“well I Guess Visibly Religious People Can Be At Pride But Only If They Make It Really Obvious That

In Limbo

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | mafia!au | masterlist

Chapter Twenty-Seven: to you, Aelin

tw: minor violence and gore, miscarriage, abortion mention, infidelity

“You see that girl right there? You stay away from her. She’s nothing but trouble.”

It’s the first thing John’s father says about Aelin Gilroy. Using one long, crooked finger, he points her out in the thick crowd of parents and students attending their Year 8 science fair. Projects and standing boards obscure her as they tower overhead on rickety folding tables, but that blinding smile and incandescent teal eyes shine through the crowd like a lighthouse leading a ship safe to shore. 

Trouble. He often disagrees with his father, and this instance is no different. He does not think Aelin Gilroy is trouble. She’s never disruptive in class, and he once saw her give another student her cardigan two years ago when she couldn’t stop shivering in class. It isn’t until her father steps into view that he realizes the meaning of this warning—crisp police uniform, hat held in front of his stomach, giving a firm handshake to the science teacher. An officer. An inspector. An adversary to his father in the most wretched of ways. 

Police officers always make the family business difficult. 

For many years, John heeds his father’s warning—if not for his own sake, then at least for hers—until Year 11. By some terrible twist of fate, his maths teacher sat Aelin Gilroy next to him in that small, two seater desk. She smells like roses freshly woken by morning dew after a spring shower. He learns she likes to doodle in the corner of her notebook during lectures, and she can’t stop tapping her foot against the floor while taking an exam. John finds that he likes the way her pale brows knit together in concentration, scrunching her forehead, and how soft her voice is when whispering answers to the table on her left. 

But he doesn’t have time to think about her. Not that he should. John Price is unfortunate enough to come from a long line of brutal patriarchs who often condition equally as cruel heirs. Once he turns sixteen, his father’s petulance only grows as he forces him to join him on escapades in the night after lectures have concluded. Bodies crumble. His fists split on begging faces pleading for the mercy that has long been snuffed out of his father’s chest. Each night his cheek grows tender with the force of his father’s hand, and his eyes droop with the weight of the secret life of a killer—of a true son born into the family business. 

“Red color corrector will hide the bruise on your eye.” 

It takes John several moments to realise Aelin Gilroy is talking to him, but even then he doesn’t fully believe it until he turns to see her already staring at him. She’s lazily leaning forward on the desk, hand propping her head up beneath her chin as her tongue darts out to wet her rosy lips. John’s pencil ceases its dance across his worksheet. 

“Color corrector?” he repeats. 

“Yeah, you know. Makeup. Green hides red marks from acne, orange hides dark circles, red for… very dark circles.” Her brows raise as she silently motions to his eye, bringing his own hand to touch the tender spot on his face. “I’ve got some in my bag, if you’d like. Though, you’ll have to find your own shade of foundation. I think you’re a bit too warm toned compared to me.” 

Her bluntness and unabashed reference to the shiner on his eye leaves him chuckling, transforming her coy smile into a small smirk. “You sound like an expert.” 

“I am,” she quips before grinning. After a quick glance around the room, Aelin carefully pulls the collar of her shirt to the side, exposing the side of her neck. At first, John finds nothing of any importance until she points out a line of covered hickies just above her collar bone, fingers tracing it as if lovingly. They grey beneath the concealer and foundation, blurring them to the point they’ve almost vanished. “A girl’s gotta have her fun.” 

John likes her humor. Appreciates it, anyway. Maybe there’s something comforting about knowing a girl like her gets in trouble; albeit, much less violent trouble than himself. A small flicker of hope ignites in his chest at the idea that perhaps there’s something in common between him and Aelin—that he has the possibility of even resembling something that’s normal. Something not drenched in blood.

It’s a short lived fantasy. When the end of term comes around, and they no longer share classes together, they drift. Aelin keeps her smiles polished while John continues to do the only thing his father ever bothered to teach him. By the end, Aelin’s A-Levels are enough to earn her a trip to anywhere in the country. Opportunities are thrown at her feet and offered up on dainty silver platters that glisten bright enough to reflect the future ahead of her. As for him, his father dies when he’s twenty. Murdered, and in a way that’s eerily similar to the way his mother had been. Cold, calculated, ruthless—his father’s existence is snuffed out by a single bullet, leaving behind nothing but a bloodstain coating the pillow that covers his face. 

The torch is passed down—the handle is still bloody. 

Over the years, he grows rigid and battle-hardened thanks to the business of violence that was bequeathed to him by his late father. He builds upon a decrepit empire until it’s thriving with sharp teeth and hired guns. It’s the only thing his father taught him; how to be dangerous. How to collect teeth and grind them to dust beneath the sole of his shoes. The Price family rises to power. The name forces people to tremble. John Price has nothing to lose but his own life, and even that pathetic amount he can scarcely get himself to care about. 

The only thing he holds close to him is the ghosts of his past. They always lurk in uncomfortable places, whispering into the shell of his ear, biting at the nape of his neck. It finds him at all hours of the day—it torments him. Slithers beneath his skin. Even now as he stands in line at the florist’s shop his skin itches, eyes flickering to the exit, fingers twitching for the knife stowed in his pocket. 

The only emollient he can find in this place is the voice of the woman in line before him. Demulcent and fleeting, he notes the way his heart slows. How the pathetic muscle quivers in his chest as she sweetly thanks the shopkeeper. When the redolence of roses reaches him, he tells himself he’s hallucinating, but when she turns to leave—small bouquet of flowers in her hand—he realizes who it is. 

Aelin Gilroy. 

Even after all these years he can still recognize her. The soft slope of her nose, the faint, bouncing curls in her flaxen hair, and her grace. How her chin is held high. How confidence exudes from every pore in her body as she floats toward the exit. Somehow, she’s even more perfect now than she was when they were children. He steps out of line, forcing the shopkeeper to stare at him with narrowed brows as he follows after her on uncertain feet. 

“Aelin?” 

All the air leaves his lungs when she turns to face him. She’s grown into her features now. Rosy cheeks and full lips, but her eyes are still the same. Crystalline like a low tide, filtering golden sunlight into fractals. Those eyes stare at him blankly, hands uncomfortably adjusting the bouquet as she traces him without a shred of familiarity. 

“Yes?” she asks tensely. 

Chuckling, he slaps his hand on the nape of his neck, rubbing out the tension there. “It’s John. John Price.” 

There’s something about the light igniting in her eyes that has him feeling warmer than he has in a long while. A precious grin breaks out on her lips as she steps closer, now comfortable with his presence. “Oh my god, I didn’t recognize you! It’s been years… staying out of trouble, I hope?”

“Getting in just enough to keep things interesting,” John counters. 

It’s as if no time has passed at all. She’s still that star pupil. Still that girl that had every boy tripping over their own two feet. Even now he can still hear her feet tapping against the floor as her pencil fills in test answers. 

“What’s the occasion?” he then asks, gesturing to her bouquet. 

“Oh,” she says. Her voice trips. Fractures. “Well, it’s—erm—the anniversary of my dad’s passing.” 

John blinks. He can vaguely recall the news. Rolling clips of the police station and the accident that stole his life away. Somehow he never put two and two together. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, I hadn’t heard,” he quickly apologizes. 

Despite the terrible awkwardness of the conversation, she still smiles. Always graceful. Always poised. “It’s alright. I’m… making my peace with it.” She pauses, throat clearing with a tense cough. “What about you?”

“Oh, just some flowers for mum.”

His response makes Aelin smile something small and bittersweet. “How lovely. I bet she’ll love them.” 

“They’ll make for good decoration.”

Something settles between the two of them—something that had never been there before. Not while they were children, growing up with one another in different corners of the world. It’s unfamiliar. Suffocating. It leaves John floundering, but the warmth it brings is intoxicating. 

“Well, I ought to get going,” Aelin excuses politely. “Got a few more errands to run. But really, it was good seeing you again, John.” 

This is the part where he should say goodbye. Wish her farewell just for her to vanish into a life of fortune where he’d never see her again. If he was a smart man, John would have done just that, but instead he finds his hand diving into his pocket where he retrieves a pen before quickly stealing one of the shop’s business cards to scribble down his number in the negative space. 

“Here,” he says, holding it out for Aelin to take. “I’m certain you get this a lot, but if you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be there.” 

To his surprise, she takes the card without hesitation, aqua eyes scanning his rushed handwriting while quietly thanking him. As she holds the card in front of her, something catches John’s attention. There’s a glint on her finger, one that reflects the light so brightly it nearly blinds him. Upon closer inspection, he realizes it’s a large, gaudy ring. Something given in poor taste. Something that attempts to steal the spotlight of Aelin’s beauty rather than compliment it. 

“Did you get married?” John asks in what he tells himself is mere curiosity. 

“Oh. No, not yet. Just engaged,” she says with an odd tone. Aelin glances at the ring—at the small band and large diamond that looks heavy enough to weigh her down. As if she can’t stand to look at it any longer, she shoves the card into her pocket before smiling at him. “Thank you again, John.” 

As Aelin exits the store, she tries not to think about how this interaction with a long lost classmate of hers has her feeling lighter than she has in years. That’s all she feels these days. Heavy. Weighed down by a stony gaze that used to look at her with adoration as the looming nature of her own failure hangs over her head as if each step she takes brings her closer to the gallows. 

There is little reprieve to be found in the cemetery where her father lays. Knees digging into the fresh grass, trembling fingers propping the flowers against his headstone, she does not pay attention to the tears streaming down her face. She’s learned to ignore them, if not welcome them. The wind picks up, cooling her feverish face as she traces the engraving of her father’s name letter by letter with her index finger. 

“I miss you so much,” she whispers. “Everything’s gone to shit since you left. I dunno what to do without you.” 

Her days have been foggy. Each waking moment leaves her stumbling through the dark all while she pretends she’s still the radiant girl she’s always been. It’s difficult to keep up the facade when her bed is cold in the mornings, and her fingers itch for the card John Price gave her. Ghosts follow behind her in the bedroom, her rearview mirror—the toilet. 

So then, it should not come as a surprise when she returns home from her mother’s to see the lamp on in the living room. The television drones but no one is listening. A hand on a thigh. Unfamiliar lips pressed against ones she should have memorized but hasn’t felt the touch of in months. The woman looks nothing like Aelin. Inky locks cut into a short bob that her fiance weaves his fingers through as his nose kisses her cheek. 

“Adam?”

Aelin’s stomach drops when they jump, heavy eyes now on her as she stands in the entryway. When Adam’s chest heaves with a sigh, she’s suddenly in the bathroom again. Hands clutching her stomach as she waddles out. Eyes full with tears as she sees him sitting on the couch, focused on the football match. It’s the same thing all over again.

She doesn’t wait around long enough to hear his excuses. The front door slams shut behind her but the sound is muffled on her ears as she slips into her car and speeds away. 

Night has long since fallen by the time she reaches the park. When she was a child, her parents used to own a home in this neighborhood and she often came here with her dad. The swingset is painted blue now instead of red, but she makes no effort to approach it as she seats herself on an algid, metal bench. 

During times like these, Aelin would often go to her dad for comfort. His office smelled like leather and Earl Grey, and he always kept a recliner in the corner of the room for her to curl up in to do homework, or cry about boys at school. He always knew what to say. What to do. Guiding her with a soft hand and sweet heart—she always wished she was more like him. 

Now—without the luxury of paternal comfort—she does something stupid. 

Fingers haphazardly digging through her bag, clutching the florist’s card, shakily punching in the numbers into her phone; Aelin knows she’s insane. Insane for thinking John Price is the person to call for something like this. Insane for thinking he’d even do anything at this time of night. Still, he answers. His voice bleeds through the speaker next to her ear like lukewarm wine. Intoxicating. Comforting. 

The only greeting she can choke out is a sob. 

By the time John finds Aelin, all of her tears have run dry, having been replaced with a brutal fury instead. A thick numbra clouds the park as the halogen lights hardly hold a torch bright enough to fight off the darkness. Still, he approaches her, noting how her knees bounce just like they used to all those years ago during exam season. Her bottom lip is bright red—irritated and cracked, abused by her teeth. 

For as much effort as he puts into looking calm on the outside, there is nothing in the world that can settle the nerves fraying within him. Hearing her cry, hearing her beg for him to come and get her scared him more than he cares to admit. The tear stains on her cheeks make his fists curl. If only she knew the dangerous power she holds. The power to say bite and for John Price to respond where. 

It doesn’t take long for him to coax out the truth. The rage swirling within Aelin nearly erupts as she spews every brutal detail. How Adam had been acting strange the last few months, how he used to show her off but has been keeping her locked away like a dirty secret, or something he’s ashamed of. 

“Two fucking years, John,” Aelin seethes, teeth gritting so hard that they nearly crack. “Two years of being with him just for him to do… to do that? He moved me into his home, wanted me to quit my job because he said he wanted to take care of me, to take care of… of…”

Terrified that you’ll disintegrate before him, John reaches a careful hand out and brushes it against her shoulder. The tension melts beneath his touch, and if he wasn’t so concerned, pride would swell in his chest. “Easy, love.” 

“I could’ve been great,” she continues, voice cracking as she leans into him. “I was able to go to any school in this country. I got my degree. I could’ve kept at work and been… something. And I didn’t need to. Not really. There was never anything I was trying to prove to anyone. I could’ve had a few kids with that white picket fence and stayed home to care for them, and I would’ve been completely happy living that trophy wife life if it meant I was loved. But I’m not, and it fucking hurts because I know I’m worth so much more than this.”

She crumbles like dust. The kind that’s so thin and fine you can only see it in the air when sunlight hits it. John’s arms wrap around her, pulling her close, palm cradling her head as she shakes in his grasp. 

“Fuck, I’m so stupid,” she babbles. 

“You’re not stupid,” he attempts to persuade. 

“Adam only proposed when we found out I was pregnant,” she says. Her voice shatters. Fractures. Each syllable catches in her throat, slices the tender flesh. “T-Then my dad died and… It was stupid to think he’d want to stay after I lost it.” 

John’s blood runs cold. His vision clouds with ichor—vermillion and thick. It’s so close he can nearly taste it. A violent man to a violent end, he craves it now more than ever. Instead, he holds her closer and gathers enough bravery to kiss the top of her head. 

“None of that was your fault, love,” he assures. “You’re brilliant. Downright brilliant, and he’s a sorry sod for not seeing it.” 

It takes a little convincing to get her to agree to stay at his place for the night. Really, there’s something comforting about being somewhere else. Away from her mother and that house that’s still haunted with her father’s ghost. John gives her an old t-shirt and a pair of joggers he’s been meaning to throw out for some time before ensuring she’s comfortable enough in his guest bedroom. 

When he’s certain Aelin’s asleep, John sits in his office, hand over his mouth, teeth grinding as he stares at his phone. It takes only five minutes of deliberation before he’s dialing up the only man he knows he can trust. 

“Yeah?” Simon Riley. His blunt greeting cuts over the line over the sound of thrumming club music and a cacophony of chatter. 

“Riley, I need a favor. I’m sending you an address and I need you there as soon as possible,” John says, voice rumbling low and dark as he taps his desk with the tips of his fingers. 

“What for?” 

“A friend,” John excuses. “I need any items that seem like they belong to a girl. Clothes, toiletries, things of that sort.” 

There’s a pause, and John can already see the expression on Riley’s face. A raised brow, tight lips, and a small huff. “Somethin’ ya can’t get yourself?” 

“If I go myself, I’m breaking the jaw of the bastard who lives there,” he growls. 

Inhale. Exhale. “This have somthin’ to do with the girl earlier? The one cryin’ on the phone?” 

“Yeah.” 

A hum. “I’ll be there in an hour.” 

Much to John’s surprise, Aelin doesn’t ask too many questions when morning comes. She doesn’t push when he gives a vague answer about how he got her items, and she doesn’t question where her engagement ring vanished to, or why Adam hasn’t bothered to call or text her since she stormed out of the house. He tells her to stay as long as she likes—as long as she needs.

But she doesn’t leave. 

Aelin Gilroy lingers in his home—not as a ghost, but as a dream. Something drifting between his fingers, just out of reach, that he wants so desperately to hold. He finds residuals of her in the shower with her golden hair stuck to the wall and the silage of rose toying with his nose. She’s there in the kitchen when he comes home, cooking up a late dinner, asking him to join her for a movie. 

There is no effort on her end in leaving, just as there is no effort from him in getting her to leave. He would keep her forever if he could. Hold her in his arms like he did that night in the park, cradling her head against his chest. All she would have to do is ask him. 

But as the weeks meander on, John finds himself sitting next to her on the couch. There’s too much wine in their bodies, ichor red and brimming full in his stomach, diffusing the light of the television as it illuminates her skin, her smile, everything. He decides that he likes this. Her. Enjoys the warmth of another human in this too-large house, always a void greeting him when he gets home, a black hole waiting to crush him. He doesn’t know how his father could have ever treated his mother so cold when the touch of a woman seems to make this home flourish. 

She feels his gaze. Heavy lidded and murky with alcohol. She stares back, aqua hue bleeding into something darker, like the depths of the ocean instead of the mere tide lapping at the shore—unknowingly profound. He has yet to scratch the surface of Aelin Gilroy. 

Yet he gets close to it when she places her glass on the coffee table and swings her leg over his lap. Bum resting on his knees, her hands steady her swaying body as she grips his shoulders, curls cascading down her back like a waterfall of sunlight. John stares up at her with awe blurring his vision. She smiles like she knows the mess she’s making of him. 

“Kiss me.” She does not ask. She demands it. Requires it. 

He leans back until his skull hits the cushion, then shakes his head. “You don’t want me to do that.” 

Her eyebrow quirks. “Why not?” 

“I’m not a good man.” 

“I know.” 

Those words are a baton to his diaphragm, forcefully expelling a chuckle from his throat before he can stop it. She tilts her head and he nearly grabs the nape of her neck to devour her whole. “How do you know?”

“I’ve always known,” Aelin insists. “I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. Besides, if you were a good man, you’d be dead by now. The good ones are always quick to go in your line of work, aren’t they?” 

John wants to pretend that he’s surprised she knows, but of course she knows. Aelin Gilroy, daughter of Sean Gilroy, Chief Inspector, top of her class, the looks to kill and a brain to go with it. It does not take a genius to sniff out the blood that stains his hands. Dirty hands. Soiled hands. Ones he can’t help but place on her waist. 

“If you know that much, then you know that you don’t want me to kiss you,” he insists. 

“Why?” Her turn with the questions. 

“Becuase I’m not dragging you into a life like this. I’m not letting you get hurt because of me.” His admission comes with plaguing visions that are so noisome they sting his eyes. Rose pink brains soaking into a mattress. Fingers plucked free of the palms they used to call home. His mother, dead and left to rot like a warning. “You don’t want this.” 

“No. I just want you,” she hums. Aelin’s hands begin to wander, fingertips brushing against his hairline as she tilts her head, curiously inspecting him, spinning eyes hardly able to focus on one part of him before moving to the next. “You’re not your father, John. You share his name but not his mistakes. You are not a bad man.” Palm to cheek, warmth swelling together against his feverish skin—she presses her thumb to his lips. Drags down over them until they’re parted. “You might not be a good man, but you’re too kind to be a bad man.” 

It isn’t until her lips meet his that John Price realizes that he’s been caught in Aelin’s trap for quite some time—she’s just now decided to rein him in. It’s the closest to heaven he’s ever been. Even as her teeth sink into his flesh, even as her nails rake across his back, even as she drowns him—nothing but a corse floating among stilly water—he knows he cannot starve himself of this one desire. 

After so many years, he finally has something to live for besides the circle of life and death. Besides being a slave to his family name simply because paternal law decrees it. Now, he has something to build. Someone to love. A future that holds more than decrepit bones. A ring covers the old scar on Aelin’s finger. His bed is always warm in the night when he returns home and in the morning when he can’t bring himself to wake with the rest of the world. 

The room she slept in during her first night with him now holds a crib. 

It’s made of wood and engraved with pumpkins and rabbits, a project Aelin took upon herself and has been whittling away at with a small carving tool. Hunched over, stomach swelling quietly but still enough to be noticeable in her sundress. The image has been burned into his mind all night while he’s been away at work, hunched over his desk, listening to pathetic excuse after excuse. 

He leaves early tonight, hands buzzing too much to quiet, fingers screaming for his wife. To hold her face and smooth over her stomach. She’s gotten more emotional these days; crying at any kind gesture, or any time she looks at the crib for too long. John hates to see the tears that stream down her cheeks but doesn’t mind the excuse to hold her close, to chuckle into her ear, to toy with the ends of her hair. 

When John steps inside, there’s nothing but blood to greet him. 

Watery. Bright red. It stains the couch in the very spot Aelin curls up in at the end of the day with a warm cup of tea and something quiet to put on the television. John stares at it. It spreads, ichor floating through the veins of the couch similar to the way it spreads on a mattress, soaking deep—too deep to get out. Deep enough to scar. 

He panics. Her name rings through the house as he trips down the hallway, following the sparse trickle of blood like breadcrumbs. There is no answer, but he hears her quiet, muffled sobs. Hand clasped over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut as if that could ever stop the tears; she’s on the toilet. He doesn’t even knock before entering, but she doesn’t have the energy to chastise him for it as she sits curled over herself, sundress bunched around her waist, arms cradling herself as if she can hold the remaining bits of her child within her shattering womb. 

“Love,” John breathes. Within an instant he’s on his knees before her, but she won’t look at him. He reaches forward, cups her face in his palms, wipes his thumb at the never-ending flood of tears. She’s feverish to the touch. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Aelin sobs. Her arms press further into her stomach as she leans forward, head attempting to bow, but John keeps her head above water—keeps her from drowning. “I really thought it would be different this time, I just… ah… John, it hurts so bad.” 

Her sobs come unheeded now, and each rattling reverberation that cuts through her shatters his newly mended heart. John holds her with trembling hands. His own eyes squeeze shut, faint tears wetting his eyelashes as he rests his chin on her head. Even against his neck he can feel how warm her forehead is—how it nearly blisters his skin. 

After fifteen minutes of his world ending, he takes her to the hospital. Ultrasound visits turn sour now that there is no baby to look at. The bleeding stops. Their child is gone. When they arrive home, all they do is lay in bed with nothing but the sound of their hearts shattering to break the silence. 

It is the first time, but it is not the last. 

It happens again. 

And again. 

Eventually, after the years, they give up. Their hope flickers and wanes, but the desire still lurks in their eyes every time they pass a stroller during date night or they look at that empty nursery-converted-to-guest-room. John puts that love into the men who work for him instead, and Aelin gives it to her adopted sister. But at the end of the night, no matter how long they were out laughing or chuckling, they come home to a warm bed, desperately searching for the grubby hands of what could have been. 

But it comes back. It barrels like a bullet into their lives, embedding into deep tissue, nestling too far to rip it out without doing more damage. It arrives as a phone call. A sob. A begging to be free of this torture. John finds it in the bathroom with Aelin, curled forward, ripped boxes strewn across the floor, along with three positive pregnancy tests. 

She looks up at him as he enters the bathroom, eyes red and irritated, her usually neat hair now frizzy. “John, I can’t do this again,” she chokes. 

Wordlessly, he joins her on the floor with an arm snaking around her back. Aelin collapses into his chest, legs slung over his lap, head resting against his collarbone as he cradles her. For a long time, he is silent. Neither of them speak as the weight of the situation begins to crush them under impending pressure. It squishes the blood clean from their bodies, suffocating their brains of all helpful thought. 

The world is ending all over again. 

“I’ll support whatever you want to do, love,” John murmurs against the crown of her head. 

Brows furrowing, she stiffens. “What do you mean?” 

His words get caught in his throat for a long, aching moment before he’s able to choke them out. “If you… want to terminate, then we can do that. Or if you want to keep it then we’ll do that, too.” 

Aelin is quiet for a long time. There is nothing but soft sniffles and the occasional pule that slips from her lips, but John doesn’t rush her. Instead, he holds her until her muscles relax, and she’s nothing but a limp mess against him. 

“One more time,” she decides, malice slipping into her tone as she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “One more time, and if it doesn’t work, I’m getting a hysterectomy. I can’t keep doing this b-but… I just… want to pretend to hope for a little while.” 

Nodding, John places one more kiss on her head. “Okay, love.” 

For the first few weeks, Aelin is near unconsolable. Nesting on the couch, blankets obscuring her body, hugging a pillow to her chest as her glassy eyes watch flashing images on the television. She attempts to distract herself with the company of her adopted sister, but the connection feels severed. Smiling and pretending to be happy when she’s harboring a secret that will surely demand blood before she has the chance to sing its praise. 

But that secret keeps growing. And growing. 

Each passing day that Aelin wakes and there’s no blood to follow her throughout the day, a glimmer of hope roots in her chest. It burrows and whispers. It promises love and fulfillment. It promises something she’s never been fortunate enough to achieve previously. It’s enough to make her skin glow, rosy and golden like the sun kissing the horizon before bed. It’s enough to make her cheeks swell as shiny, opalesque teeth peek between glistening lips. It’s enough for now, and then—

“Oh my god.” Hands on her stomach, smiling through the tears, bottom lip trembling. “John, it’s twenty-four weeks. It’s viability week.”

—and then it’s everything. 

Time rolls backwards as the guest room is once more turned into a nursery. Bunnies and pumpkins, soft oranges and fluffy whites, and a perfect hint of peach. A changing table with ribbons along the side. A rocking chair for the long nights when none of them will get rest, and it will be worth it to have a sleepless night due to love rather than turmoil. 

But joy is a meal that tastes better when it’s shared. 

So, Aelin stands in the kitchen. Film refracts the light above her through the sonogram in her hand, thumb holding the picture so firmly as if she’s afraid it will slip through her fingers. Heavy feet rattle the floor behind her before she feels warm palms smooth over her stomach and a chin on top of her head. 

“She’s beautiful,” he murmurs.

Smiling in agreement, Aelin scans every little feature. The curve of the baby’s nose, how her lips part as if already babbling, hands squished up to her face like she’s trying to chew on her fingers. “Just over halfway there.” 

Just as she lowers the sonogram, the baby kicks against John’s palms. His chuckle hits her, warm and dripping with adoration. He squeezes back, pulling Aelin against him. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” he questions. 

“Yeah, I think it would be better this way,” Aelin nods. “I feel… a little bad. Having been sort of ignoring her these last few weeks. I know Simon is taking good care of her but… well, it’ll be nice to have dinner with just the two of us.” 

She turns her attention to the card before her. The outside is plain. A simple white background with frilly lettering asking Guess what? On the inside, there’s that same lettering with the triumphant announcement of It’s a girl! followed by enough space to put a sonogram. Then, there’s a mini calendar of August, with a circled due date. She shoves everything inside of a light peach envelope before sealing it shut with the tip of her tongue, but as she stares at it, she feels it doesn’t quite look right. 

Inspiration strikes her, and she quickly retrieves a pen from the junk drawer before scrawling Auntie Chip on the envelope. Smiling, she sticks it in her purse. 

And with that, she is ready for dinner.

follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here

peristalsis - v

selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to "lovers." shower sex. cunnilingus. smut. manipulative soap. oysters as an aphrodisiac. unstable narrator. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

previous

You watch him over an open book.

It’s an old romance, something from the eighties. Classic bodice ripper, billowing sleeves, tight corsets, mullets and heaving bosoms and all. Naturally, it’s set on a pirate ship, the heroine as the unlucky spoils of a merchant ship raid and the hero a lusty captain able to pierce her virgin’s desire for sexual depravity.

It could only have been more pointed at you if it had been set in the North Atlantic—it isn’t—but you glare at Soap’s back anyway.

He must be able to feel it, because he stands straight at the wheel, shoulders thrown back, occasionally flexing.

The freak.

You’d realized the joke he’d been making, once your heartbeat had slowed. Hiding the pelt somewhere obvious enough for you to see it. You live in the age of the internet—you know what it’s supposed to mean.

And you kind of hate him for it. Now, post-coitus, you can’t shove it away into a box—he is the most attractive man you’ve ever encountered. Rugged and handsome, competent at everything you’ve seen him do, seemingly at home wherever he finds himself. Everything makes him smile. Nothing seems to disconcert him.

And a nice big cock he actually knows how to use. Certainly the best lay you’ve ever had.

What every woman traveling solo, you think, longs to encounter on a solo trip across the world, but will never acknowledge looking for. An answer to an unaddressed desire; proof that satisfaction is out there to find, if it’s searched for.

A lover with no conditions. Someone willing to strip your inhibitions away, knowing your protests are only token.

You had not been searching. You’d given up searching.

And now he mocks you—with every satisfied glance he throws over his shoulder.

“Good book?” he asks, all casual and pleased. “S’ one a’my favorites. Tell me when you get to the naval battle.”

You frown. “You haven’t read this.”

He gives a little huff of amusement. “Read all of ‘em, bonnie.”

No, this is where you draw the line. A good cook, a good fuck, and a romance reader? No. No, you absolutely will not take this.

“Sure you have, Johnny,” you grouse, “you read every single stupid book on that shelf. Sure. Hell, you’ve read books that aren’t on that shelf. You’ve read every new release from the last six months, even. Why not.”

He looks at you again over his shoulder, mouth curled. “Aye. Needed ideas, once a’knew you were comin.’”

He says it matter-of-factly, with only a little bit of pride. As if it was a natural step in the process of getting ready for your arrival—renovate the croft. Stock the fridge and pantry. Plan some island excursions.

Study the erotic mind of the average woman to divine how best to seduce her.

Your frown deepens, and you lift the book higher, making it a barrier between you and him. Loser. Couldn’t he just go to the mainland for a few days if he wanted pussy? Not like it would be hard to find, for him.

You resolve to ignore him for the rest of the trip. A petty endeavor, maybe, but it’s the only one you can make.

But six hours is six hours, and you can’t read the whole time. Periodically you have to get up to stretch your legs, and the windows wrapping around the bridge draw your attention to the sea outside.

Johnny drives the trawler at a remove along the coastline, keeping close enough to the islands for easy viewing. The denizens of the Hebrides are out en masse, enjoying the clear weather, joyfully populating the land- and seascape in the absence of human interlopers.

Porpoises, so much smaller than you might have expected, periodically catch the wake of the boat, swimming alongside, playful and curious. Gulls loop in the air above the dunes, fronds of grass fluttering in the breeze. Gannets, stark white, arrow down into the waves, wings folded back pin-straight as they spear their quarry—silvery fish that boil the surface of the water in their frenzy.

Some removed part of you enjoys their pleasure secondhand. The normally-grey ocean is vibrant in the sunlight, crystalline and sparkling and as blue as Johnny’s eyes.

He seems to be in a good mood, too, although that could just be because you let him fuck you. You feel his eyes on you even as you refuse to look at him, dancing along the curves of your body the same way his fingertips might.

At one point—“Bonnie, I know you’re sulking an’ all, but c’mere.”

He gestures you over to the cockpit, and—embarrassed at being called out—you join him. He brings a hand to the small of your back, stepping behind you and pointing over your shoulder.

A gray wall of passing cliffs, and crags of rock jutting up from the churn at their base. You see ten or twelve grey-and-white seals lounging across every available flat surface, some cuddled in groups of three or four, apparently unbothered by the periodic spray of breaking waves.

“No’ where I’d choose to have a kip, personally,” Johnny says, sounding amused.

You turn your head to look at him, hard. His eyes soften when they meet yours, and he tilts his head to kiss you, undeterred even when you flinch away from it.

His hand tightens across your back, fingers digging in. He sucks your bottom lip between his and caresses it with his tongue, as he edges beneath the hem of your shirt to spread his hand across the warming skin of your back.

“I’m mad for ya,” he murmurs when he pulls away, blush high on his cheeks.

“It’s been two days,” you deadpan.

He presses up behind you, open hand sliding around to press into the low part of your belly, right at the sensitive crest of your mons; you can’t help your gasp when, at the same time, his erection nestles into the cleft of your ass.

“No’ to this,” he purrs in your ear. “Feels like it’s been forever, for this.”

When his fingers start making their way beneath the waistband of your pants, you grab his hand and wrench it away, scoffing.

“You’re just a fucking horndog,” you sneer, betrayed by the heat spilling through your core.

“Aw, you break my heart, bonnie,” Johnny simpers, but there’s a mocking edge to it. As if he knows exactly what you’re hiding.

You step away from him, folding your arms across your chest and staring out at the basking seals instead. Then—

“There’s one in the water,” you say.

A few meters away from the rocks, a round head pokes up from the surface, bobbing with the rise and fall of the waves. Its eyes are slitted closed, nostrils dilating.

“Aw, he’s bottling,” Johnny says affectionately, when he comes over to look. “Look at his wee face.”

You remember suddenly your encounter of the previous day—another lone seal, resting apart from its fellows.

“I saw one on the beach,” you say, “yesterday, after you dropped me off. A big one. You didn’t say they might show up.”

“Male?” he asks, and you nod. “Peripheral male, then. I’m no’ surprised.”

You sigh. “And that is…”

As if magnetized, his hands find you again, this time settling on your waist. It seems that Johnny’s touch is something impossible to escape, in his vicinity. He drags them down over your hips and back up almost idly, as if he’s not even thinking about doing it.

“There’s dominant males, and then there’s the rest of ‘em. Only the dominant ones get to breed at the rookeries, see? And the rest of ‘em have to wait around for the females to leave to have their chance.”

He leans into you from behind, nose in your hair, and you hear him inhale as his hands tighten.

“Once a peripheral male finds a female alone, separated from the colony, ready to go back out to sea—well, that’s his chance to pounce.”

You frown, mostly to yourself. “No matter how the female feels about it.”

“We’ve been over this,” he chides.

He brings his lips to the curve of one ear, then the soft spot behind it. His nose finds the juncture of your neck and shoulder, where the capillaries that he broke with his teeth still throb whenever you press your fingers to them. He inhales again, deeply.

“Why do you do that?” you grouse, unwilling to give him the win.

“Like how you smell,” he says, doing it again.

His tongue caresses the bruise before he closes his mouth over it—but he goes no further than to kiss your neck twice more before returning to the wheel. It leaves you reeling, half-dizzy with arousal, and when you stomp back to your seat with a frustrated growl, he only glances over at you, smirking, and laughs.

He finds a berth in the early evening to park the trawler, and at that point you’re thankful for any kind of solid ground to set your feet on, as well as enough open air to disperse whatever pheromones have saturated the enclosed space of the bridge.

You’ve been half-tempted the whole time to make him drop anchor and drag him belowdeck toward the nearest flat surface big enough for the two of you to share; as it is, you’ve simply stewed in your own juices instead, hot with angry arousal and ignoring the slick pooling in the gusset of your underwear.

Johnny steps out into the cooling air in his usual kilt and sweater, and you once again huddle in his jacket, aromatic with his musk, as he leads you onward. This time, unlike the last excursion, he insists upon holding your hand the whole way, callused fingers worming their way between yours, the captured air hot and humid between your palms.

Callanish turns out to be a henge of standing stones.

Meters-tall megaliths, squarish and narrow like broken teeth, surrounding a burial site and extending in two directions as if lining a road. Inevitably evocative of its cousin Stonehenge, with the notable exception that you are allowed to go up and touch the stones with your bare hands.

“They used ‘em for that TV show,” Johnny informs you as the two of you circuit the main ring. “Well, no’ these, they probably had styrofoam for that, but they got the idea from these.”

You lay your free hand on the nearest stone; it’s cold, and rough to the touch, a day’s worth of sunlight evidently not sufficient to warm it. Tiny spots of moss and lichen cling to the old stone, green and eggshell white.

“Why are we allowed to touch them?” you say. You think of bronze statues, rubbed to a golden gleam by millions of tourist hands.

“That’s Lewisian gneiss, bonnie,” says Johnny, laying his hand, much larger, next to yours. His thumb teases the side of your pinky. “Doubt you could make much of a mark on it. This rock here? Three billion years old.”

You look at him, seeing his profile. The expression on his face is soft—not unlike the way he looked at you earlier, on the way here. He spreads his fingers over the stone, tendons furrowing down the back of his sun-weathered hand.

“No’ just older than us,” he continues. “Older than what we used to be, a’fore we were us. Was there when we first made fire. Was there when we came down th’ trees. Was there all the way back when we left the ocean for the first time—”

He looks at you, then. The setting sun catches in the dips of his irises, setting jewel blue aflame.

“An’ it’ll be there, bonnie, when we go back.”

The wind curls around the stones with the chill of the oncoming night. Even despite the jacket, despite the walk up to the site—you feel it penetrate beneath your skin, deep into your bones.

You choose derision, to reject the shiver.

“And you have this all memorized,” you say.

Johnny doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at you, mouth in a relaxed, but inscrutable line.

You suddenly remember that you do not know this man; though he’s told you enough about himself to fill out his background—you don’t know him. You don’t know how he feels about most things, what’s important to him, why he may find one thing or another meaningful. Not the way you’d have to, in order to understand why the gaze he fixes on you feels so significant.

Whatever you’re supposed to understand in the way he looks at you now, you don’t have the ability to discern. The only thing that occurs to you is that, perhaps, you’ve finally managed to offend him.

It does not satisfy you as much as you might have imagined—

In fact, the thought drops through your belly like a rock.

Again. You did it again.

In the one place you thought you’d never have to face this—you did it again. Here is someone who seems to like even the worst of you, and you somehow found an even uglier side of yourself to show him, a squirming thing that cannot help but sling itself around with no heed for the damage it can cause.

But when you open your mouth to say something reparatory, something that certainly won’t fix what you’ve broken no matter what he might say, his expression softens into something thoughtful.

“Visited when I first came here,” he says. Completely unbothered. “After the discharge an’ all.”

You blink. Sharp heat and the numbness of cold, warring across your face.

“Why?” you ask.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, and lifts his hand from the stone, smiling ruefully. “I was a bastard back then. Didnae wan’ anything’ to do with anyone anymore. Mad at the world, a’was.”

Shucked like an oyster; scaled like a fish. Heat wins out, even in the growing chill. Tender skin scalding itself.

“And what,” you say, reflexively nasty, panic whirring up behind your breastbone, “you thought—you’d get some sort of, magical insight here?”

Johnny laughs. “Naw, a’was just pissing my money away, bonnie. Thought I’d come up here an’ try t’ knock one over.”

Tight chest. Can’t breathe. You step away from him, far away, hide it like you’re looking at another of the standing stones, but a stabbing pain spears upward through your diaphragm.

In—count—hold—out—

“Could you?” you ask, wringing something like a normal tone out of your voice.

“Nope. Paid for it later, though.”

He says it casually. He hasn’t noticed. You reach out to the new stone, drag your fingers overtop of the rough surface, imagine every little bump flipping the friction ridges of each print like pages of a book. Cold—the rock is cold. The wind is cold, and sharp with the smell of rain. The jacket is heavy on your shoulders.

The jacket smells like Johnny.

“I’m sure the park wardens weren’t happy,” you say, feeling your heart slow in your chest.

“No,” he says, and—with the silence of a lightning strike—“I drowned, afterwords, first time I went to sea.”

You look back at him. The wind picks up, ruffling the ends of his mohawk; on the horizon, a rind of darkness splits the clouds from the earth.

“You drowned?” you repeat.

The hem of his kilt flutters and dances. His gaze is intense—the angle of his brow unreadable.

“Aye, bonnie. I did.”

Your ears begin ringing—as you stare at him, you get the sense of dreaming. There’s a distinction to Johnny that contrasts the landscape framing him, a sharpness so focused that everything else lenses around him.

“Why—why are you here?” you find yourself asking, though you’re not entirely sure why. The question leaves you as if surfacing on its own power.

The corners of his mouth quirk—although for once, he doesn’t smirk at you, the way he always does.

“You tell me,” he murmurs.

He holds you in the tilt of his head; in the depths of his eyes, currents pulling you downward. You inhale, and expect, for some reason, water to pour into your lungs.

Then a gust of wind buffets the two of you. Johnny turns, surveying the sky. Breaking the spell, he says, “Come on, let’s get back. I don’ like the look a’that storm.”

Halfway back down the path, the front overtakes you; rain begins sheeting down, ice cold, needle-precise into your hair and down your collar. Johnny grabs your hand again even as you start worrying about slipping, and though the torrent veils the way, the both of you make it back to the trawler in one piece.

Back on the bridge, a red light blinks on the panel by the wheel. While Johnny attends to it, flipping a switch and bringing a microphone on a curly wire to his mouth, you squeeze your hair out over the sink nearby.

“This is Soap on the vessel Sea Ghost,” he says, and waits for a response.

“Soap. Drop anchor somewhere. Looks like a storm’s coming in,” a gruff voice comes in.

“Yeah, Cap, we noticed,” Johnny says with a laugh, turning and smiling at you. “We’re moored, dinna fash.”

“Good. Looks like it’s just for the night. Clear enough in the morning.”

“Barry. You got everything? Shops’ closed tomorrow.”

“Never will understand why. But yes.”

“It’s a holy day, Captain,” Johnny says pleasantly.

Price grumbles something about damn Catholics and their damn rules, which just makes Johnny laugh.

Then, “Gaz is here. Made it in after you left.”

Johnny’s posture shifts. Similar to a dog hearing the turning of a doorknob; amorphous attention coalescing, finding a target to point at. Anticipatory. Tail twitching, winding up to wag.

It’s a new reaction, to you—you’ve never seen it before.

Johnny lifts the transmitter to his mouth. He holds it there for a silent moment, before saying, “And Simon?”

No response from the other end of the line, pulled taut, as if snagged. Then Price responds “Haven’t heard yet.”

Something passes over Johnny’s face. Some flex of the muscle in his jaw. An expression held in check.

That’s—

That’s familiar.

“Alright. Back tomorrow then.”

“See you.”

He replaces the mic on its hook.

Thunder claps somewhere over the distant, open ocean. The trawler creaks and groans as the wind swirls around it. Yellow lamps illuminate the warm, wooden space, but are unable to penetrate the lowering blackness outside.

Tension—you can feel it drawing tight, see his shoulder blades shifting closer together. It aches in the muscles of your own back. He faces away from you, like you’re not there—

He turns to look at you. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t look quite real. As if he’s forcing the expression on his face.

“Poor bonnie,” he croons, looking you up and down. The tenor of his voice is saccharin-sweet and thick. “How’s a hot shower sound to warm up, hmm?”

Your belly pinches. “Sure.”

He leads you down a steep flight of stairs into the stomach of the boat, showing you into a single bedroom. The space is cramped, wedge-shaped—barely enough room for the double bed shoved into the middle of it, sheets and blankets gathered in rumples across the top. The unique musk of its occupant wars with the smell of lacquer; the walls are lined with orangey planks, evoking the sailing ships of old.

Directly to the left of the entrance, an open door leads into a small bathroom, into which Johnny guides you, hands on your hips.

“Go’ plenty a’ drinking water stored upstairs so take all the time you like,” he says. “Here, lemme show you how the taps work.”

You half-expect him, after the instruction, to stand there and watch, waiting until you undress. And he does hesitate for a moment, hovering in the threshold, before giving you a practiced grin, telling you to enjoy yourself, a closing the door behind him.

You stand in the middle of the tiny room for an uncertain heartbeat. Assumptions lurching. Almost—hoping.

His heavy footsteps climb back up the stairs.

So, you peel off your damp clothes and drop them into a pile on the floor, stepping naked into the shower. It’s far less mildewed than you might have worried of a single man living alone. Hot water chases cold out of your hair, streaming with pressure far superior to the cottage’s installment.

You realize your toiletries are still above deck, in your bag, beneath the two paperbacks Johnny packed that you haven’t gotten to just yet. You could step out after him—

You don’t do that anymore. You promised yourself.

The floor sways as the shifting sea rocks the trawler in its berth. You reach for the bar on the wall to steady yourself.

One version of yourself is sometimes able to fool the other. The truth is, you could have told him to stop at any time. Put your foot down, hard. Just because he owns the house you’re staying in doesn’t mean he gets to decide what your entire vacation is going to look like.

You scoff at yourself, without any humor. Vacation. Like you’d ever believed this was anything more than self-imposed exile.

The truth is, water takes the shape of the container it fills.

There’s a chill still present in your hair follicles. Impossible for you to identify until now; live with an ache long enough and it stops registering, until it’s balmed with a moment of relief. This is where the addicts begin; experiencing, for the first time, a complete absence of pain, as if it had never been there in the first place, and, once that pain is restored, the ruthless pursuit of its elimination.

Cold rain outside, warm rain within. You stand in the flow, listless. Steam rapidly clouds the empty spaces around you, gathering in droplets on the wall, drizzling down again.

That’s where the mistake is. Pain is never defeated—only deferred. Its panacea provides only diminishing returns, until it’s useless. Until you might as well be swallowing sugar pills or drinking seawater to assuage your thirst.

But you keep doing it. You remember too well how it felt. You chase it down because now you know how it feels.

At some point you have to understand that it always ends poorly.

The bathroom door opens again, and then the shower door, spilling yellow light into the shadowed recess—

Johnny.

The expression on his face is inscrutable; mysterious, as his gaze moves down your body, following the streaming water. Your arms curl around your chest in a perfunctory attempt to conceal yourself, even despite the futility of the effort.

He’s naked, and half-hard, a refrain on the previous night. One hand holds the travel-size soaps and gels that he must have dug out from your bag. He steps in behind you—enclosing the two of you in together.

“Sorry, bonnie,” he murmurs soothingly in your ear. “Had t’make sure we were tied up for the storm.”

The space is not even suggestive of being big enough for two people. You hear the squeak of the shower wall against his shifting back, hot skin slipping against yours as his hands draw you back against him by the hips.

“Dinnae want you t’slip an’ hit your head,” he murmurs, massaging the fat of your pelvis, as if there’s any reason to make excuses for what he’s doing.

Half-raised hackles petted down too easily. You relax into his touch, even as you disdain it. Your heart tremors in your chest.

“What’s going on tomorrow?” you finally ask. “Who’s Simon?”

Pathetic. A jealous lover, after less than forty-eight hours.

“Old task force,” he answers, kissing the back of your head. “Little reunion, food an’ beer, mostly.”

You half-expect him to go immediately for your breasts, or maybe your pussy. His cock is stiffening against the small of your back. But instead, he opens one of your bottles, squirts some pearly body wash into the palm of his hand. Rubbing a little to lather it, he puts his hands back on your hips, and begins massaging it into your skin.

Inward, up your stomach. Pressing into the soft parts of it, with the water slicking his way. His mouth touches the back of your neck—softly. Tenderly. With all of the languor you rejected the previous night, and not enough space for you to slap it away again.

His lips press inward, looking for the bite he left, which he lays his tongue on as if in contrition, licking it like a dog with a wound. The comfortable warmth of the shower swelters with his added body heat; the steam pulses in time with the heavy beats of your heart.

One hand slides up your body, fording your thoracic arch, the wedge of his hand ascending the length of your breastbone. He cups your jaw, bubbles between his fingers, one of your breasts nestling between his bicep and forearm.

He tilts your head to the side as he cranes his head further into your neck, lipping at the space behind your ear, kissing delicate, sensitive skin, as his other hand drags soap around your ribs, beneath and over both breasts, up into your pits and back down again.

A doll in his hands, bent along the shape of his will. He shifts his hips, frotting his erection against you.

“Johnny,” you breathe. “Johnny, this isn’t anything. This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Aye, bonnie,” he hums. “Whatever you say.”

He licks a hollow in your throat.

His other hand dips lower, sweeping down into the crease of one thigh to round the lower swell of your hip; then back up again, fingers spreading.

The stall compresses your arms close against you; the only space you have available to lay your useless hands is on his arms. The dark hair you find with your fingertips is coarse, wiry, plastered to hot skin with water. The spray seeps between the both of you, streams in the runnels of flesh pressed together.

Between your legs, your clitoris heats, awakening even though untouched. You give a small whine, and Johnny huffs a little chuckle in your ear, suckling your neck as his fingers make the descent back, rinsed in the falling water, teasing your pubic hair before nudging your folds apart.

He finds you slick and aching. He only dips lower briefly to wet his fingers, and then, as he settles a light touch over where you’re most desperate for it, relief razes through your nerves in a sudden wash.

You search for the back of his head, slotting your fingers into the ends of his mohawk at the nape of his neck. He hums against you, hand dropping down from your jaw to cup one breast in his palm, weighing it, thumb flicking around the pert nipple in the same tight circle he draws around your clitoris.

Orgasm, usually so obvious on approach, sneaks up on you, quick and quiet, but when it takes you it floods you, rather than knocking you down. You tremble all over, the follicles on your scalp standing on end, the nerves down your back and sides bending like dune grass to a wind.

Your long, breathy cry reverberates against the shower walls, and you lean heavily back against Johnny’s body, grip tightening where you have your hands on him.

He twitches against your back, but he makes no move to chase his own climax. He only turns you carefully, when you recover, and lays his hot, open mouth on yours, tugging your hips close enough to trap his cock against your belly. This time, the wall is cool at your back, the crown of your head moving against it as Johnny angles himself deeper, sliding his tongue between your lips.

“C’mon,” he says, when he finally pulls away. His pupils are huge, black dilation swallowing the blue. The spray fills the empty spaces between the strands of his mohawk, fluffing the hair a little as it courses down the shaved sides of his scalp. “Need to get my mouth on you again, bonnie.”

This time, when he eats you out, he does it at his leisure. Licking honey off a spoon. So lightly that you whine at him, find the energy to bitch at him to do it like he means it, but tonight he does not indulge you.

No—he mouths at you, eyes closed, curly lashes against his cheek as you lay belly-up on the rumpled sheets of his bed. The heat of his tongue in your cleft is the only source of warmth you have as the rain lashes at the outside of the trawler, but the hot shower still lingers in your skin—

Humid. Sticky. Sweat gathering beneath Johnny’s palms where he holds your thighs to his ears, as if mimicking the way your sex will clutch around him when he enters you. Slick and tight and viscous.

When he crawls up your body—nosing at your belly, your breasts, inhaling as if your musk is something he’s trying to get drunk on—he fucks you slow and deep. You stop being able to tell if it’s the storm rocking the boat, or the weight of his hips rolling against yours, one of his hands on the headboard for leverage and the other on your mons, pressing down with the heel of his hand to feel the head of his cock moving in you.

Tacky skin catching on the grind; heart speeding up as he grins at you from above, thumb tapping your clitoris. Enough to wind you up. You reach for his hips with your clawed hands, digging your nails into the meat of his ass—firm, muscle tensed, twitching every time he bottoms out.

“Johnny,” you finally beg, on the edge of a sob, “please, Johnny, please—”

Breath leaves him like a steam valve turned, pressure carrying an uninhibited moan. He ignores your plea, hips rolling slow, forcing you to feel every inch of him in and out of you, every ridge—every vein pulsing on the surface of his cock.

His eyes are closed still; when the widest part of him catches the rim of you around him again, his mouth drops open, lips pink and bitten.

Lost—he’s lost in pleasure, in the feeling of you around him, pulling him in. You watch his chest as it heaves, the flex of his stomach as it tightens—the twitch in the muscles of his arms as the impact of each thrust ripples up his body.

Look at me, you want to say. Look at me. I’m right here. Look at me.

“Again,” he groans, choked, restrained, hands gripping your hips. “Say it again, bonnie—”

“Please—” you whine, on the edge of a sob, “please, please, please—”

Thumb metronoming at a quick tempo where you need it—you seize, back arching, tightening around him so narrowly you could force him out—

He snarls, sharp and hard, thrusting into the resistance, hands falling to fist in the mattress. Breath coming rough and fast, sweat dripping from his forehead into the cups of your collarbones and down between your breasts. Hard and fast now, pushing in as far as your body will let him, and a final, long moan tears from his parted lips, liquid heat flooding you as Johnny goes rigid with a climax following only moments after your own.

Pelvis flush with your thighs. He doesn’t let a drop escape, pushing against you, lifting your hips from the bed.

“Tha’s right,” he slurs, eyes hazy when they open. “Tha’s right, that’s where it belongs.”

He collapses on top of you, almost crushing you with his weight, as he seeks your mouth out with his. He moves his hips against yours with shallow thrusts, whining in his throat.

“Didn’t you—” you pull your lips away, too hot, too cold, buzzing and exhausted, “didn’t you just finish?”

He tongues at your cheek instead, and then down your neck. “Doesnae matter, is no’ enough. C’mon, bonnie, wrap your legs aroun’ me, please…”

After he is finally spent—long after you’ve had enough energy to do more than lay beneath him and let him use you as he pleases—Johnny diverts briefly to the galley, bringing back with him a plate of oysters and a pry knife. It’s his bed, so you don’t complain about shell fragments, but you resolve to make him change the sheets anyway, shifting uncomfortably to find a spot that isn’t soaked.

“Was on this boat,” Johnny says, as if picking up the thread of a conversation only recently dropped. He picks up one of the oysters and shucks it open. “When I drowned.”

The way he says it, you’d think it was a casual thing, something he barely thought about anymore, but the line of his brow is low and serious.

He hands you one half; you bring the shell to your lips and tip it upward. Brine slides across your tongue, flesh smooth and buttery. Johnny watches you with soft eyes before having his own.

“Price was with me. I told him to fuck off, but he said he wasnae gonna let me take it out alone the first time ever. I was a bastard back then, I told ya. We went out in a storm, like this one, even though any eedjit could take a look outside and know it’d kill him.”

You flick at the edge of the shell with your fingernail, looking down at your hands. “Why’d you do it?”

“Dunno. Had somethin’ to prove, I guess.”

“That you could still do stuff like that?”

He doesn’t respond, so you look back up at him. He angles his gaze toward the mess of your hair—the new hickies he’s left on your neck—the bead of your nipples in the cold. The hard angles of his face soften.

“All my life,” he says, measuredly, “all I wanted to be was a soldier. An’ I couldnae anymore. Even though I was better. Hell, I was better than better. But I couldnae go back. That was it. It all wen’ on withou’ me.”

He breaks open more oysters as he talks, hands steady and deft around shells and knife. When he finishes, he slides the plate into your lap, and reclines to face you on his side, propping his head up with his hand.

“We wen’ out when the waves were as tall as a man, an’ us hangin’ onto the railing for dear fuckin’ life,” he continues. There’s a faraway quality to the tone of his voice. “Only life wasnae so fuckin’ dear, was it? I could’ve held on tighter, I think. I fell off.”

“And Price pulled you out?”

That feeling again, meeting his gaze; caught in the arms of a whirlpool, being dragged down. A vial in a centrifuge, constituent parts separating.

“No,” he says, “he didnae.”

“Then…”

“Eat, bonnie.”

There’s a stillness to him that feels unnatural. Johnny is a man who should be constantly in motion, gesturing with his hands, bouncing on the balls of his feet, tapping any available surface with rolling fingertips. Instead, here in front of you, he’s still as a statue. Chest softly rising and falling, but otherwise completely placid.

He gazes steadily at you, down at the plate, and then back up. You sigh, and pick up another shell.

“I don’t remember exactly what happened. I remember getting pushed down deep, real deep, then getting forced up again, on a current or something. Not far enough to get any air, mind. I thought, I’m gonna die out here, an’ I didnae want to.”

He shifts then, a little forward toward you.

“That seemed important, you know? I didnae want to die. Dinna think the sea would’ve given me up f’ I did. It knows. Sometimes it doesnae care. But I guess that time, it did, ‘cause after I blacked out, next thing I know I’m wakin’ up on the shore.”

Something hard shifts in your belly.

“Cap found me a bit later, bringin’ the boat in. Gave him a real scare. Think it turned some of his hair gray overnight. After that…a’was no’ the same. How could y’be, after that?”

You—you don’t want to know any of this. You don’t care. You didn’t ask. His story drops expectation on your shoulders, heavy, custom-tailored, laden with understanding that sands your abraded nerves.

All of this is too much. The damp sheets beneath you, the food, the sex. The fact that you picked the last place in the world thought you could ever meet anyone, let alone someone who—

“And now you have a seal fetish,” you sneer.

Who understands.

Indulgent. This is indulgent, reckless, idiotic in the extreme.

Soap reaches out, and wraps a large, sun-brown hand around your wrist, the one still holding the oyster. Pulling it towards him, he opens his mouth and then tips the flesh from the shell. He slurps it down, noisily, mimicking the sound of his mouth and tongue on your pussy.

“Something like that,” he says, with a sharp, cocky grin.

He changes the sheets. Dims the lights. Plasters himself around you as the storm blows itself out, arm heavy over your waist, thigh and knee nested inside yours.

He’s warm at your back, musky with the mingling aroma of dried sex and sweat.

Sturdy. More real than anything that’s ever put its hands on you.

Johnny, who the sea loved so much it spat him back out. So treasured by the world that a bullet to the brain couldn’t even take him away from it.

Who, by the sound of it, means so much to the people in his life that they would follow him to the middle of nowhere just to keep an eye on him.

Bile churns in your stomach.

next chapter early access

a/n: two chapters left!

Lord.

deep end

price x transmasc!reader | 7.9k | AO3

cw: dubcon (power imbalance, price steamrolling reader), hints of daddy issues/mild daddy issues for those who want to see them, abrupt ending, age gap, alcohol, masturbation, praise kink, hand feeding, fingering, oral, anal sex a/n: clit, cock, and cunt are used to describe genitalia of reader's body. reader has top surgery scars.

There’s something to be said for the kind of work that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. 

It’s not glamorous, but it’s yours—a modest business with your name on the side of a sun-faded van, stocked with gear, and enough regulars to keep the bills paid. That’s more than a lot of people can claim. It keeps the lights on. Affords you food and pride, both. Proof you’re getting by.

This little operation, humble as it is, at least gets you outside. And on days like this, that’s a gift. The cirrostratus looks like pulled strands of candy floss overhead, and the breeze takes the edge off.

You tip your head for a moment to admire the clouds, then tug the brim of your sunhat. It’s too big, like everything else you’re wearing. The clothes came out of the same catalog you order your gear from. A stiff, white button-up with your logo on the pocket and shapeless red shorts that skim your knees. Cheap. Chafes in all the wrong places, but expensable.

You scratch absentmindedly near your navel and guide the vacuum along the pool floor in methodic passes. The water is clear, the motion soothing. Slips you into a quiet headspace. 

It’s satisfying. Calming. The zen and predictability of a repetitive task cannot be understated. Lulls you into a lovely state of not-quite-daydreaming. 

So, you don’t hear Mr. Price the first time.

“You with me, lad?”

The vacuum handle nearly slips as you twist around too fast, your foot catching the edge of the pool. You wobble, free arm flailing for balance. Mr. Price steps forward instinctively—poised to surge across the yard. You manage to steady yourself, weight rocking back in time.

Both of you exhale at once.

He scrubs a hand over his face, dragging it across his beard.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you.”

“I gathered.”

You switch off the vacuum, the underwater hum fading. “Was there, uh, something you needed, sir?”

His sunglasses are too dark to tell, but you feel him sizing you up, same as he did when you arrived. He hadn’t said much then either, just opened the door, looked you over from head to toe, then gestured toward the side gate with a grunt.

You don’t know what to make of him. In truth, you rarely give your clients much thought beyond big house and lucky bastards. If you see them at all, it’s through the windows.

This is your first time at his place, and you’re still formulating an assessment. 

You don’t know if Mr. Price has a family, but his house is big enough to accommodate one. There’s a sporty car parked outside his garage. A sprawling garden, lined with hedges, mature trees, and a wrought-iron fence. No immediate neighbors butting the property line.

And, obviously, a pool.

What sets him apart is that you met him, and not a housekeeper or assistant. Clients typically let others handle the scheduling and small talk. It caught you off guard, putting a face to the voice, and matching the face to the owner’s name.

Still, your gut says to treat him the same as the others. Another man accustomed to obedience. So, you straighten and lift your chin.

Your change in posture seems to amuse. The corner of his mouth lifts.

“I asked if you needed water.”

Your eyes flick to your bag and your beat-up thermos, plain as day. He had to have seen it. Which means this isn’t really about concern. You’ve done this dance before. A casual, innocuous question preceding a snide comment or suspicion. Are you slacking off? Cutting corners?

Knew it, you think bitterly.

“No thank you, sir.”

His mouth twitches again, this time downward, then flattens. 

“Suit yourself.”

He retreats indoors, and the rest of the visit passes without incident. No more words exchanged. The clouds lift, sharing a rare, naked sky.

You pack your tools and log the time. As you pull out of the drive, you check the rearview.

Mr. Price stands at the back gate with a phone pressed to his ear.

You can’t read his face from this distance—but you feel the weight long after the house disappears from view.

You must’ve made an impression, because Price starts booking weekly. On your docket every Friday afternoon.

It mystifies. His pool is never particularly dirty. Maybe a thin film of grime at the most, a handful of leaves blown in from the hedges and bird cherry trees. No signs of children or pool toys. No evidence of parties. It’s clear he lives alone, and doesn’t host.

Far be it for you to question easy money.

It makes for a pleasant, if not boring, routine. Knock on the door. Head around back. With booking and billing handled online, there’s no need to see or speak to him at all.

For a couple weeks, it’s simple. Another lucky bastard with a big house who leaves blank five-star reviews. The best you could hope for.

Then he starts appearing poolside.

At first, you assume it’s a fluke. That he’s forgotten you’re scheduled. 

He’s the picture of leisure. Drink in one hand, cigar in the other, stretched out on the cushions. If he’s startled or annoyed by your presence, he doesn’t show it. He gives you a polite nod, then buries his nose in a magazine.

But then it happens again. And again. 

Like clockwork. The new fucking routine.

You unlatch the gate, and there he is, waiting. He makes himself comfortable—well, more comfortable, given it is his house—and watches. Or seems to. It’s hard to tell with the sunglasses.

He never interrupts, just smokes and reads. The magazines he cradles are dog-eared, covers curled over. Sometimes you catch glimpses of the topics: cars, golf, current events. None of it hints at what he does for money. If he’s retired or working from home. If he’s ever worked a day in his life.

It changes things.

The calm dissolves. You grow more aware of every little thing. The way your shirt sticks between your shoulder blades. The trickle of sweat down your spine. Every time you bend at the waist or kneel by the pool’s edge. 

You try to ignore it, but you feel his eyes brushing over the nape of your neck or small of your back. Yet every time you peek, he’s not looking. You can’t shake it anyway—the sense of being observed, possibly admired.

That’s when the shame creeps in.

What are you doing? What do you think this is, a slow-burn porno? Are you that vain?

This is just a job.

You scold yourself, cheeks burning hotter than the sun overhead. It’s mortifying. To even imagine that a man like him—older, composed, probably has a different watch and woman for each day of the week—would be watching you. You. You’re not special. You’re a line item on an invoice. Background noise.

The thought that you’ve spun some dumb fantasy makes your stomach knot.

You work faster. Keep your eyes down. Try not to think about it too hard.

But when the breeze shifts and carries his smoke toward you, heavy and spiced, and it curls around your ribs like a hook.

Your first real conversation, you’re in trouble.

“You’re late.”

“I know. I’m sorry, sir.”

Mr. Price’s fists sit on his hips, a cigar at the corner of his mouth held in place by a frown. Sunglasses hiding a glare.

“What kept you?”

You’re sweating from the mad rush, juggling the hose and skimmer, and running on fumes. A dull throb pulses in your skull, the tail end of a headache from your last client’s shrill tirade. His threats to leave bad reviews over a handful of rowan petals in his pool and a perceived lack of hustle.

A nutcase, you want to spit. You want to tell Price about how you skipped lunch and nearly got sideswiped on the drive. Complain about how your life depends on the goodwill of people who don’t remember your name and settle for obscenities or diminutives.

Instead, you drop your armful on the grass and lie. “Traffic.”

He cocks a brow. “Traffic got you worked up?”

“Yes,” you bristle, and slam the gate to storm back to collect the rest of your supplies.

When you return, he’s still at the gate, and this time, one long arm swings past. He slows the metal before it slams, guiding it shut with a quiet click. Suddenly, he’s too close, and you’re boxed in. A meld of tobacco, sweat, and body heat seeps into the space between. It’s toothsome. Heady on the tongue.

You form an apology—you can’t afford to lose business—but he doesn’t raise his voice.

“Whatever’s actually put you in a mood, you won’t be takin’ it out on my property.” He ducks his head to chase your eyes and you’re forced to stare at your reflection in the dark lenses. “We clear?”

The steel of his jaw, his arm flexing, the authority crackling in his tone like fire splitting wood—it shouldn’t make your stomach flip, but it does.

“Yes, sir.”

He smiles then. Not kindly. Smug, maybe. “Good lad.” 

The words hit a nerve you didn’t know you had. They sink in somewhere soft and sensitive. The same place that makes a dog’s hackles rise and puts butterflies in bellies.

“And you better not slack just because you’re behind.”

“I won’t, sir.”

He lets you pass, and follows when you do. It’s a struggle to not trip over your own feet.

This time, he makes no secret of watching. His cigar burns out untouched. The magazine flutters in the wind. He sits with his fingers laced over his middle, legs crossed at the ankles. 

Bent on all fours over the system compartment, a prickle at the back of your neck grows impossible to ignore. You glance over your shoulder. 

He appears asleep—utterly still—until the corner of his mouth lifts. A slow, knowing smirk.

You snap back to the task at hand. 

A chuckle follows, low and indulgent. It drapes over you like velvet and settles somewhere deep, where it can hum and hiss like a wasp caught under a jar.

On a night off, you go dancing. Three glasses of cheap vodka in your bloodstream, the taste coating your tongue. You considered ordering whiskey, but lost your nerve. 

Leaning against a wall outside with your friends, getting air between songs, someone asks if you’ve met anyone lately. 

Or are you all work, no play?

You answer without hesitation. Without thinking.

(It’s not until the next morning, hungover and rueing the sun itself, that you understand they meant someone from an app. A date. A one-night stand, maybe.)

But you’d already blabbed. Confessed.

Mr. Price. 

John.

Your mouth runs wild with the liquor in your blood.

He’s a bit odd, you admit. Hard to read. Just the other day, you’d walked in as he finished swimming laps, and he climbed out the moment he spotted you. You swear it happened in slow motion—water rolling off the hard lines of his chest, the softer spread of his belly, the pelt of hair. The treasure trail and fading farmer’s tan. You nearly keeled over at the sight. And it’s hard to guess his age. He’s fit, and the silver threads in his beard do something to you.

It isn’t until the laughter shifts into something sly, that you realize how long you’ve been going on. The teasing comes fast, merciless but fond. There’s no walking it back.

And when they ask—flat-out—if you’d fuck him, you can’t lie.

That gets them going.

“Do you think he’s—?”

You cut them off. “No. No way.”

Denial is easier than the fantasy of hope.

With an excuse, you peel yourself off the wall and flee back into the fray to shake the heat crawling up your neck.

You attempt to bury it all in the mouth of a stranger. Older, taller, dark hair curling damply at his temples. Broad enough shoulders. A cheap cologne that stings your nose. You let him kiss and paw at you against the sticky wall by the toilets, but it’s no good. He tastes like rum. Too sweet, no substance. Nothing like what you want. 

The night ends early, frustration simmering. Alone in your room, sprawled in the dark, you add one item to the shopping list on your phone:

Whiskey.

The weather turns fast one afternoon.

It starts with the trill of Mr. Price’s phone and a curse. He abandons his post, gritting out a clipped Yeah? before striding toward the house. The glass doors shut behind him, and though they muffle the sound, his voice climbs in volume as he disappears from view.

Almost in answer, the sky darkens. In minutes, clouds quicken and roll in, dragging the light with them and smothering it in a drab, gray sheet. The breeze kicks up and then your sunhat is gone, plucked clean off your head and hurled skyward.

You watch it spiral away helplessly.

Leaving your equipment where it sits, you duck beneath the umbrella between the chairs. It offers little protection. The raindrops fatten, splattering against the stone, and without giving it much thought, you scoop up his magazine and half-finished drink.

Clutching the snifter to your chest, the scent of whiskey rises. You’re more of a wine fan, really, but the smell settles you. Warms you, even as goosebumps sprout along your arms and shoulders. Reminds you of your dad.

You shift foot to foot, back turned to the wind and rain. The uniform clings in cold patches as it soaks through.

Then, from across the lawn—“Inside!”

Mr. Price stands in the doorway, motioning you in.

You hesitate. You have a policy: stay outdoors. Liability. Safety. If rain hits, you wait it out or move on. You know this.

Then a sheet of rainwater sluices off the umbrella as it topples sideways in the wind, sloshing down your back. Shuddering, you shove the magazine under your shirt to shield it and bolt.

The rain lashes your skin. Grass squishes beneath your feet. His drink sloshes over the rim with every step, drenching your fingers in liquor.

You slip through the doors, soaked, clothes plastered on. You produce the rumpled magazine and offer it to Mr. Price with his half-drained glass.

“I, uh, tried to—”

“You’re dripping,” he says flatly, his gaze dropping to the puddle forming at your feet.

You glance down at the water pooling at your feet and almost stumble back outside, stammering apologies, but he cuts you off.

“I’ll get you a towel. Shoes off.” He empties your hands, pivoting toward the kitchen to deposit them on the island. As he rounds a corner, he points at the floor. “Stay put.”

Outside, the rain picks up, and you gingerly remove your shoes and socks, not wanting to make more of a mess. Shivering, teeth clacking from the chill, you rub your arms and gawk. You’ve never been inside a client’s home before.

A polished, heavy table anchors the immediate area. Old wood floors stretch beneath it, the tile under your feet a practical addition. Meant for footprints. Framed photos are scattered throughout, on the walls and sideboard, family portraits old and new you assume.

A grand painting behind the grand table seizes your attention: a small fishing boat, crimson and white, nearly lost in a violent storm. The sea churns around it in deep greens and blacks, lightning tearing across a sickly sky. 

You admire the scene until you hear footfalls.

Mr. Price bears a towel and clothes. You accept the towel, pretending not to notice the second offering. When you peek out from beneath the cotton, he’s holding a shirt out.

Does he seriously think—

“Go on. You’ll catch your death if you stay in that.”

A laugh putters out. You shake your head. “You can’t—I can’t take that, sir.”

His chin dips. “You’re not taking anything. You’re borrowing. C’mon. Shirt off, son.”

An ember catching kindling. You struggle to tamp it down.

“Can’t I change in the–”

He scoffs dismissively. “I’m not moppin’ up a trail. Nothing I haven’t seen before. Transparent, anyway.”

Nothing I haven’t seen before. You doubt that. Your scars have faded into blurs, but they’re recognizable. Obvious in their purpose. 

He is right. Your shirt clings better than cellophane, sheer in all the worst places. You tug at the hem, flustered, burning up under his scrutiny.

Another look at his face says arguing only delays the inevitable. It’s fucked—whatever this is, however he keeps pushing and playing with you. Batting you around like a bored tomcat would a mouse. Worse is how easily you’re letting it happen. Part of you, perversely curious, wants to see where it’ll lead, if he’ll eat you whole or what. Another can’t stop replaying the memory of what he looks like, soaked and shirtless.

One-handed, you work the shirt free, and new goosebumps bloom across your skin. Your nipples stiffen. It shouldn’t be a big deal—but Mr. Price is staring.

Maybe your scars haven’t faded as much as you think. You take the shirt, refusing to shrink, and square your shoulders. Posture makes all the difference amongst men, you learned.

The borrowed shirt slips overhead, and you juggle the towel to thread both arms through. It’s loose in the shoulders, hitting the midpoint of your butt. Plain black, clean-smelling cotton.

Price clears his throat. “Better. Bottoms, now.”

If your cheeks weren’t already warm, they’re scorching now.

“Sir.”

He clicks his tongue and swings the spare shorts. “C’mon, these’ll do if you tie the string.”

“There’s no need!”

“You’d rather make more of a mess on my floor?”

You hold your ground, waiting for an indication he’ll back off, but he doesn’t. An unevenly matched game of chicken and you’re losing one concession at a time. You last all of ten seconds.

With a huff, you wrap the towel around your waist. Wiggling your hips, you coax the shorts down without revealing more than you already have. It takes a long, awkward minute. And when you think you’ve made it through with some shred of dignity intact, he kneels, and closing a hand around your ankle.

“Steady.”

You freeze as he lifts one foot, then the other, helping you step out. 

You snatch the shorts out of his hand and hurriedly shove them on, nearly combusting when the towel comes away in his hand seconds after you pull them over your bottom.

And then he’s up, moving, your wet clothes slung over his arm like nothing happened. Like he wasn’t—like he didn’t just—

“Back in a jiff.”

This is where your curiosity’s led you.

Barefoot, in his clothes, heart fluttering ridiculously. Breaths in short bursts, stifled little things, afraid to be too loud. Dumbstruck.

How ridiculous you must look.

Do you think he’s—?

Well.

You dry off as best you can and sidestep the puddle. Your boxers are likely see-through as well now, but you vow to not mention them. You wouldn’t survive Mr. Price insisting on a fresh pair with your ass on display.

You rinse the whiskey off in a haze and find the kitchen as orderly as the dining room. Together, they’re larger than your entire flat. Modernized, no-frills. 

Through the archway, the hum of a tumble dryer kicks up, and Price reappears.

“Some rain. Didn’t expect it, did you?”

You almost ask which part—the rain, or the forced striptease?

Instead, you mutter, “No, Mr. Price.”

“Think you can call me John now.”

Within minutes, he talks you into tea and a sandwich. While you nibble, he fills the silence with small talk. He doesn’t cook much himself—so if you don’t like it, s’not his fault—and arranges for a chef to deliver meals every Sunday. Nothing elaborate, enough for the week, with extras in case of company.

You work up the nerve to ask what he does for a living.

He’s unfazed. Says his parents passed, left him the house. He’s retired military, lives comfortably off a pension. Mentions he does some consulting now and then—vague, detached, the kind of answer meant to end the conversation, not invite it forward.

“But enough about me. Want to know more about you.”

You wash a bite down with a sip, uncertain that he’s serious. He’s being polite, you reason. A man like him—he doesn’t really want to know. You’re a half-drowned dog he brought in from a storm. A good deed.

“I’m not that interesting.”

“Says the kid with his own company.”

Fair play.

You relent. Share little things. Where you’re from how you started, and that most of your work is seasonal. You help out at a school in the off months, and teach swimming at the community pool when they’re short-staffed. He listens intently, attention never wavering. Probably finds it novel, working more than one job.

“Sounds like you have your hands full.”

You nod, swallowing the last sip of tea. “I keep busy.”

He hums. “You do alright on your own?”

The question is light, but it lands heavy. It’s simple, benign—but it isn’t neutral and it needles. He ducks his head when you look away, searching. Like he’s casting a line, hoping you’ll give something up.

Heat flares under your collar. Your throat constricts, shame blooming sharp and sudden.

You shrug, keeping it light. “I manage.”

When the rain finally stops, you’re overdue, and itching to escape Mr. Price—John’s—attention. There are only so many ways to dodge questions.

He meets you at the van once it’s packed.

“Be seeing you, kid.”

“Yeah,” you nod once. “Thanks again, John.”

You offer a cordial hand, business-like, and his palm is hot around yours. You bet it’d feel like a brand elsewhere.

At a light on the way home, you tug the collar of his shirt up over your nose and inhale. For a brief, blistering second, you imagine his hands around your ankles again. Pushing them up and up and up.

You don’t remember the rest of the drive home.

It’s only after you’ve kicked off your shoes and settled into the couch with a sip of your new whiskey, that it hits you—your uniform’s still in John’s laundry.

Shit.

You go back for it after the weekend, off schedule. Have to. 

Having rung ahead, he’s expecting you. He meets you at the door, phone tucked between his shoulder and cheek. You hand off the spare clothes; he passes yours back. He mouths sorry and squeezes your shoulder, before disappearing back inside like it never happened.

You’re already behind, so you change in the van before your first job. The moment you slide the shorts on, your eyebrows hit the ceiling. They sit higher now, snug around your thighs, hitting well above the knee. You assume they must’ve shrunk in the wash—until you pull on the shirt. It’s been hemmed. Clean, subtle stitching. Tighter at the sleeves, better at the waist.

You consider going back, but your schedule’s packed, and the day runs away from you.

When you see him next, he beats you to it.

“Fits better, doesn’t it?” John claps your shoulder, pinching and tugging the shoulder seam.

“Yes, but did you—?”

“Eyeball the size?” He grins. “Not bad, eh? I’ve got a good tailor.”

It’s not like you can undo it and you’re not about to shell out for a replacement. So you thank him, and receive a pleased, grumbled good lad in return, and a swat to the small of your back, a hair north of improper. 

A wordless dismissal. Back to work.

With every window flung wide, you wage a hopeless war against the stagnant heat. Your sheets are drenched in sweat. Restless doesn’t cover it—you’re strung tight and buzzing, sticky and half-mad with frustration.

Sleep’s not happening, not like this.

You groan and kick your boxers down your legs, then roll to your stomach, pushing up onto your knees. The air’s balmy, sticking in your lungs.

You’re not surprised to find yourself wet. Some of it’s sweat, sure, but the rest—that’s your own fault. The consequence of a wandering mind and no one around to check it.

You let your imagination take the reins.

Face mashed into the mattress, you imagine his foot on your back. Weight bearing down on you, pinning you in place. His cock rutting over your ass, one big hand grabbing himself at the base, slapping it against your hole, and the other digging into a fleshy cheek to spread it.

Your cock pulses between your rubbing fingers and a moan spills out. Your teeth scrape the sheets, eyes welding shut. It’s obscene and loud in your quiet room when you steal slick from your cunt to rub over your asshole.

He would work you open, push one finger in at a time. Get you to cry on two, render you incoherent on three. Your own aren’t enough to bring tears to your eyes, but thinking of what he’d say is.

He’d ask if you wanted it. Needed it. Deserved it. All in that frustratingly even timbre of his.

His voice comes out of nowhere, clear as a klaxon in your head.

Good boy.

You come hard and fast, bucking your cock into your palm, fingertips prodding at your rim. Didn’t even get far enough to slip them inside.

You lie there for ages, gasping, limp. Your muscles are too heavy, and you’re too far gone to care about the mess.

Sleep takes you like that—sticky and spent.

The next morning, you peel yourself out of bed and strip the sheets in silence, tossing everything into the wash, shame eating you alive.

You can’t look at John that week without that memory pumping blood south. Imagining him bending you over a chaise or pushing you into the clover until your uniform turns green.

It’s divine punishment when he decides you need feeding. Like he somehow knows what played out in the privacy of your bedroom, or caught the stench of desperation that only comes with a misplaced crush, and you need your nose rubbed in it.

John presents fruit under a mesh cloche and demands you take a break. Not like there’s much to do, anyway. The pool goes unused most of the time, the maintenance minimal at best. You put up little resistance, beckoned toward him by a crooked finger.

He moves his legs for you to sit as if there aren’t three other loungers ringing the pool. Gesturing for you to scooch closer when he uncovers the fruit, stabbing a cocktail fork into a pink cube dusted with tajin. He offers it handle first.

A drop of juice drips onto his shin, and you think, lick it. You could. You would, if he told you to.

The impulse grips you so intensely, it’s absurd. This whole thing is absurd. Here you are, with a client. Not a date, not a boyfriend. A man with at least ten years on you, casually bullying his way past all personal and professional boundaries, and you’re waving him through as if they don’t matter.

You know he expects you to take the fork from him, but that curious twitch stirs, and instead, your mouth falls open.

His eyes narrow, and he turns the fork, tucking the fruit into your mouth. Your lips close around the bite, tugging it off the tines with your teeth.

“Cheeky.” he murmurs.

A good little pet sitting at their master’s feet.

Your head spins.

You’re convinced now. There’s a tear in reality, one that opens every time you turn onto that private lane. You pass through it like Alice through the looking glass, crossing into another plane thrumming with heat and heavy air, a whole world that revolves around Mr. Price and his whims. 

A gravity all its own.

A special request from John arrives mid-week, close to the hottest day of the year.

Full-service. Deep clean, filter flush, system check—the kind of job that’ll eat your afternoon and keep you working well past quitting time. Two other clients will have to be bumped, but he offers triple your usual rate. Says he understands it’s last minute.

Says he’ll make it worth your while.

For the hundredth time, you’re unable to turn him down.

You tell yourself it’s the money, but that’s only half true. The other half keeps your hands tight on the wheel the whole drive over when Friday rolls around.

Nothing helps your nerves. You can’t stop thinking about eating from John’s hand. The weight of his stare. His attention. About that man at the bar—the cheap imitation whose tongue you sucked in a vain attempt to quiet what’s only gotten louder.

It’s all climbing to a fever-pitch, and you want it to break.

John greets you at the gate.

“Glad to see you.”

He lays a hand across the back of your neck, and you fall into step.

“Hosting a mate’s retirement party. Suspect his kids’ll want to swim.” He continues on about the details, but you’re stuck on how he directs your attention via squeeze.

You expect a mess, or evidence of a gathering on the horizon, but everything’s the same. Practically pristine. Swept and hosed down. You glance sidelong toward John when he sits, buzzing with something you don’t want to name. 

There’s no real reason you should be here.

No real work to do.

But he’s bought your time, so you give it, and it crawls. You move equally slow, checking the seals for wear, inspecting the heater, running tests. All of it busy work and theater.

You’re kneeling on a folded towel, bent over the open housing for the pool’s pump system. Focused until his shadow spills across the ground.

“Don’t mean to sneak up on you,” John says.

You twist to peer over your shoulder and almost swallow your tongue at the sight of his trunks at eye-level, and rise to your feet. “Everything alright?” You swipe your forehead with your wrist, willing yourself to relax.

His knuckles brush your cheek, featherlight. He frowns. “You look warm,” he taps one to your chin. “Come on. Enjoy the fruits of your labor with me, yeah?”

You barely put up a fuss when he cajoles you into a dip. Stripped to your boxers, you wade in, relief singing up your legs. Curling around your waist. You nearly groan from how good it feels.

At the other end, John dives in. He slices through the water, sleek and galeoid, surfacing within reach. Veins of water cut down his chest and stomach, disappearing at the elastic at his hips.

“Better?”

“Loads,” you say, hoarse.

He gives a faint smirk, then turns, launching into lazy laps. Says something about needing to stay limber, working out a knot in his back. You hopeless to watch. He puts those shoulders to use, pulling with long, fluid strokes.

You swallow hard, trailing him shamelessly: the sweep of his back, the bulk and muscles under freckled and scarred skin. You’re greedy. You want him. On you. Around you. Inside you. You want to bite down on that smirk and hear him swear your name.

You sit on the steps, draw your knees in, and press your thighs closed to hold yourself together. Your hands flex on the vinyl. They want to reach. Grab.

He pushes off the wall for another loop, and you stay right where you are, trying to think about anything that isn’t the throbbing pulse between your legs.

John doesn’t bother asking if you’re hungry, or if you’ll stay for dinner.

Haphazardly dressed, shirt half-buttoned and untucked, you stow the last of your gear. You’re in a daze, holding fast to denial. The spell will break, your van will revert into a pumpkin, and you’ll head home to scrub the day from your skin. Send the invoice, knock off a percentage, and you’ll do it all over again next week.

Then smoke hits the air.

John’s at the grill laying down strips of pork, the meat hissing on the grate. He halves peaches with a paring knife that’s tiny in his grip and sets them cut-side down beside the meat. The air turns lush with salt and charred sugars, rosemary and garlic.

You slink to his side, salivating, meaning to say goodbye and thank you. Polite and decisive.

Then he jerks his head to the door and tells you to fetch plates and cutlery, and you bound off. Retrieving them dutifully. Inwardly, a part of you raises the fact you didn’t agree to stay, that you shouldn’t stay—but that flicker of good sense snags on the barb of hunger and all your aching.

By the time the food’s ready, you’re ravenous. You never eat this well. Burnished pork glazed in its own fat and blistered peaches. You stop short of licking the plate.

After washing up, you peek at your phone.

“Stop that,” he scolds. “I know exactly how long I’ve got you for.”

And he does—he keeps you through golden hour.

Abendrot, painted in red and gold and soft indigo, bleeds over the sky. You’re boneless in the lounge chair. Content. Melting around the edges, the line between help and guest completely dissolved. Rendered.

John sprawls the next seat over, holding a lowball glass that catches the last of the light.

You lie on your side, head pillowed on your arm, watching the bob of his throat as he swallows.

“Can I have some?” you ask.

“Don’t think you’d like it. Picture you as more of the daiquiri type.”

“Not true,” you sit up. “I’ve got a bottle of that at home.”

That makes him glance your way. Then, he shifts, patting the cushion beside him.

He walks you through it, clearly doubting your tastes and experience: breathe in first, don’t take too much, let it roll. Savor it.

It burns, but it’s smooth. Honey folded in smoke. Leagues better than what you picked up on sale.

“Good?” he asks.

You wheeze, nodding. Emboldened, you try again twice more under his amused supervision. After a shallow fourth, you push the glass to his chest with a breathless laugh.

John chuckles, shoulders shaking. When the sound dies, you notice how close you’ve drifted.

“Well,” you murmur, easing upright. “This has been–well, I should...”

“That it?” he asks. “Off the clock now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but, I should go, since–”

“Yeah?” he smooths a hand up your thigh. “Aren’t you the boss?”

Your brain stutters. Your mouth moves before your thoughts can catch up. “Aren’t you?”

It comes out soft. Sultry. Unfurls like a red flag in front of a bull.

His face blanks. Then, very quietly, “Careful.”

Panic punches through you. Words spilling fast. “I am so sorry, sir. That was—that was over the line. I didn’t mean—”

Storm clouds darken his blues and you brace for it—for the correction, the ending you walked yourself into.

But he moves.

The glass hits the table with a muted clink, forgotten. His hand shoots out, closing around your wrist, and the next thing you know, you’re hauled straight into his lap.

He’s kissing you.

“John–” you gasp against his mouth.

Devouring you.

His mouth slants hard over yours, tongue parting your lips, taking what he wants with a low sound—part growl, part groan.

You try to breathe through it, to think, but it’s useless. He tastes like smoke and whiskey and stone fruit. He grabs your waist and drags you closer, until you’re straddling him, knees framing his hips.

The lounger creaks.

“Christ,” he mutters against your jaw. His teeth scrape there, making you arch. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to make that face again.”

“What face? A-again?” you moan, dizzy.

“That one,” he murmurs, mouth trailing lower, grazing your throat. “Like you’d let me wreck you right here, out in the open. You make it all the time.”

You shudder. He feels it—laughs under his breath.

His hand slips to your nape. His forehead presses to yours, thumb brushing your cheek.

“You want this, hm?” he asks.

You nod.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he says, and kisses you again. Rougher this time. Meaner. The decision’s final.

You belong here. On his lap. On his tongue.

“There’s a good boy, fuckin’ good boy.”

A head rush in two ways. The pulse of John’s cock on your tongue rewires your brain, resets it completely when he presses your nose into the steel wool of his hair. Dizzying, both the lack of air and the sheer size of his hand cradling your skull.

Right here, out in the open. Kneeling on a bunched-up shirt.

He had let you take charge to a point. Half-heartedly muttered about there being no need. Though as soon as you slid your tongue along the underside of his cock and hollowed your cheeks, he swore and took the reins.

He fucks your throat in slow, deep thrusts, and tells you what he thinks of your talent. What a nice surprise it is. He coos when tears well and spill, mistaking them, maybe, for strain. But it’s not that. It’s the way he looks at you. He means every word. That’s what’s undoing.

He catches your tears with a thumb, and drags them across his tongue to taste the salt. You could come like this, giving head to a man who calls you kid. When you slip a hand over your crotch he doesn’t stop you. In fact—

“Go on, do it. Show me how desperate you are.”

There’s not a shred of embarrassment when you cup yourself through your clothes, rubbing along the seam, chasing friction. You can’t do much of anything except rile yourself up. It works for John—a line of filthy encouragement streaming from him uninhibited. He grinds his hips up into the heat of your mouth, picking up speed.

John doesn’t give much warning before he comes. A stifled grunt gives it away—then his grip tightens, the pressure turning forceful, insistent, urging you to take more, to take all of him. You gag, sparks bursting in your vision when he spills in your throat. 

He gives another couple thrusts before allowing your retreat. You sputter and cough, lips slick with drool. You curl inward slightly, heels digging into your backside.

While you scrub at your eyes with the heels of your hands, still sniffing, he leans. Drags your lower lip down and hooks a thumb in your mouth to steal a look inside.

“Perfect.”

His bed could eat yours for breakfast.

That’s your first thought when John eases you into it.

Then his mouth finds yours, slower now, pacing himself. He’s got all the time in the world. You’re not going anywhere.

His kiss deepens as he crowds in close, tongue sliding against yours. You can feel every inch of him, chest to chest, the hard line of his thigh slotted between yours. His weight is a delicious trap, anchoring you down.

He shoves your shirt open, one rough palm skimming your waist, the other dragging its thumb across a scar. His mouth works a line down your neck, maw open and hungry.

“You’ve been driving me fucking mad,” he murmurs, gravel-thick. His teeth catch the shell of your ear as he toys with a nipple. “Teasin’ me for weeks.”

You twist your fingers in his hair and pull. He groans, grinding between your thighs.

“I wasn’t trying to,” you gasp. “You—you made me—during the storm—”

“Never made you do a damn thing,” he grunts, tugging at your waistband. “Did I? Didn’t make you wear my clothes. Didn’t force you to eat my food.”

He yanks your shorts and boxers to your ankles, and there’s no hiding it. He finds you wet—slick and ready. His whole body stills to collect himself. Then he exhales slow, grinning.

“Christ,” he kisses your jaw, your cheekbone, your temple. “Don’t need to force a thing.”

John’s touch is as demanding as the rest of him. He learns you fast, using two fingers and his thumb to stroke your cock. His other hand slides under your back, kneading a globe to coax you into another filthy kiss.

He breaks to swipe through your cunt, and you moan into his neck, clinging to him. He groans at the way you flutter when he circles your hole, hips shifting so you feel the hard heat of him against your thigh.

“This alright?”

You nod, helpless.

“Speak.”

“Yes,” you gasp. “Yes, John.”

He slicks his fingers and returns to your twitching cock, stirring you up into a fit of noise, hips mindlessly canting into his touch.

You’re right there—right on the edge—when he pulls away. A desperate sound tears from your lips as he stands, leaving you aching on the bed. You turn, watching him through bleary eyes as he looms.

“John,” you whimper, tilting up.

He doesn’t answer. Just reaches down, huffing through his nose, and rolls you onto your front. You scramble to get your knees set.

“Please, please—”

“Know what you need,” He grits, hauling you by the hips to the edge of the bed, swearing when you’re completely exposed. “Fuck, look at that. Could sink my teeth in right here and eat,” he swipes over your flesh, chuckling at your whimpering. “Another time, baby. Don’t worry.”

You hiss as he massages your rim using the mess from your cunt. Firm circles to ease you open. When he finally breaches, sinking to the first knuckle, you lose a little time, and come back to feel the prodding of a second digit. It’s a touch too soon, but you don’t stop him.

Don’t think you could. Not sure if you’d want to.

Soon enough, you’re tearing at the sheets. Tears roll over the bridge of your nose and slopes of your face, staining the cotton. You’re trembling, hiccuping, overwhelmed—barely able to keep up with him working you over on three of his spit-coated fingers.

Just a job, you told yourself, and now you’re crying into his bed. Listening to him purr your name. You sob once—high and cracked—and he hushes you, holding you still at the base of your spine.

“That’s it, sweet boy. Let it out.”

You cling harder to the sheets, the salt of your tears burning where they admix with sweat. You’re not sure what you’re crying for anymore—relief, need, shame. The staggering, unbearable pleasure of being wanted.

Again, he stops short of letting you come.

You’re too far gone to complain, every nerve lit up and raw. The last of your common sense, a final coherent thought raising the issue of a condom, is seared out of your mind when his cocks glides through your folds. When it slaps over the cleft of your ass. Once. Twice.

Then he’s pressing in.

It’s almost unceremonious—the weeks of simmering tension finally and suddenly boiling over—white-hot and unbearable. It ruptures, spills molten in your veins, and splits you wide open.

John’s belly brushes your lower back, then presses, cushioning when he curls over to push until he’s flush.

“Oh–oh fuck, John,” you choke out, grappling the pillow half-tucked under you.

“You’re alright.”

He keeps you close, anticipating the kick of your legs, the instinct to wriggle away. One hand smooths over your flank, gentle as breaking in a wild thing, until the worst of your shaking settles.

Then he hooks an arm snug across your chest and the other under your stomach. He finds your leaking dick, thumbing it with a hum while his own stretches you out.

“Kept this waiting, didn’t I? Sweet boy, such a mess.”

He saws in and out slowly, luxuriating in it. The rough scrape of his stubble drags over your shoulder and neck, the humid gust of his breath puffs in your ear. His fingers dip and trace your seam, circling your neglected hole. 

“Please,” you try to buck against him, but it’s impossible to move.

“Greedy,” He grunts derisively, though the eagerness with which he burrows a finger in your cunt, betrays him.

He stalls his thrusts to a grind as feeds your cunt his fingers until you cry and shake anew. They probe deep, the rub of his palm to your aching cock almost too much. You snake a hand under to push his wrist away, but his teeth find your shoulder.

“You begged for this,” he growls. “So you’re gonna let me.”

It’s not so much permission as surrender—inevitable, all-consuming. You don’t allow it so much as you yield, helpless but to drown.

The squelch of your cunt around his fingers is damning. Thicker than yours with a longer reach, he finds what makes you clench around him tight, earning a clipped curse. His wrist must be sore with the angle, but he doesn’t let it stop him. He picks up his pace again, keeping your cunt stuffed and smothered, hurtling you toward your release at last.

“John, I-I’m gonna…” you pant, breath choppy. Drool sticking to the corners of your lips.

“That’s it,” he growls. “Give it.”

Eyelids slipping shut, lightning splits the black and shoots through your nerves and muscles. You seize up with a shout then jerk, orgasm rolling through you in waves.

The rest blurs—distant. Muffled.

A guttural sound, John’s fingers retracting. Clenching around nothing and everything. Two sweat and cum-damp palms flitting over your hips and tugging, guiding you back to meet the erratic snap of his hips. 

Clarity returns with the first spurts of his cum. Mouth falling slack all over again around a feeble, surprised moan as it floods you. You can’t see him, but imagine it. Head thrown, a coat of sweat over his front and back, glutes flexing. Rooted in this deep, all-encompassing.

It’s a while before he pulls out. Seconds, minutes. Doesn’t matter. 

It beads out of you like a pearl, smeared under a thumb, then wiped by a towel.

You don’t fight him when he tucks you into his side. It’s far too hot to be this entangled in each other’s arms, but the musk of sex and sweat soothes. Easy to overlook discomforts when you’re so sated.

He sighs sweet dreams into your ear, but you’re already gone. Pulled under.

In the morning, you wake to a scorching quilt over your back. 

His chest fitted to your spine, cockhead nudging at your sore hole. He contorts you some when you rouse enough to sleepily relax for him, hooking a thick arm beneath both knees and drawing them up. They press toward your chest, folding you like a bug. Tight and close to him until there’s no room, until you’re just a precious thing for him to fuck awake.

Dozing anew in bed, you draw circles through the hair on his stomach, lazy and absent, while his fingers trace soft, idle patterns between your shoulder blades. You yawn, stretching a little into him.

“Shouldn’t you be decorating or something?”

He grunts, the movement of his fingers pausing to scratch his stubbled jaw. “Hm? Wha’s that now?”

“The party,” you murmur, eyes half-lidded.

John exhales, then folds you tighter against him, dragging the duvet higher.

“What party?”

The model son

Forget me nots are his flower I will not take criticism. Also deer motif has nothing compared to Arthur Morgan dog motif. That man is a hound through and through

obsessed with the idea of onlyfans model! reader x Simon

Maybe you’re one of the biggest creators on the platform and you’re very well known after doing it for a few years. Except, you only do solo content, despite your peers constantly asking to collab or getting requests from fans to see you getting fucked.

Then, one day you post a video showing off some new panties and Simon’s tattooed and scarred hand just appears, squeezing the meat of your ass, claiming and possessive. A subtle message he’s sending to your audience as he spreads your cheeks apart, sliding your panties to the side and shows off your pretty pussy dripping with his cum.

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

TICKET TO PLAY | john price

Sheriff Price has a habit of pulling you over, and you have a habit of seeing how far you can push him. It’s a game you've been playing for years—a harmless one, until he gives you exactly what you’ve been asking for.

⤿ based on this | [ AO3 ]

18+ AU, fem!reader, small town vibes, porn with minimal plot, smut, oral (m receiving), dom!john (back and forth between hard and soft), bratty—sort of pathetic reader, fingering, squirting, public sex, smidge of voyeurism, size kink if you really read the fine print, implied slight age gap [ 6.6k words ]

You weren’t going that fast.

Maybe nudging 35 in a 25, but the road was empty—just you and the soft, golden light of a July evening slipping into dusk. The cicadas hummed their lazy symphony, crickets chirping in harmony, while the air carried the scent of fresh-cut grass and summer warmth. It was the kind of night that wrapped around you like a blanket, slow and sweet, the kind that made you want to roll the windows down and let the world drift by.

But then the sirens sliced through the calm, sharp and jarring, shattering the stillness. Red and blue lights flashed in your rearview, splashing the road ahead in a chaotic swirl of color. Your hands tightened on the wheel, that familiar knot twisting in your gut. You didn’t even need to check the mirror to know who it was.

Sheriff John Price.

The small-town Sheriff (asshole) that had a sixth sense for catching you when you weren’t even doing anything wrong. The guy who’d written you up for a rolling stop at an empty intersection, or a right on red at 2 a.m. when the streets were dead silent. Sure, maybe you were five over on a straight stretch of road, but come on—did he really have nothing better to do than hassle you over that? It was starting to feel like he was just looking for excuses to pull you over.

At this point, you figured you were practically on a first-name basis. Hell, you were probably the most frequent flyer on his ticket roster. But that was the trade-off for living in a town where the sheriff knew everyone’s business—and apparently, yours most of all.

You eased the rickety old Nissan Skyline to a crawl, tires screeching softly as you pulled onto the shoulder and shifted into park. Your fingers moved on autopilot, fishing the registration out of the center console before he even asked. If John Price had one talent, it was knowing where you were before you did—and you’d learned the hard way to keep things within arm’s reach.

The music blared for a second longer before you killed the volume, the sudden silence pressing down on the summer night like a weight. You rolled down the window, letting the warm, sticky air flood the cabin, thick with the scent of grass and distant rain. Leaning back in your seat, one hand resting lazily on the wheel, you waited. Same old song and dance.

First came the slam of his cruiser door, sharp and final, like he was already annoyed at the prospect of dealing with you. Then the crunch of his boots on the asphalt—slow, deliberate, each step dragging out the inevitable. It was almost comical, the way he took his time, like he wasn’t the one who’d flipped on the lights and sirens.

The window hissed as it rolled down, the sound jarring in the quiet, and before you could stop yourself, a smirk tugged at the corner of your mouth. You didn’t bother hiding it this time. If you were walking away thirty dollars lighter, you might as well make it entertaining.

"Evenin’, John," you drawl, letting the words hang in the air with a playful edge that makes his jaw tighten.

He leans in, his arms braced against the window frame like he owns the whole damn road. His face is all sharp lines and shadows in the fading light, the faint scent of cigarettes and worn leather wrapping around you, mingling with the heavy, humid air of the summer night.

“Don’t call me John,” he grumbles, his voice rougher than usual, like gravel under tires.

You raise an eyebrow, your lips curling into a grin. “Why not?” you tease, letting your fingers trail lazily along the steering wheel. “Thought we were friends, John.” You bat your lashes, adding a pout for good measure, laying it on thick just to see how far you can push him this time

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even blink. His eyes narrow, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he leans in closer, his presence crowding you. “We aren’t ‘friends,’” he says, his voice low, almost a growl. “You know why I pulled you over?”

It’s not really a question—it’s a challenge, and you can’t help but rise to it. You tilt your head, letting your gaze linger on him, your smirk widening. “Hmm… maybe ‘cause you’re a sucker for a pretty car?” you suggest, your tone dripping with sarcasm, sweet enough to sting.

John’s lips press into a thin line, but the subtle shift in his posture tells you everything you need to know. His gaze is unrelenting, sharp enough to cut through the cool facade you’re trying so hard to maintain. Internally, he’s fighting not to laugh—you can see it in the way his shoulders tense, like he’s holding back a cackle.

“If this—” he steps back, his eyes sweeping over the exterior of your car with deliberate slowness before landing back on you, “—is your idea of a ‘pretty car,’ I might have to issue you a ticket for driving without glasses.”

You lean back in your seat, arms crossing over your chest, your mouth hanging open in mock offense. Just because Fergie was old didn’t mean she was ugly. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an ass?”

He stands there for a moment, just watching you, his expression unreadable. It’s like he’s weighing how much more of this he’s willing to put up with. Finally, he tilts his head, his voice dry as dust. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a brat?”

“Touché.”

You two had been here before. Over and over again. Ever since you’d come back home from college, he’d been hot on your trail—always showing up at the worst possible moments, right when you thought you might’ve gotten away with it.

This was your town. You’d grown up here, knew every road, every corner, every face. It was small, sure, but it was yours. And then John Price showed up. Sparkling, brand new hot-shot sheriff, fresh off the Mayflower. Sworn in by all the touch-starved wives and swooned over by every teenage girl in a fifty-mile radius. Ever since he’d arrived, it was like Elvis all over again

You figured he didn’t have the right to boss the locals around like he owned the place. No shiny badge or gun on his hip was going to earn him any respect from you. This wasn’t some big city where the badge meant everything. Out here? You could be just as stubborn as he was.

Still, he had a knack for showing up when you least expected it, always lurking in the background, keeping an eye on you for reasons you couldn’t quite figure out. No one could explain it, but there he was, always hovering like you were some kind of problem. But you never did anything wrong. Not really.

“I bet you 50 bucks there’s about five disgruntled teens smoking pot under the high school bleachers as we speak,” you say, leaning back in your seat with a grin tugging at your lips. “Surely, they deserve your devotion and attention more than little ol’ me.”

He pauses, clearly weighing your words, and you can see the flicker of recognition in his eyes. “I don’t want your money,” he mutters, his tone dry but with a hint of amusement—and something else you can’t quite place. “Besides, I doubt you’ve got 50 dollars to spare, considering how often you’re in the precinct paying off tickets.” He leans in just a little, his gaze sharp, like he’s daring you to argue.

You shrug, playing the part, even though you know he’s right. “Hey, I’m just saying. You’re wasting your time with me. I’m practically a model citizen. Those kids under the bleachers, though? They could be causing all kinds of trouble.”

You give him a sidelong glance, letting the playful challenge hang in the air between you. “I’m just trying to help you out here, Sheriff.”

Your tone is sweet—too sweet—and you can almost see the gears turning in his head as he tries to figure out whether you’re messing with him or just being your usual self.

He takes a slow breath, clearly trying to keep his composure. His hand pinches the bridge of his nose before he exhales, the sound heavy with exasperation. “Oh, I’m sure you are,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Big help, givin’ me that advice.”

You raise an eyebrow, leaning forward just enough to close the distance between you, your voice dripping with mock sincerity. “What can I say, Sheriff? Someone’s gotta make your job worthwhile.”

For a moment, the world seems to narrow to just the two of you. The air grows heavy, charged with something you can’t quite name, and the silence stretches taut between you. But then the faint hum of a car engine cuts through the stillness, tires rolling past on the asphalt—a sharp reminder that you’re not alone out here.

“Step out of the car.” His voice is calm, steady, but there’s a flicker of something darker beneath the surface, a low undercurrent that sends a shiver down your spine.

Your jaw tightens, anger flaring hot and sudden in your chest. He’s never asked you to step out of the car before, and the demand catches you off guard. You can’t afford to be arrested—not with a shift at the diner at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, not with the way your life is already balanced on a knife’s edge. The thought of cuffs, of being hauled into the precinct, makes your stomach churn.

But you don’t move. Not yet. Instead, you meet his gaze, your own sharp and defiant, and for a heartbeat, the two of you are locked in a silent standoff.

You don’t say a word, just reach down to unclick your seatbelt with an indignant sigh, movements slow—like dragging out the inevitable might change the outcome. The latch pops, the sound too loud in the quiet, and you open the door, letting the evening air rush in, cool against the heat prickling at your skin.

You step out, tugging your shorts down where they’ve ridden up, keeping your gaze on the ground, on the cracks in the pavement, anywhere but at him. You try to keep your breathing steady, try to act like this is just another bullshit stop, just another way for him to waste your time and break your wallet. But your heart’s already racing, faster than you want it to.

Then his hand is on your hip.

Firm. Unmoving. Not quite guiding, not quite restraining. Just there. A weight that lingers, like a silent reminder that he’s the one in control here, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.

For a second, you freeze.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just watches you. The silence stretches, thick and heavy, charged with something you don’t want to name.

You swallow, still refusing to look at him. “Gonna write me a bullshit ticket, John?” Your voice is casual, flippant—too much so. You know it, and so does he.

He doesn’t answer right away, and that makes it worse.

Because the truth is, you’d rather he just do it. Write the damn ticket, hand you the fine, and send you on your merry way. That would be easy. It’d be normal.

But nothing about him has ever been easy. And this? Whatever this is? It sure as hell isn’t normal.

His fingers tighten—just slightly—but it’s enough. Enough for you to catch it, that flicker of something dark and barely restrained. His jaw tightens, his nostrils flare, and you realize he’s at his limit.

Like he’s weighing his options. Like he’s wondering if he should just give you the damn ticket and walk away. 

You tilt your chin up, finally meeting his gaze, like a challenge. Would he?

His voice is tight when he finally speaks, low and strained, every word biting through the air.

"You think this is a game?"

You pause, letting the question linger as you ponder. Is it a game? Is that what this has always been? This back-and-forth, this constant chase—where you go about your life, minding your business, and he shows up, lurking, watching, like he’s got nothing better to do than make you his personal problem.

Would he really arrest you? Pin you against his cruiser and throw you in the back? Take you downtown like you’re some criminal? The thought sends a slow, involuntary shiver down your spine, but the more you think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. If he was going to do it, it would’ve happened already.

He’s just a big softie. A stubborn, gruff, self-righteous pain in the ass who acts like he’s got the whole town in a chokehold but has spent too many years shadowing you for it to be a coincidence.

And deep down, you reckon he must have some sick, weird crush if the only way he can muster up the courage to see you is by stuffing a white slip of paper under your windshield wiper, like he can’t even be bothered to have a conversation without the safety of bureaucracy to hide behind.

You don’t even have to think about it anymore. 

This is a game.

You keep your gaze steady, watching him. Watching the way he’s fighting to maintain that authority, to keep control. And through the harsh headlights from his car, it’s almost cute—the way his jaw tightens, the way his nostrils flare ever so slightly, the way his fingers twitch against your hip like he’s waging a war with himself. Like he thinks he can win.

But he can’t.

Not really.

His grip on you tightens, fingers pressing deeper, slipping beneath soft flesh to squeeze the bone. Like he’s trying to ground himself. Like he thinks if he just holds on tight enough, he can remind himself who’s in charge here.

But you see it—the shift in his expression, the cracks forming right in front of you. His eyes are darker now, narrowed with something he’s still pretending isn’t there, and his teeth grit like it physically pains him to keep standing here.

You just can’t resist.

You lean in just enough, close enough that your breath tickles his cheek, and with a slow, knowing smirk, you whisper, “You’ve been dying to get your hands on me, haven’t you, John?”

The words hang between you, sharp and saccharine, and for a moment, it’s like the world holds its breath.

His eyes go dark, that flicker of anger flashing through them like a warning. But it’s not just anger anymore. It’s something else, something raw. For a split second, you’re certain he’s off the deep end.

Before you can even blink, his hand moves. It’s fast, and suddenly, he’s grabbing you by the arm, yanking you toward him with a force that steals the breath from your lungs.

“Get over here,” he growls.

The words are rough, guttural, scraping against his throat like he’s been holding them back for too long.

The next thing you know, he’s dragging you to the hood of his cruiser, his grip tight and bruising as his fingers wrap around your wrist, effortlessly dwarfing it. The cold metal of the hood bites against your skin as he shoves you down, bending you over the car.

And then he’s on you.

His chest is solid heat against your back, his weight pressing you into the hood like he’s making sure you stay there. Your breath catches, chest rising and falling in sharp, uneven movements as you try to process just how quickly the shift between you has turned into this.

“Talk so fuckin’ much,” he mutters through clenched teeth, his voice a growl of frustration and something deeper, something rougher. His breath fans against your ear, hot and unsteady, sending a shiver down your spine.

One hand clamps over your wrists, holding them firm against the small of your back, while the other tangles in your hair, yanking your head back just enough to expose the vulnerable line of your throat.

The grip is possessive. Unforgiving, like he’s staking a claim.

“You think you can just keep pushing me? Keep fuckin’ with me like this, hmm?”

A soft whimper tumbles from your lips, and you bite down hard on your bottom lip, the rest of the sound dying in your throat. His hand pulls on your hair, making your neck arch back, and the sharp tug sends a jolt straight to your cunt. You try to choke back the reaction, but it’s impossible—the way he’s holding you, the way he’s pressing into you with every word, every move.

His body presses into yours, the intensity of it all making your pulse race. Despite everything, despite the situation, a shiver runs down your spine. You can tell he’s holding back by the way his teeth grit, the sharpness in his voice. 

You smirk, tilting your head slightly to meet his gaze from the side. “By the way John Jr’s more sprung than a rainy day in April, I’d say you like it,” he groans and you chuckle, “You do like it, don’t you, John?”

The words slip from your lips, taunting him, and you can feel the shift in his posture before he even moves. His grip on your hair tightens, pulling you back further, forcing you to arch your neck more as he leans in, his breath hot and heavy against your skin, each exhale brushing over you like a warning.

“Think you’ve got me figured out?” he growls, teeth grazing the curve of your ear, his words a promise and a threat all at once. “Since you’re so fuckin’ knowledgeable, tell me something…”

Your pulse quickens, the anticipation like the loaded gun in his waistband. “Tell you what?” you ask, your voice quiet, almost breathless, but your eyes never leave his.

“Tell me what I do t’dumb girls that don’t know how t’speak only when spoken to,” he murmurs, his grip shifting, pulling you in closer, his body pressing against yours in a way that makes it impossible to ignore the growing bulge in his pants. 

You can feel his cock twitch with interest in his jeans, and instinctively, you roll your hips back into his. The firm bulge presses against your pulsating cunt, offering just the smallest bit of reprieve from the ache in your clit and you can’t help but whimper. “You give them a ticket and send them on their way?”

“Nice try, love,” he says, the words dripping with disappointment, like he’s genuinely let down by your guess.

Before you can even react, his hand leaves your hair, and you hear the cold click of the cuffs snapping around your wrists.

You jerk against the restraint, but it’s useless. You turn to look up at him, but the look on his face—hands on his hips, blue eyes locked on you—makes you stop.

No smirk, no joke. Just intensity.

“Get on your knees,” he says, voice low, rough, without hesitation.

You bite your lip, the urge to snap back hitting you. But instead, you swallow it down and push yourself up, kneeling before him on the pavement. The roughness of it bites into your skin, the cuffs digging into your wrists, each pull reminding you of just how much control he has in this situation.

His boot taps lightly against your thigh, the sound sharp in the quiet air, a silent demand for your attention. You glance up, meeting his gaze, and the intensity in his eyes makes your breath catch. It’s a look that makes your pulse quicken, as if he can see right through you, into everything you’re trying to shovel deep..

“Sit,” he commands, the word simple, authoritative.

It takes you a second to realize what he means, but when his boot nudges against your clothed cunt, you get it. 

You lift your hips slow, like you’re not sure but can’t help it, settling atop his boot. The sensation makes a shiver run up your spine. His fingers find your hair again, firm, enough to tilt your head back and make you look up at him.

“This’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it, dove?” His voice is quiet, almost a whisper, like he’s savoring the sight of you—knees to the ground, wrists bound, eyes wide as you stare up at him. He can’t help but palm himself at the sight.

Your heart pounds against your ribs, heat simmering in your cheeks with anticipation. “I’m not gonna beg,” you sneer, defiant like your cunt isn’t already drooling for him. The lie sits thick on your tongue, heavy enough to choke on.

He smirks—slow like he’s amused, but there’s something else there, like he’s already decided how he’ll play with you.

“That’s cute,” his fingers tighten in your hair, tilting your head back just a little further. Your lips part on instinct, a quiet, pained mewl slipping out before you can stop it.

“but you will,” he hums with a smile so saccharine, it makes you want to smack it off his face. His free hand reaches for his belt, fumbling with the leather as he pulls it out of the buckle. You can feel your body buzzing with anticipation, the tension building in every nerve of your body. Everything in your mind is screaming at you, telling you how wrong this is, how this can’t happen. But deep down, you know he’s right. This has been a long time coming.

But fuck, he’s a literal cop, the Sheriff. This has to fall under some public indecency law.

But despite everything, despite all the warnings your mind throws at you, the pull is stronger, too real to ignore. And you can’t stop yourself from leaning into it.

He peels down the zipper of his blue slacks and the sound echoes in your ears. You’re on your knees on the shoulder of a road, the last vestiges of daylight fading, and God help you, your mouth waters when you see the outline of his solid cock through his boxers.

He doesn't break eye contact, his other hand still tight in your hair, daring you to even try to look away. The recklessness, the sheer audacity of him whipping out his cock in the middle of a traffic stop. It’s all so palpable, like a stack of weights on your chest. He tugs down his boxers in one fluid movement, his cock springing free, and you can’t help but try to back away at the sight. 

He's massive in every sense of the word. Dark curls trail from his navel to the base of him, thick but neatly kept. His cock hangs low and heavy between his legs, thick and long with a few veins and just the softest blush of pink at his tip. There’s no way you can take him all, let alone in your mouth. 

He could see the shift in your eyes, the sudden apprehension in your demeanor, and the hand in your hair loosened. He trailed his fingers from your scalp to your cheek, his thumb wandering to the plump flesh of your parted lips.

“You can say no, dove. I won’t hold it against you,” he says softly, giving you an out. His blue eyes soften as they meet yours, and you know he wouldn’t force you. But the way the hard leather of his boot presses through your shorts, firm against your clit, has you fighting the urge to grind against him. You want—No, need him. Badly.

You bow your head to meet his cock, tongue darting out, hungrily swiping up the drop of precum dangling from his tip. He automatically groans and his hands find their way back to your scalp, feeding his cock into your mouth. Your lips tighten around him immediately, suckling as he presses in and stretches you out. 

“Fuck— that’s it, love, so fuckin’ tight,” he babbles as he watches his length disappear in your mouth over and over. His eyes flutter shut as he tips his head back—he knew if he looked at you any longer he’d blow his load too soon. Your tongue is just so hot. He hadn’t expected it to be ice, but God you were sweltering. He nestled himself in the back of your throat so nicely, tickling and toying with your gag reflex each time you bobbed your head. You coat his length with slick spit, the sounds of your gags subconsciously making him push your head down even further. 

You focus on steady breaths through your nose as his grip tightens. Your hands strain against the cuffs, aching to touch, to feel, to at least stroke where your mouth can’t reach. So pretty like this, he thinks. The way you look up at him, defiant yet desperate. The way your breath catches and your throat flutters around his mushroomed tip.

It drives him crazy—how much he wants to break that control, to make you lose it completely. His groans only spur you on further, your tongue moving with purpose, tracing the prominent vein along his underside.

Your hips jerk against his boot as spit gathers at the corners of your mouth, knees grinding into the asphalt, but you barely notice the sting. All you can think about is the way it makes heat pool in your cunt—sends sparks up your spine. 

You can’t help it—your hips keep moving, grinding against his boot, the rough leather driving you wild, and you’re sure you’re leaving a wet spot. The friction is delicious, and you’re so lost in it that you almost miss when he speaks.

 “Look at you,” he says, smirking despite how badly he needs to cum. “Can’t even help yourself, can you? Just a needy little mutt, humpin’ my boot.”

His hand tugs your strands, not rough but firm, just enough to make you gasp. “Just need your pretty pussy touched, that right?” he tuts softly, pulling you off him, a thin strand of saliva connecting your glistening lips to the tip of his cock.  “On your feet, come on.” He guides you up, your legs shaky and chest heaving but his grip steadies you. “There you go, sweetheart.”

The sky’s a deep blue now, the sun long gone, the cruiser’s headlights casting faint shadows. He shoves you back against the hood, the metal cool against the backs of your thighs. His hands are on you immediately, rough and demanding, squeezing your thighs, your tits, like he’s marking his territory. 

You bite your lip, trying to steady your breathing, but it’s useless. His fingers dig into your flesh, and your hips jerk instinctively, craving more. “So quiet now, hm?” he hums, his face centimeters from yours. “What happened to that smart little mouth of yours?”

The way he switches from caring to being so dominant, it makes your head spin. You glare at him, but he doesn’t care. His hand slides under the waistband of your shorts, fingers dancing over your soaked panties, and you can’t stop the way your hips roll into his hand, desperate for any touch he’ll give. “All this for me, sweet girl?” he mutters, middle finger slowly circling your sensitive clit, “All wound up, yeah? Need me to set you straight?”

“Fuck—,” you whine, your hips bucking into his hand, you can feel his breath against your lips as he chuckles. He deftly pulls your panties to the side, groaning when his fingers slide through your folds. His lips find your neck and he mouths at the sensitive patch of skin above your pulse, sucking a dark, red splotch into your skin as if you’re his. 

You instinctively toss your head back, letting him lick hot, wet stripes from your clavicle to your jaw. He slips a single finger into you and your cunt squelches embarrassingly. 

“Feels so good, John—,” you whine into the evening breeze as he pumps his finger in you, curling to hit your g-spot with precision you’ve never experienced. He smiles against your skin before enveloping your lips with his.

It’s hungry, messy, and desperate. His tongue crowds your mouth trying to drink you whole, like he’s been parched, waiting for you to quench his thirst since he first met you. He swallows your whines and pleas for more as he works you open, grinning when he slips in his ring finger alongside the middle and you gasp.

It’s a pathetic attempt, really, to kiss him back—to try to match his fervor. He has you at his mercy and you’re near collapsing into him as he finger fucks you, low heat pooling in your belly as the coil tightens, as you claw at the hood of the car, wishing the cuffs weren’t there—wishing you could claw at him instead.

“Feel you gettin’ all tight ‘round me, dove. Gonna cum? Gonna soak my fingers, doll?” He questions against your lips. Your walls are squeezing him so tight, sucking him in and keeping them there. So greedy, he thinks.

You nod vehemently, biting your lip so you don’t scream—or sob, you aren’t sure how to feel—into the air. He grinds the heel of his palm against your clit, and that’s all you need to finally break. You near black out when you cum, sparks shooting up your spine and making your vision go black for a moment, his fingers lazily working you through your orgasm as your legs shake and your walls damn near break his fingers. 

“That’s my girl, knew you could do it,” he hums against your temple, wiping away tears you hadn’t known fallen. 

You hadn’t cum that hard in your life. Not by yourself, and most certainly not by any of the lame frat boys you fucked in your college days.

But John isn’t in a frat.

And he certainly isn’t just a boy.

He gently slips  his hand out of your pants, bringing his fingers up to his lips before popping them into his mouth. The way his eyes flutter shut, eyebrows pulling together softly as he groans at the taste of you on his tongue, it’s all fucking sinful. You watch him, mesmerized as he pulls the glistening digits out of his mouth with a pop. 

He dips his head to yours, kissing you again, but much softer this time, less hungry, more savoring. You can taste the subtle tang of your own juices on his tongue, and you’d be a liar if you said it didn’t turn you on further. 

John subtly tugs your shorts and panties down, the fabric whispering against your skin. He fishes for a small key in his pocket, before using them on the cuffs. They open, releasing your raw wrists with a near-silent snick. You feel the moment the cuffs fall away, and your hands move as if drawn by an invisible force, reaching for him, clutching at his jaw, pulling him closer with urgency. Your fingers roam his shoulders, his neck, tracing the hard lines of his body as he spreads your legs, tossing your discarded shorts aside. He settles between them, lazily pumping his cock with his free hand. 

“You want this, love?” he whispers against your lips.

You nod almost imperceptibly before crashing your lips back to his, like you just can’t get enough. 

He kisses you back like a magnet, but just as quickly, he pulls away again.

“Words,” he says sternly.

You huff, ever the impatient brat. “Put your fucking cock in me or I swear to God, I'll get in my car and drive right out of here.”

“That right?” he scoffs, "You gonna drive off?" He brings his angry red tip to your sodden folds, teasing your sensitive clit with each brush, making you jolt, “You want t’act like a brat,” he whispers, his breath warm against your ear. “Then we can do this the hard way.” He leans in, his lips brushing against yours. “Unless,” he murmurs, ghosting the head of his cock into your hole, “you'd like to ask nicely.”

You bite your lip as you watch him tease you, fighting a groan at the way your cunt squelches and stretches around just his tip. 

“She’s so greedy, already tryin’ to suck me in,” he coos, “don’t want to deprive her, now do we?”

You whine as he notches just the head in. He pauses, waiting for you to speak before he moves any further. ​You open your mouth and your voice just breaks as you leak and drip around him and onto the hood of the car. 

“Please, John, Please, I need you—Please, I’ll be so good,” You break and claw at his shoulders and back, desperate to pull him closer to you, to have you flush against him, chest to chest and full of his cock.

“See how gorgeous you sound when you’re nice? See where that gets you, love?” He coos as he inches his cock into you. Your walls are already fluttering, still all worked up from your last orgasm. He has to fight the urge to cum right then and there, gritting his teeth as his grip tightens on your thighs, fingers dimpling the fat as he spears you open. 

You’re slack jawed, eyes glassy as he bottoms out. You’ve never been so full and stretched in your life. You can feel him in every orifice of your body, you feel him in the pits of your stomach, in the hollows of your lungs, in the cavern of your throat. His tip nudges against your cervix and all you can manage is a strangled sob. 

“Oh none of that, lovie, none of that,” he hums, pecking your lips and wiping the tears from your eyes with the pads of his thumbs.

 “Gonna fuck you real nice,” the thumb he used to wipe your tears away travels south, finding your clit and drawing soft, slow circles that have you gushing and relaxing around him, “Just be a good pet and take it.”

You nod as he cradles your head in his hand. He gently moves his hips, inching his cock out of your cunt before sliding back in, squeezing the air out of you like a fucking balloon. 

Gasps fall from your lips with each stroke, not entirely from discomfort, but from the sheer intensity of the feeling. He repeats the motion, a slow, deliberate push and pull that sends shivers down your spine. He keeps his thumb on your clit steady, making your legs shake, a burning heat already blossoming low in your belly. You grip his shoulders, your nails digging into his clothed frame as you try to anchor yourself against the rising tide of sensation.

He continues, his movements becoming more insistent, more demanding. Each thrust is deeper, faster, steady plaps from where his hips repeatedly meet yours. He knocks the breath out of you, each stroke forcing a soft mewl from your lips, your body trembling with anticipation. The world narrows, focusing on the rhythmic movements of his hips, the feel of his skin against yours, the sound of your ragged breaths mingling with his.

He leans, his lips brushing against your own. “That's it, doll,” he murmurs, his voice low and husky. “Take it all.”

His words ignite a fire within you, a raw, primal need that surges through your veins. You arch your back, meeting his thrusts with a ferocity that surprises even yourself. His pace quickens, his movements becoming more urgent, more erratic, and you know he’s getting close. The burning in your abdomen intensifies, spreading outwards, and throughout your body.

His name falls from your lips in a litany—John, John, John, john—a prayer, both a plea and a demand as his cock plows into you with staggering precision. Your cunt clenches around him, milking every ounce of pleasure from each stroke. He groans, cursing as his grip tightens on your hips, until you wail, toes curling and clawing at his back, your voice hoarse as you squirt all over him. He continues to move, his rhythm relentless, until he too reaches his peak, groaning as his body shudders, as he spurts hot ropes of cum deep inside your cunt.

You’re breathless, spent, your limbs heavy and relaxed. The dampness of sweat cooled on your skin, a pleasant contrast to the lingering heat between your legs. The world slowly comes back into focus and a soft smile plays on your lips as you trace the line of his jaw with your fingertips.

“That was…” you murmur, your voice still rough.

He nuzzles your neck, his breath warm against your skin. “A lot,” he finishes for you, his voice low.

You hum in agreement, tightening your grip on his jaw just slightly. You don't need to say more. The silence that settles between you is comfortable. He shifts slightly, and it reminds you he's still there, sheathed inside you.

You close your eyes, savoring the warmth of his body against yours, a comforting heat that seeps into your skin. Every nerve ending still fires, buzzing with aftershocks.

Slowly, he inches out of you. It feels weird to not be full of him, a sudden emptiness that makes you instinctively clench. He's out, and the cool air against your skin is a stark reminder of the reality of the situation. Of the fact that you’re literally on the side of the road. John reaches for your discarded clothes, picking them up with a casualness that borders on audacious. 

He starts with your panties, briefly bending down in front of you as you step into them. He pulls them up your legs, snapping the elastic against your hip. “Sheriff’s discretion,” he murmurs, his eyes glinting with amusement as he fastens your shorts too. “Wouldn't want you getting a ticket for indecent exposure.” Fucking knew it.

You raise an eyebrow, a smirk playing on your lips. “You were just as indecent as I was, if I recall.”

He shrugs as he tugs up his own pants, a picture of nonchalant authority. “Evidence suggests otherwise, doll,” he counters, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Besides,” he adds, his voice dropping to a low rumble, “I'm the one writing the tickets.” He finishes buttoning your shorts, his fingers lingering against your skin. 

The world sways for a moment, your legs still a little shaky. He steadies you, his arm around your waist. He walks you back to your car, the silence between you comfortable, filled with unspoken understanding. He stops just short of the driver's side door, his hand resting comfortably on your back.

“Drive safe,” he says, his voice softer than you've ever heard it.

You nod, your eyes meeting his. You stand on your tip toes and kiss him, a soft, lingering peck on his lips that’s got him feeling like a teenager again.. He responds in kind, other hand moving to cup your cheek. Judging by how he holds you close, he’s reluctant to pull away.

But he does, and he turns and walks back to his cruiser. Eventually, You watch his car fade away, a strange mix of emotions swirling within you. Then, with a deep breath, you turn and get into your car. The door shuts and you just exhale, replaying everything that just happened. 

You reach to crank the keys sitting in the ignition and your eyes fall on a small white rectangle tucked under the windshield wiper. You get back out of the car and pull it free. 

It's a ticket. For speeding.

Asshole. 

john price x fem!reader | word vomit | drabble | dub-con/non-con | smut | unhinged price | unreliable narrator | unedited | don't poke the bear, love

You should've known better.

Strange men with debauched desires lurk in all rancid corners of the internet waiting for the right moment to prey on something as sweet as you. You—all soft smiles and head tilts, eyes shining as you listen to him ramble about all the work he's put into all while beaming about how well he did and how it will make the perfect commuter car for work. He can't help but think how stupid it is of you to come here to meet him alone, at his house, dressed like this. Shorts that expose enough skin to beat the heat and a tank top to match—body glistening with perspiration.

John realizes that you're smart. You know well enough to talk him up about all modifications that were made, and remember the milage for this model off the top of your head. You speak eloquently. Well educated. When he asks you where you work, you're not smart enough to give him a fake answer.

You're not smart enough to deny him when he offers you a drink of water inside of his house, either.

(Just to cool you down, love).

Beads of water on delicious lips, he leans against the counter as he listens to you ramble. Never once does he ask for you to open up, but you split yourself anyway. Tender flesh peeling back like the skin of an orange. It rolls. Flakes off. Advertises your juicy insides to a man who's dying of thirst.

He'll teach you to be better. That's what he tells himself, anyway. He'll show you how to push someone away when their fingers brush against your bare shoulder, not lean into the warmth like you are now. Mindlessly, you look up at him. Your lips are still wet enough for him to lick them and be satiated—hydrated fully well off of mere dew alone. Your eyes lock onto him, and your lips grow tighter.

Don't you know any better? Don't you know that you're advertising ripe meat in front of a very hungry creature?

No—maybe you do.

Maybe that's why you don't put up much of a fight when he presses your hips into the counter and snakes his thumbs beneath the waistband of your shorts. Maybe that's why your whining is quiet and pitchy as he yanks them down, arse fully exposed. Maybe it's why your tears fall silently as he grinds against your cunt.

(Stupid girl. Don't you know that you shouldn't play with wild animals?)

As he feeds his cock into you—inch by aching inch—he grunts about the rules. His rules. The ones you're going to follow from here on out. No being alone with strange men. Only show your teeth when you're ready to bite or be bitten (really, a smile is nothing more than a poorly hidden growl, after all). Most importantly be smart—smarter than this.

Fingers curling into your hips, he chuckles as you reach behind yourself, nails scraping poorly against his stomach, unable to break any skin through the cotton of his shirt. How cute you are. Little rabbit wandering into the bear's den and wondering why she's being bitten.

Then, hips stilling, he spills into you. Cock pulsing inside of you, your pules only grow stronger as he keeps himself buried deep inside of you. Warm, frothy cum spills out of you, seeping around where he plugs you full. He tells himself he'll teach you better than to allow that to happen, too.

"You know love..." He's tracing your spine. Bear-claw finger raking down your skin, one step away from a razor sharp enough to cut your clothes from your body. You quiver, rabbit-flesh sobbing beneath his touch. "If you wanted me, all you had to do was ask."

tongue on loving wound

simon “ghost” riley x fem!reader | omegaverse!au | alternate universe to In Limbo | alpha!ghost x omega!fem!reader | masterlist

Simon Riley has a keen sense of smell that's kept him alive working for John Price and his illicit business, and it's a sense that's not easily fooled. But when he comes across you, an omega who has no distinct smell except for the lingering aroma of something much too sickeningly familiar, he finds himself infatuated. Little does he know, there's something else lurking in the depths of your silage, something that will leave him wrapped around your very fingers.

Chapter One: paint me red with your desire

tw: gore, death/violence, minor dub-con, alcohol/intoxication

Simon Riley has a keen sense of smell. 

A blessing and a curse—it’s a good tool but it always leaves him feeling nauseous at work. Here, in the midst of bodies pulsing to wicked bass beneath inadequate lighting that leaves his eyes straining through the numbra that cloaks Terminus like a sack placed over his head before a hanging. 

Pheromones waft through the air like spoiled food. Thick and unheeded, burrowing through his nostrils, overloading his senses until his scleras are red with spiderwebbed veins. There’s the thick musk of alphas, puffing their chests and flaunting the strengths of their genes. Sharp teeth, canines that—back in the day—were used for gutting; for protecting fawning omegas who trail behind them with wide eyes and unabashed smiles. Clubs like these replace the hunt. The primal urge to capture prey and nourish them. 

It’s why Simon isn’t surprised when he can smell a fight coming. 

Ancient rust spills across his nose as he stands with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on a growing crowd near the bar. It clashes with baneberry, tart on his tongue, saliva glands constricting until his mouth is dry—he watches a man bear his teeth. Hand on his omega’s shoulder, sneering at a too-comfortable intruder, he barks. They’re too close to their ruts. Musk thick on their throats, lips dry and waiting for the rainwater of delicious ichor to coat them—Simon steps in before the first punch is ever thrown. 

Hand on the alpha’s shoulder, fingers curling in his flesh to pull him back, he snarls a quiet, “Calm down.” 

The man turns, eyes wild and pupils dilated, teeth still on display, digits twitching as if ready to sink his claws into Simon. But he’s bigger, broader—a pristine and prime example of the wildness of animals. 

“I know you wanna fight, but you can’t do that shit ‘ere,” Simon murmurs, voice cutting through the dull thrum of the music. His attention flickers over to the omega, standing dazed with glassy eyes and a flushed face as she stares at her alpha. The want rolling off of her is palpable. That sweet redolence—that concupiscence bundled up nice and pretty—curls around his spine, and he hums. “Take your girl home.”

“You’re kicking us out?” the alpha growls, bewildered. 

“I don’t need some pillock too close to his rut startin’ fights,” Simon retorts, looming over him. “Look at you. Poor fuckin’ excuse for an alpha. Can’t you see how badly your omega needs you right now?” 

As if suddenly splashed with cold water, the man looks over his shoulder, eyes locking onto his dazed partner as her body sways to the music. She’s liquid beneath his touch when he takes her hand into his and begins to lead her out of the club, neglecting to say a word to Simon edgewise. 

The world is a jungle, and the city is a dangerous mix of too-close hibernaculums and territorial creatures.

He leaves for a smoke after the situation is diffused. A tenebrous alley swallows him whole as he shrugs off the winter cold to light his cigarette and chew on the filter as he breathes in the nicotine. It’s a reset. Something to temporarily numb his senses as thick swathes of tobacco rolls over his tongue to mute the memory of sillage, of too many conflicting flavors in the air.

Simon tries not to cringe at the memory of how he used to be like that—an unruly alpha driven by wretched hormones and unbridled rage. He used to be dangerous. He still is, but he’s predictable now. In control. Not only does he have the power physically—beast-like strength coursing through his muscles, sharp teeth meant to gouge and swallow flesh in a single bite—but he retains the mental fortitude. It’s why John Price keeps him around. 

A very good, well behaved dog on a very tight, very short leash. 

To reward him for his good comportment, Simon is tasked with being a chaperone. Trustworthy. Impeccable restraint. He trails behind Mrs. Price every time she decides to come to Terminus. An omega with claws of her own, he’s not sure why he’s given this job. She’s not a helpless woman. Flaunting the teeth marks on the side of her neck, very few are foolish enough to toy with the woman who smells of lingering musk. 

Though, he is worried about the near-pitiful creature trailing behind her. 

Well guarded with shifting eyes, you keep yourself properly protected with a turtleneck collared shirt and your palms rubbing flat over your biceps. You are the perfect fantasy, he thinks. The little fawn every alpha yearns for when they’re plagued with wet dreams of sweet omegas who don’t know any better falling right into their open, begging maws. 

Scapulas rolling, Simon inhales slow and steady, senses weaving through the medley of scents produced by the crowd. Usually, he’s a bloodhound. Nose sharp enough to slice out anything unwanted, whittling the gristle off of meat until it’s edible, but when he tries to get the vaguest taste of you, there’s nothing. 

Curiosity piqued, he licks his lips. 

“There’s our little shadow,” Aelin Price beams, half drunk and with her drink sloshing in hand the moment her eyes find Simon. She says it as if he were hiding, but he’s not anymore. Not when he’s needing to profile you—to familiarize the scent that can’t quite reach him. “Or, I guess little isn’t the right term, is it? Tall bastard.” 

Your tense giggling is stifled by the tips of your fingers as you warily watch Aelin take another sip of her drink—perhaps one too many. The bite of vodka assaults his nose and he huffs as she pulls you closer to him, readying a clean palette to breathe you in. 

“Chip, this is Simon, he works with John for security. Simon, this is Chip, my best friend,” Aelin introduces. 

You begin to flounder, hands in front of you, toying with your cuticles as you attempt to get your gaze to rise from your feet. Timid. A lamb on wobbling legs. You swallow as you give him a sheepish smile, but his eyes only narrow when he realizes he can’t pin your scent. Not even synthetic suppressants cloak the natural order of things as well as this. You’re an empty slate, with a hint of something macabre—

“It’s nice to meet you,” you eventually choke out. 

—a hint of danger that’s all too familiar. 

For the rest of the night, Simon doesn’t let you leave his sight. Lurking the way he always does, shady eyes raking over every inch of your body as he attempts to sift through the catalogue of scents in his brain, willing himself to recall what you’ve bathed yourself in. Saccharine like cherry pie with a hint of nightshade lurking beneath the crust, waiting to spring forth and trap him. An enigma hidden behind a kind facade. He doesn’t trust you nearly as far as he can throw you—lifeless corpse bobbing in still water, mistaken for a log, never to be missed or seen again. 

Eventually, you stray from the flock. Sweet little wannabe omega stumbling away from Aelin, lubbering legs dragging you to the crowded water closet. Simon loiters outside the door. Inside he can hear giggling, the popping of lips, smell the silage of synthetic pheromones pressing against necks and wrists—then, it’s the danger again. 

You again. 

Before you can wander back to where Aelin sits at a table for two, glassy eyes staring at her phone as she titters to herself, Simon’s fingers find their home wrapped around your arm. Your squeak is smothered by the pulsing music as he carefully drags you closer to him. 

“O-Oh, hi Simon,” you greet, muscles tensing beneath his touch. You’re next to him now, back against the wall while his eyes survey the crowd before the two of you like he’s waiting for something. A distraction. “Erm… is there something I…”

Your question is smothered in the back of your throat as Simon curls over you, attention now brought to your stunned face as he places his hands on either side of your head, palm against the sticky brick behind you. Tobacco fills your nose, but it’s all you can smell—you’ve never had a very good sense of smell. But you don’t need pheromones to read the blunt warning in his gaze as his nostrils flare. 

It’s hard not to flinch when he leans closer, nose brushing your cheek like butterfly kisses before his head dips down. Wide eyes stare up at the ceiling as he prods at your neck. It’s painted black. You can see where the uneven coating thickens in patches, pooling with paint, glistening bright beneath black lights and neon purples. Then, you turn away when he inhales, deep and slow. The grunt he exhales is difficult to read, but he doesn’t sound satisfied. 

“You keep interestin’ company,” Simon notes. He leans back just far enough to look you in the eye but not enough to let you free. Hands still planted firmly around you, arms curling like a cage to keep you close, you see the purposeful flash of his teeth as he snarls. “I’ll be watchin’ you, little ‘mega.” 

With that, he sends you on your way, and he does well to keep his promise. It would be stupid of him not to—especially now that he’s recognized that scent clinging to you like a second skin as Marco’s. 

That night, after Terminus is emptied and he’s laying in bed, Simon contemplates warning John and Aelin of your elicit friend. Truly, he’s impressed the overly protective alpha hasn’t noticed it off of you himself. You reek of him. Of Marco and his twisted greed for all things good and pure. His lighter flickers to life as he burns through half a pack staring at the ceiling, smoke curling upwards like greedy fingers.

No—maybe for once he can indulge. Maybe he can allow himself to enact the revenge he’s so desperately coveted for longer than he can remember. 

Come morning, the other half of his pack is absorbed by his lungs as he sits in his car across from your apartment. It was a little challenging finding the address without ousting himself from the shadows, but he managed. He has a keen nose, after all. You sleep in late. Either that or you like the dark. Curtains drawn tightly closed, not a single morsel of light to bleed through the fabric; you don’t exit your apartment until 11:30.

You’re not wearing enough clothes—fighting off the bite of winter with a simple jumper, another turtleneck shirt, and a thin pair of jeans, he watches you shiver down the pavement with a folded envelope clutched in your trembling hands. He waits for you to round the corner before his engine is quietly sputtering to life and he’s following you along the street. 

Too easy of a target, you don’t notice him at all. Never once do you lift your head to check your surroundings, you keep your gaze down to your feet, counting each crack in the cement before you stumble into a laundromat. Simon pulls into a car park across the street and lights another cigarette just in time to watch someone strut in after you. 

Marco. 

The man who nearly got his brother killed. The man who got him involved in this life of crime in the first place. 

Your rendezvous is relatively short. Just long enough for a lingering conversation before Marco’s skipping through the door again, hands occupied with something in his pocket. There’s a pull to his lips—a faint simper—that makes Simon’s fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into his flesh, claws begging for blood; for the chance to let loose. Countless dreams have come to him in the dark of night, each playing out ways in which he’d like to bring about Marco’s demise. A knife straight through the liver, internal bleeding overwhelming him in an instant. Hands crushing his windpipe. Knuckles cracking across his face until it caves in—an unrecognizable corse. 

After five minutes, Simon cuts across the street and bursts through the laundromat door to find you sitting on a bench, string wrapped around your fingers, and head hanging low as if you’re caught at the gallows. You jump when he enters. All broad shoulders and furrowed brow, you can smell the rage rolling off of him in thick, suffocating waves. The bobbing of your throat is hidden beneath your turtleneck, and you quickly stow away your string with a sniffle. 

“S-Simon? What’re you doing here?” you question cautiously. 

His eyes darken before they flicker across the room. It’s a small building. A simple 24 hour laundromat with countless machines, rundown tile flooring, a rusty drain that looks half clogged, and cheap detergent being sold for way too much in coin slots on the far wall. An old box television drones on in the center of the room, but besides the default news station, it’s quiet. 

“Could ask the same to you,” Simon quips, attention narrowing in on you as he steps closer. 

“I’m just… doing laundry,” you say, but your gaze adverts before you can finish your sentence. 

“Yeah?” he challenges. “Where’s your basket then, love? Which machine are you using?” 

Mendacities being torn apart limb from limb, your attention falls to your lap, fingers twisting together as if attempting to recall something. Muscle memory. A gentle motion to soothe. Simon stops in front of you, toes nearly touching yours as he curls forward, towering over you. The rage he feels now is similar to what he feels when he’s about to go into rut—uncontrollable and all consuming—but he knows he’s months away from it. This is pure virulent desire. This is the urge to make Marco pay. 

“Who was the man in here with you?” he questions. 

“I-I dunno, he was just, coming to check on-”

“Bullshit.” His interjection silences you, but he can smell the fear emanating from you now. Still, it’s faint. Quiet and dainty, but robust like the churning of soil during a storm; a wicked desire to be free, to flee, to fall back on human’s most basic nature. “Told you I was keepin’ an eye on you, pretty ‘mega, now cut the shit, yeah?” 

Tongue darting out to wet your lips, you raise your head just enough to look at his stomach, but you go no further. “Simon, look, I don’t- I don’t know what you think is going on, b-but-” 

“What I think?” Simon repeats with poorly concealed acrimony. Despite the edge to his words, his hand is gentle against your chin as he tilts your head up, forcing you to look at him. “What I know is that you came into Terminus reeking of Marco. One of the most dangerous bastards in this city. I don’t take that shit lightly.” 

Your eyes widen. “I… I smell like him?” 

“I dunno what you’re playin’ at love, but I don’t want you stepping anywhere near Terminus or…”

His warning dies on his tongue and rots the moment he catches sight of your neck. Faux pink leather stares up at him, playing peek-a-boo through the top of your turtleneck like a blinding beacon. Hand lowering, he pulls at the fabric until your neck is exposed, and his stomach churns at the sight. 

You’re collared. Like a dog. An animal. Something less than human. It’s held together with silver buckles and a small lock pad without a key, keeping it secured tight enough to hide your scent gland from sight—to keep it safe from biting teeth. He’s heard about people who do this. Degrading them to that of an animal, holding the false sanctity of virginity over the rights to one’s body, it is a disgusting act of possession to do such a thing. To deny someone the very thing that makes you human. 

Your bottom lip begins to tremble when his fingertips brush against the synthetic leather, tracing along the edge until he’s reached the tag. Having dulled over time, it doesn’t shine nearly as bright as the rest of the collar, but Simon has no issue making out the engraving in the metal. 

Marco’s Girl ♡ 

Clutching the fabric of your shirt, you yank your turtleneck up over the collar, forcing Simon’s fingers to fall from the tag as you cast your gaze downwards. He smells the brine—the stinging salt that plagues the tears in your eyes as you sniffle. When you stand to your feet, he relents by stepping back while you wipe your face on the edge of your sleeve. 

“I-I really have to get to work now. Have… have a good day, Simon,” you mumble. 

He lets you leave. Vanishing out on the streets, swallowed up by the pavement—a dull cement jungle gym caught in the throes of two crime syndicates. You’re in the crossfire. Directly in the center. Threatened by Marco’s ever hungry maw. 

After that, Simon gathers as much information about you as he can, and it’s a pitifully easy feat to accomplish. You work at a restaurant—some fancy Italian place he’d never be caught dead in outside of going for a date—and you always take the late bus back to your apartment. Sometimes he’ll catch you perched at your window, in that building that looks like it’s rotting from the inside out, scribbling away at a journal. 

You are a sweet thing. Something his instincts urge him to scoop up and hide with. There’s a spot in his den that he knows you’d look perfect in—swaddled with blankets, nesting like you should be doing instead of living in fear. You behave unlike any omega he’s ever seen. He wonders if it’s because of your anxiety—how it slithers through your ribcage, weaving between too-tight bones. 

An alpha would fix that, he thinks. 

“Why? Are you interested in her?” 

Simon’s made the mistake of approaching Aelin for information about you, prompting questions in what he thought was casual conversation but seems to be something the woman is all too good at sniffing out. She looks up at him while making herself comfortable in John’s office chair, hands on the arm rests, legs crossed, and a proud smirk on her lips. 

“Really, I introduced the two of you because I was hoping you’d get together. Or at least hook up,” Aelin concedes. Rosewater washes over his nose as she taps her fingers against the chair, but it’s not enough to cover the bitter musk of regret. “Chip is… well, I get a little worried about her, I guess. She’s a little stunted, if that makes sense. I’m sure you’ve picked up on her near lack of scent. I think it makes it hard to have anyone pursue her and… well, it makes me sad. Thinking of her all alone. Without someone to take care of her.” 

Aelin doesn’t know it, but she’s planted a seed in his chest—one that germinates all too quickly. Rooting through him, he thinks of you in what he tells himself is a slow workup to a bloody revenge on Marco, but he can’t deny the swelling. The primal urge to care for you, to stick his nose against your scent gland until he catches something worth savoring. He needs to know you. You, the only creature who seems to evade his sharpened senses, an enigma he needs to learn; to study. 

So then it is surely intentional when Aelin drags you out to Terminus on the next weekend he works. You smell different—wrong. Bathed in synthetic pheromones, slathered with glitter across your eyes and too much alcohol in your system. You’re being paraded around. Put on display. A flaunting show all for his approval. 

Dazed, you seem ignorant to his watchful gaze, and a squeak erupts from you when his hand finds the small of your back. Standing behind you, neck curling forward, he whispers to you: “Follow me, sweetheart.” 

You trail behind him like a kid following behind a Judas Goat, ignorant to your impending fate as he seals you into one of the VIP rooms. The door locks with a click and you’re left stunned, staring at the opulent decor before you. A conversation pit sits below a thin, gossamer chandelier, and large windows give a near birds-eye view of the bottom floor. Simon’s feet fall heavy against the stone floor, and he catches the way you shiver as he gently guides you to sit. 

“I-I’m sorry.” Your apology spills past your lips as you keep your gaze straight, following his direction as you sink into the pit, body bouncing on the sofa. “I know you told me not to come here again, but Aelin insisted, a-and I couldn’t say no to her-” 

“I’m not mad at you,” Simon interjects before you can spiral too far. He sits next to you, weight causing the cushions to dip, nearly getting you to fall into his gravity. Blinking, you look up at him, eyes shining with unfallen tears. “I just wanna know more ‘bout this.” 

He gestures to your throat, and instinct forces you to grab it—to feel the leather that skulks beneath the thin fabric of your turtleneck—but your hand quickly drops as if realizing your mistake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Leaning closer, Simon solemnly searches through your eyes and counts every little fracture that forms in your facade. “You don’t need to lie, sweetheart. I already know you owe Marco money.”

You lick your lips, and he can smell the alcohol. Absinthe—anise. Your mind visibly swims as your head bobs, gaze cast down into your lap, fingers picking at the dry skin around your knuckles. “No, that’s… I’m not supposed to talk about this. I shouldn’t.” 

“Yeah? That why he gave you that?” he questions. 

An ant beneath a magnifying glass, you shift under the heat. The searing sun that lies behind Simon’s eyes—powerful and unyielding. “It’s insurance.” 

“Insurance?” he repeats. 

You nod. “I-If I ever make late payments or… try to run… it keeps anyone else from claiming me. It keeps me—like—pure, I guess, for Marco.” As if realizing the words spilling from your drunken mouth, your eyes widen as you look up at him, feet pushing against the floor as if ready to run. “I shouldn’t have- I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” 

Soft and demulcent, Simon shushes you. Every thought in your mind quiets until your eyes are empty, and he attempts to bring back the light as he leans forward, cupping your cheek in the palm of his hand. Though you might not smell like it, you’re still an omega at heart. Fluttering lashes, the desperate desire to be taken care of, to have a silly alpha under your thumb to do your bidding—it ignites somewhere within you. 

“Please don’t tell Aelin,” you beg, voice hardly above a whisper. 

“I won’t. This’ll just be between us,” Simon swears. His other hand is on your knee now, fingers gently curling around behind the back of your thigh, pressing into the soft tissue there until you’re whimpering. “How long has this been goin’ on, sweetheart?”

Your bottom lip is quivering again. “Too long.” 

“Poor girl,” he coos. His voice is thick—so much so it nearly gets caught in his throat, but you let yourself drown in it anyway. “Need an alpha to take care of it for you? Huh, little ‘mega?” 

You’re leaning into him now. Knees knocking against his, basking in his warmth as he lures you in closer. He notes the way your nostrils flare, taking long drags of him as if he’s your favorite brand of cigarettes.

“Take care of…? Take care of what?” Caught in the depths of ecstasy, you’re hardly coherent, but you’re right where he wants you. Where he needs you. 

“Marco,” Simon explains, thumb rubbing over the apple of your cheek. “He won’t bother you again.” 

“You’d do that? But why?” you question. 

“Not a fan of him, sweetheart. Besides, look at what he did to you.”

“So you’ll talk to him for me?” 

Simon nods. “Yeah. I’ll talk to ‘im.” 

After that, you spill. Everything spews out of you like blood from a wound. You drunkenly explain everything he’s ever done to you—the touching, the kisses, the threats—each meant to break you down, to render you nothing but a pliant dog just for him. Something roars to life within Simon; an all-too-familiar rage that nips at his heels, urging him into action. You’re so sweet in the palm of his hands. How anyone could ever want to do anything other than cherish you is beyond him. 

When your rambling dies, Simon leads you out of the VIP room and retrieves a cup of water for you. As he holds it to your lips you let one last thing slip. 

“I have to meet him tomorrow.” 

Simon pauses. He almost can’t hear you over the music, but he reads the shine on your lips well enough. “At the laundromat again?” 

You shake your head. “Usually we meet there, but he wants to meet at the pawn shop this time…” For a moment, you distract yourself with a sip of water before coughing. “Tsar Trading… I hate it there.” 

“You’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he assures. “I’ll take care of it.”

Once he’s satisfied with the amount of water you’ve consumed, Simon returns you to Aelin, who doesn’t at all seem too worried about where you had vanished off to. A knowing smile pulls at her lips when you stumble back into her arms. Her nose brushes against your shoulder, and her eyes only narrow. She throws a disappointed look to Simon, who only shakes his head before he vanishes off into the crowd; a shadow blending into darkness, a prowling animal off to hunt. 

In the morning, your head pounds so fiercely you swear someone is living inside of your skull, angrily hammering away at your broken psyche in an attempt to fix it. You spare nothing but a simple slap to your phone as you turn your alarm off before rolling onto your back and staring at the ceiling. Stress fractures dance through the moulding. You have dreams that this place will cave in on you someday. You’re not quite sure if it’s a nightmare or a fantasy. 

Preparing for the day is a slog. One shoe on, and then the next. Cold water on your face. You longingly stare at the shower, yearning for the gentle soap to cleanse your body, but you’ve already overslept, and Marco doesn’t like to be kept waiting. 

He is not a patient man. 

You hate going to Tsar Trading. It’s halfway across London, and it smells acrid, like camphor left to rot in the walls for too long. The bus jitters across the streets, and you attempt to lean your head against the shuddering window, groaning to yourself at the bite of the frost growing in the corner. If you did not have so much cash tucked into your pocket, you’d allow yourself to fall asleep—to be dead to the world for a little longer. 

Instead, your mind plagues you with visions from the previous night. Of Aelin’s beaming smile and the liquor she kept shoving into your hands, of the scent of tobacco and Simon’s hand on your back, of the fuzzy memories that attempt to resurface. There’s something about deliverance. A troth whispered with your face cupped in loving hands. 

You push it out of your brain—there is nothing to save you; it’s simply a fantasy.

Marco is already waiting for you. His presence seeps from the building as you traverse across the dilapidated car park. Verdant eyes pierce through you like a mangy alley cat’s as you approach the counter—the two of you are alone, and you’re not sure if that makes you feel better or worse. Unwanted knick-knacks and heirlooms stare up at you from glass enclosures while peeling wallpaper titters at you in line with Marco’s too-perfect simper. 

“You’re late, babe,” he notes in a sickeningly cheery tone. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, fluttering eyes staring at the counter. There’s a new item added to the collection of blood goods and pawned treasures—a small fox. She’s clay, you think. Or maybe ceramic is the correct term. Glossy coat, vibrant red fur; she’s perfect for a fairy garden. “I overslept a little.” 

Marco continues to talk to you, but your fuzzy hearing doesn’t quite receive it. It’s nothing but dull sound waves bouncing off of your skin, dropping to the ground and shattering into silence as you focus your attention on the cash in your hands. You count the notes one by one, murmuring the number underneath your breath, before you push it towards him on the glass countertop. 

“There, that should be a thousand.” 

When he goes to reach for the money, he snatches up your wrist instead. Unforgiving fingers, claws digging into your skin, leaving behind indentations that you fear may never wash clean—he brings your arm up to his nose, teeth flashing as he inhales. You watch the forest green of his eyes be swallowed up by darkness, and you wince as his grip only grows tighter. 

“Where were you last night?” he demands. 

“W-What?” you stammer. “I was at Terminus. A friend brought me and we just-”

“A friend?” Marco interrupts. He yanks on your arm, virulent smile tugging on his lips as he brings you closer. “Did you let this friend fuck you?”

Bewildered, you attempt to wrench your hand free from his grasp, but you only whimper. “No, I just- I just had a couple of drinks and went home, that’s it!” 

“Are you sure? Because you smell an awful lot like Simon fucking Riley.” 

Need an alpha to take care of it for you? 

You so desperately wish to scream for Simon, but you’re not even sure why. It’s as if his name has been branded on your tongue for all eternity but you’re just now learning how to sound out the syllables. You know what his name means—safety, security, alpha. 

Your alpha. 

You feel him. It’s as if he heard your silent plea; the desperate attempt to get him to come for you. Fat palm on your shoulder, presence looming from behind you like a vengeful apparition—Simon growls. He’s always been a territorial creature. 

“Get your fuckin’ hands off ‘er.”

Marco relents, and you feel yourself stumbling backwards, feet catching on the torn carpet, rump colliding on the unforgiving floor. Tears welling in your eyes, you stare up at Simon just in time to watch him snatch Marco’s shirt into his grip, and then everything seems to go dark. You’re alone with nothing but the sound of your own breathing and the thudding of your heart in your chest. 

Something within you aches. A splinter wishing to push free from your skin. It rattles inside of you as you watch Simon pull Marco over the countertop. Marco is not a small man—always obsessed with his appearance and the tone of his muscle—and still he is tossed around like a ragdoll. Your lips part in awe as Simon’s head lowers. Marco’s pushing against his face, but there’s no force in the world that can stop the glistening canines that graze against his skin. 

You watch as the muscles in Simon’s jaw flexes, but there’s a disconnect. Though your eyes are open, it’s nothing but TV static. White noise in your vision. The overwhelming urge of your brain attempting to save itself from the gore. 

Finally, you see it—Marco, limp on the ground. 

There’s a bite-sized hole in his throat, displaying the gummy cartilage of his carotid artery that no longer contracts enough blood. It wanders to his trachea, severing his airway, leaving behind nothing but bubbles as Marco attempts to breathe in and out. He’s drenched in blood, and you can smell it—the iron. It’s the rust of violence, the same kind he wielded so flippantly at you, now blanketing him in his final moments. 

Then, there’s Simon, standing over his fallen prey, chest heaving with the thrill of the kill, and mouth painted red.

follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here