if he'd been holding it back just to tell you. By the proud look on his face, and Tommy's confusion, you suspect the latter.

"Hey there, Birthday Joel," you say with a soft smile. "Now, what're you doing over here and not at your own place? It's late, Joel. I said I'd see you in a couple of days -"

"Birthday Joel deserves a birthday kiss."

You raise your eyebrow at him, stopping his stumbled wobble in its tracks. "Deserves?"

"Wants. I jus' - I jus' wanted to kiss you," he breathes, looking down at your mouth with another smile so soft your breath leaves you in a quiver as you try not to embarrass yourself by letting loose the bubble of affection sitting in your belly.

Naturally, you'd given Birthday Joel plenty of kisses earlier today - a day that technically wasn't even his birthday yet - before Tommy came to pick him up. You'd given him so many kisses he was almost late out the door to his own birthday drinks. Tommy had rolled his eyes then just as he is now, slapping his brother on the back and steadying him all in one move.

"Told you, man," Tommy says. "She wouldn't 'ppreciate bein' woken up just to kiss your ugly ass."

Tommy winks at you, and tries to manouvere Joel toward the door, but Joel, somehow speedy despite his drunkenness, manages to round back to you, arms spread and ready to envelope you in a hug before he stops himself and instead delicately grabs your hands.

"Jus'... Jus' missed you," he hiccups. "Missed - missed my girls."

"Okay, Prince Charmin', I'm tired, you're drunk, we all gotta sleep, let's go."

"Tommy?" you say, letting Joel's thumbs caress the back of your hands as he holds them, refusing to let go even as Tommy tries, and fails, to tug him toward the door once more. "I can drop him home, if you wanna get goin'?"

For a second, it looks like Tommy's ready to object, determined to get his brother back home and in bed, just like he promised. But then he looks at his brother, and the lovesick look on his face, and decides to leave well enough alone.

"I'll see you at dinner tomorrow," he says to Joel. "Sarah's bein' dropped off at-"

"At ten, I know," he slurs. "Miss her. Missed you. My girls."

After a minute of prising your hands out of Joel's, you see Tommy out, walking with him to your door. The spare house key you'd entrusted to Joel months ago is deposited safely into your hand, before he wishes you luck with the birthday boy, and jogs the short distance through the darkness to his truck and zips away into the night. Joel, who you'd left unattended for all of two minutes, has already taken it upon himself to flop down onto your couch, and is fighting a losing battle with his drooping head as you approach.

"C'mere," he mumbles with a wobble to his head, hands making a reach for you.

"You're still after that kiss, huh?"

"Uh-huh," he says, grinning again as you hinge, bringing your face close to his.

His eyes flutter closed before you even close the distance, pressing soft kisses to the corners of his smiling mouth, before pressing a softer, lingering kiss to his lips.

"That good enough for you, Birthday Joel?" you whisper.

"Mm. S'good. Missed you."

"You've said that already."

"S'true."

"I'm gonna get you some water, sober you up a bit before I get you home."

Joel is asleep on his side, legs pulled up onto the couch, when you come back with water. You doubted you'd get him home tonight, with the state he's in, but you were at least hoping to get him upstairs and into bed, where he could better sleep off whatever demons were coming for him in the morning. As he starts to snore, face pressed into the couch cushion, you're suddenly very grateful that he won't make it up the stairs.

You tidy up the small tornado of mess that's torn through your living room. Mail is picked up and put where you should've left it in the first place, the bowl is righted and its contents replaced, the cushions are shoved back on the couch. Assessing the man himself, you soon realise there's no way you're getting him comfortable without waking him, so you prod his side, waiting until he wakes before whispering gently to him.

"Joel? Let me get this shit off you," you say, tugging at his shoes.

For all his drunkenness, he does try to help. He fumbles with his belt buckle, getting it halfway undone before his frustrated grunts turn to curses, and your hands replace his. In no time his belt is off, and he's kicking off his pants, reaching for you and dragging you to sit beside him again.

"Joel, you're drunk, we're not playing -"

"Jus' a kiss," he asks, tapping his cheek with a smile that crinkles his eyes.

It's impossible not to give in, or smile too as you press your lips to his cheek and he hums softly, already letting sleep claw back at him.

"'Nother one," he says, as his eyes droop.

"You're drunk, Joel. You should sleep."

"Not Drunk Joel - Birthday Joel," he mumbles, with a sleepy smile as you pull off his crumpled birthday hat and toss it aside.

"Then get some sleep, Birthday Joel."

You stand, your weight shifting off the couch and jostling Joel, his head already so heavy with sleep it wobbles to the side. His hand still finds yours though - pulling you to a stop as you try to creep back upstairs.

"Come to dinner? Tomorrow? Come meet Sarah," he asks, brave with sleep. "Want - both m'girls there."

He'd hesitated asking you all week. You could tell by the way he stumbled over the words each time he explained his birthday plans - bar with the boys the night before, dinner and a movie with Sarah and Tommy on the big day. The lengthy pauses had been filled with an invitation he could never quite get out, and you didn't want to fill in the blanks yourself.

He's dozing, already mostly asleep, by the time you can even answer him. So, instead you stroke softly at his hair, watching as his whole body suddenly gives in to sleep, giving him a final kiss on his cheek, and whispering in his ear;

"Ask me again in the morning, Birthday Joel. Ask me then, and I'll say yes."

In the morning, when you're both sipping coffee and Joel is nursing a hangover the likes of which he's never seen, you don't expect him to keep to words he was too tired to hear. But, he does, not meeting your eye as the words he was never brave enough to say until last night come spilling out once more.

And, just like you said you would, you say yes.

taglist: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

@youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123

@valkyreally @ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather

@stevie75 @toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights @sp00kymulderr @joelsdagger

Got me giggling and twirling my hair over here

Hot and sweet all in one! 🥰😍

Keep Quiet - Tim Rockford x f!reader

rating: 18+

summary: My submission for @burntheedges 's "Roll-a-Trope" challenge! I got Tim Rockford x Secret Relationship.

a/n: Just made the deadline! Never written for Tim before so I hope y'all enjoy!

Keep Quiet

"Here you are, detective," you say holding the file out to him. "The latest on the Merge case."

He takes it from you with a quick lift of his dark eyes to you before they tilt down to the folder in your hand. 

"Thank you," he replies in that husky voice of his distracted by something on his laptop as he takes the file from you.

You nod, removing a few of the Chinese takeout boxes that litter his desk. They're left over from lunch - almost eight hours ago. The precinct is fairly empty at this time in the evening. As his personal secretary however you find yourself staying late most nights while the rest of the officers and detectives leave. 

Tim Rockford is a high profile detective. He's well respected, he's very talented at solving crimes and he's incredibly private. He doesn't share anything with anyone he doesn't want to and you've learned not to press him when he’s under stress. 

And you have a few secrets of your own. Like the fact that sometimes you find yourself staring at him during the workday because you find him incredibly sexy. 

Like right now when he sits behind his large oak desk, studiously studying an email on his laptop. His white linen dress shirt strains over his shoulders, the sleeves pushed to his elbows, the dark tie hanging loosely around his neck. The soft waves of his dark hair are tousled, his beard short and trimmed. 

He's fucking gorgeous. 

You force yourself to look away, going to the file cabinet to retrieve some of the notes you have to digitize. You're a professional and even though the thought of Tim doing incredibly filthy things to you in this very office does cross your mind every so often you'd never act on it. This precinct is small, the other workers love to gossip and you don't want to be the latest subject. Fucking your boss doesn't look good.

Doesn't mean you don't fantasize about it though. 

You take it out on your boyfriend, riding him furiously in the evenings as the dinner dishes sit soaking in the sink. Making him call you his slutty secretary and telling you to come on his cock. You moan when he says that, bouncing furiously with your head tilting back imagining just that, being fucked over Tim's desk, ass rippling as he pounds you from behind. 

You subtly take a glance at your wristwatch. It's getting late and you're exhausted. It's been a long week. You glance over to see that Tim hunched over the newest file. He doesn't look anywhere near being finished for the evening and that doesn't bode well for you. Your stomach rumbles. 

"Would it be okay if we called it a night?"

Tim's eyes dart from the file up to you. You've broken his concentration. 

"It's just, it's getting late," you explain when he doesn't answer, your voice coming out tentative.

"Is it?" Tim's voice drops to a silken purr. He closes the folder, pushing it to the side of his desk. 

"Yes," you reply, shifting from foot to foot slightly. "It's just I wanted to grab dinner and-"

You stop when he moves back in his rolling chair, indicating for you to come over with his fingers curling into his palm. The energy in the room feels off. You slowly come to stand next to his chair, watching his body turn to face you. He drags his eyes down your body before ending their exploration running along your mouth.

"You're hungry?"

You blink at the question. "Yes." 

Tim nods slowly, long legs unfurling until he stands at full height, body inches from yours. You can smell the spearmint of his gum, the cologne he splashes on some days. This close when you gaze up you see the warmth of his eyes framed by thick lashes. 

You're confused when his hand slides down his front, cupping his cock through his dress pants. He’s hard. You're eyes blow wide at the action, widening further when his fingers go to his zipper, dragging it down as he continues to stare at you. 

You stand there shocked, looking quickly at the unlocked door to his office and then back. His cock is out when you glance back, hanging heavily and twitching when you glance at it. He's hard, the head rosy. 

"Tim-" 

Tim's never done anything like this here, never even indicated that this is something he wanted. From the moment you arrive to work Tim is courteous, polite, and respectful. He's never said anything untoward and now? Now it seems that he doesn't care that there could be people outside the office; other late workers, janitorial staff. 

"You said you were hungry," he rasps. "So go on and swallow my cock like I know you've been dying to do all day." 

He begins to slowly stroke himself from base to tip. Thick fingers dragging from the coarse hair at the base of his cock to the weeping tip. You feel your pulse flutter at the sight, suddenly lightheaded.

The subtle amusement in his features is gone, replaced with wary concern when your eyes narrow at him. 

You've been working your ass off for hours and he just assumed you'd fall onto your knees and suck his cock in the middle of his office? Is he insane? That you'd risk your job just because he's feeling horny?

"I'm leaving."

You abruptly turn, striding from him with your heart pounding. Your shaking hand goes to the doorknob, turning when a large palm slaps against the door, keeping it shut. 

Tim’s other hand goes to lock the door, caging you there between his muscled arms. 

You feel Tim's warm body behind you. He's breathing slowly, warm breath buffeting the back of your head. 

"Don't act like this isn't exactly what you were hoping for." 

You turn to look over your shoulder, taking in his heated expression. He licks his top lip, staring at you. 

"I'm not going to suck your cock, Tim."

His brows flash in surprise before he shrugs, as if that response doesn't bother him at all. 

His large hand goes to the back of your neck, dragging you gently like a disobedient kitten over to his desk. You allow this and walk with him, watching mutely as he shoves the files off his desk. They slap to the ground, some pages floating before they join the rest. 

He pushes your chest against the smooth wood, holding you down by your neck as he lowers his mouth to your ear. 

"I know this is making you wet," he growls into your ear. You try to hide your face, grunting as if to decline such a statement. 

"No?" Tim grins against your temple. "Should I check?"

You don't have time to reply. He's snaking his hand around your hips, greedy fingers moving under your skirt to begin cupping your sex through your panties. 

You shudder, arching when a thick finger finds itself sliding under the fabric, coming to dance along your sopping seam, collecting your copious arousal. 

"I knew it." 

He removes his hand and you hear him fumble with his belt and zipper, his black dress pants and boxers shoved down to his ankles. 

You keen, feeling his hands go to pull up your skirt, showing off your thin panties. You gasp when he tears them from your body, letting the tatters fall to the floor. You make a soft gasping noise in the back of your throat. 

"You want it like this, don't you?" Tim murmurs. "You want me to fuck you over my desk?"

All propriety has left you and you don't even hesitate to nod, your cheek rasping against the desktop.You feel him line himself up with your soaked cunt, the head of his cock almost kissing your seam but he pauses. 

"Use your words." 

"Yes," you breathe. "Yes, I want you to fuck me like this." 

The head breaches your pussy and you whimper at the sweet stretch of it. You're so turned on, so wet; he slips further with ease, groaning until he's buried to the hilt. 

You groan, arching back like a cat at the sensation of being so full. Tim's breath starts to pick up speed, his hips beginning to roll. 

"You want me to fuck you here like some needy whore who just can't wait to take her bosses cock?" 

You arch, hating how wet you are at just those words. Your face flames. You want more, your ass moving back and forth into his hips, fucking yourself on his cock.

"Yes, Mister Rockford."

That's all the encouragement Tim needs. He withdraws himself completely before slamming back into you with a grunt. You cry out at the sensation, fingers going to curl around the lip of the desk as he fills you. 

“Say it again.”

“Yes, Mister Rockford.”

Your cheek is pressed into the wood of the desk, your eyes cracking open when he begins to fuck you in earnest. 

His laptop is still on, the background photo shining out at you. It's a photo of Tim and his girlfriend at a waterfall. He's holding her tightly in his arms; she's pressing a kiss to his stubbled cheek. 

It's adorable. 

It's the only personal thing he allows himself in the office. Everything else is paperwork, evidence folders, sticky notes with names. He's anonymous, intensely private, and forever professional. 

Except for right now.

Right now he's bent over you with his pants at his ankles, one hand holding down your neck, the on the desk, bracing himself as he thrusts into you with a grunt. 

You turn away from the laptop, not wanting to see that picture right now. You don't want to see Tim being adorable, not when he's fucking you so hard the desk is creaking. 

"Bad girl letting me do this at work," he tells you, still pinning you down by the back of your neck. 

Your ass jumps as his pace quickens. The slaps of his hips against your ass fill the room. He's grunting and panting, his broad frame pinning you to his desk. 

With one side of your face still pressed against the desk you gaze up at him from the corner of your eye, seeing he wears his dress shirt loosened at the collar, the tail of his tie tossed over his shoulder. His teeth are bared as he fucks into you. 

He looks like a man possessed, single minded like he always is when he's pouring over case files. Only now all that attention is on your pleasure as he pounds into you over and over. The sight makes you shudder a moan. 

"Better keep quiet," Tim warns through hisses of air between his clenched teeth. "You want the whole office knowing you're in here taking my cock?" 

You're suddenly nervous; anyone could walk by and hear you and the furious wet sounds that fill the office. But when Tim's hand moves from your neck to rub your pussy from the front, his fingers pinching your clit you can only bring a hand to cover your mouth and hide your moans. 

"That's right, you keep quiet or everyone's gonna know you're letting your boss fuck this pretty pussy." 

Your eyes roll back when his fingers begin to slide around your clit, stroking in time with his thrusts. 

"You're close," he growls, his pelvis slamming into you now, his hips stuttering against your ass. He bends down, lips grazing your ear. His voice drops an entire octave, gravelly and firm. 

"Such a slutty secretary," he growls, his hips slapping your ass furiously. "Come on my cock right now."

Those words are the aphrodisiac you needed to go over the edge. You begin to spasm, your ass bouncing as he hits that same sweet spot over and over. Pleasure rolls over you, causing you to shake. You come hard, whimpering behind your hand as Tim slowly stops, his cock still throbbing inside you. 

You feel his forehead resting between your shoulder blades as you both come down, panting heavily. Minutes later you come back to yourself and he tilts back.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

You push your torso up off the desk and gaze at him with a small smile, your face flushed. 

"How did you know?"

Tim gives you a dimpled grin.  

"You think I don't feel how hard you come every time I call you my slutty secretary at home? Or how often you suggest we role play in bed?" 

You laugh breathlessly, feeling him gently extract himself from between your legs.

He tucks himself away, and you pout at the sight, about to demand he let you make him come when he pulls you to a stand, capturing your mouth in a sweet kiss.  You melt into it, arms wrapping around his neck. He kisses so well, so sweetly and so opposite to what he just did to you over his desk. 

"That felt really good," you murmur against his lips, feeling sleepy and sated. 

"Yeah?" He grins, looking at you with affection. "As good as you were imagining?"

"Better." 

The two of you pull on your jackets, getting ready to head home. Or, as Tim suggests, take you out for an actual meal. You can tell he's thinking about something important when you catch him gazing at you with soft eyes. You cup his cheek in your palm. 

"What's up, Rockford?"

His arms go around your waist, pulling you to him. 

"What do you think of letting the office know about us?" he asks in that sweet rasp of his. "I'm tired of sneaking around together."

You feel a frisson of delight overtake your body at his words before you sober. 

"Won't we get in trouble?"

"Nah. Just got an email from HR saying interdepartmental relationships are now officially discouraged but not forbidden."

 You tense in his arms. 

"It's only been six months," you say nervously. "Isn't it too soon?"

"I knew you were it for me on our first date," he says with a gentle smile. "But if you're not ready, I understand. I'll wait." 

You look down at the laptop still propped on his desk, smiling down at the wallpaper photo he took of you two a few months ago during a hike. That day had been so perfect, a hike followed by a picnic. He gave you a book he thought you'd like, quoting something from it. Then he told you he loved you for the first time. 

You remember thinking how much you loved him in that moment, feeling your chest warming when you two kissed. Every day is like that with him, beautiful and sweet and you don't want anyone else. 

You hug him tightly, thankful tears dotting your waterline. He holds you, and you think you can feel him relaxing. You happily sigh against him. 

"Let's tell them." 

MORE SWAT!!!!

I have been SO excited for this!

And the fact he was kinda nice even when he’s such an asshole and gentle?! MY FUCKING HEART, LO! MY HEART!!! 🥰😍🥰😍

sweet as cherry wine

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: dub-con (power imbalance, reader was paying a debt), unprotected PIV, period sex, the joys of menstruation, fingering, derogatory names (slut), mentions of malnutrition/lack of food, positive weight gain, ghost of anal sex past and future, drug reference, asshole Joel, no use of y/n word count: 5.1k summary: a different kind of rude awakenin' than you were promised ruins your Sunday plans but, of course, you find yourself at the mercy of Joel Miller anyway.

A/N: she's here! another mini-kinktober SWAT series of oneshots for you to enjoy and for me to be horny about in theory, stressed about in practice. if you want spoilers, check out the SWAT masterlist for what's to come.

once again, please ignore the total and utter bastardisation and improper use of hozier lyrics. this one is particularly heinous but out of context I couldn't resist.

title from cherry wine by hozier

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics

You felt more alive these days. Whether it was the bright, cool days, the extra food you could suddenly afford to eat, or the regular fucking you got from Joel, you couldn't tell, but the world felt lighter and, at the very least, your father's bad days didn't feel so difficult to manage.

It was easy to forget that these things couldn't last - the cloud was incoming whether you liked it or not, and whether it was a short shower or a downpour, you were going to get wet.

It was a fact that became painfully apparent the very morning you had an appointment with Joel.

It wasn't a strict appointment, more an offhand comment that you planned on cashing in on. When a man like Joel fucks you from behind and taunts you with threats of fucking your ass again and you think fuck yes so hard the words spew out of your mouth as you babble into the sheets, what else is a girl to do. And when he makes doubly sure you heard him by kneading your ass as you ready yourself to leave and whispers in your ear the filthy things he wants to do to you, and if you want them to happen you should come over Sunday afternoon, it's basically a done deal.

"If you thought that was an ass fuckin' before," he had said, "You're in for a rude fuckin' awakenin', sweetheart."

By god did you want that rude awakening.

But, staring into your underwear that Sunday morning, the distantly familiar gnawing ache in your abdomen suddenly had a name, and there your plans went, flushed down the drain right alongside the first signs you'd seen of your fucking period in years.

You remembered the pain, but it'd been long enough that you'd forgotten about the other discomforts periods could bring. The hunger, the aches, the tender nipples and the throb in your head. Not to mention, the last thing you wanted was Joel anywhere near any of your holes, asshole definitely included.

With your plans ruined and an ache that was rapidly spreading to your back, you didn't bother leaving the house that day, or sending word to Joel that you wouldn't be coming. Your rude awakenin' would have to wait, and your dad would have to stretch his pills for a few more days.

Three days in, you can't wait any longer. Or rather, your dad can't. You still feel rotten, and though the pain and bleeding have eased off a little, you just want the sit in your apartment and eat - the very luxury that got you in this mess in the first place.

But, you're here instead. In front of Joel's door, hands clasped at your sides, berating yourself - and your father - for even needing to be here, when Joel pulls open the door with a scowl.

"This look like Sunday to you?" he grouches, the furrow between his brows deepening as he looks you up and down.

You try to ignore it. Just like you've tried to ignore the gnawing ache in your belly all week. But, despite yourself, you can't speak, can't bring mention to Sunday and your own disappointment, and instead reach a hand deep into your jacket pocket and pull out the small number of cards you'd agreed would cover your dad's meds.

"Just here for a refill."

Joel rolls his eyes, and when he pushes away from the door frame, he beckons you inside, pushing the door shut behind you the second you scurry through after him.

"The fuck is wrong with you," he says, slamming an old worn container onto the table a second later. "And don't say nothin', I can tell you ain't right. Seen dead bodies with more life in 'em."

It hadn't occurred to you that he'd know. That he'd see right through you and know that you'd spent the days since Sunday feeling shitty as you curled into yourself. It hadn't occured to you for a second that you might look different - probably just as shit as you felt - and that Joel, a man who never seemed to be put off by anything, might be put off by this. By you.

"You sick?"

You hadn't even noticed he'd stopped rummaging, hands now on his hips as he stares at you with what you could almost mistake for concern. It pulls at you, somewhere deep inside, and you find a need to scramble for the words to reassure him, to tell him you'd be okay in the vaguest terms, that you'd be back to normal next week, if he still wants to go ahead with Sunday, because by fuck do you want to.

But instead, just one word comes out of your mouth in a sudden burst much louder than you intended.

"Period."

Joel blinks. Once. Then twice. As if trying to work something out, or maybe he's disgusted that you bleed, or maybe he's relieved you aren't pregnant at all and the little procedure to keep his swimmers at bay was still effective.

"Y'ain't had one o' them before," he starts. "I mean, since..."

You want to tell him that maybe you have. Maybe you hid it - didn't want him to know - but you both know you're a shit liar.

"Guess eating works wonders," you joke instead, not missing the frown that tugs his brows down, or the way his eyes scan back over your body to settle on the jacket that fits more snug than it ever has, or the thighs that now fill out your jeans.

The entire time, he doesn't make a single move to grab your father's pills. You want to scream at him to hurry up and give them to you - the longer you're standing here, the longer your cunt has to throb and clench at the mere thought of him. For the first time all week, you're not sure the wet feeling between your legs is blood.

"Got everything's you need?" he asks, his eyes briefly flicking down to your belly then back up.

You do. You tell him as much, now keenly aware of the feeling of the cup sat securely inside you as he stares holes through your head, searching for the lie, before giving up and shrugging when he doesn't find one.

He starts rummaging in the small container again, pulling out a half used packet and gesturing to you with it. "You hurtin'?"

You shake your head, turning down his offer of free prescription meds to ease your aches and pains. "Not so much any more."

Joel slowly takes a step towards you, and your pussy pulses again, gripping the cup lodged inside you and making you wish it was something else entirely.

"Still up for fuckin' if you are."

Nothing can keep the scoff of disbelief from bubbling out of your chest. Not two seconds ago you thought that maybe he'd be put off by you, if not by how you looked, then by the mess between your legs.

"No way are you fucking my ass, Joel," you say through a laugh.

He shrugs, before moving closer and pulling open your jacket. "Never said that. A fuckin' is a fuckin', don't matter which hole. Could have you comin' on this cock and leavin' feelin' better than you have in days, if you want it."

"You got a magic dick or something?" You laugh again, though smaller this time as Joel stares down at you through dark lashes.

"Think you know the answer to that better than I do," Joel says, running his tongue along his teeth. "Doubt you been rubbin' that pretty thing between your legs too much these last few days, huh?"

He's not wrong - making yourself come has been the last thing in your mind lately. You spent most of your time Sunday scrambling to find your menstrual cup and learning how to use it all over again so you weren't free bleeding all over the place. Since then your days had been filled with torturously slow work days and hiding away in your room with a pillow cluched firmly to your stomach.

"Didn't think so."

In a blink, he's gone, moving away from you so quickly your head spins. He's pressing the lid firmly back onto the container, the loud clicking echoing around his apartment as he readies it to be stashed away. You look away as he turns from you - not wanting to see if it's hidden in the usual drawer or elsewhere in his home - and turn just in time for a threadbare towel to be thrown your way. It's worn, and stained, but soft and clean in your hands.

"Go get yourself cleaned up."

You gape at him. Mostly in disbelief that he would want to touch you at all right now, but a small part of you stares at his form - broad and strong - wanting desperately to leap on him right here with no mind paid to the thing currently lodged in your cunt, feral with the knowledge that he actually wants you.

"But what about the mess," you say feebly instead, grinding your knuckles into that soft part just below the pooch of your belly as a sudden ache - no doubt brought on by the fluttering in your cunt - takes hold of your womb.

He laughs then, low and throaty, before making his way back to you and gripping your chin between thumb and forefinger.

"Good job I like it when you're a mess for me, sweetheart."

You're gone in a flash - his deep chuckle the only thing you hear as you rush to the bathroom and close the door, stripping down as quickly as you can before hopping into his shower. The water is deliciously warm as it pelts your skin, a forgotten luxury that you wish you'd had two days ago at the worst of your aches. Still, you relish in it, and find yourself tentatively stepping out of the steamy room with the tattered towel wrapped around you and your cup cleaned and discarded on his bathroom sink far sooner than you'd like.

There's a soft yellow light beckoning you into Joel's bedroom as you pad your way across his floor. He's there, just beyond the doorway, laying another towel across faded sheets. His jeans are off and his sweater discarded, his bare, muscular legs flexing with each movement in the golden light as he puts together the space you're about to fall apart in.

"You gonna keep starin'," he says with a final flourish of the towel before giving it a gentle pat with his hand. "Or you gonna sit your ass down before you drip on my floor."

Rolling your eyes, you walk to the bed, Joel barely giving you space to maneouver by him, before doing as your told and sitting your ass down. There's already a soft lump forming in the front of his boxers when you cast your eyes up to him.

"Show me," he says, dragging a finger across your hand where you grip the towel to yourself, and in an instant it drops away from your body, falling into your lap and exposing your chest to him.

"Y'know, I thought they'd got bigger," he says, letting his finger trace from your hand to your palm and down to the soft swelling of your chest. "Bouncin' in my fuckin' face more than usual lately."

His broad hand encases your breast, gently holding but not squeezing as his fingertips caress your soft flesh. His thumb drags gently across your nipple, the sensitive bud of it tightening and sending a zing straight down through to your core. It should hardly come as a surprise to you - the soft fabric of your own t-shirts had been borderline painful in the days leading up to your unpleasant surprise. Still, it makes you gasp, a thing that Joel notices with a cocked eyebrow.

"Ass too," he continues, hands stroking softly at your tender nipple before crouching before you on creaking knees. "I'd fuck it any chance I'd get, but somethin' about it lately..."

Resting back on your palms, you look down at him beyond the swell of your breasts. He's gazing at them, watching as they heave with each breath you take. For good measure, you take in a deep sigh just to watch his eyes darken as they rise and fall right in front of his face.

"Show me," he says again, with a nod and, while his eyes never leave your tits as they sway in front of him, you know what he really means.

Part of you wants to clamp your legs together and hide from him. You want to ask him why - why ever, but mostly why now, when you're like this. But you don't.

Instead, you pull the towel away and let it fall from your thighs. For a second, you wonder if Joel has even noticed. He still seems entranced by the way your tits move. That, or he's somehow being polite - a weird thing to even consider given how very naked and very close to him you are right now.

Then, he flicks his eyes between your legs for a fraction of a second, before standing and pulling his shirt over his head in one smooth movement. The tent in his boxers is even more pronounced now, the trail of hair that slips beneath the waistband drawing your eye easily to the swelling bulge hidden beyond the fabric.

"Eyes up here, sweetheart," Joel says. "Think you can take it?"

He's stroking himself over the fabric now, you can see it in your periphery. His broad hand gently squeezing and rubbing the very thing you wish was in you.

Words lost, you nod. Then, his knee descends to one side of you, calloused hands pushing at your shoulders, and you're falling softly backward until you collide with the mattress, and the worn towel covering it.

The mattress gives way to your weight, dipping softly where you lay. Joel's over you, his massive frame cast in golden light from the lamp as he touches you more gently than you think he ever has. Your nipples pucker, his hands not even close to them as you arch into the touch of his rough palm across your side, your belly, your hip.

And then, he's dipping his fingers between your legs, not caring of the mess that might be there, and drags slick fingers through your folds until you're panting and writhing underneath him, legs spreading and hips rocking your pussy into his hand with each swipe of his wet fingers over your clit. You didn't notice how sensitive you were. The last few days you'd tried your hardest to ignore any sensation coming from your cunt that wasn't an alarming feeling of warm and wet. Now, while you were definitely warm and wet, you were practically electrified too, blood humming with need as Joel gently stroked at your pussy until you were begging him to make you come.

"I'm gonna, sweetheart," he growls. "Gonna make this needy pussy come all over my cock. Make a mess o' me."

You feel yourself flutter as his finger pushes lightly into your waiting hole. You're dripping, no telling really with what at this point, but you don't have it in you to care. He can have the mess he so desperately wants, as long as he makes you come and leaves you panting and bone tired right here on the mattress.

His face burrows into your neck, shrouding you in him while he sucks kisses down and onto your shoulder.

"Joel..." you moan, arching into him again when his finger plunges deep, gently curling forward while his palm grinds against your clit. You could make yourself come on him if he just kept like this. Except, you don't want to. You don't want to do the work. You want to lie here and take it, have him split you open on his cock and work you apart until you crumble underneath him.

He works another into you, shallow thrusts of the digits working you up and sliding easily through you. His thumb finds your clit, swiping messily over it until you twitch and grip his arm, forcing his palm flat against you so you can grind and grind against him. But he stills - the soft kisses he was peppering with you having reached the jiggle of your tits - and looks aup at you with a quirk to his brow.

"Beg me for it," he whispers, pulling his sopping fingers out of you and wiping them on the towel between your legs. "Not gonna fuck you until you do."

Your desperation cuts through the anger that flares in your belly. You were close when he pulled away, his hand now simply teasing the sensitive skin of your thigh. You were so close your cunt was throbbing, sending small aches up through you. Whether they were from him, and the relief he so quickly took from you, or the making of your own body, you couldn't even tell, but you had a sneaking suspicion they were working together to fuck you over. They always did.

"Fuck me, Joel. Please."

Joel is already settling between your thighs, boxers yanked down his legs and cock springing free, by the time you even finish asking. He presses forward, letting his cock slip against you as his mouth hungrily finds your nipple, sucking and making you gasp. A sudden sob wrestles its way out of your chest while he grinds against you, your clit twitching against the slip and slide of his length, your hands finding his arms to steady you. He's solid, and steady above you, while you quake and writhe beneath him - always the picture of fucking composure, even with his cock heavy and dripping between your legs.

He rears back then, completely naked before you, the shadow between his legs ignored as you make a point to stare up at him, his own eyes favoring the mess between your legs rather than your face. His fingers find your thighs again, spreading them, holding them, before lining himself up with your entrance.

As he presses his tip into you, there's something glaringly obvious, and different, that you notice.

He's being gentle with you. Sort of.

And you're not entirely sure you like it. A very big part of you wants him to say fuck it and pound into you, fucking the pain out of your mind to leave you moaning and boneless and far too messy to comprehend. Unfortunately, you're definitely sure that'd hurt much more than it'd actually be enjoyable, and you hate that Joel and his animal brain have understood that before you and yours.

He catches your frown before you do, and rolls his eyes at you with a gentle squeeze to your thighs. His cock is still slipping gently in and out of you, just pushing in past the head, careful not to go too deep too quickly as he spreads you apart to take him.

"I ain't a fuckin' animal. I know when a pussy's gotta be treated sweet and nice and when it needs to be fucked hard."

You really do try not to pout, but the slow drag of him suddenly doesn't feel like enough and it's all you can do not to cross your arms and glare at him. "What if I don't want sweet and nice?"

"Yeah, you do," he whispers, so sure of himself you want to fucking slap him. If his hands weren't so distracting as they slide up and down your thighs, gently massaging away any ache in tandem with his cock in your cunt, you probably would reach up and give a smack to that beautiful fucking face of his. "And even if you think you don't, she does, and, unlucky for you, I ain't listenin' to you right now."

The moment he starts talking about your cunt, his brings his thumb down to gently tease along your lips where he splits you open, drawing a slick combination of your own blood and arousal up to your clit where he swirls it around.

And, traitorous bitch that she is, your pussy throbs in approval, as if to say yes, yes we want sweet and nice, and you know you've lost the battle. Where Joel was concerned, you were a slave to your pussy - it wasn't even a point worth contending at this point, and you're not sure you ever would've fought to hard against it anyway.

So, you nod, slipping your eyes closed as he fucks himself deeper and deeper into you. In an odd way it does feel like a massage - the stiff length of him pushing in past the tense grip of your cunt until you're putty right there on the bed, a leaking, dripping, groaning mess, all of Joel Miller's making. He never bottoms out. Never once hammers home. Never once takes your soft pleas and moans as direction to go faster, harder, even though part of you still wants him to.

You just lie there, soft and pliant against the sheets, taking the steady slip of him in your needy hole until your brain turns to soup in your head.

"Kiss me," you mumble through another moan when his hands drag up your body to swip rough fingers over your nipples again. "Joel, kiss me."

Your legs push back as he falls forward, the sudden movement pushing him deeper and making you gasp. He stops for a moment, searching your eyes as they fly open, pupils blown in the lowlight of his bedroom. He rocks tentatively, at first, before beginning the slow slide in and out of you all over again, until your head thuds back against the mattress.

You'd thought he'd undone you before. Right in this room. You'd thought his fist in you had ruined you, his cock in your ass, his hand in your hair. So many things before now should have torn you apart, but none of that had prepared you for this. The soft, sweet, dirty way Joel Miller fucked all the aches and pains out of you right on his tired mattress.

Through it all, you almost forget you'd asked him to kiss you until his mouth finds yours, and you excitedly accept the pressure of his lips. You'd be embarrassed by it, and by the giddiness in your head as he nips and sucks at your mouth, if you hadn't long lost that feeling around him.

"Forget how much of a slut for kisses you are," he mumbles when he pulls away. "Slut for everythin'."

A weak protest forms in your throat, but his hips jerk forward and silence you with a moan instead.

"No denyin' it. Ain't met many who wanna be split open on this dick when they're on the rag," he's grinning into your shoulder as he taunts you, biting and sucking soft bruises you'll worry about later you as he grinds deeper in you now. "Startin' to think you're some kind of masochist."

You can feel his smile against your skin - a sign he already knows by now that that's more than true. Even so, like most things with Joel, this wasn't something you'd even considered before, let alone considered you might enjoy, until he did it. There's an ache as he stretches you, sure. And an ache in your belly too. And, somehow, one is soothing the other, the grip you have around his cock distracting you from any other feeling in your body as he slides through the mess between the two of you, bringing you close to a euphoria that feels deeper in your belly than it ever has.

He notices the change before you do. Your soft, contented moans turn into deep yearning cries as he grinds his cock deep, heavy balls sitting wetly against your ass as your slicked up hole seems to draw him in further and further. His fingers push between you, the slip of sweat, and blood, and your own slick easing his digits between your bodies until he finds your clit again.

With a soft movement, he jerks it between two fingers, watching and listening as you whine pathetically, eyes pressed so tight you see stars. A quick slip lower, feeling the sticky slip of you around his cock that has the telltale feel of your arousal and not blood, he moves back up and begins swiping his finger over your swollen clit in earnest.

Your clit twitches and pulses beneath his finger, your cunt fluttering around his solid length as it slowly presses into you, barely moving, just watching as you become exactly the kind of mess you feel.

It aches, and it hurts, and it feels so fucking good that you sob out a cry, a moan, a garbled plea, all at once as you come, shaking into the deep arch of your back as he fucks slowly and slowly and slowly, his fingers sliping endlessly against your clit, jerking the nub until you can do nothing but let out a deep, breathy, scream.

"That's it," he groans, his own cock throbbing in you as you pulsate around him. "Messy fuckin' girl. Come on it. Come all over it."

"Please," you gasp stupidly, not knowing what you're begging for, the height of your orgasm coming crashing down as it suddenly all feels too much. "Please."

While you don't know what you're begging for, it seems like Joel does. One moment his hand is between you, and the next it's rubbing against the towel before gripping gently at your shoulder, holding you steadily underneath him as you shudder and gasp.

And then, like reading your deepest wishes straight from your mind, he starts rocking in shallow thrusts - unsatisfying on their own, but paired with the filth from his mouth, it sends you close to the edge all over again.

"There we go," he moans in your ear, breathy and desperate as you. "S'all you needed."

You're starting to think Joel Miller's cock maybe is all you need - for some people it's love, or riches, but for you, at least in this moment, the heavy length impaling you and curing all your ailments is all you need. For now, at least.

He's wrecking himself with it all too, you notice. The way the pressure of his hands on your body increases and releases over and over as he fights with himself to be gentle as he fucks you to his own release isn't helped by the way his mind is racing, his mouth barely keeping up with whatever filth is rattling around in his mind.

"Gonna take it. Gonna dump my load right in this messy fuckin' hole. Y'gonna be fillin' up that fuckin' cup with my cum after this. Gonna be spillin' outta you. Needy - fuckin' - slut."

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes," you babble, holding onto his arms through his gentle thrusts, your cunt threatening an orgasm even as a new ache settles back into your core.

"Like bein' a slut for me?" he gasps. "Like bein' mine?"

"Yeah. Yours. Please, Joel. Fuck."

"Tell me. Tell me s'mine."

"It's yours. Your hole. I'm your needy - fuck - hole!"

"Damn fuckin' right you're my needy fuck hole. Fuck. Shit. You want this?"

And god you do. You want more besides, but right now you'll take it, on the brink of coming as the rough thatch of hair at the base of his cock grinds relentlessly into your clit.

"Said, do you want this."

His shallow thrusts speed up, and you just about have time to gasp out a yes before you're twitching and coming hard around his cock again. He follows soon behind, gasped curses bitten into your shoulder as your hands slip against his sweat soaked sides, filling your cunt with thick ropes of cum, thanking him in mindless chants as you feel each pulse of his cock fill you more and more.

You're limp and just about as lifeless as he said you looked when he first opened the door. You don't care. You feel more relaxed than you have all week, the pain completely gone as a warm floaty feeling courses through your veins.

Joel pulls out, asking if you're all good and accepting the wobble of your head as a yes, before wiping his cock with the towel and using it to gently wipe at your thighs.

There's not as much mess as you expected, as you look down. You expected carnage - a bloodbath - but there's nothing more than a soft streak of red on the towel when he pulls it away and tosses it into the corner.

He flops heavily next to you, pulling part of the towel you're laying on over your body in a vague attempt to keep you warm as you both come down. The chill in the room had been kept at bay until now, mostly thanks to Joel's body heating yours from the inside out. Now, sweat dries on both of your bodies, and you find yourself shifting closer to his warmth to stave off the cold.

"Y'think these gonna be a regular thing now?" he asks as he tugs part of his bedsheet over himself.

You shrug, offering up your uncertainty. It had been years since your last - your fathers declining health and your subsequent lack of good meals had seen to that. There was no telling if there'd be any regularity to them and, if you were being honest, you didn't want to see one again for a very long time.

He's silent for a second, thoughtful features pinching in the warm light of his bedroom before he speaks again.

"Alright. How 'bout I give you that ass fuckin' in a couple weeks, then?"

It's not exactly what you expected. You'd almost forgotten about it yourself. But, now, as he pins a new date for your promised rude awakenin' you find yourself ready to pout again, this time at the idea of having to wait two more weeks.

"Two weeks? I'll probably be finished with this by the end of the week. I can come over Sunday, or in the week or -"

"I know," he says simply. "Like the idea of you bein' like a bitch in heat and me fuckin' a load into your ass when your cunt is so desperate for it, though."

Anything you were going to say is totally lost in an instant, your jaw flapping on its hinges as you try and fail to find the words that were just on the tip of your tongue. Any protest, question, or suggestion, is gone and, you realize, replaced with one thing, and one thing only.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

taglist: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

@youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123 @valkyreally

@ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather @stevie75

@toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights @sp00kymulderr @joelsdagger @titlee78

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future work

This was so good!!! Got me hooked from part one and part two just blew me away!

The inner turmoil she’s dealing with?! And then now knowing her mom’s gonna be gone on a business trip?! 👀

I can’t wait to see what happens next!!!! 😍

note: I am both shocked, and grateful at the response this story has gotten. I didn't tag anyone, and I expected maybe a few people to be into it but you proved me so wrong. So thankful that you all like it, please don't be shy. Slide into the dms, spam me with asks, lets go nuts together. xo (thanks so much for going througand betaing this chapter @frannyzooey xo) Joel(stepdad), significant age gap, female reader. 18+ legal, reader is 20 (warnings: pov sex, shower sex, really inappropriate dirty talk, slight Dom-Joel vibes, daddy kink, heavy guilt) 4k word count masterlist

--

The guilt doesn’t creep in, it consumes like a five alarm fire. It’s weight holding you pressed to your bed as the shadows in your room stretch out with the fading of the golden hour light. The darkness helps, but not nearly enough to make any kind of a difference. 

He’d left after, closing your bedroom door behind him with your slick still smeared all over his dick and the realization of what you’ve done keeps hitting you. It keeps dropping stones in your gut, further weighing you down, naked, in the incriminating wet patch on your sheets. You hear your mother open the front door an indeterminable amount of time after. Your face burns, your heart races, she has to know. Surely she’d felt it, like a phantom limb while she was working, a ghost knife in the shape of her daughter, stabbing her in the back. 

You wait, barely breathing, sheets clutched in the talons of your fingersfor her to storm in, to rip you out of the house by your skin  but it doesn’t happen. You hear him laugh, hear them chat as though nothing has happened. Your heart rate steadily lowers, and it becomes apparent that her wrath isn’t pending. 

The ax hanging over your head is being held by you, and no one else.

You stay there, uncomfortable, ashamed, cold, until it’s late enough that the house falls silent. Then, and only then do you get up and change the sheets. You pad out to the bathroom and shower, silently telling yourself that it was a temporary lapse in judgment. It was a psychotic episode. It was a hallucination, there’s no way you’d actually done that. It must have been imagined, but then you clean between your legs and feel the soreness and curse yourself all over again. 

You do your best to wash him off of you, wash the whole encounter, the whole mistake, and vow to yourself to never give it another thought. You console yourself with the thought that he must feel awful too, surely. He was probably lying there next to your mother, terrified with guilt. The devil on your shoulder, that cruel thing inside laughed at your naivety, practically yelling at you to smarten up. He doesn’t feel guilty, he’s probably snoring, his balls empty, his body pleasantly tired without a care in the world. 

Sleep eventually finds you, giving you the blissful respite of the dreamless dark.

—

A week goes by and you can almost convince yourself it had been a dream. Your mother is her normal, distant, distracted self. Joel works and blessedly you have managed to avoid any unsupervised interactions. Your brain however, has splintered and each shard has its role. The first keeps you sane, it does it best to make sure you focus on anything but the event you will not name. Another convinces you that things have almost fixed themselves since… well, that. It fools you into believing that it was somehow a cure. Things feel better in the house. The tension is gone, Joel seems disinterested, your mother is preoccupied. A tentative truce has somehow been enforced. 

There is another shard, an unwelcome and unruly and now untethered part of you that screams for a repeat performance. It begs and pleads for you to corner Joel and take what he gave again and again. The other aspects keep it restrained for most of the day. Work, responsibilities, the general needs and demands of the day take up most of your bandwidth but at night, at night it reigns supreme and without opposition. 

In the comforting dark of your now tainted space, that illicit part of you floods your mind's eye with the vision of Joel there, in your bed. It recalls the feeling of his mouth on your nipples with crystalline clarity, makes you feel the way he molded your body to take him, the way you came around his cock with that word in your mouth.

You were grateful for the toy, but he’d been so frustratingly right about it not doing much. After him, the toy was a tease. It was barely a taste of what he’d been able to do, but it didn’t stop you from using it. It was the safest option, until you could find someone appropriate. 

Or get the fuck out of that house and forget about the whole thing. 

-

More days pass, and that tension filters through your defenses.,It glides in and fills every angle of the house, every corner with a need borne of your interlude. 

Joel’s  eyes linger again, he tracks your movements whether your mother is around or not. He smiles, he tests, pushes your limits with a passing hand on your lower back. His fingers linger when he hands you a plate or a mug, he sits close enough for his thighs to press to yours on the couch, the soft light of the tv and the lamp casting shadows across you both. 

Your mother doesn’t pay attention, or doesn’t see it. You are not a threat to her relationship, why would you be? In any normal, healthy family this would never be something to be worried about, not in a million years. In proper family, a stepfather would not fuck his stepdaughter. 

A stepdaughter would not fantasize about it either.

The guilt builds the more time passes, but it wars with another, less wholesome feeling. Desire. Unadulterated lust. There is a part of you, a growing, strengthening part that craves him, that bombards you with different ways to have him inside you again, to beg him to fuck you harder, to give it to you longer, to beg for him to come inside you and mark you as his own and this scares you half to death. 

Soon though, it eclipses that guilt and takes you to the breaking point. 

It comes to a head one day, when you come home to both of them smiling and happy. 

“Hey babygirl.” 

He smiles when you set your bag down and you ignore the way your body comes to life with that endearment. 

“Go on up and get dressed, I’m takin’ my girls out for dinner.” 

Your mother beams, sliding her arms around his waist with a dreamy smile. “I got a promotion, Joel is going to treat us.” She’s in a very good mood.

“Oh, I’m alright, bit tired but you two go ahead. Have a drink for me.” You smile your sincerest smile, urging them to leave you alone. The toy floats in your brain, calling to you with the promise of the momentary relief it brings, however paltry compared to him. 

“Nonsense. Go on, we’re all goin’.” He raises an eyebrow, and you sigh, already resigned. “Go on, don’t make me ask you again, we gotta celebrate.” There is a playful, yet iron-strong tone that you know in your heart you cannot disobey. 

“We can go on our own if she wants to stay.” Your mom combs his hair back with her fingers, fixing it and he lets her, smiling down at her as you make your way up the stairs. 

“We’re all goin’-” It’s the last thing you hear him say before you close your door and go about getting dressed. 

-

It’s a pretty fancy steakhouse, a place you’d only ever been to once on a date. He’d put on a nice shirt, and your mom wore one of her nicer dresses. You couldn’t exactly wear leggings, so you’d dug out a dress of your own and trudged along despite your wish to be anywhere but. 

He slid into the booth beside you. You said nothing.

Your mother talks about her job, about how happy she is they’re taking notice of all her hard work and you’re genuinely proud of her. Growing up you don’t remember her holding down a job for more than a few months, Joel had changed that too. He’d pushed her to buckle down and take her employment seriously and it had paid off. It was just another one of those contradictory things about him, something you should have loved him for, a genuine, paternal thing but it didn’t mesh with your new dynamic.

Paternal. What a joke. 

The food is good, and you enjoy it in relative silence while your mother prattles on about her work, her manager, her team while Joel smiles and looks her in the eye. It’s almost pleasant, almost normal, the three of you, mother, father and daughter in a dark little booth celebrating a win. 

It’s almost nice, until you feel his hand on your knee under the table. 

You jump, the shock of it making you drop your fork. 

“You alright babygirl?” He smiles, genuine concern on his face as heat floods your body and you nod, frantically. With a tight smile you go to pick it up but he stops you, and ducks under the table to fish for it. Your mom laughs it off and you smile, blood pounding when you feel his hand again while he’s reaching for the fork. It moves  your skirt up, exposing  more of your thigh. 

“I’ll ask the waiter for a new one.” He sits up and winks, adjusting himself so he’s a little closer. His hand lands back on your thigh and his thumb strokes at the skin, little circles that make you lightheaded. 

“I think I need to use the little girls room.” Your mother puts her napkin on the table and for a moment you think this is your chance. f she asks if you need to go, you’ll jump at the chance – but his hand tightens, just enough to let you know to stay put. 

She doesn’t ask, and when she rounds the corner he turns to you, eyes bright with the same lust you’ve been stomping down inside. 

“Happy you’re here babygirl, been missin’ you.” His hand slides up until it’s pressed against your core. Your breath comes in pants, and you’re rendered silent. 

“Been dreamin’ about havin’ you again. Been fightin’ the urge to sneak in and spread you out on that little bed, eat that pretty little cunt til you’re cryin for me to fuck you.” 

He presses close, tilting your face up to press his lips against yours soft enough to tickle. “You been thinkin’ about me?” He presses another little kiss, and you pull away, terrified to see strangers staring at you disgusted. 

No one is looking though, and he knows. 

“Joel, stop, not here.” You’re frantic, heart racing, pussy leaking. 

“Who am I?” he raises his eyebrows, expecting. 

You close your eyes, letting out a sigh. “She’ll be back any minute.” 

“Say it babygirl, say what I know you’re wantin’ to say. Who am I?” His hand lands on your thigh again. 

It’s on the tip of your tongue and you hate that he’s right, you do want to say it. You want to scream it. 

“...Daddy.” It’s barely a whisper, but it feels so good.

“Little louder honey.” He slides up, pressing his fingers against your clit. 

“Daddy, please–” You give in, and it comes out almost a moan. There’s that sense again, of falling into a trap you hadn’t seen him set but it’s secondary to the self-satisfied smile on his face, to the way your body primes itself for whatever he deems fit. Your thighs clamp around his hand, the restaurant falls away and all that matters is his warm breath ghosting across your face, his strength, the press of his fingers.

“That’s better.” He smiles, and moves away and it’s with an unspeakable relief that you see your mother round the corner again, eyes on her feet while you adjust and move further away. The guilt gnaws at you, but the other thing rages, paints her as an interruption for a moment before you reign it in. She smiles when she slides into her side of the booth. 

“How ‘bout we get dessert? I could do with a little somethin’ sweet.” He smiles, and she agrees. 

-

They chat idly on the drive back to the house. She mentions how the excitement has given her a headache, and he urges her to go rest. It’s terrifying, the change in him: his attitude with her, his obvious care and the juxtaposition to his behavior in the restaurant. 

Needing a break from the tension he built inside you earlier, you grab a change of clothes and run for the shower, grateful for the temporary oasis. 

You try to take your time, to focus on anything and everything except the overwhelming need to be fucked into your matress. A few, blissfully steam-filled minutes later you hear the bathroom door open. 

“Mom?” You call out, but after a few silent moments you think you might have imagined it.  Until the curtain opens and Joel steps in as naked as the day he was born. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” You let out  a terrified whisper and your first instinct is to cover yourself. 

“Calm down, your mama’s sleepin’. She was feelin’ drained' from work and everythin’ so she took an ambien.” He steps towards you, forcing you to take a step back.“This water’s fit to burn my skin off.” He hisses but doesn’t adjust the temperature. 

He steps under the spray while you tuck yourself against the corner, shaking from the chilly tile pressing against your back. Your arm is pressed to your front covering your breasts, and the other is cupping your pussy, hiding your bits from his gaze. In contrast, he’s unbothered by his nakedness. His cock is soft, his arms are strong, his middle a little soft, but his beauty is undeniable. This is a man’s body, and you take it in with increasing want.

Your eyes betray you, your body betrays you, everything inside you seems to scream betrayal when he’s alone with you like this. He tilts his face up into the hot spray. He’s so fucking handsome, so virile, so hung. You kick yourself as you stare at his cock, already knowing that you’re going to give in to him, despite your mother being asleep just down the hall. 

“Come on babygirl, get under the water with me.” He reaches forward, taking your hand and pulling you towards him. You let him, heart fluttering like a bird in a cage at the feel of him pressing you close to him. The water cascades over you both, steam billowing out and his hands travel the expanse of your back. They slide over your shoulders, reaching down to cup your backside. He pulls you closer, pressing his mouth to yours and you can’t help but moan. 

He smiles, moving his kisses to your neck, your shoulders and that thing inside you wins yet again.Your hands press against his chest, they move over the muscles of his arms that you cannot help but stare at, they caress his back and up to curl through the hair at the base of his neck. 

You pull his face to yours for a deeper kiss, the kiss you’ve been craving since he left you wet and trembling in your bed. He groans when your tongue licks into his mouth and then it changes. From an almost sweet exploration, to a desperate need to consume one another. His cock hardens against your belly and your cunt aches at the feel of it. 

“Give it to me, I want it.” Someone who cannot be you begs him, clutching at his hair when he licks at your neck, his hands palming at your breasts as your back hits the tile again.

“What do you want, baby?” He lifts your thigh, wrapping it around his hip as he slots his cock at the seam of your cunt. He doesn’t press, just glides it between your legs, never notching the blunt tip of it at your entrance like you hope he will. The head of it nudges at your clit and he rocks it against you, teasing you into madness. 

You know what he wants, you want it too. As hard as he is, as desperate as you know he is to slip inside, he has all the patience in the world.

He knows this. He also knows that you are much more desperate than him. 

“I want your cock daddy, please, I need it.” You all but moan, some, pathetic, half-human thing burning with a fever, begging to be fucked like a whore. Begging him. The one person you shouldn’t beg this from. 

“Such a good girl, such a quick learner.” He finally grasps himself in hand, making sure you watch him as he angles himself and slides home in one smooth, brutal stroke. The moan you let out is a loud, filthy thing. 

“Shh, can’t have you makin’ all that noise honey,” He slips his forearm under your calf to open  you up wide, his other hand coming up to wrap around your throat. He snaps his hips hard enough to make everything bounce and you cannot imagine ever being this fucking turned on, this hot for another person. 

“Or maybe you do, maybe you want your mama to come in here, see how well her babygirl takes her daddys cock.” 

You close your eyes at that, it’s too filthy, it’s too depraved but your cunt still drools out its passion for him.

“You get so wet when I tell you how well you take it, even here I can feel her soakin’ me.” He stares at the juncture of your thighs- watches himself spearing you with his cock. Your eyes are half-glazed, admiring the way his neck strains, the definition in his arms, the way his mouth hangs open. His skin red from exertion and the heat of the water.

He’s right, something inside feeds off his praise no matter how fucking wrong it is, you need it.

“Yes daddy, I like it.” You confess, already damned anyway. 

“I know baby, I know.” He lets go of your throat and holds onto your ass before sticking his tongue down your throat. You whimper into his mouth, holding onto his neck for dear life while inching closer and closer to the orgasm building in your hips, in the base of your spine.

“Wanna feel her now, come all over me honey-“ he begs in your ear, his hips stuttering slightly and a madness overtakes you as you shove your fingers into his mouth and slip them down over your clit. He moans, pressing his palm into the hinge of your knee, somehow opening you up even more and then it’s there, in your fingers, in your limbs and in your very soul. 

“Yes, that’s it baby, yes-“ he turns his thrusts into a grinding roll, and it’s with a horrified glee that you feel him paint your insides in his come. Your eyes glued to the place you’re joined, a curious thought springs up unbidden: nothing in the world could pull you away from him at that moment, with his cock inside and his hands on your body. That realization should scare you but it doesn’t. Would your mom bursting through the door make you come to your senses? Do you really want to know the answer to that question?

“Daddy… I can feel it really deep.” You say the words in what feels like a drunken stupor and he lets out a punched out groan, pulling out to watch as he drips out of the place you now know he fucking owns.

“That’s where it belongs, honey. Nice and deep.” He lowers your leg, but pulls you close and tucks you under his chin. 

“Daddy loves you, you know that right? I’m so proud of you baby.”

You’re exhausted, but the guilt doesn’t come as quickly as the first time. It’s hard for it to make it through the comfort of the hot water, the cocoon of his arms, the steady reassuring thump of his heart under your cheek. The soft press of his lips to your forehead. 

He stays. He washes your hair, cleans his come from between your legs and the fatherly lines of him blur even more. 

It’s wrong. You know it. It’s obviously so fucking wrong. But it feels so right, it feels good, it feels safe for him to shield your eyes from the suds, for him to massage the knots out of your back, for him to kiss you soft, for his fingers to pluck at your soapy nipples. 

When you’re done and in bed, you fall asleep, and dream of a steamy bathroom and soft, chapped lips at your temple.

–

The next morning finds you well-rested. That might actually bother you more than it should, comparatively speaking. That he would be the person to fuck you well enough to give you a good nights sleep seems like some cosmically cruel joke. Memories of your mother sleeping in on Saturdays after a night out with him make you groan into your pillow. 

Any acceptance, any complicity was far and foreign in the unforgiving light of day. All of the comfort you’d felt in the tail-end of that unholy shower now angered you. It was manipulation, it was coercion, how could you do that? Let him in, in all of the different ways he’d managed to push inside you in the time since you’d been home, past your protective walls and quite literally between your fucking legs. It had to be something he’d done to make you crazy. A temporary insanity, surely, 

You let out a huff, noting but almost unseeing the dust motes dancing in shafts of light coming in through the window. The guilt was heavy and hot in your belly, and not only because of the betrayal but because you knew, deep in your soul, that you would not–could not deny him. That was a fact. 

The pillow at your side found itself pressed to your face to cover the groan of frustration at the cringy realization that you were just another woman with daddy issues.

Hours you laid there, torturing yourself with so many flavors of guilt. 

Guilt at indulging, guilt at craving, guilt at knowing that you’d most likely doing it again, guilt at tentatively imagining other places you wanted him to fuck you. Guilt at the look of devotion on your mother’s face when he smiled at her. Guilt at the dark, cruel little thing that rejoiced at him wanting you so bad. 

They were both sitting at the kitchen table when you finally came downstairs. Your stomach dropped at the sight of him sitting there, in his usual place with the paper in his hands. His face gave nothing away when he looked up at you, a talent he shouldn’t have. 

“Good morning, sleep okay?” Your mom smiled, moving to the sink.

“Yeah, slept great.” You smile back and you almost feel Joel’s chest puff out. You ignore him. 

“That’s good, why don’t you come do groceries with me? I’m going to do a big trip so you guys aren’t starving while I’m gone next week.” 

She misses your frown as she empties the dishwasher. Something big wraps itself around you, something foreboding, something inescapable. His paper flicks almost imperceptibly in the corner of your eye and still, you ignore it. 

“What do you mean?” You question her, but it’s almost prophetic, because you already know.

“I thought I’d told you, I have a work trip. A conference, because of the promotion. I’m leaving on Monday morning, and I’ll be gone until Thursday. I wanted to leave the fridge full so the two of you don’t have to worry. Want to come?” 

She’s still focused on putting away the dishes when you finally meet his eye. Your stomach rolls at the wink he flashes you. You can feel his thoughts like a sunburn, skin tight with the burn of it, at the promise of all of the things you already know he’ll make you do. 

The things you know, deep down, you’ll beg him for. 

Fuck.

AHHHH!!!! This sweeter side of SWAT!Joel is doing things to me!!!

Lo, I cannot take this sweet asshole of a man!! 🫠🥰 Got me feeling all gooey when I just know he’s gonna be an asshole again 🤣

you all the way down

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: vaguely dub-con (power imbalance, reader was paying a debt), masturbation, oral sex (f and m receiving), face sitting, spanking, cum swallowing, no use of y/n. word count: 4.3k summary: You have a rare moment of privacy, a chance to luxuriate in bringing yourself closer and closer to a peak you've been teasing yourself with for hours.... Until a knock at your door snatches it all away.

A/N: I hit a follower milestone this week - thank you all so much for your follows, comments, reblogs, friendship, sneaky trips into my DMs and asks, and for loving the same silly, absurd, and horny things I do.

see you next week 💛

title from I, Carrion (Icarian) by hozier.

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics

You didn't often do it like this. You didn't often have the time. Or the privacy.

It was a rare luxury to have the apartment to yourself, and so, for the best part of an hour - maybe more - you'd been slowly and steadily teasing yourself. With no plans and no work, you could take your time, turn the slow drag of your hands all over your body into steady smooth movements that dipped between your legs. Fingers that pinched nipples, scratched at your belly, dragged themselves over your thighs found themselves nestled between your legs dipping down and teasing. Down, and up, and around, and back down again. Sweeping through wet folds and swiping over your clit in gloriously slow strokes. You were making your own skin prickle, your own breath catch in your throat, and it was divine.

How long you teased yourself and made yourself smile and sigh in the confines of your own room, you didn't know exactly. It didn't matter. Your dad was at work and you weren't. You were here, alone, finally pushing one slicked up finger inside yourself and making yourself gasp.

Fuck, did you deserve this. You deserved the soft and the slow way you teased yourself, brought yourself close to the edge and then eased off. You deserved the way you made yourself moan, catching yourself with a laugh when you heard yourself through the blood in your ears.

You deserved to come, right here, nestled in all your soft things, thinking glorious thoughts about hands and bodies surrounding yours, overwhelming you until you came, shuddering, in their grasp.

You deserved to come begging and urging yourself on to the emptiness of your room, your own filthy mouth finding flight and soaring, working with the fingers in your cunt and on your clit to bring yourself to an edge you'd let yourself teeter on, almost making yourself cry as you held back, held off, and kept that fierce explosion at bay.

Until a knock at your door snatched it all away.

Your body registers it before your brain does. The fuse you'd ignited sputters out, your fingers still working over your clit that has suddenly gone shy and numb and unfeeling, making you twitch uncomfortably. Then, your door rattles with a heavy handed knock again, and you sit up with a start.

Fuck this asshole.

Tumbling from tangled sheets, you frantically reach for something to cover you. As you hop through your apartment, one leg in your pants, the other out, another knock hammers at the door.

"Okay! I'm coming!" Only you weren't, because that was ruined now, thanks to this heavy handed asshole and their impeccable timing.

Wiping damp fingers on your pants, you huff out a frustrated breath and try to pin a fake smile onto your face before opening the door. It swings inward, just as the start of another impatient knock begins, and in with it comes a man you should be surprised to see.

Joel Miller breezes past you - barely having to push his way in as you stare at him in stunned silence - to stand in your living room, looking curiously around at the small space.

"Nice place," he says, with a look on his face that says differently. You know it's far from a nice place. There wasn't a single apartment in this building that was a nice place. If this were normal times, the whole block would have been condemned years ago, but here you were, stuck at the end of the world in a shitty apartment that was the only place you had to call home.

As you close the door, you take a quick glance down at what you'd thrown on. The pajama pants have seen better days - everything had seen better days - and the shirt you'd grabbed has more holes in the seams than you care to even check for. It was in your pile of things to fix that you hadn't quite got around to yet and now here it was, hanging off your body like you were wearing lace, not flannel.

"What're you here for?" you ask, trying to hide the holes in your with a not-so-subtle movement of your arms.

"Like to check in on my clients from time to time," he says, finally looking you over and noticing your arms tucked tightly over your chest. "Am I disturbin' somethin'?"

Yes. "No."

"You ain't workin'?"

No shit. "Day off."

"Alright," he says, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "What's got your panties in a bunch?"

You aren't wearing any panties. "Nothing."

He's crossing the small space to stand right in front of you, and you know from the second his nostrils flair that he knows. He probably knew from the moment he came in, probably somehow even from the other side of the door. You weren't exactly being quiet, or discreet, and if there's one thing you knew it was that Joel Miller knew you just about better than anybody else.

"Bullshit, sweetheart."

If you weren't already so turned on at your own hand, you know you'd be rapidly getting wetter. Just the smell of him in your home is sending your mind, and your pussy, into overdrive. He's never stepped foot in here before, and you know you shouldn't like it. A man like Joel, a man who has clients to come check on, isn't someone you should be happy to have snooping about in your apartment and your business.

But one look at that cocky smirk on his face, and you know you'd be very happy to have him snooping around your business. In fact, by the way your pussy pulses at the sight of him, you think you'd be happy to have him very deep in your business right here pressed up against your front door.

Instead, in a last ditch effort to retain your dignity, you push the frustration back into your voice and step around him, throwing your hands into the air.

"You just come here, pound at the door, and then bust right in here the second I open it! I was - I'm busy, Joel."

"Busy?" Joel scoffs. You can see the thought as it comes to him, sly smile twitching the corners of his mouth as he fakes disinterest. "Then go right on ahead and get back to what you were doin', don't mind me."

You stare him down, heart pounding in your throat. The distance between you is still small. You could be on him in an instant. You think you could use the element of surprise and tackle him to the ground. His coat would come off easy enough, but beneath that who knows what he's wearing. Probably layers. Fucking Boston. Still, you didn't exactly need all of them off, you only needed access to one thing, and when your eyes flick down to the bulge in his jeans you resolutely set your shoulders and turn around.

"Fine."

A button falls from loose threads as your hands fly down the front of your shirt. In no time at all you're flinging it over your shoulder, hitting Joel square in the face where he stands in your bedroom doorway, watching.

He catches it in one hand, fingering one of the holes. "This what you call, busy?"

The pajama pants you'd tied about your waist drop to your feet and in no time at all you're naked again, climbing onto your bed, the pillows and sheets you were nested in welcoming you back in - still warm. "Like you didn't know, asshole."

"I ain't got a sixth fuckin' sense, sweetheart."

You glare at him from across the room and he shrugs, leaning casually on the doorframe as he watches you lie back. If you didn't know better, you'd think he didn't know where to look. One moment he's looking at the scowl on your face, and the next he's looking down at your breasts, the curve of your ass, taking a peek between your legs as you shuffle down your bed. It's all going so fast, you think for once you may just have the upperhand. Joel Miller, you think, is flustered.

He watches you as you stroke down your body, quicker than the slow, teasing pace you'd set with yourself earlier. Your thighs fall open as your hands reach your hips, and your fingers reach down to spread yourself as he watches on.

"This what you were doin'?"

"Yes, now can you shut up."

You shut your eyes and get back to where you left off. You're still wet and slick, your fingers slipping easily back into the grip of your pussy. If you just try to block him out, standing in the doorway staring between your spread legs, you can get right back where you left off. You can find that edge again, even through the oversensitivity. You know you can, and this time, you're going to throw yourself screaming over it.

Curling your fingers, you reach down and twist your torso until you can reach that delicious spot you found earlier. Then, your other hand begins working back over your clit, spit slicked and swiping eagerly over the sensitive nub. Picking up the pace, you try to ignore the twitches in your legs and the way your thighs already want to clamp shut on your own hands.

You ignore it, that is, until Joel chimes in from the doorway.

"You're gonna rub the fuckin' thing clean off if you keep goin' at it like that."

Hitting the bed in frustration, you growl and sit up again, staring wild eyed at him. "If you're such a fucking expert, then why don't you get over here and help me. I am naked, Joel, and my cunt is right here."

Your mouth snaps shut the moment you gesture down to your spread legs. You snap them shut too. By the way he's silently peeling off his coat, you're certain you've fucked up, though you can't say you're too mad about it. With any luck, he'll fuck you to within an inch of your life in a way so satisfying your ruined orgasm will be all but forgotten.

With his coat discarded, he pulls off a sweater and unbuttons his shirt - flannel and significantly less holey than the one you've just thrown at him. Then, he grabs a pillow you'd discarded earlier and sits at the edge of your bed.

"C'mere," he beckons as he lays back, folding the pillow and shoving it behind his head.

You don't move. You're frozen in place as he shifts and gets himself comfortable. You don't know what this is, what he's planning, but you're certain it's something he's never done before. And it's going to happen right here, in your bedroom, the very place you'd spent night after night dreaming of the many wonderful ways he would fuck you.

"You want my help, or not?" he says in frustration, looking over to you where you're rooted in place. You nod stupidly, and follow the beckon of his fingers until you're kneeling by his side.

His rough hands find your thigh and push you until you're sat up on your knees. Then, he's dragging one of your legs over his clothed chest until you're straddling him, trying to keep the wet mess between your legs from soaking through his shirt.

"Up here," he says. "Want that pussy, and I ain't kneeling for it."

And suddenly it all clicks into place and you are mortified. For everything he'd done to you, for how much you knew he loved to look, you'd never once done something like this to him. You felt awkward even riding him, until his flithy words of encouragement and the drag of his cock inside you knocked every thought out of your brain.

Now, he was wanting you to sit on his face, somehow not suffocating him in the process. So, you laugh, shaking as you hold your weight above his chest.

"Look like I'm jokin' to you?" he says in a tone so stern and serious your eyes force their way down to where his face sits perilously close to the apex of your legs.

Which, of course, is a fucking mistake. He's licking his lips and looking up at you - all over every inch of you - eating you alive with his stare.

He pushes and pulls you then, dragging you up his chest until your knees are settled either side of his face. You can feel the gust of his breath against your thighs just before he hauls you forward a little more until his half face is completely covered by your cunt, only his eyes and the bridge of his nose visible now.

"Fuckin' christ. You're a mess down here. You been goin' at it for a while, huh?" he says, and you can feel every word blow against you even as you hover as far as you can above his face.

"Uh-huh," you say, a kiss sucked to your thigh striking stealing all thought from your mind.

"Get real close?" he says, with another kiss, hands kneading at your thighs and ass as they wrap around you and try to tug you closer.

You nod, hoping he can see you as your eyes slip closed with the feeling of him right here, between your legs, in your room.

"Hm. That's a damn shame, sweetheart. Bet you're achin' for it somethin' fierce right now, ain't you?" he asks from between your legs. You look down and you know in that moment the fucked look on your face says more than you ever could when he hums, spreading your thighs apart with his strong fingers.

"Better sit your ass down then," he mumbles into your thigh, pulling you down. "That's it, bring it here. Ain't strainin' my fuckin' neck for it, give it to me."

So you do. You settle down slowly onto his face, listening as he guides you down until you feel the first broad swipe of his tongue up through your folds.

"What'd I say," he says, swallowing the taste of you. "A fuckin' mess."

He kisses around your clit, nudging it with the curved tip of his nose when he finally licks up into you again. And then, he's pulling your flush to his face and feasting.

The noise that leaves you is stupid. Somewhere between a gasp and a moan and a question all at once. His nose is pressed against you, his laughter fanning out across your mound as you try not to squirm and wiggle against him, fearful of crushing his head beneath your weight, or at the very least suffocating him.

His face burrows deeper, his hands holding you firm, squeezing and scraping calloused fingertips against your delicate skin. The scruff on his cheeks feels rough against the places you were so soft with earlier, and you don't care in the slightest.

It works, you think.

Where the soft feel of your own hands felt too much - too familiar - to the parts of you that were now too sensitive to them, the rough, all consuming movements of Joel's mouth on your swollen pussy feels like a welcome relief as he laps at your hole, slick and dripping from your thwarted solo session.

His hands move from anchoring you to his face, locked around your thighs, to pressing against your ass, gripping the globes of them in each of his broad hands.

And then, as if it wasn't all so much already, he begins to stroke up and down your seam, pulling you apart, dipping into your dripping cunt and teasing over your exposed asshole as he laps and suckles away at your clit.

Still, as good as it all is, you can't let go. You can't get back to that place you'd climbed so close to. You feel exposed, sat upright with the frigid October air of your bedroom encasing you. Self-conscious too - all chins and bad angles and slouchy shoulders. And, most of all, you were terrified you were going to hurt him. One wrong twitch or snap shut of your legs and his air supply would be gone, or his neck snapped, and you'd have a dead man in your bed and -

A sharp slap connects with your ass cheek, Joel's strong hands pulling you upwards from his face, cheeks glistening and lips swollen red.

"Lean forward," he says, with a nip to your thigh.

As you go to move, walking forward on your knees, a hand grips your waist, and another slap hits your thigh, rippling your skin where it frames his face.

"Said lean, not fuckin' move off. You're gonna sit right here 'til you come, but you ain't comin' any time soon if you don't fuckin' lean and relax."

A strong hand pushes at your lower back then, making you hinge forward until your elbows collide with the bed. Your ass is in the air, legs spread just wide enough that your bare cunt is tantalizingly close to Joel's mouth, and now you get it. You shift on your knees, soothing the small ache that had built up, and look down at the brown-grey hair between your legs that's sucking hickies into your thighs.

"That's it, sweetheart," he murmurs as he marks you, delivering swift, gentle smacks to your ass as you groan, planting your cheek firmly against your bed.

You drag a blanket toward you, covering yourself a little and tucking your face into the softness of it. Joel's smacks turn to scrapes of his blunt nails over the backs of your thighs and then, when your brain finally switches off and you fall into that mindless, soft place that has you feeling heavy and floaty all at once, you press your hips forward and drag your bare pussy across Joel's waiting tongue.

Joel's groan of approval blends into your own wanton moans. What was a soft drag of his tongue on your clit quickly turns to the sensitive nub being sucked into his eager mouth, your hips winding and grinding now you can finally relax.

"Fingers. Please. Need your fingers."

It doesn't even sound like you. It's breathier and more pathetic than you think you've ever sounded, but you can't bring yourself to care when suddenly Joel is releasing your clit to slurp on two of his own fingers, before plunging them deep into your empty pussy.

"Yes, yes, yes, like that. Fuck. Joel."

Each orbit of his tongue on your clit sends a new throb directly through your core, clenching down on the digits curling into you, and you're right back to teetering on that edge. You figure you could let yourself fall over it now. It'd be more like collpasing over it in an exhausted heap, but you know it'd be a satisfaction you wouldn't otherwise have got today.

Or you could wait. You could hold yourself back and use his face to tease yourself, to bring yourself back from the brink once, twice, before you take the final running jump right over it.

Your hands have made up your mind for you when you card trembling fingers through his hair and pull him back, forcing his head down into the pillow he'd propped under it not long ago, and stopping your orgasm in its tracks.

One.

Then, when he's licking broad stripes up and down your glistening folds, something takes hold of you and you begin to fuck yourself against his fingers, swiping your pussy against the flat of his tongue as you rock gently back and forth. His tongue, then his nose, grind against your clit with each rock of your hips, and soon your shaking legs can't move yourself any more.

Two.

Whatever running jump you'd hoped for isn't in your hands now. It's not in your control from the moment Joel tucks a third finger into your pussy, so slick and dripping you're certain you'd have no issue taking more if he decided to give them to you. Instead, you're being carried by him, limp and panting in his arms as he throws you mercilessly over the edge, and you let him.

You come with a cry, fists balling in sheets. Your hips rock and cant against his face, twitching uncontrollably as you pulse and gush around his fingers. His tongue is relentless on your clit, circling over and over until you're begging a jumbled garble of words, too weak to lift yourself off of him.

Then, in a last ditch effort, you throw yourself forward, still coming as you finally release yourself off of his face.

It takes your brain a second to reconnect with your body. Even after the aftershocks have subsided, you're still panting and groaning. Or he is. Maybe both of you are.

Both of you are.

Still quivering, you turn to him. His eyes catch yours before you can take in the state of him. They're darker than you've ever seen them, his blown pupils turning his irises almost black. Then, you see the glistening wet on his chin, his plush lips turned plumper, red and swollen from kissing and sucking at you. And, even lower still, you see the movement of his arm, his bicep rocking in a steady movement, his forearm flexing with each jerk of his fist, his cock weeping in his hand.

"Get down here," he growls.

You scramble to turn, limbs clumsy, and flop down against his side, knees tucked awkwardly under you. His free hand grips your ass, kneading and spreading you so he can look at the mess he made of you, while he guides his cock to your mouth with the other.

"C'mon now, ain't gonna take much. That's it. Fuck."

He groans when you swallow him down, almost gagging when you take him too deep too quickly. Your fist curls around the base of him, taking up the space you can't quite reach, and you bob your head, swirling your tongue, unable to keep your moans quiet as you taste him.

No sooner have you started, and he's twitching beneath you, the muscles in his groin flexing to hold back, to hold on.

"Want you to swallow it all," he pants. "Don't want - fuck - you to miss a single drop."

His fingers push back into your tender hole then - the inviting warmth of it obviously too much to resist when it's swaying there right in front of him, and you welcome him back in with a sigh.

"Such a fuckin' mess."

You moan in agreement, sucking his cock deeper into your mouth. You can't see him. You don't need to. You know he's close by the way his balls draw tight and his moans get so desperate, his fingers stilling their slow exploration inside you.

And then, he's spurting into the back of your throat - you bet he has his eyes closed - and you swallow over and over, the salty burst of him barely registering on your tasetbuds as you eagerly swallow everything he has to give.

"Get it all. That's it. Swallow it. Fuck, sweetheart."

You suck and lick until his fingers pull out of you and grip your thigh, too sensitive for you to carry on your gentle licks against his head.

With one last gentle suck, you release him with a pop and flop beside him, smiling dozily to yourself as your hands play against your belly.

Joel lays with you for a moment too, his cock going limp against his belly before he tucks it away and sits up.

"Y'always like this after you fuck yourself?" he asks, and you nod, watching the way he stretches his neck and shoulders. You think you are, anyway. Mostly, you fall straight asleep. It's only on these rare occasions you get to fuck yourself with your fingers and take your time that you ended up smiling and satisfied at a job well done.

"Get up here," he says again a moment later, tugging gently at your limp arm. He could manhandle you - he's done it before, he's plenty strong enough - but he doesn't. Instead he waits patiently until you're on your knees in front of him, almost matching his height where he stands and you kneel.

"What'd'ya say?" he asks, pinching your chin. "Tha..."

"Thank you, Joel," you say, with a roll of your eyes. "But, technically, it's your fault I even needed your help in the first place."

With a quick slap to your ass, he pushes your chin away with his thumb, before dragging your face right back to his. "Alright smartass. C'mere."

Then, he kisses you. Full on the mouth, kisses you.

And, when you slip your tongue against his bottom lip, tasting yourself on the fullness of it, he doesn't object. He meets you in the middle instead, tasting himself on your tongue as you taste yourself on his.

"Always go so fuckin' dopey for kisses," he says with a laugh against your mouth, and you moan an agreement as your head falls back. You're exhausted, right down to the bones, and now the mornings events are catching up with you.

"I do. You don't mind tasting your cum."

Honest too, apparently, and Joel shakes his head.

"S'mine, and I fuckin' put it there. Nice knowin' you taste of me, sweetheart. If it ain't one hole, it oughta be another."

He shrugs his jacket on, and pulls his shoes onto his feet, before he sees himself out. He pats you gently on the ass as he leaves, closing your bedroom door behind himself. You listen out for the front door, and when it slams, you let the fuzzy feeling take hold - your eyes catching sight of his flannel shirt on your dresser right before you're dragged under.

taglist: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

@youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123 @valkyreally

@ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather @stevie75

@toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights @sp00kymulderr @joelsdagger @titlee78

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future work

Oh my word! This is absolutely beautiful!!!

I loved the story telling on Pero’s history!

Of Every Kinnë Tre

(Pero Tovar x F!Reader)

CW:  Angst (death); smut (dubious consent, maybe, but I don't know if medieval times cared much for intoxicated sex acts; loss of virginity; oblique talk of sex; fingering, PiV, unprotected), 18+ only.

Word Count: 8370

AN:  This was originally requested by @justreblogginfics!

AN2: The title of this is taken from an anonymous medieval love poem called, in modern English, "Of Every Kind of Tree."

AN3: Tropes is playing fast and loose with historical fact here (and geography, and linguistics, etc. etc).

Pero Tovar never counted marriage as something written into his fate.

Starvation?  Possibly.  Plague?  There was a chance.  Death in war or battle or in a misunderstanding on the road to China and back?

All too certain.

But marriage?  Never.

Until it was foisted on him, quite unexpectedly, as he made his way back to Europa from his trials at the Great Wall.

-----

Tales from Pero Tovar’s time were largely passed down through the oral tradition:  great speakers and orators stood in front of captive audiences, or ordinary men and women sat around fires and told stories to while away the dark hours, the cold hours.  To brighten their lives.

These stories usually began like this:

Lo!  We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes’ achievements!

Or

Harken, my brethren, while I tell you the tale of Igor, son of Svyatoslav.

Or

Pwyll Prince of Dyved was lord of the seven Cantrevs of Dyved; and once upon a time he was at Narberth his chief palace…

So we will begin our tale the same way, as the people of Pero’s time would have told it:  around the fire, in the deep of winter’s cold—for it is a love story, and love is most appreciated when the days are short and the nights are long.

-----

Gather, friends, as I tell the tale of Pero Tovar, an orphan in want of a heel of bread, who became a sell-sword in want of coin, who became a lord who possessed the greatest treasure of all.

Pero was born in Galicia, and his entry into our world was what harried his dear mother into the next.  Motherless, the babe Pero was given to a cousin to care for him, though she had her own children and gave Pero only the remainder of anything she had.  Pero’s father, a brute of a blacksmith, was dispatched by a horse’s kick to the head when Pero was just a boy, and so he found himself an orphan.

The cousin’s house was meanly built, and the cousin’s husband was a miser who counted every peseta thrice before tucking it away in the pouch he always kept on his person.  Pero was often cold, more often hungry, and when he reached the age of ten, he heard of a boy’s army that was forming to retake the Holy Land for the Christians.

Pero ran away from the cousin’s house, and while he never made it to Levant, he found that he had a talent for survival in the rough company of sell-swords, and it became his life for the next decades.

Unlike his fellow sell-swords, though, Pero had a talent for saving his coin.  His compatriots caroused, whored, drank themselves stupid the moment a coin crossed their palm. 

Pero?  Perhaps he had learned a lesson from the cousin’s miserly husband.  He held his coin, he spent little beyond the care of himself and his horse, and he saved.  He had an idea to leave his life as a sell-sword before he lost it, to retire to some quiet green place and toil in the earth for whatever years remained to him. 

To this end, he kept his coin safe with a certain prior in a certain priory.  For a portion of what Pero earned, the prior tucked away the rest and guarded it, kept it protected in an iron box secured with a cunning lock that only he had the key to.

Pero saw much of God’s earth and beyond:  into the Emirate of Mosul, the Buyid Emirate, where leagues of golden sand stretched beyond one’s vision, and where a lush green paradise could be found over the next rise.  Then Sena, Bagan, the Kingdom of Bali—where he could not fathom the tongues in which they spoke, but where work could be found, as it seemed men across all lands always needed swords for coin.  Then further east where the Song Dynasty ruled, and here Pero faced monsters from Revelation and survived.

With the coin he earned from fighting beasts, Pero calculated that he had enough now to retire from this life.  He could find a patch of land and till it.  He could hitch his warhorse to a plow and plant seeds that would sustain him, and when it was time for him to die, he could lay down in the furrows and pass with the blue firmament over his head.

-----

When Pero returned to the priory to collect his accumulated wealth, however, he found that disaster had struck.

The old prior, a gentle and pious man, had died, and his successor was the son of a bishop, a wastrel and spendthrift whose first order of business had been to set an inventory of the prior’s wealth. This inventory included the iron box where Pero's savings where stored.

The new prior's second order of business was to take that wealth and spend it on sinful pursuits.

Which meant Pero found himself with little beyond the payment from the Song people, a handful of treasures from his journeys, and a stretch of long years in front of him where he’d have to continue selling his sword to survive.

-----

Which was how Pero found himself outside of the Holy Roman Empire, to the east where the people spoke Latin but with a thick tongue, where many kept with the old gods and customs, and where the borders changed every fortnight as men grappled for land, consolidated their holding of scattered tribes and strongholds into what would pass for a kingdom or duchy further west.

Pero took work that winter, guarding the storehouse of a league of merchants who strove to protect their wares from both marauders and quarreling nobles alike.  In this way, Pero came to understand the local tongue and customs, and he learned of the Princeling named Radomil, whose eldest half-brother had just died.

“They say Radomil murdered his kin as he slept,” spat one man in a tavern.  “Just as he slayed his own father, years before.”

Another man lifted his hand, two fingers forked to ward off the Devil.  “There will be hard times ahead, should he gain control.”

In this way, by keeping his head down and his ears open, Pero came to learn of the cowardly murderous Prince Radomil, now King. He came to learn that the people feared what this murderous king may do to his half-sister.

In some way that Pero would never learn, though, King Radomil came to learn of him in turn, and within a score of days, Pero found himself summoned to the squat stone fortress for an audience with the new King.

-----

The proposal was simple, once it was put to Pero in a tongue he could grasp better.

King Radomil wanted to see his half-sister wed.  A kindness, it was said, in light of her recent loss.   She was a widow with a small babe, and King Radomil in his infinite love and benevolence, saw fit to arrange such a match. Pero had been measured and found just such a match.

Pero, always blunt, asked, “why me?”

The King’s advisor talked at length, and though Pero was not especially versed in court intrigue, he knew enough of flattery and lies when he heard it. 

“You are a noble man,” the advisor said, bowing his head at Pero.  “We have it on good authority that you are descended from the family of Alfonso el Monje, King of León.  Ancient blood proves out, despite your meager circumstances now.”

When Pero tried to argue and claim that he was from Galicia, son of a drunkard blacksmith, the advisor waved him away.

“We have priests who have studied your lineage and found it to not be so,” he said.

It was only later that evening that another advisor, an older man with a bald pate but a long beard set Pero straight in hushed tones and darting glances.

“The King cannot kill his sister,” he told Pero.  “She is beloved by the people, and the killing of a woman would unravel his already tenuous hold on the region.”

“Why kill her at all?”  Pero remembered that the sister was a widow, and he imagined an old woman, hunched back, white hair tucked under a veil.  He could not fathom the risk she posed, but then again, he was in unfamiliar lands.

“She is a tool that others would use.  Her father the King was beloved as well, and her mother had an ancient claim to royalty in her own right.  The Princess could be snatched up by a rival for the throne, and her blood could bolster any claim.  But if her brother the King could marry her off to a nobody, no one else could claim her.”

Pero remembered a certain game from his journey to the east, a way for the idle to while away the hours.  It was war in miniature, a board with pieces, and while he watched it played many times, Pero never quite grasped how to win at shatranj.  But he knew enough to recognize it now.

“Marrying her to me would remove her from the field,” Pero replied, understanding at last. 

The old advisor nodded.  “And it would keep her alive.  Consider it seriously, Tovar.  You would save not just her life but the life of her babe, and you would come out of it a wealthy man.  You could claim her inheritance that her mother the Queen left her.”

“What inheritance?”

The old advisor glanced into the shadows, then said, “on her mother’s side, she is nobility.  There is a handsome manor far from here, further north, that belongs to the Princess.  It would be yours, should you marry her.”

In this way, Pero Tovar came to be married.

-----

The marriage took place on a rainy evening, and the ceremonies were doubled:  one performed in the Latin rite by a priest in a grease-stained cassock, the other performed by a wise-man of the local custom.  The latter, it must be said, was more boisterous—it involved winding a cord around the hand of the Princess and Pero’s, linking the two together in the eyes of the local gods.  Then, to seal it, a feast where Pero and the Princess fed each other and gave each other drink.  The drink was a local concoction, dark plum spirits that went down easier with each subsequent sip.

The Princess only took a mouthful when Pero held the cup to her mouth.

Pero took deep swallows and drained the cup when she held it to his.

Then there was dancing, and the dancing led to the great hall spinning, and from the spinning Pero found himself being carried away, up and floating away from the music, borne by the king’s men.  When he turned his head, he saw the Princess - his wife - being borne away beside him, the newlyweds floating, and he did not realize—as she did—that this was the bedding ceremony.

How could Pero know?  He had never laid with a woman before.

*****

You understood your circumstances.

You have always understood your circumstances.

Your mother died when you were young.  Too young to make any memories of her beyond a general impression of loveliness, of gentleness before the fever took her and your unborn sister to the underworld.  Your father remarried soon after, and he had a son with your stepmother, but she was a scheming woman, grasping, and your circumstances were clear forever after.

Your father, at least, lived long enough to marry you off to an ally.  Your first husband had been much older, silver in his beard, but kind.  Extraordinarily kind, in fact, and you wondered sometimes if your father knew he had given you to a man who made you a woman gently, who made you a mother to his daughter just as gently, and who died from an ague only last summer.

It was the only time he hurt you, dying as he did. 

Your second husband?  Well, you understood your circumstances.  You knew it was a farce, a noble lineage hung on the shoulders of a sell-sword.  You knew your brother’s motives when he and his advisors found you and informed you of your impending marriage.  You knew it would keep you safe, being tucked away with some rough peasant, but as you observed this Tovar—his rough looks, his rougher manner—you wondered if death would perhaps be a kinder fate.

-----

Like your first marriage, you did not properly meet your intended until the ceremonies themselves.

Unlike your first marriage, this Tovar did not seem to understand the potency of the rakija.  Unless he was a drunkard as well as a sell-sword.

Like your first marriage, you did not properly exchange a word beyond the ceremonies until you were locked in the chamber for the bedding ceremony.

Unlike your first marriage, this Tovar did not say, as your first husband had, “please trust in me, little princess.  I will do you no harm.”

Instead, this Tovar stared at you, swayed on his feet, and mumbled, “fuck, how did this happen?”

Your first marriage, you left your bedding ceremony with far more pleasure than pain—the former a revelation that your body could produce such sensations, and the latter just a faint ache between your legs.

Your second marriage, you left your bedding ceremony with neither pleasure nor pain.  You left it with confusion, at first, then understanding, then a bemusement that would one day cede to love.

This Tovar understood enough to undress himself.  He shed the embroidered surcoat, the fine-woven shirt, the doe-skin trousers.  The linen smallclothes.  He stood before you unabashed, naked, swaying still on his feet.  His manhood stood to proud attention, and you studied him.  He was not unappealing, you thought, so long as he didn’t spew from the drink.

But he made no further move, and you lifted your hands to undress yourself too.  You lifted away the headdress sewn with seed pearls and small gems.  The outer robe, heavy with brocade.  The inner dress, the woolen slippers, then the shift, and you stood as proudly as you could but felt a shyness overtake you, so you wrapped your arm around yourself and hid what you could.

Perhaps you misunderstood the sell-sword, though.  A man, you thought, would take what was his, but this Tovar only stared at you—his cock twitching—and he made no further move. 

“Perhaps,” you said, tentative.  “We could lie down on the bed?”

He nodded and gestured for you to lead.  You stretched out on the coverlet, but when he joined you, he only laid beside you, like two corpses in the tomb.  The moment grew long, and there was no noise other than each of you breathing and the distant merriment of the wedding feast in the great hall.

“Tovar, we must…you must bed me for it to be legal,” you finally told him.  Quietly, though.  He was drunk, and you knew enough of men to know that drunkenness made them violent.  And at your words, he shook his head and turned to face you, and his expression was dark.

“Pero,” he whispered harshly.  “My given name is Pero.”

“P-Pero.”  You didn’t mean to stammer, but his face was like a thundercloud, like the storm god that men worshiped here—

Saying his name made his expression soften in an instant, though.  The thunderhead passed, and his face was like dawn’s light. 

“My mother named me Pero,” he explained.  “Tovar is what my father gave me.”

“Your mother…is she kind?”

“She is dead.”

“Oh.”  You bit your lip and studied him; the darkness was edging back into his expression, so you added, “mine is dead too.”

“Mine died in my birthing.”

“Mine died when I was young, as she birthed my sister.”  You paused, added, “she died too.”

Pero’s eyes had a glassy quality to them, whether it be the drink or the sorrow of his mother, so you reminded him, just as gently, that the bedding ceremony needed to be complete before your brother the Usurper would let you both leave.  Before he returned your young daughter to you and let the three of you leave for your mother’s homeland.

To aid Pero, you reached out a hand to him, thinking you could lead him to you, but he misunderstood.  He took your hand in his, much like at the wedding ceremony, and he raised it to his mouth.  His mustache tickled against your skin as he pressed wet kisses to the back of it, to your wrist, to the inside of your forearm.

His kisses were sloppy, like a child playing at love.  You thought it was the drink.

Little by little, you led him, or tried to.  An hour passed, you judged from where the tall tapers burned in their pewter holders.  Each moment saw the man get nowhere closer to consummating the thing; he only pressed his mouth to your hands and arms, and when he got breathless, which was often, he gazed over at you.  Sometimes he touched your face with his calloused fingertips, and once he leaned forward and nuzzled his face in your unbound hair, but the time passed, and you felt your daughter—your freedom, your life—slipping away bit by bit.

“For the love of the gods, man,” you finally snapped.  “Finish the thing!”

It made Pero rear back his head from where he nuzzled against you, and his expression was not thunderous so much as baleful.

“It is uncharted waters,” he muttered.

“The terrain from one woman to another is much the same, I imagine,” you retorted, then you reached for him in earnest, took him by his shoulder and urged him to climb onto you, which he did, clumsily.  It felt so much the same, though, the warm touch of another’s body against yours, and the first real flower of desire bloomed in you.

“Perhaps,” you thought, “this may be a successful marriage.”

But Pero seemed confused still, still too addled by the strong plum brandy, and he moved awkwardly, muttered near your ear that he could map the hillocks and dales of this territory, but was unsure of the way home—

“Here,” you breathed into his ear, and your hand found where he strained, hot and heavy and ready to join to you.  You took him by the root and tried to lead him to you, but your touch alone made him groan against your neck, made him mutter some word you didn’t know, and then you felt him go rigid above you.

Your second bedding ceremony, then:  your new husband’s slack weight against you, his spend, hastily given from the mere touch of your palm, cooling against your hip.

Still, it was enough for your brother the Usurper and his flock of advisors in their dusty, moth-eaten robes.  The usual inspection of the bedchamber come morning, the usual sly smiles and off-hand jokes…and then you were away, your daughter restored to your arms and your new husband—and his aching head—off to the lands of your mother.

-----

“What is her name?” Pero asked, startling you out of your thoughts.  When you glanced at him, he nodded at your daughter dozing against your side.

“Vesna,” you replied.  “It means ‘dawn.’”

He stared at you both for a long moment, this woman and her daughter that he got at a bargain. 

“Her father…was he a good man?”

You nodded.  “He was.”

“How did he die?”

You turned away and looked at the landscape from the narrow window of the carriage.  “A fever took him. 

“You cared for him?”

You nodded again.  “I did.”

Pero made a noise at that, a grumble at the back of his throat that you couldn’t discern the meaning of.  “Why did you care for him?”

“Why would you ask?”  It was an impossible question to answer anyway, how you cared for your first husband and why.  Because he was strong and wise, but gentle in equal measure.  That he sat in council with your father, then your elder brother, his face stern and grave, then returned home and played with your daughter, pulled faces and allowed her to ride him as a pony, her small chubby fists tugging at his hair.

Pero must have heard the edge in your voice, because he answered softly, “I only hope to model my behavior on his own.”  He paused.  “I’ve never had a wife.  I should like to do well by you.”

Vesna grumbled in her sleep and turned deeper in your side before she settled.  “Will you do well by her too, Tovar?”

“Pero,” he corrected you gently.  “And I would.  I would be a father to her, and I would have her call me father as I would call her daughter.”

You laughed, the bitterness heavy in your mouth.  “Sweet words, until you have a child of your own.  Once you have your own blood, you’ll seek to cast her away.”

The man scowled but shook his head.  “You have the wrong of it, wife.”

“I’ve yet to meet a person in a second marriage to do otherwise.”

“But you’ve met me,” he snapped.  “And I am not your father’s second wife, nor her treacherous son.”  His face softened, that ebb and flow of darkness that you recognized now from your wedding night.  “I am just a blacksmith’s son, an orphan in my own right.  I would not make an orphan of her, no matter what you think.”

He sounded so injured, stung from your accusation that you nodded at his words, then reached across the carriage and laid a soft hand on his arm. 

“Peace, Pero,” you replied.  “I meant no harm.”

“No one would blame you if you did.  But I will prove you wrong, with both her—” Here, he jerked his chin in the direction of your sleeping daughter.  “And with our own children.  My hands may have slain many men, but I would cradle any child of yours, or any child of ours, as softly as a bird’s egg.”

You could not help the smile.  “You have a gift of language, husband.”

He smiled back, though it looked uncertain, like he was unfamiliar with the motion of lifting his lips into the expression.

“Perhaps you already carry my child,” he said, a bit shyly.  His gaze drifted to your belly under its thick woolen cloak.  “Perhaps I bred you on our wedding night.”

You could not help the laugh this time.  “I think not.”

At that, his smile fled.  “Why not?”

“Because…”  You watched him, uncertain.  Perhaps he had been so drunk he didn’t realize.  “Because you did not…complete the act.”

“I did!”

You shook your head.  “Pero, you drank so much, I trust you must not remember, but you did not.”

“I…”  He hesitated, glanced at Vesna to see that she was still fast asleep.  He dropped his voice to a rough whisper.  “Wife, I spilled my seed.  I remember as much.  The King’s advisors confirmed as much.”

“You did, but outside of me.  Not inside.”

You realized it far too late, but you would be forgiven for never considering it.  How many men had you ever known to enter their marriages as virgins?  Especially a sell-sword who had traveled the world, who had likely been tempted by women of all shades and hues, of all sizes and temperaments.

You realized it when Pero, your husband, looked at you.  Bewildered, he asked, “does not that count, wife?”

-----

“I do not understand how you could not know,” you told him that evening.  You were lodged in a lord’s house, a friend of your late father, and Vesna had been tucked into her cot in an adjoining room.

“I did not.”  Pero sat on the edge of the bed, his arms crossed.  He looked much like a petulant child, not unlike Vesna when she was in a sulk. 

“But you are a grown man, and you’ve kept rough company.”

“I have fought with rough company and traveled with rough company, but I’ve never fucked with rough company.”

You winced at the crude word for it.  “You have never laid with even a woman for coin?  Not once?  Or some sweetheart, back in León?”

“Galicia,” he muttered.  “And no.  I fled home before I could grow hair on my balls, and I held my coin too dear to waste it on pretend love.”

“And you never traveled with a woman, perhaps?  You were never tempted in the rough travel to curl up with a woman—”

“The only women that ever traveled with us were whores and wives.  I would not waste my coin on the first and I would not waste my life on the second.”

You were unsure how to proceed.  True, your marriage was not consummated, but that hardly registered with you.  You did not know this Pero Tovar, in truth, beyond the handful of days you had spent together on the road.  You knew little—just the few conversations, but it was more of his actions that spoke to who he was.

There was a moment early in the journey, just a half day’s ride out, that he had caught Vesna when her little boot caught in the carriage step.  How Pero had swept her up, some fatherly instinct that made it a game for the little girl, a moment to pretend she was flying instead of stumbling.

When you fell asleep and woke to find his cloak tucked around you.

When you entered an unproven tavern for a late meal, how Pero had stood between you and Vesna and the rest of the room, like a loyal cur protecting its flock.

He was rough in his ways, but there was a gentleness to him, and it was as much what he didn’t do—he got drunk on your wedding night and had been as gentle as a lamb.  And now, this line of questioning that frustrated him—he only sat and sulked with his arms crossed, when many men would strike you for being so blunt with his discomfort.

Pero Tovar, you wondered, could perhaps simply be a gentle man who fell into a rough life, and shouldn’t you foster that gentleness, now that he was yours?

“Husband, will you let me show you?” you asked quietly, and when his eyes found yours, you smiled at him.  You held out your hands, and after a moment of hesitation, he took them in his own.  His calloused hands, only recently washed of all the blood they had spilled.

“Please, wife,” he replied.  “Please do.”

-----

The first time that night, it was much like the bedding ceremony:  the moment your hand found Pero’s cock, he groaned, then erupted in your palm.

This time, though, he was sober enough to know what had happened.

“Shit!” he hissed, and he rolled away from you.  You sensed that this was a defining moment in your marriage, the entire enterprise teetering on a knife’s edge.  Fall one way, a life of stilted exchanges, closed-off conversations, miscommunications.  Fall the other way?

“Pero, please.”  You took a cloth from near the bed and wiped your hand, then reached for his deflated manhood.  You wiped him off gently, and you smiled to feel the answering twitch to it, even so soon afterwards.

“The gods did not make us like dogs, rutting in the street, with only one chance in a while,” you whispered to him.  “We can rest and try again, as many times as we like.”

“Did your other husband spill like a boy?” he asked, his voice an angry growl.  You sensed better the way this may fall, how Pero seemed to compare himself to your first husband and found himself wanting.

“My other husband had been married before,” you replied.  You set the soiled cloth aside, and you laid your hand on the side of Pero’s face so you could look him in the eyes.  He avoided your gaze, so you sighed and stroked his hair back from his face, ran your thumb over his bristly cheek.  And Pero, cur that he was, turned into your touch despite his low mood.

“I was not my husband’s first wife,” you explained.  “He and his first wife had many years together, until she died from a wasting disease.  But he was patient with me, and he taught me, just as I will be patient with you.  Just as I will teach you.”

“It is a poor husband who must be taught by his wife.”

You hummed thoughtful at that, then leaned forward to press your lips to his.  You let your breasts brush over his bare arm, and you took in the sharp inhale he made at the touch.

“Such a poor husband,” you chanced to tease.  “Yet such fun in the teaching, hmm?”

“Did I marry a princess or a temptress?” he grumbled back, but there was a teasing tone to his voice. 

“Perhaps you should take her counsel and decide for yourself.”

Pero turned onto his side and faced you, and his eyes finally sought yours.  “I would be a good husband to you,” he said.  “I would be a man who could give you pleasure.”

“Would you be humble enough for your wife to teach you then?”

He nodded, and his eyes grew darker with desire.

“Consider me humble.  Consider me your pupil.”  His voice fell to a lower register, and it sent a frisson of heat through you.

-----

Your lessons, as you came to call them, were strenuously applied and practiced until the pupil became a master in his own right.

You taught him the pleasure of simple touch:  of feather-light strokes and firm grasping, of where to caress and where to lightly pinch, where to soothe and where to worry. 

You taught him how to use his mouth—such a sulking, pouting mouth with such full lips, and with such a wicked tongue.  You taught him how to suckle and lick, how to lap against which parts of you, and you taught him how to kiss with more skill and finesse than that first night together.

You taught him too how to receive the pleasure you could give him beyond the mating.  You used your own hands and mouth in turn, and by the time he strained against you again, his cock ruddy and leaking from its broad tip, Pero was a panting, pleading mess.

“Please, wife,” he cried against your shoulder as you stroked him, then stopped, then stroked him again.  “Please, show me—”

“Here.”  You took his hand and led him to the place between your thighs, let him feel where he should seat himself.  “Just here, husband.”

“It is slippery, your cunt,” he whispered, his voice wracked with awe.  His blunt finger prodded at you, slipped inside, and his groan was a twin to your own.

“It m-makes the joining easier.” 

Pero slid more of his finger inside you, then pulled it out, then sunk it back in.  A preview, you supposed, from your eager pupil.  You moaned again when he added a second finger, and you felt his eyes on you, peering down at you.

“Does that give you pleasure?” he asked without a bit of guile.

You nodded.  It did.

He furrowed his brow.  “I would mount you now, but I may spill too soon.”

“I would not care a whit, Pero.  We have the time to master it together.”

He nodded, then pulled his fingers from you.  He made to climb between your legs, and you parted them for him, spread yourself wide to fit him in the cradle of your hips.  When he lowered himself, you felt his cock brush against you, and he reached down to grasp himself.

It only took him two tries.  Just as you opened your mouth to guide him, he found your entrance, and then he pushed into you, the searing heat of him finally inside you.  Pero groaned to feel you, but he did not spill—he stilled once he was buried in your depths, and he lifted his head to gaze down at you.  The look on his face was somewhere between stupefaction and bliss, and you imagined you looked much the same.

“There,” you told him, brushing your fingertips over the planes of his handsome face.  “Now we are wed, husband.”

*****

In this way, Pero Tovar became a man in love, who was loved in turn by his wife.  Their journey to her mother’s homeland lost much of its earlier speed, and it took them far longer to arrive.  Their servants—the carriage driver, the footman, the guards and lady’s maid, and child’s nurse—could guess the reason for their delay.  After all, Pero and his wife were newlyweds, and they often stayed abed until late in the morning, though no one supposed they slept.

In this way, Pero Tovar came to be a father, the seed planted on that journey quickening in his wife’s belly months later.  The daughter that followed thereafter, and the sons that came after that, and then a final daughter who looked so much like her father that despite the name her parents chose for her, she was forever known as Peročka.

True to his word, Pero never treated little Vesna as anything other than his own child. It had to be said that when the girl was grown and married off to a boy in a nearby city, Pero was the one who openly wept at the loss of her.

In the tales of this time, once the dragon is slain or the kingdom regained or the treasure earned, the tale ends.  And so should ours, except to remind that Pero Tovar had traveled the known world only to end up with a treasure beyond compare in his wife and the family they created together.  He never found the life he sought for himself—that spot of green land, dirt to furrow, plants to coax into life.  Instead, he found a better life with a wife and children, with a community of people who came to value his wisdom…though he did end up with a garden where he tended to a grove of small plum trees and distilled their sweet fruits into a brandy that young men often toasted with on their wedding days.

If there is a lesson to Pero Tovar’s story, then, it’s this:  sometimes the life we desire is not the life we need.

And to add that when his wife died from a wasting disease when only a bit of silver threaded through her hair, Pero spared no expense in building her the finest stone crypt to hold her bones.  He had her dressed in the gown she wore to marry him so long ago.  In her hair, he tucked the small jade and enamel comb that had somehow survived his journey from the Far East when he fought monsters in another life entirely.  As was the custom in his adopted home, his children and grandchildren took hawthorn branches—in full bloom, as his beloved wife died in spring—and laid them in the crypt with her.

And to add too, when Pero himself died from a fever years later, his children and grandchildren dressed him in his finest tunic and opened the crypt so he could be laid beside his beloved.  As was the custom, they took hawthorn branches —laden with red berries, as he died in the autumn—and laid them in the crypt with him.

And to add finally, Vesna, by then a mother in her own right, reached into the crypt and adjusted the two bodies so that their hands were clasped in their eternal rest.  How could she do otherwise?  They had loved each other fiercely in this life, and she prayed to the gods that they would do so in the next life too.  Her mother and her father both, and she did not hide the tears that fell as her brothers and husband slid the heavy stone lid in place, sealing both Pero and his beloved in their shared tomb.

*****

He only has a single evening, and the surfeit of options in D.C. paralyzes him with choice.  The Phillips Collection?  The Renwick Gallery?  Or the National Gallery of Art?

He mentions it to Ruiz, who laughs and says, “c’mon, man.  The National Gallery, obviously.”

“I’d like something a little more off the beaten path,” Marcus replies.

Ruiz studies him, thinks on it.  Finally says, “you know, I know a woman over there.  She’s curating this huge exhibit that’s coming out next year.  You want something unique, why don’t I set you up?”

“The exhibit isn’t even up yet?”

Ruiz waves him off.  “Nah, but it might be fun to see how the sausage is made, right?”

-----

Which is how FBI Agent Marcus Pike comes to meet you.  Ruiz is on your bar trivia team (he’s your ace in the hole on sports trivia), and when he calls with a favor, the call on speaker between Ruiz and Marcus, you happily agree to show him around your budding exhibit.

“It’s called ‘Stronger than Death,’” you tell him after you hold your hand out to shake.  “After the Thomas Mann quote.  ‘It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.’  Which is cheesy, admittedly, but it’s my first big solo exhibit I’m pulling together, and it’s the culmination of years of research and work.”

Marcus smiles.  “I don’t think it’s cheesy at all.”

“Tell Tony that.”

“Eh, Ruiz is just jaded.”  Marcus follows you into the storage area where some crates have already been unloaded and unpacked.  “Tell me about this exhibit.  Ruiz said it already has a lot of buzz.”

If Marcus thought your smile was lovely when you introduced yourself, he finds it utterly beautiful now, because you are passionate about your exhibit.  An intersection of art and architecture and history, across time and distance, focused on the two most human emotions, you explain:  love and grief.

“No matter when or where, it’s the two constants, you know?”  You gesture widely, taking in the breadth of the crates, but even further too:  the breadth of human history across the globe.  “If you’re talking about humans in fourteenth century Iran or Berber tribes in the twelfth century or a Lutheran and Catholic couple during the heart of reformation, the story is the same.  The details change, but the love is the same, and the grief when death comes is the same.”

“So the exhibit is…”  Marcus trails off, and you take a deep breath. You’ve gone breathless in your explanation, a fact that charms him. Then you continue.  Your exhibit is everything that encompasses that central idea of grief when love is ended by death, and how grief is an outpouring of that endless love.  You have everything from big pieces to ephemera.  There’s Victorian memorial photography.  There’s a gravestone from a Catholic cemetery that edged against a Protestant one, the stone bridging the two graves because neither church allowed the couple to be buried together.  There’s a letter found in a grave from the 1500’s in Korea, where the woman pours out her grief and love for her husband who is buried there. 

You show him the artifacts already unpacked and catalogued.  You hand him a pair of cotton gloves and allow him to touch some of the sturdier pieces, and you’ve pulled him into your wavelength because as he touches each piece, he feels weak in the knees, heavy with kinship he feels with strangers separated from him by centuries and thousands of miles.

“Here’s an interesting piece,” you tell him, and you lead him to a smaller crate that’s been opened, its packing material piled in a small snowdrift around the box.  On the table beside it, there’s a smaller box.  You open it and pull out a delicate-looking piece, and Marcus holds out his palm, flat.  You lay it there, and he studies it in the light.

“Jade?”

You hum in agreement.  “And enamel.  It’s consistent with craftsmanship from the Song Dynasty.”

Marcus reaches back through his memory to his eastern histories and civilizations course.  “Is that…. eleven hundred A.D.?”

“In part.  It lasted over three hundred years.”

Marcus peers at it closer.  “It’s amazingly preserved.”

“It was found in a grave in Latvia last year.”

He looks at you in surprise.  “Seriously?  How?”

“Trade wasn’t unheard of then, east from west.  It was far more popular in the Holy Roman Empire, though.  This part of Latvia was rural in that period.  A collection of city-states and loosely-stitched tribes.”

“The comb must have been buried later then.”

You shake your head and take the comb from him, lie it gently back in its box.  “That’s the story.  It was buried around the year one thousand A.D.  Archeologists found the grave five years ago.  A bunch of kids were riding dirt bikes around the countryside in Latvia.  One kid hits something, goes flying.  It turns out it was a stone, but when they look at it, it’s carved.  Too square, right?  Has markings on it.  It turns out, it’s this perfectly preserved medieval town.  The archeologists did all their digging and carbon testing.  They are still digging, honestly.  But it looks like through soil samples, the best theory is that a tributary to the Daugava flooded at some point in twelve-hundred A.D and buried the entire place.”

“I never heard about it.”

You snort.  “Yeah, a rare well-preserved medieval village will never hit the front page when there’s war and political scandals.”

You reach for a large envelope on the table and open it.  You pull out a sheaf of photos, high resolution, and Marcus sees the link between the delicate jade comb and the overall theme of your exhibit.

The photos show the grave, a carved stone tomb that the river mud preserved for nearly a thousand years.  It is simple by today’s standards, but Marcus can guess the care and expense of it.  There are flowers and trees carved into the lid of it, a flat-faced woman who was probably a saint or local goddess to the time.

Then the photos cede to shots inside the opened grave.  Again, the river buried the village and preserved it for Marcus and you to stare at it now:  the pair of skeletons, on their sides and facing each other, their empty eye sockets seeming to stare at each other, the tiny bones of their hands a jumble as they were clearly buried together.

“They died together,” Marcus muses.  “Plague, maybe?”

You shrug.  “Who can say?  But if it’s plague, it was several years apart.  That’s why I’m putting them in the eastern corner of my exhibit.  The archeologists spent a lot of time on this tomb, since it’s such a rare find.  The skeleton on the left was a woman, roughly forty years old when she died.  She was buried with the comb, and the archeologists found hawthorn branches with her.”

You tap the other side of the photo.  “This one was a man, died around his sixties.  Also buried with hawthorn branches.”

“So, how do we know they were buried at different times?”

“That’s the punchline.  Archeologists found flower petals on her branches, but berries on his.  They were buried at different times of the year, at least.  Which means that the tomb was reopened to put the latter one in, and they were turned to face each other.  Their hands were clasped together.  It’s significant, especially when records seem to indicate that many burials of that time and place were cremations.”

Marcus turns to the next photo, a closeup of the hands.  Sure enough, he can see the dusty, dried remnants of blossoms, the wizened berries.  His eyes drift to their hands, the delicate bones a jumble to where he could not tell who’s belonged to which skeleton.

“Can you imagine the love they must have had for each other?  First to build such an elaborate tomb for such a rural area that likely lacked craftsmen of this caliber.  To choose to bury instead of cremating.  And then to reopen the tomb and place the second body in, to turn them towards each other instead of facing up to face heaven or down to face the underworld.  The jade comb is only a device to open the story, but the real story is the most common one across time.  It’s love, and grief when the love is ended by death.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, his voice low.  “Sad, but beautiful.”

“We’ll never know their names, you know?  We’ll never know what they looked like, or even really what language they spoke.  If they had children or what they did.  But we know…”  You pause, take a breath.  “We know they loved each other, and they died but the proof of that love can be witnessed by us a millennium later.  And here we are with smart phones and airplanes and dating apps, but if you boil us down, we are just the same as them.  Exactly the same.”

What can Marcus say to that?  He agrees with you completely.  When your voice cracks on the word exactly, his own throat grows a lump in it.  He’s always been a romantic anyway, but the scope and scale of this project makes him feel like he could easily be pushed into tearing up too. 

“This exhibit is going to be amazing,” he finally tells you.  “Honestly.  People are going to love it.”

You grin at him, and your eyes are a little glazed with tears, but Marcus wonders what would push you to take such an interest in this topic.  Many curators home in on a much narrower niche, but yours is universal, so broad it could be sloppy or unfocused.  But you seem to be taking a broad cross-section of artifacts, an attentive lens at different times and places and cultures.

“Thanks, Marcus.  I appreciate it.”  You turn and slide the photographs back into their envelope.  “Ruiz didn’t say much about why you wanted to check this out.”

Marcus follows you out of the storeroom.  “I didn’t, really.  I’m only in town for the evening.  I fly out in the morning.”

“Where to?”

“Texas.  I live there.  I’m just in town for an interview.”

You lead him back to your office where his coat is stashed, and you hand it to him.  You grab your own, grab your purse, and lock up.  Together, you walk out of the building and into the evening.  D.C. glitters: it must have rained while you were inside, and the lights sparkle on the wet pavement and buildings.  You walk together for a few blocks, chatting amiably.

“Ruiz said you were FBI too?”

“Yeah, I’m in the Art Squad.”

You laugh.  “Art Squad.  I love it.  You armed with an FBI-issued oil pastel?”

When Marcus starts to explain that he investigates stolen art and artifacts, you elbow him gently and cut him off.  “I was teasing.  I know what you do.”

He chuckles, shakes his head.  He can feel his face flush a bit.  “Anyway, there’s an open position here, and I thought it might be a good move, career-wise.”  He pauses.  “We’ll see how it goes.”

“Texas to D.C.  It could be a fun move.”

He agrees, but before he can stop himself, he’s talking about Teresa, how he has fallen in love, how he has a ring picked out and an idea of proposing—and you listen to it, nodding sympathetically, cooing when he sings Teresa’s virtues.  Agreeing when he says his life is finally shaping out the way he always wanted:  career and love, both moving forward in wonderful ways.

“That’s really great,” you reply.  “I’m happy for you.”

He feels slightly asshole-ish, rambling about his life.  He asks, more charitably, “what about you?  Married?”

You laugh, a dry single ‘ha.’  “No.”

“Boyfriend?  Girlfriend?”

“No.”  You glance at him.  “Let’s just say I’m married to my work and leave it at that.”

He lifts his palms in surrender and in apology.  “Fair.  I’m sorry.”

“No need to be.”  You pause.  “But Teresa sounds great, and you’re lovely, so when the two of you come to D.C., look me up and you’ll give you both a private tour, okay?”

Marcus smiles at the thought of him and Teresa together in the capitol, hand in hand at your wonderful exhibit.  “Deal.”

You stop in your tracks and point at the intersection.  “I’m this way.  It was really nice to meet you, Marcus.”

He holds out his hand and you take it.  “Thank you so much.  You have no idea how much I enjoyed it.”

“For one of Ruiz’s buddies?  Anytime.  And for real—you and your girl.  Private tour, on me.”

The private tour, obviously, will never happen with Marcus and Teresa.  Marcus will move to D.C. and Teresa will never follow.  He’ll go through a dark period that he assumes will last the rest of his life, but it hardly lasts at all because by then, the city is plastered with advertisements for your exhibit, which is as big as Marcus predicted.

The private tour will happen with just Marcus, and it will hit different to see it laid out with the lighting, the flow, the signage.

It will hit different considering his recent breakup and recent heartache.

It will hit different when he shakes your hand again, when he takes in your soft, steady voice as you explain every artifact, as you offer him that lovely smile that turns beautiful as you talk about your work.

And it will hit different as you lead him through the history of love and grief, the history of what makes him no different from, say, a man who lived and loved and died a thousand years earlier.  A man, perhaps, who thought his life would venture into one direction but instead went in another:  how the life he desired was not the life he needed, but how it ended in love all the same.

In that way, Marcus and Pero, separated by a millennium are the same.

Hiii! I’m dakohtah but you can just use my nickname kota. i am a writer (not a very good one..) i’ll mostly write josh hutcherson and pedro pascal characters. in the future I may write some things about Noah from twd. warnings will be included in the writing (i’ll try my best to do all warnings since i’m new at this) No use of y/n in anything. i hope you enjoy my work!!

——————————-︵‿୨♡୧‿︵—————————

If sending requests!

things I will write; fluff, angst (maybe because i’m not good at it), smut, MAYBE some kinks, small or slightly large age gaps depending on character

things I won’t write; hardcore kinks, children x adults, things having to do with minors, use of y/n, anything along those lines

Links !

Masterlist !

C.ai bots ᯓᡣ𐭩

For Your Love

Banner made by @toointojoelmiller

[As Long as You Follow] [People Still Listen to Fleetwood Mac in the Apocalypse]

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Words: 3,227

Summary: She liked him like this, craved it; him pinned beneath her thighs, a vessel steered by her desires. Intoxicating, when she deepened their kiss and then pulled away from him and he tried to follow her, head lifting off the pillow, lips seeking hers even when she was out of reach, his abdomen taut with strain. There was something thrilling about it; about someone so much bigger than herself, built like a storm with muscles that could overtake her in a moment, choosing restraint; something satisfying about those large, rough hands sliding along her skin, so gentle when they didn’t have to be.

Warnings: +18, MDNI, smut, oral sex, face-riding, unprotected PIV. Minor angst referenced. Age gap (Joel is 62, OC is in her mid-forties), my Joel is soft AF and loves his wife.

This is my first time posting something like this as a standalone. This is actually a scene from chapter 18 of As Long as You Follow, but also works as its own piece (in that you don't have to read the whole fic to understand this scene). Enjoy!

◦ ❖ ◦

Dawn was barely a whisper when she crept back upstairs, her skin flushed with warmth, her head swimming from even the miniscule amount of liquor she’d been encouraged to drink. She shed her sweatpants with a clumsy grace, using the wall as an anchoring point, and then poured herself onto the mattress with a sigh, burrowing until she sank into the cool embrace of the bedding.

Unsurprisingly, Joel was awake, his eyes steady and observant as she claimed her pillow. “Hi,” she said quietly, and he quirked an eyebrow. She wondered how long he’d laid here just like this, waiting for her to return; wondered if he’d gone looking for her, or had been patient enough to assume she would come back on her own. But he didn’t resist her when she slid over to him, the cool sheet parting like water around her, pressing her warm skin against his. If he was surprised, he didn’t let on; he fell into her embrace easily, fingers sliding under her shirt to trace the delicate architecture of her ribs, his breath, a warm current, brushing against her cheek.

"Would you do something for me?" she breathed into the hollow of his neck.

“Name it,” was his immediate reply, though she let herself linger in the space between them for a little while longer; let him nuzzle into her hair, his hand gliding across her skin, gripping and cupping softly – let herself feel it, his love and affection. In the end, words were unnecessary. She tangled her fingers in his patchy beard, tilting his chin down so he could meet her lips. He responded instantly, his body tensing for a moment before relaxing completely against hers.

In the cocoon of his embrace, the night's unease unfurled and floated away, dissipating into the shadows. It seemed impossible to find anything to be scared of when they were just like this – because nothing terrible had ever happened to her when she was wrapped in his arms, and she knew with a sudden clarity that nothing ever would. “I love you,” she whispered, and then was filled with frustration because even this didn’t seem like enough to convey the immensity of what he meant to her, and all the ways he had reshaped her life for the better. He kissed her again, a gentle press of lips against hers, and then drew her close, his chin resting on the crown of her head.

“I love you,” he echoed. “Go to sleep, baby.”

And just like that, her mind stilled.

But she didn’t sleep. Whether intentional or not, she’d already given up on it. Joel slept, and she didn’t begrudge this of him, this man who gave so much of himself to everyone and everything – to her, to their family, to his community, nevermind the strain of his aging body. She closed her eyes, but sleep never found her, and when the sky began to lighten along its edges, cool and gray, and the birdsong began to trill through their open window, swept in with the breeze that stirred their curtains, she found herself still wide awake. The room was dim, the branches of the old oak outside casting a slow, hypnotic dance of shadows across the bedroom walls. She watched them shift and change, restlessness pulsing through her veins.

Joel stirred in his sleep, breaking their embrace when he rolled onto his back. She shifted onto her side when he did, taking him in as he lay bathed in the soft glow of the approaching day. He looked so peaceful, his features relaxed, his breath even and deep. She remembered doing this during their very first night together; remembered being so full of nervous energy that she hadn’t slept at all, all at once thrilled and terrified of this man that lay sleeping next to her, uncertain of where he would end up fitting into her life but so eager to find out.

For some reason, she could only hear Ellie’s voice in her head, her recollection of her own early days in Jackson; ‘I just didn’t understand why it was so easy for him – how, after everything we’d been through, he could just turn around and be okay. But I figured…he was pretending, you know? For me.’ And she wondered if he was doing the same thing for her, and had been since they got back to town – pretending, for her sake, holding them both together while she crumbled, replaying the familiar dance they'd performed again and again over the years. It unnerved her just as much as it flooded her with gratitude, and she found her vision blurring, his sleeping face glowing and fracturing before she blinked away these unexpected tears, and suddenly it wasn’t enough just to be close to him.

“Joel,” she murmured, a whisper drifting across their pillows. Her movements were deliberately quiet, slow as molasses as she rolled herself over, her hand reaching for him beneath the sheets until her fingers could trace a languid path across his ribs and the expanse of his bare chest. She watched his face as she moved, searching for any flicker of disturbance. “Joel,” she breathed again, his name stretched taut across her tongue.

Finally, he shifted; his features, pale and sculpted in the muted light that speared through their flimsy curtains, pulling tight, his mustache twitching above parted lips. Eyes that glittered like gemstones blinked open, a small, confused grunt leaving his throat.

“What –” The soothing cadence of her voice, the softness of her hand feathering back and forth across his ribs – none of it mattered; he lurched for an upright position, eyes darting around the room.

“Easy,” she whispered, gently pushing him back down; and he hesitated, but seemed to trust her enough to allow this, settling his head back on his pillow with a groan. “Sorry, just…was seeing if you were awake.”

“Am now,” he rasped, voice thick and gritty with sleep, though his grip on her hand was soft after he fumbled for it, squeezing it as it lay across his chest. “What is it?”

She answered him in movement; a soft, measured shift when she swung a leg over his hips, the sheets whispering against her skin until she settled astride him. There was an exhale of surprise, a breathed oh – that was immediately silenced when she captured his mouth with her own, a gentle conquest, her lips velvet against his. She didn’t linger in preambles, deepening her movements with quiet need, her tongue flicking past his teeth – and he hesitated, just for a moment, his hand adrift until it found its home on the curve of her hip.

She liked him like this, craved it; him pinned beneath her thighs, a vessel steered by her desires. Intoxicating, when she deepened their kiss and then pulled away from him and he tried to follow her, head lifting off the pillow, lips seeking hers even when she was out of reach, his abdomen taut with strain. There was something thrilling about it; about someone so much bigger than herself, built like a storm with muscles that could overtake her in a moment, choosing restraint; something satisfying about those large, rough hands sliding along her skin, so gentle when they didn’t have to be.

“Darlin’ –” She sensed his shift immediately; felt his hands migrate to the small of her back, urging her forward, but she shook her head – though she went to him, offering a rather chaste kiss, a fleeting touch of their lips that only seemed to frustrate him. He groaned softly as she continued an upward journey, peppering light kisses across the bridge of his nose, his brow, his forehead while her hands steadied themselves on his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Just lay back,” she said softly, pressing her lips against his again just to stifle any response he might have had. And there was something there; a puff of air that met her lips, a slight sigh that she felt echo through his throat, because her mouth went there next, nipping and licking as that sigh deepened to a groan. “Quiet,” she chided against his collarbone, and that groan turned into an amused scoff – but he did quiet himself, his hands following her, winding through her hair, twirling the golden strands between his knuckles. She felt the response of his body as her touch grew bolder, the stiffening of his chest and the clenching of his stomach when she softly, so softly kissed the half-moon scar above his hip, but his hands remained gentle, careful not to pull too tightly –

– until she descended too low, finding him already straining against his boxer briefs, and she kissed that, too; felt the twitch of his cock through the fabric right before he reflexively jerked his hips. His fingers tightened in her hair and then let go, and suddenly there were hands on her shoulders, gently trying to pull her back up, and she heard his voice rumble through the darkness, “Sweetness – you don’t gotta do that–"

And she knew, with a mix of tenderness and frustration, what he was doing – shielding her, protecting her in that endearing, infuriating way that was so innately him. But she had no use for his protection – not tonight, anyway. She shook her head, grasped his wrists firmly, and pried his hands away from her shoulders. She didn't release him immediately, savoring the moment, placing a lingering kiss on his knuckles before letting go. He responded with a sigh, his head sagging back against his pillow, his chest rising and falling visibly in the dim light; she saw the rhythmic expansion and contraction of his ribs sliding beneath his skin, felt the nervous jolt of his leg when she straddled it, her own heart pounding in her chest.

“I don’t have to do anything,” she murmured, her fingers teasing the waistband of his boxers, “but I’m not doing anything I don’t want to. Okay?”

She watched him carefully, moved slowly, pulling down the fabric until he sprung free, ready and willing despite the rest of his body’s hesitance. She knew that he was watching her, too; saw his eyes as two pinpricks of light glittering through the darkness, heard the sharp intake of his breath as her hand encircled him, warm and inviting – but she waited for him, waited for those eyes to flutter shut, for the quiet, gasped, ‘fuck’ that signaled his surrender –

– and there was something about it that was so familiar, so nostalgic. She thought about when they were first brought together; remembered that look on his face the first time she straddled him on that couch, mouth parted in surprise, eyes sparkling with shock and yearning – remembered the first time she took him in her mouth, the way he’d bucked his hips so harshly, overwhelmed by a sensation so new, so intense. He'd looked at her on her knees with an awe-struck reverence, as if she were the most precious treasure in the world, and that same adoration shone in his eyes now; his hand guiding the bobbing of her head while her lips sank lower, lower, every movement of her tongue causing a wonderful little gasp to push from his lungs.

There was an intoxicating power in witnessing this strong, capable man become something far more pliant in her hand, a profound pleasure in knowing she was the only one who could unravel him in this way. She enjoyed bringing him right to the edge, his strong legs quivering beneath her; knew that he was so close to bliss, because there was a steady stream of whispered Spanish cutting through the darkness – and she smiled around his cock, swirled her tongue along his salty tip, turning those words into an unintelligible groan.

He was beautiful, she thought; plush lips parted, trembling amidst the salt-and-pepper stubble of his jaw. His head tilted back, pressing into the pillow, the morning light tracing the contours of his strong jawline and glinting off the silver in his hair. She watched his tongue dart out to wet his teeth before a grimace of pleasure contorted his face, felt his fingers tangle in her hair while his other hand clenched the sheets, wrinkling the fabric beneath his desperate grip.

“Baby – hey, hey –” His hands were already in motion, before she could react; gentle but commanding, hinging under her arms and lifting her effortlessly – his arms guided her over his body, and though she longed to stay where she was she yielded to his touch, rising to meet his kiss.

And this, too, was beautiful; his lips eager to reclaim the taste of himself on her tongue, his arms encircling her waist, pulling her tight against him as his chest heaved, his words slurred against her lips, ‘god damn, woman – god damn –’ and she barely had time to feel pleased with herself, to savor her satisfaction before she was being moved again, and she was powerless to stop it, those same strong hands gripping her ribcage, lifting her with ease, then seizing her thighs. Her body responded instinctively to his urgent pull, a gasp escaping her lips followed by a startled shriek –

She was unprepared for the onslaught of sensation that engulfed her, his strong arms wrapping around the backs of her trembling thighs as he buried his face between them. She struggled to stay upright, fingers clawing until she finally managed to grip the edge of the bed’s headboard for support.

He was a man determined, her underwear nothing but a flimsy inconvenience, easily yanked aside so that his tongue could seek out her sensitive flesh, roving and licking and swirling and fuck, it was as though that tongue was made for exactly this; she was already unraveling, delicious waves of heat and pleasure rolling between her legs. When he constricted his arms around her and pulled her flush to his eager mouth, she gasped in blissful agony, his nose gliding along her sensitive bundle of nerves.

It took her a moment to find the rhythm in it; in the way he firmed and loosened his grip on her thighs, the press of his tongue at the crest of every wave created by the way he manipulated her hips - but she found it, she fell in line with it, and then she took control of it just as quickly, hastening her own movements, grinding herself against his mouth as she braced her arms against the headboard, every desperate press of his tongue like an electric shock that ignited every nerve ending in her body.

It was blinding, this release; washing over her like a cool wave as he feasted on her with unbridled hunger, unfaltering even as her hips stuttered, then stilled, until she had nothing else to give him; her entire body pulled tight as a guitar string, stretched to its limit and ready to snap –

She hadn’t even realized that she’d stopped breathing until the air came slamming back into her lungs; she gasped, chest filled with fire, pulse pounding in her throat, forking into her limbs – and before she could even begin to come down, he managed to wrap his arm around her back, hefting her away from him and rolling her onto her back as though she weighed absolutely nothing – he moved with her, crawling over her, a comforting, heavy weight pressing her into the mattress – and she didn’t fit, exactly; their limbs tangled, her head lolling over the edge, but it didn’t matter because there was his hand cradling her neck, holding her up; there were his lips meeting hers, slick with her own taste, and there was him, all of him, filling her senses, his muscles pressed against her –

He rooted himself inside of her in fiery stretch, and she welcomed it, brief as it was; sank her teeth into muscle of his shoulder and cried out with each thrust, unconcerned with the noise of it all because she wanted him to hear her, wanted him to understand exactly what he was doing to her – and when he unspools inside of her, it’s with a cry that was almost primal, that last stuttered thrust pinning her against their sheets, his legs taut, his breath hot on her neck.

He was stifling, when he finally settled; his skin scorching against hers, sweat pooling where their stomachs pressed together, dripping from his neck – and she didn’t care, dragging her fingers lightly along his glistening flesh and tangling them in his stringy hair, holding him close to her trembling body. He panted against her chest, one hand still gripping the back of her neck, the other searching for her unencumbered arm as it rested across the sheets.

“That was – supposed to be –” She drew his arm closer, their fingers interlacing. Her lips traced a path of reverence along his thumb, his knuckles, down to his wrist, punctuating each word with a tender kiss, “– about you – and just you –”

He groaned softly, shifting his head to rest his chin on her chest. “Christ, darlin’ – when’re you gonna learn?” Those dark eyes glittering at her through the sun's first tentative rays that filtered weakly through the curtains. His hand abandoned her neck, slipping under the curve of her lower back, and with a slight grunt, he pulled her towards the center of the bed, rescuing her head from its precarious position near the edge. It was a safe place, she decided; tucked against the hard plane of his chest, his fingers weaving through her hair, his lips a whisper against any exposed skin he could find: brushing her nose, pressing a lingering kiss against the pulse point of her neck. “It’s never just about me.”

She had known the illusion of love well before meeting Joel Miller – she was pretty sure of it, anyway. She’d been held before, just like this; felt the comforting embrace of a man’s arms around her, heard the assurances being made from lips loosened by their intimacy, their bodies slack and spent. She'd tasted the fleeting sensation of safety, and even believed it when it was promised to her – because she’d chosen to, because in the harshness of the QZs she’d called home for so many years, delusion was a wonderful refuge from reality. It was strange, maybe, that there was no choice in this now; no pretense, no manufactured hope while sirens blared outside and neighbors' screams pierced through thin, flaking walls.

In Jackson, the world was distilled to its simplest elements: there was only sunlight that streamed through her curtains, only birdsong that flowed through the open window. Only her husband, the man who put a ring on her finger and brought her back from hell again and again, who took her shattered body and rebuilt it with pleasure and showered her in the kind of love that she’d only encountered in the pages of books.

And when he kissed her again, and again in their sun-dappled bedroom, when he held her face in his hands and promised her that she was always going to be safe with him, it was the easiest truth she'd ever embraced.

Wow!!! I’m loving this story so much!!! I hope our babies have a HEA💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚢𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖 ∘ ∘ ∘ 𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥 ∘ ∘ ∘ ║ ⓒⓗⓐⓟⓣⓔⓡⓔⓓ

𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚢𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖 ∘ (𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙣) 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚖𝚗𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚝𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚖, 𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚞𝚙𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚜, 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚖𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝-𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚕𝚢.

⦅ 𝚗 𝚊 𝚟 𝚒 𝚐 𝚊 𝚝 𝚒 𝚘 𝚗 ⦆ || ⦅ 𝚏𝚒𝚌 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝⦆

| PAIRING(s): Joel Miller x fem!OC/reader | RATING: explicit material | 18+ | CONTENT: AU//no outbreak, age gap (50/24), pining, slow burn, angst, protector!Joel, soft!Joel, POV switching, patriarchal abuse, maternal abandonment, physical/mental/financial abuse, internalized values of low self-worth, unlearning negative behaviors and mindsets, societal structures concerning abuse and recovery, dysfunctional family dynamics

| SYNOPSIS: Well into the prime of your life with little to show for it, you begin to wonder if you will ever get out of the terrible home life your mom and brother already fled. Any attempt to gain independence is thwarted by your controlling, cruel father, and you fear you will be stuck forever. It's when your neighborhood acquaintance Joel Miller enters the picture that your remaining ray of hope shines a little brighter.

𝙸. 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝙸𝙸. 𝚂𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝙸𝙸𝙸. 𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝙸𝚅. 𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚅. 𝙳𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚅𝙸. 𝙹𝚊𝚗𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚅𝙸𝙸. 𝙵𝚎𝚋𝚛𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚅𝙸𝙸𝙸. 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝙸𝚇. 𝙰𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚕 𝚇. 𝙼𝚊𝚢 𝚇𝙸. 𝙹𝚞𝚗𝚎 𝚇𝙸𝙸. 𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝚇𝙸𝙸𝙸. 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝙰𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗

He’s so fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine omg🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵

Pedro Pascal as Marcus Acacius in Gladiator II (2024)

can we talk about men who rest their heads on your lap in the living room and end up eating you out :/ who nudge your pussy with their nose and shamelessly inhale your scent. who eat you out with so much passion and get so unbelievably hard that they have to take their cock out and jerk off as they eat your cunt and when they come they do so on you

Miller’s Girl

I wanna be his good girl so bad

💕🎀💕

Pedro Pascal girlies and Joe Quinn girlies got it bad today. How are we feeling?

Me personally need 3 or more business days to recover.

Skin - The Boys Of Summer Drabble | Din Djarin ☀️

Written for The Boys Of Summer Drabble Series ☀️

Summary: You and Din wake up together on a summer's morning on Nevarro.

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader (No name, confirmed age, physical description or confirmed ethnicity of reader. It’s you, bub.)

Word Count: 1k

Scoville Smut Rating: None, it's fluff. You're safe.

Check out my Scoville Smut Ratings here.

Author’s Note: Hope you enjoy this series of summer drabbles featuring some of the Pedro Boys! ☀️

SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | DIN DJARIN MASTERLIST

Enjoy! 🖤

The sunlight filters into the abode, its rays breaking in behind your eyelids, casting a gentle warmth over your face.

It's the beginning of a new summer's day on Nevarro, a day full of potential and waiting to be explored and basked in. The light, soft and golden, seeps through the windows, a tranquil atmosphere that envelops you in a serene embrace.

As you slowly open your eyes, adjusting to the bright bokeh of the morning, your gaze is met with the sight of his body turned away from you, sleeping peacefully on his side. 

The broad expanse of his back is like a wide canvas of bronzed skin, a landscape marred by white, jagged streaks that tell tales of battles fought and survived. Each scar a testament to his resilience, etched into his flesh with sharp precision.

You find yourself captivated by the way these scars ripple across his skin, yearning to trace your fingers over them again. The ridges and bumps create a map beneath your touch, contrasting with the otherwise smooth surface of his freckled back.

You remember the sensation of running your lips over those scars, feeling the subtle differences in texture where the skin has healed. The thought of listening to his reaction, the soft shudder that reverberates through him, excites you.

The Mandalorian is known for the fierce noises he makes - grunts of exertion, hisses of pain through clenched teeth during bloody combat. Curses and yells as he fights to the death. Yet, there’s another side to him - a more vulnerable aspect that reveals itself in quieter, tender moments. 

In the intimacy of your explorations, as you trace the scars with your mouth, you coax out delicate whines and soft whimpers from him. These sounds are different from the battle cries; they’re the sounds of his surrender, his raw need for you. 

His voice always trembles with a plea for more, more of your touch, more of your affection. More, Mesh’la. When you indulge in those moments, exploring the terrain of Din’s back with your lips and hands, you can feel him melting under your attention.

He stirs from sleep, his broad shoulders hunching up a little. He wipes a hand across his face, feeling the rough callouses of his fingers against his closed eyelids. His mind heavy with sleep, he rubs away the stickiness until his lashes begin to flutter open.

Soft light filters through, dilating his deep pupils as he becomes aware of the warm textures around him. The air is filled with a gentle scent of you. Taking these precious moments to adjust, he stretches out, feeling his bones crack and hearing the faint sound of joints popping. He licks his lips, tasting salt, and notices the dryness around his gums.

Running his fingers down his clammy chest, each movement is slow and deliberate, a way to ground himself in the present moment. He turns his gaze to you, lying peacefully beside him with your eyes closed. Though you appear to be sleeping, he knows you're awake. He can tell by the subtle changes in your breathing, the slight hitch that betrays your awareness.

The curve of your hips catches his attention, a mesmerising landscape of mountains and valleys that calls to him. His fingers twitch involuntarily, driven by a deep-seated desire to reach out and touch you. He longs to feel the warmth of your skin under his fingertips, to trace the gentle slopes and contours that define your form. The urge to pull you closer is almost overwhelming.

He imagines the sensation of your body pressed against his, the softness of your curves moulding to the hard planes of his own. He envisions the moment when he pulls your hips toward him, aligning your bodies perfectly. The thought of sheathing himself within you, feeling that intimate connection, sends a shiver down his spine.

His breath hitches, mirroring the change in yours, as he inches closer to you. The anticipation builds, a magnetic pull that draws him nearer. His hand finally makes contact with your hip, the touch light and tentative at first. He feels the warmth of your skin, the way it gives slightly under his touch. His fingers tighten, pulling you closer with a gentle, yet insistent force.

Din inhales deeply, taking in your scent, feeling it seep into his bloodstream. His hooked nose traces invisible lines against your own. With a soft, ghostly kiss pressed to your lips, you smile, savouring the tender moment.

His touch is gentle, almost ethereal, yet it carries the weight of his affection. The warmth of his lips lingers on your skin, a fleeting connection that speaks volumes. As he pulls back, you hear him reaching for his helmet, the iconic Beskar armour that is both his shield and his prison.

He pauses, taking a final moment to look at you without the barrier of his helmet. His eyes, full of emotion, convey a silent farewell to this intimate moment.

When he places the helmet over his head, you can see the transformation. The sweet, vulnerable man you just shared a kiss with becomes the formidable Mandalorian once more, his face hidden behind the cold, unyielding metal.

A soft, modulated voice greets you from the helmet's speaker, "Good morning, Mesh'la." 

You smile, still feeling the warmth of Din's kiss imprinted on your mouth. “Morning.” You reply, your voice filled with affection.

Your eyes meet the dark visor of his helmet, and though you can't see his face, you know he’s looking at you with the same intensity and care.

You reach out, your fingers brushing against the cool metal of his helmet. It's a stark contrast to the warmth of his kiss, yet it's a part of him - a part you've come to accept, respect and love. 

As Din stands, ready to face whatever the day brings, you feel a sense of pride and affection. The Mandalorian may be a warrior, but to you, he’s also a partner, a lover, and a protector.

And in this quiet morning moment, the sunlight filtering in with its golden streaks, you’re reminded of the strength and depth of your bond - one that no amount of Beskar can ever conceal.

🍦Thank you so much for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you enjoyed this story, please consider re-blogging so others can find it on their dash and enjoy it too! Happy summer, lovelies! ☀️🖤

SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | DIN DJARIN MASTERLIST

Apology won’t cut it

Tim Rockford x f!reader

summary: Tim forgot about your anniversary…how can he make things right?

warnings: SMUT (oral -f!receiving, vaginal fingering, somnophilia -with estabilished consent, reader and Tim talked about it before-, unprotected p in v, reader “hangs” onto those shoulder holsters while Tim fucks her, creampie,(1) spitting on pussy, praise kink, biting), talks of infidelity, cursing, mentions of food, mentions of reader being pregnant, fluff -it’s me…so :)

word count: 4.3K (how that happened? - i don’t know either)

A/N: Tim is hot and I have things for detectives/agents with shoulder holsters (*cough, cough* Seeley Booth)

Seguir leyendo

Midnight Rain

Summary: Waking up in the middle of the night to a storm raging outside, you find Javi outside on the porch, deciding to have him right then and there.

Pairing: Javier Peña x fem. reader

Rating: E

Wordcount: 1.9k

Warnings: oblivious idiots, mentions of divorced reader, reader in her mid thirties, smoking (both Javi and reader), alcohol, thunder storms, smut (unprotected sex, semi public sex), kissing, one ass slap, dirty talk, the word slut is used, some fluff at the end

follow @toomanystoriessolittletime-fics and turn on notifications to get notified when I post new fics

Full Masterlist // Javier Peña Masterlist

You couldn’t sleep.

Well, you couldn’t fall back asleep. 

When you got back to the ranch earlier that evening you had eaten a sandwich, taken a shower and fallen asleep as soon as your head had fallen against your pillow. 

It had been a long day of taking care of all the horses and making sure the barn was secured for the night. 

The heavy rain outside must have woken you up, the storm that had been forecasted for earlier that day now raging outside. You sat yourself up on your tiny single bed, parting the curtains so you could look into the darkness outside. 

Sometimes, when you were sitting in the small room Chucho Peña had provided you after you had shown up on his ranch out of the blue, asking if he needed any help with the animals you asked yourself how your life had ended up like this.

In your mid thirties, divorced, without any money, working as a ranch hand (though you were more of a all around hand, mostly tasked with taking care of the house, food and garden).

Chucho had seen something in you and he had quickly become the father you never had. 

And then his son Javier had come home. 

It was instant, at least for you, the attraction you felt towards him. 

He was tall, dark and handsome and there was something in his eyes familiar to you. It was the same hurt you saw in yours every time you looked into the mirror. 

And it took a while for him to warm up to you, the past years he had spent in Colombia haunting his every thought.

Getting used to that strange woman that was now living in his childhood home, laughing with his father in the kitchen. 

The woman that was sleeping in the tiny guest bedroom next to his childhood bedroom that he lived in yet again, because he had not idea what to do with his life. 

The woman he fucked for the first time after a fourth of July celebration almost two years ago, fireworks going off while he was balls deep inside of you on the backseat of his truck in the parking lot of the already closed gas station he had stopped at on your way home. 

You hadn’t really stopped since then. 

For more than two years you had been sleeping with Javier whenever you both felt like it. 

But that was all it was. 

Sex. 

Because you both weren’t ready for more. Or to name these… feelings you had whenever you were in each other’s arms. 

Thunder outside made you jump on the bed and you grabbed one of Javier’s flannel shirts you had stolen the week before, pulling it over your naked body. 

You would tell him you were scared of thunder when he would wake up to you in his bed the next morning. 

Because you could not tell him that the only way you found yourself sleeping lately, was in his arms. 

Not yet.

He did not hear you as you opened the door, the heavy rain continuing to fall. 

You had looked for him in his room, finding the bed still made. But there was a light on in the kitchen so you followed you intuition, finding him outside. 

Javier was sitting in the far left corner of the porch, legs spread wide, a cigarette between his fingers, a tumbler of what would probably be whiskey in his other hand. 

He was only wearing some sweatpants, the very same sweatpants that would make you forget what you wanted to say mid sentence when he had them on, or more like what was hiding beneath them. 

You let the door fall shut behind you and he looked up, those dark brown eyes wandering up from your feet all over your body towards your eyes before he looked away again, bringing his cigarette back to his lips, inhaling the smoke deeply. 

You both just stared out, the rain seemingly getting heavier before you heard him set his glass down on the ground. He spread his legs wider and you bit your lip before you slowly walked over to him, stopping as you stood between his legs for only a moment, before you climbed into his lap, the hand that had been holding his glass moments ago, coming down to rest on your ass immediately, making you shiver. 

You reached for the cigarette between his lips, and he raised his eyebrows in confusion until you slipped it between yours so you could take a puff, his eyes softening in amusement. You felt his other hand slip under your shirt, his fingers brushing the underside of your tits. 

„Was wondering where this shirt went,“ he hummed and your lips twitched into a small smile as you took another puff of his cigarette before you threw it outside into the rain. He was about to complain when you crossed your arms behind his neck and brought you lips against his, his mouth opening against your as you exhaled the smoke from your lungs. 

Closing your eyes as he kissed you, you brought one hand up to slip through his hair while his hands both now rested on your ass, his fingers digging into your skin as he pulled you closer against him, his hips thrusting up against yours, his cock hardening beneath you. 

He spread your cheeks before one of his hands slipped further down and you felt him chuckle against you.

„No panties and a half buttoned shirt. What a little slut you are,“ he said, his voice hoarse and you gasped when you felt two of his fingers enter you, your slick coating your his fingers as he played with you. 

„Says Mr. No shirt and no boxers, sitting outside with his legs spread like a who…. Fuck Javi right there,“ you moaned, biting your lip as he moved his fingers inside of you.

„Right there?“ He asked with a smirk and you nodded, looking down at him as you arched your back. 

„Touched myself but couldn’t… fuck… couldn’t finish. Needed, needed…“ you whimpered.

„Your pussy needed me, huh?“ He teased and you whined. 

He made quick work of the few buttons that kept his shirt on you, his lips closing around one of your nipples, as soon as he had slipped his shirt down your shoulders, revealing your naked chest to him. 

„Javi… Please…“ you moaned, one of your hands on his shoulders, holding on while your other hand was still in his hair, now pulling him against your tits as he sucked on one of them. 

„What do you need, princess?“ He mumbled. 

„Need your cock. Wanna cum on your cock. Please,“ you begged and you felt his teeth pull at you nipple, making you hiss before he let go. His dark eyes looked up at you, before his fingers pulled out of you and he pushed his sweatpants down just so he could release his cock. 

Before he could do anything you had him lined up with you and slowly sank down on him, both of you releasing a long moan. 

Lightening made you jump before you sank down on his cock completely and Javier hissed, his arms coming around you to pull you closer, both of you breathing heavily before you both laughed. 

„Maybe we should take this inside,“ he said as he looked up at you, one of his hands brushing up and down your spine. You shook your head before you brushed your lips against his. 

„No. I want you just like this,“ you whispered against his lips before you began to move your hips. He hummed, his hand now on the back of your head, pulling you against his lips so he could deepen the kiss, his tongue slipping between your lips to part them. 

You rode him slowly. 

One arm wrapped around his shoulders while your other hand rested on his chest. 

Javi’s hand was on your ass, guiding the way you moved on top of him while his lips kissed whatever part of your skin he could reach. 

The rain and the fact that you were out in the open were forgotten as he began to meet your hips, thrusting up into you. You wrapped both of your arms around him, moving on top of him so you could ride him deeper, your chest now in perfect height so he could suck on your tits. 

„Oh fuck Javi,“ you moaned and he slapped your ass, fucking up into you, meeting your hips in audible smacks every time you skin collided. 

You could feel the familiar tingles of your orgasm approaching. 

„I’m close,“ he warned and you whimpered. 

„Me too,“ you gasped, crying out when he bit into the soft flesh over your right nipple, marking you yet again. 

„Cum for me,“ he grunted and you looked down at him. 

„Cum for me so I can take you inside and have you sit on my face until you pass out,“ he continued and you let him take over, letting him fuck into you in quick hard thrusts as you orgasm took over, making you shake against him your fingers digging into his skin on his broad back as you held on to him. 

„Such a good slut for me,“ he praised you, now chasing his own high, fucking into you a couple more times until you felt him spill himself inside of you, your name a deep rumble against you neck as he hugged you against his body. 

You stayed just like this for a moment. In each others arms, out of breath, the rain still coming down heavy just outside the porch. 

It was when he felt you shiver that you both came out of your post orgasm bliss. He pulled his shirt that you somehow still were half wearing back up over your shoulders, kissing you softly, a tired smile on his lips. 

„We should get inside,“ he hummed against your lips. You nodded, yet none of you moved, being content just like this, close, in each others arms, deep in the night when nobody was awake to see you like this. 

You could feel him drip of of you, his softening cock still inside of you. 

„Javi?“ You asked, your head resting against his shoulder. 

„Hm?“ He kissed your temple. 

„Can I sleep in your bed tonight?“ You whispered. He was quiet for a moment and you were about to get up from him when his arms around you tightened and you looked at him. 

„I… I suck at this,“ he sighed and you tilted your head. 

„Suck at what?“

„Relationships,“ he mumbled and your eyes softened. 

„Is that what this is?“ You asked quietly and his eyes were big and he looked so so scared. 

„It could be, if you want that,“ he finally said and you smiled. You reached one hand up so you could touch his cheek before you leaned in and kissed him softly. 

„I do want that,“ you mumbled and you felt him smile against your lips.

„Yeah?“ Javi asked and you nodded. 

„Good, cause I am not letting you go ever,“ he whispered, before kissed you again. 

Work of Art

Pairing: General Marcus Acacius x f!reader

Prompt: Marcus Acacius & Nose

Summary: Your pregnancy brings out a vulnerability in Marcus you never would have expected. When he reluctantly shares his insecurities with you, you are more than happy to reaffirm your affection for each and every part of him.  

Tags/Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Second-person POV, no use of Y/N, established relationship, arranged marriage, POSSIBLE DUBCON (sex in an arranged marriage with a patriarchal power structure), hefty age gap, pregnant reader, inexperienced reader, insecurity, body worship, nose worship, face-sitting, oral (f! receiving), discovering that you’re in love with your spouse, SO MUCH FLUFF, high likelihood of historical inaccuracy (aiming for vibes, not perfection)

Written for @joelmillerisapunk PPCU Body Worship Writing Challenge

Dividers by @saradika-graphics <3

Read on AO3

It is barely sunrise when the messenger arrives at your door.

Coated in a layer of dust from the road, mounted on the back of a well-lathered horse, and bearing the colors of the empire, the young man demands your staff wake you to receive him – that he is under orders to accept no intermediary, that his message is intended for the lady of the house and no one else. The news of his arrival sends ice into your veins the moment you open your eyes; even as the wife of a general, you do not often receive messages from the front lines, and you could not resist fearing the worst. Curls loose and mussed with sleep, tunica tied almost haphazardly in your haste, you rush to the atrium as quickly as propriety will allow and take the messenger’s sealed scroll with trembling hands.

My dearest wife, it reads. The skirmish on the southern border has been quelled for the time being. In recognition of our efforts, and out of respect for our recent union, I have been granted leave to return to Rome for a period of respite. If the sea is calm and the road is easy, you can look to the horizon for my return in one month’s time. Prepare the household for my arrival. Faithfully yours, Marcus Acacius

The relief you feel at those words is so powerful that you sink into the nearest chair, weak-kneed. Thankfully, your staff are more than competent enough to manage offering food, a bath, and a fresh horse to the harried messenger without your guidance, for you have not the capacity to play hostess. It had been your greatest fear, you realize as you sit there reading and re-reading the general’s letter until your eyes begin to burn with fatigue. You had had such little time as husband and wife before Marcus had been shipped out to the border, and you dread nothing more than the prospect of joining the ranks of the widows of Rome before you even have the opportunity to fully know the man you had married. It would have been such a waste, you think, like a flower cut from the vine when it was barely a bud, cursed never to bloom for the rest of time.

The truth is that although yours had been an arranged marriage, one of convenience, you feel (perhaps naively) that it held great promise. The general had never married, choosing to prioritize his military ambitions over his personal life. However, now that he was getting older, he had determined that it would be wise to seek a wife who might give him an heir to the prestigious station he had earned for himself over the years. Your father, a wealthy, prominent senator, had brokered the match, and a mere fortnight after you had been introduced for the first time, you had been wed.

Marcus had proven to be a gentle husband, a great contrast to what you had believed based on the tales of his ferocity in battle. He had spoken kindly to you and listened patiently, giving weight to your words, treating you like a partner right from the start. He had given you free reign over the household and encouraged you to mold his domus and his staff to suit your tastes. You had had very little time in each other’s presence, but he nevertheless struck you as a man of honor, a man of principle. As a woman in your position, there was little else you could ask for in a match, and the thought had comforted you as you stood side-by-side with this near-stranger and signed your marriage contract.

On your wedding night, he had been as tender with you as he could. You had been able to tell that he was holding himself back, restraining himself from taking you as savagely as he might have wished, but for that, you thought him compassionate. Of course, there had been some pain to start; this you had anticipated. However, toward the end of your coupling, as the general had begun to growl muffled curses into the soft skin of your neck and thrust himself so deeply inside you, you swore you could feel his manhood in your belly, you thought perhaps that it might have begun to feel…good?

He had spilled his seed within you shortly thereafter, bringing your union to a sudden and dramatic end and leaving your tentative, blooming pleasure to fizzle and die in your veins.

You glance down at the swell of your belly at the recollection, feeling heat rise in your cheeks. The fruits of your union that night – and the nights that followed for the brief month he had been permitted to remain by your side – had made themselves apparent shortly after his departure. That had been five months ago now, and it had been an incredible relief to know that you had managed to fulfill your duty to the general so quickly. You had fully expected to give birth on your own, to share the joyous news with him via special messenger like so many other soldier’s wives. Now, to know that he is set to return so soon, that relief is compounded. Barring any emergencies on the front, he likely would be home long enough to be present for the birth.

Birthing was a woman’s business, of course. You knew there was little Marcus could truly do to aid you in your labors. But a part of you, perhaps a very foolish, girlish part of you, could not help but feel safer when he was near. You would sleep better at night knowing he was once again within the walls of your domus.

Easing yourself back onto your feet, you get the attention of the nearest member of your staff.

“Once our guest has been seen to, gather the others in the courtyard,” you command. “We have much to prepare. The general is coming home.”

General Marcus Acacius rides into Rome on a sunny afternoon astride a handsome black stallion. Escorted only by a small retinue of guards and vassals, he travels light, with the economy and efficiency of a man who has spent the majority of his adult life in an army camp. The servant boy you have stationed at the city walls every day for the last week eagerly tells you that he looks well, that he has been asked to report first to the emperors’ palace but that he expects to be home by nightfall.

The news of your husband’s imminent arrival has a riot of butterflies rising in your chest, and you feel the child you carry respond almost instantly, fluttering and twitching against the walls of your womb at your excitement. A smile pulls at your lips, and you smooth your palms over the rounded surface of your belly as if to say, “I understand. I feel it, too.”

You send a message to the kitchen staff with orders to ensure that the general’s favorite meal is prepared for this evening, as well as for his preferred wine to be brought up from the cellar. Perhaps it is a bit silly – this is his home even moreso than it is yours – but you have an odd desire to make him feel welcomed. You want him to know that you have given thought to his needs and his preferences, that you have managed and looked after his home with proficiency in his absence, that you have anticipated his return.

You want to make the general happy, you realize with a flush.  Not only for him to be happy, but you wish to be the cause of that happiness. Does that make you proud, you wonder? Or selfish? Perhaps. All you know for certain is that in the brief time spent by his side, all those months ago, you had begun to associate Marcus Acacius with feelings of comfort, of safety, of acceptance. Even perhaps…affection. You like him. Was it so wrong to wish for him to like you, too?

You are in the ostium waiting for him when the general arrives. The sun sets behind him as he approaches on horseback, still in full armor from his travels, and your first thought is that he is even larger than you remember. Blotting out the golden light with the incredible breadth of his shoulders, you think he looks almost otherworldly, like some mythical hero of old returned from a harrowing quest. You can feel your heart speed up behind your ribs, galloping like the hooves of his horse on the cobblestones, and you are thankful no one can hear it but you. You are a woman grown, wedded and bedded and carrying a child, the head of your own household, the wife of a prominent, respected officer of the grand army of Rome. The idea that you should become so flighty, so unmoored at the sight of your own husband is absurd.

When his gaze falls on you, your trembling hands find your stomach, a gesture that has become more and more instinctual as the bump has become more and more visible, and before he can even greet you, his eyes drop to where they rest.

Marcus pulls his horse up short, the soft expression in his dark irises sharpening, intensifying. You watch as his prominent brow draws up, something between shock and awe and hope washing over his face, and then he is swinging his leg up and over his mount, dropping to the ground, closing the distance between you in a handful of long, powerful strides. His eyes do not leave your stomach until he is a mere handful of inches from your body, and you catch sight of his broad, thick-fingered hands clenching at his sides as though resisting the urge to reach out and touch you.

“Dearest wife,” he rasps, his throat dry as he finally, finally flicks his eyes back up to meet yours. “Have you something to tell me?”

You swallow thickly, suddenly overcome with the intensity, the intimacy of his attention. “Welcome home…husband.” Your voice sounds tremulous to your own ears, but you do not allow yourself to dwell on it. Instead, you wrap both of your hands around one of his and bring his dry, scarred knuckles to your lips. Dropping a kiss onto the center ridge, you add, “It is a blessing from the gods to see you well after so many months apart.”

Your name is a sigh on his lips. “It is a blessing to be permitted to return home after so short a time,” he counters. “Now, if my eyes deceive me, I will beg your forgiveness and claim fatigue from the long journey as my excuse. But are you…”

He trails off, as though hesitant to speak the words aloud, and you could swear that someone had reached into your chest and taken hold of your heart for how tight it squeezes at the thread of hope woven into his words. Unable to bear it anymore, you finish his incomplete thought on your own.

“Yes…General Acacius – ”

“Marcus,” he interjects immediately, and you feel yourself flush at the familiarity.

“Marcus,” you echo. “I-I am with child. You are to be a father.”

The breath he releases is long and slow, his dark eyes shining in the setting sun, and if you did not know better, you might think that your revelation had rendered him speechless. However, it takes him only a moment to collect himself, and then he is reaching for your belly with both hands, palms outstretched almost pleadingly. “May I – ?”

You nod readily, feeling a grin split your face, and then his hands are on you, cupping your swelling bump with his sword-calloused touch. His skin catches on the fine material of your tunica, but you are unbothered. He is warm and vital against you, his touch more than welcome after so many months on your own, and as though the precious thing had been waiting for their cue, the child in your womb kicks against their father’s hands.

The general’s brows shoot up at that, his forehead crinkling beneath his dark, gray-streaked curls, and he lets out a rough, strained laugh. “By the gods. It’s true.” Keeping one hand on your bump, he brings the other to the side of your face, wrapping his fingers around the back of your neck, stroking your jaw with his thumb. It’s the most tender, intimate gesture he has ever shown you, and the heat of his palm has your knees weakening beneath you.

“You honor me, amica. Thank you,” he says, husky voice thick with emotion. He presses a brief, dry kiss to your forehead, and you cannot help but wish it had been to your lips instead.

Dinner passes in a blur of sumptuous foods and peppered questions, both from you about his time at the border and from him about how you are settling into your new home, your new role. This is one thing about your relationship that has been easy from the moment you met – it is clear to you that Marcus cares deeply about your perspective on the world. He never rushes you, never cuts in when you are speaking, never attempts to correct you in some demonstration of superiority. It’s a unique experience for you coming from a man, particularly one of his age and rank, and it makes you feel cherished in a way you never would have expected in a marriage like yours. You are under no illusions that yours was a love match, after all, but something about the intent way that Marcus holds your gaze, the way he nods along as you speak, the way he asks such thoughtful questions – it has you all but convinced that he cares for you as you are coming to care for him.

The two of you linger over dinner long past nightfall, but eventually, he stands from his chair at the head of the table, offers his hand to you, and leads you to the privacy of your shared chambers. He beds you that night, as you had expected he would after so long without the touch of a woman, and you go to him willingly. His touch burns with barely-restrained fervor, the expression on his handsome face twisted almost as if in pain, and just as you had on that first night, you feel something building within you as he takes you.

You have no name for it, and yet it feels altering in its magnitude. You feel like lightning, like lava, like some elemental thing ablaze with fire and light, and just when you are certain that the feeling is about to consume you, just as you know in your bones that you cannot take any more or you will surely die –

Marcus spills himself inside you, withdraws, and collapses onto the bed next to you.

The feeling recedes. You catch your breath. Your husband plants a kiss on your hairline, and under his lips, he finds the sweat of your exertion, of your truncated pleasure. He whispers “good night, amica” against your curls, and then he rolls away.

Moments later, soft snores fill the room. The general is fast asleep, but you…

You are going mad.

It is many days later before this madness finally comes to a head.

Every night since his return, Marcus has sought his pleasure in your body. He never forces himself upon you or hurts you in any way; he asks before touching you, always. But as you approach a full week of night after night of thwarted pleasure, you cannot help but begin to find ways to…delay the inevitable question. You have taken to engaging him in conversation as you lay in bed, asking him about the many visitors he has received over the last several days, or about his journey home from the border, or about his favorite horse, Tempestas. He takes this in stride, seemingly happy to indulge you, and the two of you spend long minutes talking softly by candlelight, warm and close under soft, shared sheets.

This night, you decide to ask him about the baby and how he feels knowing that you carry his heir, that his legacy is secured.

You anticipate the smile he gives you, the fond look in his eyes as he reaches out to feel the curve of your belly, as he has done now hundreds of times over the last week. What you do not expect is the earnestness of his words as he tells you, “I have never been a father before. At my age, I did not expect that I would ever have the privilege. Now that you have made it possible, I find that I care much less for legacy or inheritance than I do for…safety. Stability. Peace.”

You soften at that, and on instinct, your hand goes to his hair, brushing his graying curls back from his forehead with gentle, soothing strokes. You have found that this is something he likes, and he leans into your touch like a barn cat in a sunbeam. He seems pensive, and you allow the silence between you to linger while he gathers his thoughts.

“I mourn that this child should have a general for a father,” he admits after a moment. “I will be absent for much of his life. I will disappear for stretches of time that could number in years, and when I return, I will be like a stranger to him. Were it in my control, I would be more present. I wish to know my child. And for him to know me.”

“Him?” you echo, a bit impishly, and Marcus smirks.

“Or her, of course. I cannot claim to know whom you carry in your womb. I shall leave that mystery for the gods.”

You grin back him, enjoying the good humor sparkling in his dark eyes. “I am sure that however much time you are permitted to spend with our child – be it months or weeks or days – it will be enough.”

Lifting himself up on one elbow, the general fixes you with a skeptical frown. “How can you be so certain?” he asks.

“Because it does not take long to see who you are, Marcus,” you reply earnestly. “To see your nobility, your strength, your power. Your kindness. These are all things I learned about you in the mere fortnight before we were wed. Your child shall know these things about you, as well.”  

Tucking your hands beneath your cheek, you stare up at him from your pillow. The warmth of the candlelight casts shadows across his golden skin, highlighting the soft crinkles around his eyes, the bridge of his nose, the plush fullness of his lower lip. “Besides, even when you are away, I shall be around to teach them,” you add with a shrug.

“Amica…” He seems a bit overcome at your sincerity, and his low voice rasps like a sword on a whetstone in the darkness. “You are very generous.”

That riot of butterflies returns to your belly as the intimacy of the moment stretches on. Gods, but he is so beautiful like this. No one has ever looked at you the way he does – not with base lust for your body, not with envy for your wealth, not with dismissal for your sex. Marcus looks at you like something precious, like something to be valued. That look makes you foolish, makes your cheeks hot and your tongue loose.

When you speak again, it is without thought.

“When I think about our child…I hope that they look like you, so that even when we are apart, I might have some comfort in seeing your face every day.”

At that, the general lets out a full-bodied laugh and rolls his eyes. Flipping over onto his back, he shakes his head fondly at you like one might a mischievous child. “Now I know for certain that you are flattering me, wife.”

Your brows nearly reach your hairline as a flush of embarrassment races up the back of your neck, darkening your cheeks in an instant. “Wh – No, sir, I would never!” you insist. “I am being entirely earnest.”

“My face? My face upon an innocent babe?” He says this with a scoffing laugh, sounding amused, but when you catch sight of the tightness in his jaw, the wrinkle between his brows, you think that there might be something…authentic beneath his jesting words. “No, my dear wife. It would be far better if the child were to share your visage. Then they might truly be comely to look upon.”

Is it possible…have you stumbled upon a true insecurity, you wonder? It seems unlikely. This is General Marcus Acacius, commander of the emperors’ armies, a man two decades your senior who fought wars on behalf of Rome before you could even walk on two feet. He exudes power and strength and intelligence, and he carries himself with the kind of confidence and self-assurance that comes along with experience. He is a skilled strategist, an indomitable warrior.

Does he truly not see…

Scooting closer to him on the bed, you allow yourself to cup his bearded jaw, to turn his face toward yours. “There would be no greater gift than a child with your eyes, Marcus,” you say softly. “Or perhaps your smile.”

“But not this nose, surely,” he replies, tapping the end of his prominent, hooked nose with one calloused finger. He shakes his head with a wry smile, as though the idea is too preposterous to consider. “I would not willingly inflict such an eyesore upon a child.”

By the gods. He means it, you realize. He has truly surprised you. To your knowledge, the general is not a vain or self-conscious man. You have never known him to care overmuch about how he looks; it was quite a contrast to the pampered upper-class boys you grew up alongside, something you had found refreshing when you had first met. Had you misunderstood? Misinterpreted his lack of self-regard as a lack of care?

You decide it does not matter. All you know for certain is that your husband appears to be under the impression that his appearance leaves something to be desired, and as his wife, you feel it is your duty to demonstrate to him just how wrong he is.

The thought has your heartrate picking up again.

“Do you know…what I thought,” you begin haltingly, forcing yourself to hold his gaze, “the first day I met you, at my father’s villa?”

His dark brows knit together in a small frown, as though your words have surprised him. “Tell me.”

Swallowing against the sudden dryness in your throat, you confess, “I thought you the most striking man I had ever seen.”

“You flatter me, dear heart.” His words are soft, as is his answering smile, but you can hear the platitude in his voice. He does not believe you.

“No, no, it is not flattery.” With some effort, you push yourself up off of the bed, too emphatic to remain lying down for this discussion. You haul your pregnant body up to kneel at his side, tucking your knees into the warmth of his thick waist, and your long hair dangles over his broad chest as you look into his eyes. “I know that…the circumstances of our union were not exactly romantic, and I know that we do not yet know each other well, but I hope you will heed my words when I tell you that…I count myself extremely fortunate to have been married to so handsome a man.” Glancing down at your hands, you fiddle with one of the many thin, gold rings on your fingers in self-consciousness. “My father could have selected anyone he liked. The fact that it is you who shares my bed, you whose child I carry… It is a blessing.”

It is silent between you for a time, your words hanging in the air like a declaration, but then Marcus’s body shifts against you. Curling up to sit at your side, one of his thick, broad hands comes into your line of vision and wraps itself around both of yours, stilling your fidgeting.

You risk a look up, meeting his gaze through the length of your lashes, and you feel your breath leave your body as you take in the softest, warmest, most tender expression you have ever seen on his handsome face.

“It pleases me to hear that you are happy,” he murmurs, running one of his thumbs along the back of your hand. “And that your affection for my look is genuine. It would not do for you to say such things in an attempt to…endear yourself to me. There is no need. I am already quite fond of you.”

You are quick to shake your head. “Not at all! If I have ever given you such an impression, you have my deepest apologies.”

Now that your true feelings for your husband have been revealed, you feel as though you can no longer contain them. Under the affectionate weight of his dark eyes, more comes spilling forth, unbidden. “The truth is that even in the short time that we have known one another, I have spent many hours at my easel attempting to recall your likeness in detail so that I might recreate it. Your nose in particular, I find to be most…attractive.”

Your hand moves of its own accord then, slipping from his grip to float across the narrow space between you as though possessed by some covetous spirit. The very tip of your middle finger lands in the space between his eyebrows, and although you make no conscious decision to do so, you trace down the steep curve of the bridge of his nose with a touch so delicate it might as well have been a breeze.

Your own voice sounds breathless and far away to your ears as you whisper, “You look like a sculpture, Marcus. Like the great marble warriors along the garden path. It makes you look stately and…masculine and…commanding.” Between your thighs, you feel your most intimate muscles clench. You have grown swollen and sensitive there, a feeling you have become increasingly familiar with since your husband’s return home. It’s sweet and delicious and utterly torturous, making you want to squirm in your seat, but you resist.

At least…until Marcus traps your hand in his and brings your wandering fingers to his mouth.

Your eyes snap to his, and you watch as he presses slow, lingering kisses across each of your fingertips. The sensation of his hot, moist breath on your sensitive skin has you trembling, and gods, but his lips are so soft. Turning your palm up to the heavens, the general places a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the tender center of your palm, and you feel yourself swaying toward him as though under a spell.

The plush of his lips dances gently across the thin skin of the inside of your wrist, and your pulse thrums beneath his touch as he growls, “There is perhaps…one advantage of such a face.”

“Tell me.” Your echo of his earlier words comes out like a whine, like you are pleading with him, though what you are pleading for, you cannot say.

Marcus appears to consider your request for a moment, his eyes going sharp and calculating, and then he says, “Perhaps it might be better if I showed you. Do you trust me, dear heart?”

You are quick to nod. “Yes. I trust you.”

Inclining his head at you in acknowledgment, he releases his grip on your hand and pulls away entirely. He lays back on the bed then, scooting down so that his head is flat on the padded surface rather than on his pillow. He adjusts himself a bit, shifting back and forth, but once he is comfortable, he looks back at you and pats his chest with both hands. The sound is muffled by his soft linen sleep tunic but nonetheless audible in the silence of your bedchamber.

“Mount me,” he says without preamble, and you swear you can hear the whirring gears in your brain grind to a halt.

“W-What?”

“I want you to sit astride my face, as you would a horse.” No matter how intensely your face burns at the wicked suggestion, you cannot seem to look away. His deep brown eyes are bottomless in the dark, the depths of them reflecting the candlelight like water at the bottom of a well. You can feel yourself falling into them, can feel something at the very core of you tugging toward him, answering his call. If you were to glance down at the rest of his body, you would see the evidence of the general’s own arousal tenting his tunic, but your gaze is trapped, held fast by the magnetism of him.

“Come, amica,” he says after a moment of your silent, scandalized staring. “You may rest your ass upon my chest, but I would have that sweet cunt on my mouth.”

You swallow audibly, still making no move to obey. Wetness begins to pool between your thighs, slicking your skin and staining the fabric of your sleep clothes, and you lose the battle against your urge to squirm. Your thighs clench together, and you shift upon your calves in search of friction, but you find none. You need his touch…but what he is suggesting is –

“M-Marcus, I couldn’t possibly – I shall smother you, how will you – ”

He cuts off your protests with a growl of your name, and in that moment, you see not your noble husband staring up at you. Instead, you see the Roman General Acacius – sharp jaw clenched, nostrils flared, dark eyes blazing.

“I shall not ask again, wife. No harm will come to you or to me. Now do as you’re told and sit on my face.”

You hesitate for another beat, then two, and then you shuffle forward on wobbly knees to obey. Your husband’s eyes burn a path across your body as you approach him, tracing from your parted, panting lips, to your heaving breasts, to your swollen, pregnant belly. You feel the look like a physical touch, and the sensation has your skin flushing, has sweat breaking out at the small of your back and the nape of your neck. With shaking, uncertain hands, you reach out and brace your palms against the gold-filigreed headboard for stability.

“That’s it, nearly there now,” Marcus sighs as you clumsily, awkwardly swing one of your legs over his body. Your knee lands on the other side of his shoulder, and you feel the heat of his touch on your naked thighs almost immediately. With slow, deliberate motions, he pushes the hem of your sleep tunic up to your hips, revealing your bare ass and cunt to the cool air of the bedroom.

You draw your lower lip between your teeth to stifle a whine, and gooseflesh breaks out across your skin. You’ve started to shake, though whether in fear or arousal, you couldn’t say. Gods, you’re so exposed now. The wetness between your thighs is fully on display, mere inches from your husband’s face. It’s mortifying; if you could melt into the bed and disappear forever, you know you would.

Marcus, however, clearly has no such compunctions. His thick fingers knead the soft, lush flesh of your hips and thighs, using his grip to draw your forward, to draw you down. The groan that oozes from his lips into the hot slip of atmosphere between you sounds exactly like the one he makes when he first slides inside you, and you feel yourself clench involuntarily at the tremor of it now sounding between your legs. He must catch sight of this, your body’s own betrayal happening right under that stately nose that started this whole ordeal, for one moment he appears to be watching you settle in with rapt attention, and the next, he is releasing a dark, sinister chuckle and yanking you closer.

You give a thought for resistance then, consider pulling yourself from his hold, but –

Oh, you can feel his breath on your cunt, can feel your dripping curls shift beneath the current of air as he laughs.  

You shift a bit on your knees, settling so that your weight rests just above each of his shoulders with his hands gripping your hips from behind you. The lower curve of your ass brushes the fine fabric of his tunic, and you are certain that if you could see his face, you would find his chin mere inches from the part of you that pulses and throbs for his attention. As it is, the roundness of your bump nearly eclipses his head, leaving only wisps of the thick, graying curls on the top of his head to peak out around the edges.

“Marcus?” Your voice trembles with nerves around his name, and beneath you, he sighs.

“Well done, amica, you are right where I want you,” he assures you with a groan. You feel the well-trimmed stubble of his silvered beard brush your lower lips; the feeling startles a gasp out of you, and on instinct, one of your hands flies from the headboard to the top of his head. “Mmm, yes, that’s it – sink your fingers into my hair. Hold yourself steady on me.”

You hardly recognize the sound of your own voice as you whimper, “Marcus – Marcus, please.”

“I know what you need.” His touch on your hips is warm, gentle, soothing. “Don’t be afraid. Now rest your weight on me and let me taste you.”

The joints in your limbs feel like water at the general’s words, at the hot wash of his breath across your swollen center. The embarrassment at your precarious position above his face still fizzes in your veins, making you lightheaded, but molten desire has begun to drown it out. Your mind doesn’t fully understand what is about to happen or what he is asking of you, but it seems that on some level, your body does, because it is absolutely thrumming for it.

There is nothing for it anymore. You cannot refuse him. You do not want to refuse him. Whatever he is about to do to you, your body needs it, craves it in the same way it does air or water or food. When you sink your cunt down onto your husband’s waiting mouth, it feels both like a surrender and like a victory.

“Oh – gods, Marcus – ”

Marcus groans deep in his chest the moment you touch his tongue, and then he is bracketing his arms around your thighs and forcibly seating you even more firmly against him. Dragging the slick, pink muscle of his tongue through your folds in one long, languorous stroke, it doesn’t take long before your thighs begin to tremble around his ears. He is focused, meticulous, thorough in his exploration of your most intimate flesh – sucking delicately at your lips, dipping the gentle tip of his tongue into your soft, quivering hole, using the flat of it to dance around that swollen nub at your apex that pulses with the thunderous beat of your heart. The thick arms locked around your thighs angle you this way and that, and through the sound of your own gasps and whines, you can hear the way your wetness drips at his touch.

Every lick, every suck, every swirl of his tongue serves to drive you higher, and you find yourself mindlessly running your hands over your body to ground yourself – stroking your belly, gripping your hips, cupping your breasts. The latter has you accidentally brushing your hardened nipples with your thumbs, and even muted as it is through your tunic, the sensation has you crying out into the dark room.

And that tongue never stops. Marcus is relentless – inexorable and yet unhurried. You can feel all of the tension in your hips and thighs melting away under the heat of his touch, and yet deep within you, something has begun to twist, to pulse, to squeeze. It feels like it does when Marcus beds you – pleasure stirring, burning, building within you as he grows more and more intent, more and more hungry, oh, gods…

It is miraculous. It is unbearable. It is tantamount to torture.

“Marcus,” you gasp helplessly, your fingers knotting in his hair, gripping the headboard. “I – I need – ”

The general pulls away from your cunt with a growl like an animal, and the sound rumbles through your body as he rasps, “That’s it, beautiful girl. Ride my face. Grind those hips into me and ride my face.”

You understand each of his words individually, but they do not coalesce in your mind. How does one “ride” a face? For a moment, you feel self-consciousness and shame begin to creep in at the edges of your thoughts. There are others who would understand the general’s instructions, surely. Others who would know what he wanted and would do it for him in an instant. For the first time, you allow yourself to consider the women that follow the army camps, the women whose services you were certain your husband had partaken of throughout his extensive career. They would know, certainly. Was there truly anything you could offer him that they could not?

Just as you begin to lose that delicious curl of pleasure in your core, as the fog of desire begins to clear from your brain, Marcus flexes those thick, strong arms around your legs and encourages your hips to thrust, dragging your tender flesh across the stubble of his beard, the plush of his lips, the slick of his tongue. That tongue, suddenly firm and pointed, thrusts into your sex, lapping at your wetness, filling the place that clenches for his cock. With the hitch of your hips, that swollen bundle of nerves just at the top glances across the bridge of your husband’s nose.

“Ah! Marcus!”

Beneath your cunt on his face, beneath your hand in his hair, you feel him nod emphatically, and understanding crashes over you like a wave. “Riding” his face. “Mounting” him, like a horse. This is what he wants. He wants you to thrust your hips against his face, as if in the saddle of a warhorse. To rub yourself against his nose and his tongue.

He wants you to find your pleasure with his body.

As though all your joints and muscles had been waiting on this realization, your hips begin to move of their own accord almost immediately, thrusting against that relentless, ever-present tongue, driving it deeper into the hot clutch of your cunt, and fuck…that nose, that big, strong, curved, perfect nose, glancing off of that most sensitive spot with every thrust. Head thrown back, hands on your breasts, fingers twisting and pulling your tender nipples through your tunic, you experiment with different speeds, different pressures, different depths, but if you are honest with yourself, you are so far gone that it has all begun to feel equally intense, equally delicious.

And so you move with abandon – leaning heavily on the headboard for balance, gripping his hair, you grind your swollen, dripping cunt across your husband’s handsome face, fucking his tongue deep into your body, riding the hard curve of his perfect Roman nose. You feel yourself pulse and twitch and tremble with every thrust, feel him lap and slurp and suck at you with new fervor, feel his thick fingers dig into your hips so deeply you know you will bear his bruises in the morning. You had not known pleasure like this existed, had not known it was possible for you to achieve it. You feel drunk with it, the way it seeps into your veins like one too many glasses of wine, and Marcus drinks you down like the finest vintage.

Your clitoris drags across his nose once again, and you cannot smother your moan at the feeling. “Gods, Marcus, your nose – ”

Against your wetness, the general’s face vibrates with something like a chuckle. “I know, dear heart, I know – I told you, this face has one advantage.”

You shake your head fervently, feeling your long curls brush your back as you grind. “It’s perfect. Perfect, Marcus, I – oh, gods, I feel – ”

Another animalistic growl ripples through your husband’s chest, and you feel him nod beneath you. “Jus’ let it happen, amica. Take your pleasure,” he slurs, mouth full of you.

And you do. You take and take and take, clit grinding, hips thrusting, thighs shaking, lungs gasping, and with every pass, that bright, hot, vicious spiral in your abdomen winds tighter, tighter, tighter. Gods, it feels as though it is going to consume you – to swallow you whole and drag you under, to drown you in your own dripping sweetness, your own savage pleasure.

And then it plateaus, the sensations holding, holding, staying at precisely the same level, dangling you over the edge, and in a far away voice, you hear yourself whimper, “Marcus, please!”

Releasing his grip on one of your hips, the man beneath you lands a single, sharp smack to the meat of your ass, and over the edge you fall.

It’s everything you thought it could be – lightning in your veins, lava in your lungs, something primal and elemental and raw that rips through your body like a tidal wave that leaves you hiccuping whines and shaking like a leaf atop the general’s face. You spill your pleasure down his chin, into his mouth, along his jaw. It slips down his neck and dampens the embroidered collar of his tunic, and the way he groans into your twitching cunt, you would think that it had caused him pain. But no – he feels your ecstasy as though it is his own. You have left your body to soar among the clouds, and he joins you, overcome with the particular joy of being responsible for making his wife – the mother of his child – reach such heights.

When you come back to yourself, you are utterly spent – limp and boneless and sweating as though you had just run at top speed from here to the city gates. You start to collapse, and Marcus’s strong hands are there to catch you, to slide you down from his face to his lap. Gathering you into his arms, he brings you back down onto the mattress and tucks you into his side. His broad shoulder cushions your flushed cheek, and his fingers brush your disheveled hair back from your face as you catch your breath. Through bleary eyes, you catch the way his face shines in the candlelight. He’s covered in your slick.

For a few moments, you simply gaze at each other as the silence stretches between you. It is only punctuated by the sound of your labored breaths as each of you settle, but somehow it isn’t awkward, and you find yourself smiling in spite of yourself. He’s so perfect like this, your Marcus. Hair mussed, face pink, everything from his chin to his nose glowing with your pleasure.

There’s a softness around his eyes you’ve never seen before, an earnest warmth that burrows its way into your chest and makes a nest there dangerously close to your heart. It’s an emotion you have a name for, if you are brave enough to say it, and the thought has you gripping tight to his tunic.

You are in awe of him.

You…you love him.

“And what is your verdict, my wife?” he asks after a beat. His voice is a low rumble that travels through his chest and into your body, warming you inside. “Does this Roman nose still please you?”

A tired grin tugs at the corners of your lips, pulling you out of the seriousness of your thoughts, and you nod as enthusiastically as you can manage. “Indeed, I am not certain I have ever been quite so…pleased before, husband.”

“Hmm. Good.” Marcus tucks the arm around your body into your waist, pulling you even deeper into his embrace. “Then perhaps the thing may serve a purpose after all.”

You reach up and cup his cheek in your palm, feeling the stickiness of your spend in his beard on your skin. “The purpose it serves is that it is my husband’s nose, and as such, is a part of the dearest face in the world to me.” His dark eyes soften at that, and he turns to place a warm kiss on the heel of your hand.

“Though…should you find yourself forgetting,” you add with an impish grin, “I would not object to a…repeat demonstration of its value. If it would be of any help to you, of course.”

This startles a laugh from his chest, his dark eyes crinkling with mirth, and you cannot help but join in. Gods, he is gorgeous, you think to yourself as you chuckle together in the dark. Both in his soul and in his body, your husband is gorgeous.

A hand drops to the place where your child rests, safe and protected inside your womb, and you feel a little flutter against your palm.

You decide then that you care not whether your child bears your face or Marcus’s. Either way, they will be beautiful, for how could they not be, when they have come from this?

Latin Translation:

amica - darling, sweetheart

I'd like to pay a little tribute to the short lived lip ring.

You were incredible in these two poor quality photos and you altered my life in a way no whole outfit at the met could have. I will morn you and I will miss you

Rest in peace 🕊️

I actually can't get over the boots

There's just something about big ol' boots yknow