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sweetienans · 3 days

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Lonesome || R. Cameron

Summary

"What are you going to do with all the money?" Rafe followed you to the store that he didn't even know it was there. Stores in the cut were a new world to him.

"What are you talking about? I don't have any money" You said grabbing some apples and peaches.

"I know you do, or you will do" He reached your lower back trying to gain your attention but you slapped his hands out of it.

"Don't touch me. Rafe I swear to god I don't know what are you talking about. Are you high or something?" You tried to look to his eyes to see if they were dilated but they were the normal blue and tinted green as always.

"I heard my dad talking with one of his lawyers yesterday" he looked straight to your eyes to try to see if you were lying to him. You weren't. "Your mother is dead, and she left you all of her wealth"

Nothing ever happened. No gold, no cross, no El Dorado. Everything followed the normal course. Except for you. Your mother died, not that you actually care. She never raised you. She never appeared until now when apparently she was rich and left you all of it. You didn't want to know anything about the money even though you needed it. And if it wasn't for Rafe, you wouldn't even check the numbers on your bank account. He has a plan, a plan that he would do anything to achieve even if he has to use you.

Pairing: Rafe cameron x reader.

Warnings: use/mention of alcohol, mention of drugs, smut eventually but will be labeled. Violence (jj's father) Ward is still a bad father. 18+ MDNI!

wc: idk

see Pt. 1

Pt.2

You paced through your room all night. Going back and forth with your phone in your hand. What would you do? That was a huge amount of money in your bank account but in a way it didn’t feel like it was yours. You would like to be in another situation where you were mourning your near passed mom but there you were, keeping something you deserved all your life but you were never given. It kinda sucked. And it sucked more than you had to know it because of Rafe.

You fell asleep near four in the morning and didn’t wake up until 1pm where you felt the door slightly slamming in the entry clicking shut right after.

“Hey sweetie” your dad peaked through your open door. His clothes were all muddy and had traces of dirt in his head. “I’m sorry I disappeared”

On a normal day you would scold him for not even calling but right now you had a turmoil in your stomach that you couldn’t bear.

“It’s okay, I’m glad you’re here” you said laying on your side. He nodded and then left you to yourself again, the sound of the shower being on sounded above your thoughts.

You were quickly to take your phone and start typing the news to JJ but when you were writing the text you started wondering, was it a good idea? Would you even keep the money? you deleted it and instead wrote a ‘hope you have a good day with John B’ message.

You scrolled through your socials, incapable of thinking in getting up when a text from Sarah popped up.

‘Kook party in the night, you coming?’ Meet me at Tannyhill so we can go together’

It wasn’t a lie that you were considered one of the good pogues, you were good friends with Sarah Cameron, Rafe’s sister and even his friends were good to you. You didn’t understand why but you were always invited and welcomed in their parties.

You thought about the party and decided that it was a good idea to show up, to clear your mind and do normal teenage stuff before having to worry about the elephant in the room. Telling your dad, telling your friends that in the span of night to morning you were practically a new Kook. It wasn’t your fault.

You went to the shower and dressed up to go with Sarah. She didn’t give you much information about the party so you decided to put on a yellow sundress that had the neck v-shaped and your white snickers. You put on some makeup, basically tons of blush, mascara and gloss and went to your dad’s room to tell him that you were going out.

He was face down in his mattress sleeping like he never slept in his life. You decided to leave a note that you knew he wouldn’t read.

You left your house closed and walked the rocky path to the main street that was basically a highway. Your car wasn’t functioning so you made all your trips walking, it was a long way to Tannyhill but you didn’t mind.

The gates of Tannyhill opened in front of your figure. The house was massive, it was the biggest house in figure eight all because of Ward’s effort. Something to look up to, to be honest.

“Girl! you look amazing” Sarah appeared hanging from the side of the porch’s door. “I just have to do my makeup and we can get going, did you walk all the way from your house to here?” she asked, giving you a side hug.

“Yeah, it’s part of my exercise routine,” you said sarcastically. “My car broke down again so the legs had to do the job”

“That’s awful, you want a glass of water?” She didn’t even wait for your answer to reach one of the glasses in the higher cabinet above the sink just to fill it with water.

“Thanks” you said following the blonde to her room. You’ve been up there many times. Sarah was your best friend, beside JJ, the boys and Kie, even though the latter didn’t understand why. “So, where’s this party? Topper 's again?”

“Oh no, after we left last week, some punks wrote shit on the living room walls, his mom got furious with him,” Sarah explained, putting some eyeliner in the corner of her eyes.

“Did they know who did it?”

“Mm no, I mean, there were only Topper’s friends” she just shrugged and turned around to face you. “What do you think?” She said giving you a full look of her outfit and makeup.

“What can I say of the Kook Princess?” you said, rolling your eyes. “You look gorgeous, Topper is going to die when he sees you”

She made a subtle grin but her eyes darted away like she was hiding something. You would ask, eventually.

When Sarah parked her car, you expected a good looking house, not a beach with a bonfire on it. You made a mental note to never forget your cardigan again.

“Pogue style?” You asked to make her shiver. She hated the tumultuous fight between pogues and kooks, and you could understand why, but most people couldn’t.

“Topper house is out of the party market, Kelce’s family from California is staying in his house for the weekend and well Tannyhill is just unapproachable when dad and Rose are there” She explained locking up the car and walking through the sand.

You walked to her side, waving some familiar faces together but keep walking until you made your way to Topper.

“Hey pretty ladies” he said in a smug tone kissing Sarah’s cheek. “I thought you wouldn't make it” he said fetching some red solo cups and filling them with beer (the expensive one)

The difference between pogue beach parties was clearly the cheap beer and that the cops would show up eventually in the night. This was a private beach and people could do what they pleased without having to worry about being incarcerated.

“Thanks” you said to Topper receiving the cup and downing half of it in one gulp. You needed it, you needed the fun and to keep things out of your mind for a while.

“Easy” Topper said in a surprised warning. “There’s plenty more”

“Leave her alone, I’m the one driving anyway” Sarah said pouring her beer in your glass.

The party went without any problems. People were dancing, some of them were making out and Sarah was nowhere to be seen. You were sitting in a big log beside the fire when a guy that you have never seen sat by your side.

“Hey” he said in a charming way. You cringed on the inside but nodded anyway to his side. “I’m new here, what’s your name?” He scooted over the log and pressed his thigh to yours, completely invading your personal space.

That must've been the worst way to flirt with anyone. You took a sip from your drink and cleared your voice to reject him in a nice way.

“I’m-

“Not interested”

You turned around to his voice. Rafe's tall figure lingered above yours stepping and blocking the light from the fire making him look terrifying.

“She’s definitely out of your reach so why don’t you go somewhere else” he said waving his hand to the guy and urging him to leave your side.

You had a new feeling in your stomach, like the beer was settling in wrong.

“I got it under control” you said watching him walk and take the seat of the guy. He was wearing a long sleeved shirt, those that are white and had the sleeves in another color, this was green and his cap was backwards making him look more handsome than he already was.

“Yeah, I can tell” He said, taking your cup from your hands and gulping all the content down. “What about we talk business?

“Jesus” you muttered under your breath and prepared yourself to lift but before you could do the push he circulated his hand around your wrist. “What did I tell you yesterday? I’m not interested”

“I know you received the money” he said looking straight into your eyes, there was no way to deny it. He always had like a sixth sense. “And I also know that you don’t know what to do with it”

“Look, spending it on coke so you can double the amount it’s not a good idea to me to be honest” you said plainly.

“You are not giving me a chance” He said like he was hurt because of your words.

“I don’t even know you Rafe”

“You’ve been Sarah’s friend for a while, you know me enough”

“You just said it, Sarah’s friend, not yours” you specified.

“That hurt” he put one of his hands on his chest and you rolled your eyes. “I thought you had feelings but this..

“Please, cut the bullshit” You were done and ready to leave.

“Just invest with me and I promise you won't regret it” he said pleading, puppy eyes and all.

“Invest with you? or invest in you?” you crossed your arms. “Because for why I understand in the first you have to put money too”

“I’ll do it if that makes you feel safe” He answered like it was nothing.

“You are something else Rafe Cameron, but no, I won’t, I don’t trust you” you took your cup from his hands and left him all alone with the words between his lips. He wasn’t going to give up so easily.

Rafe Cameron was a man of his word and mind. If he had an idea (even a bad one) he would do anything to reach it and make it true. He needed the money to seal a deal with Barry and Ward got him on a leash lately, cutting him loose, so he had nothing, just the two dollars that you threw at him in the store the other day.

He was going to convince you but apparently not tonight, because even though you had been right, you weren’t even friends with him, telling him that you didn’t trust him broke something on the inside, so he drank, and drank and drank until he couldn’t even get on his feet.

“Have you seen Sarah?” you asked one of the girls that was dropped in her knees grabbing his friends hair so she can puke.

“No, go away!” she yelled at you and you thought that you deserved it, bad time to ask.

This wasn’t the first time that you’ve lost Sarah in a party, she would usually sneak around with Topper but she would always pick you up later. Right now, her car wasn’t in the spot she parked and there were no Topper or Sarah in sight.

You kept walking around the cars, looking for someone familiar to give you a ride but you didn’t know any of them. You were about to call JJ for backup knowing very well that he will get angry at you for coming to this party when you saw Rafe leaned against his car trying to get inside.

“You gotta be kidding me” you said, grabbing his shoulders to make his eyes snap open. “Have you lost your mind? you can’t drive this way”

His disoriented eyes, alcohol breath and languid body said that he was more than wasted. He couldn’t even keep his eyes open to look at you. You searched for his keys that were in his hand and snatched it.

“I’m going to drive okay?” you said wiggling the keys in front of his head. “I need you to lean on me so I can open the door and get you inside, Rafe”

“Am I dreaming?” he murmured in your shoulder while you put one of his arms behind your shoulders to keep him steady on his feet. “This is much more of what I asked”

“Tell me about it” you said, manhandling him towards the passenger seat. “How did you end up like this, honestly the booze wasn’t even that good” you talked more to yourself than to him, he was a pure excuse of a man in that state.

“My heart is broken” he said while looking at you with his eyes half opened while you stretched yourself to put his seatbelt on.

“I changed my mind, I don’t want to know Rafe,” you said, closing his door and walking to the driver’s side.

“Then don’t ask stupid questions” he said pouting and crossing his arms over his chest the moment you closed your door.

You were good to drive and the way to Tannyhill wasn’t even that long, you would crash in Sarah’s bed and leave in the morning when the sun rises .

“Invest with me please” he mumbled. You thought that he would’ve fallen asleep if you didn’t talk but he didn't. He was partially awake and ready to keep pushing it.

“I’m not gonna, I already told you, drop it” you said turning to the road that leads to figure eight.

“No, no, wait” he said, grabbing the steering wheel with one hand and turning to the opposite direction.

He hit the curve in the road and one of the cars that were passing by almost crashed against a light pole. “Fuck Rafe! Don’t do that again!” you said pressing the brake and parking on the side. “I was going to drop you at your place, what’s your problem?”

“Let’s go to yours, my dad doesn’t want me there” he said, starting the car again urging you to start driving, giving you zero options.

“What about Kelce’s or Topper’s?” you asked, finding an option that wasn’t your house, even though it was pretty convenient to you to be in your place and having no need to walk back from someone's house.

“Topper is with my sister I don’t fucking care where and Kelce’s house is crowded, you can leave me with Barry if you want” he said closing his eyes again.

You knew better than going to Barry’s. The man sold drugs to JJ's father and he was constantly hanging there, so, if he saw you there with Rafe, JJ and your father would know and they won’t stop asking for the truth.

You were against a wall, figuratively speaking. No choice at all.

“Fine, let’s go to my place”

author's note: Rafe is coming babyyy. I'm excited, i'm not going to lie. Let me know that you think.

Taglist: @sublimepenguinpeach-blog @haruvalentine4321

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe outer banks #rafe obx #rafe x reader #rafe cameron #obx rafe cameron #rafe cameron x smut #obx fic #rafe imagine #outer banks

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dramatic-delirium · 1 month

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AU where Howl is considered Spiderman because his house is filled with them.

By Howl I mean Mr Howell Jenkins who owns a castle that can float.

By them I mean spiders. He houses spiders. The absolute madman. No particular reason, he just likes them. (And how they fix their webs even if you ruin them forever, which is cute but also I do not have the stomach to have spiders crawling around in my bedroom my guy)

Also he has no noticable powers, nor actual responsibilities tbh. He's Spiderman like how spider-therapist is Spiderman.

He's is not contacted by Spider society because Miguel is jealous of him sustaining a family in another universe doesn't like anomalies. Howl knows of Spider-verse and all but is, as always, an unbothered icon.

Nothing different happens.

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babeygirlbuckley · 1 year

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kinda tired of all these parent redemption arcs tbh. give chimney a gun

#911 spoilers #hey dont mind me im just casually popping in 👋🏼#but yeah anyway #eddie and ramon last season felt natural/organic but buck and chim in this one felt kinda forced #like im sorry but didnt the buckleys stop going to therapy with him?#youre gonna tell me that 30 years of emotional neglect has been resolved?? like. no lol #the ending was sweet but also. idk. contrived? that might not be the right word #and CHIMNEY #i have NEVER seen mr. han smile. not once. he was cold/distant with albert too but now all of a sudden theres a baby named after his dead #dead first wife and hes sitting on the floor playing?? making faces?? pop pop is funny???#it just doesnt seem realistic to me. like at all #plus everyone else putting the pressure on chim to reach out and fix things is bullshit #hen was so against him meeting with tatiana again. i feel like she was way too nice about it last ep #yeah its fine to encourage a talk for chim to get everything off his chest but like if it was me? if this was my friend?#idk maybe im a bad person but i wouldve used harsher language than that lol #'maybe its about what you need to say' turns into 'call him out! confront him! let him see what hes done to you! make him take responsibili #*responsibility!'#also didnt like that he wound up having the talk with his stepmom instead of the party actually involved #and maybe im remembering wrong but didnt his first marriage end bc his wife died?? he considers that a personal failure?#ANYWAY #all this to say: it is not the children's responsibility to reach out and reconcile with their parents. stop trying to make chim feel bad f #for being kinda aloof with the guy who literally abandoned him in a foreign country #god my thumbs hurt. im not used to this #chimney my beloved 💖#i think thats the tag. its been a while

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cinnamon-notes · 3 days

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i have been ghosting my friends for idk a month??? and they have been doing the same??? except for when we meet in a workplace cuz somehow our jobs decided to cross over :)

#feeling so bad about it but like i cant bring myself to interact with people right now but i am also constantly sad because i dont interact #with anyone out of work :/ but working makes me socially exhausted & tbh all i wanna do is be depressed with my books & my movies &my tunes #but i also crave affection like i realize i have zero social life and i sometimes schedule some hangout with my friends but it's almost #become like idk a task? something i look at through work eyes. like- i arrange our hangouts the way i arrange work meetings. it's so sad.#i know it is. but still- i cant help it. through all my life ive been missing having a lifelong friend who knows me like the back of their #hands and i know like the back of mine. never had it. cant cry over that. it's passed. i cant invent lifelong friendships that never existed #and i gotta make peace with that. plus- what am i complaining about if im just incapable of keeping any friend for longer than a month???#after the first month- maybe the first couple of months- it all gets boring and dont get me wrong i really love my friends but somehow they #lose interest in me and i lose interest in them and we become just people who know each other and occasionally hang out but like- i've never #had a friend who's there for me when things happen in my life. i've always had friends to tell things to afterwards. like- i know i cant #really pick up the phone and say “hey. im having a bad time. can we take a walk? talk on the phone? can you tell me about your day? can you #just be here for me?“ and i cant even idk just randomly pop up with a ”oh my god i hate him i hate him i hate him it's a whole montague vs #capulet but if romeo and juliet never existed kind of hatred!!“ i just cant vent right away. ive always thought that that's my problem.#and maybe it is. but still- how's come they can vent to me? im always there right away. i do love my people and i show up for them.#sometimes my depression makes it soooo difficult to hang out constantly but if there's one thing that cannot be said about mw is that i dont #care. cuz i do. and maybe that's the problem #and maybe it's just easier for me to care than let others care? idk? but then again- i did try to open up. i did try to let them care. i did #try everything by the book & off the book but still- idk it's always just an “im sorry” never an “i care so much to say more than im sorry”#and yeah it's my problem cuz i am not a constant person im not that steady in what i do. i still dont know if it's because i havent found #yet the people worth doing it or if i am just traumatized (my ex is knocking on this door lol) but- idk it makes me extremely sad!!!#and ive rambled on way too much but i jusg needed to let some things out of my mind cuz i cant understand whats wrong with me and why i #crave true friendships although im hella scared of and bored of and unwilling to nurturing one :)#cinnamon diary

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poptartmochi · 9 months

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unfathomable emotions after showering

also.. i hit tag limit on this, so watch out for a very long post if you hit read more on the tags! 😨

#it is frustrating that overall it is fine for customers to use retail/service employees like punching bags. this guy will have no #repercussions for cussing me out beyond the pre-existing frustration that his order isn't ready because it was placed after our deadline #it is frustrating that you can't really defend yourself because 1) it takes too much time and there's too much else to do.#better to let them have the upper hand in their minds 2) they can take anything you saw and spin it against you in a review #like... 😞 i couldn't even get a word in against this guy. honestly i think he was using me as a stress toy because his kid is getting in #trouble for not having uniforms. which really sucks‚ I understand and empathize with that! but to react in such a way is unacceptable #it's common sense that a mom and pop shop will not process your order until the next business day if you ordered outside of their business #hours. i had to explain the way this particular school's ordering system worked to this guy the last time he was in. i provided multiple #alternatives to contacting us that he never utilized. like.. he had the tools to understand everything and instead of using them he decided #to erupt. and because I'm the poor fuck that works the counter‚ i got to be on the receiving end of this. i should know better than to be #upset about it (the eelness talking. everyone else was mad when he left) but. it's also fair to not want to be cussed out over something as #small as school uniforms! 🤨#and don't even get me started on school uniforms.. yes my entire job rn is selling them BUT oh my god. i hate them. they shouldn't be a #thing. especially when these schools cost an arm and a leg in admission + then the uniforms easily cost another #*$100. the entire practice seems evil to me but also it's the family business so. 😭. the way these schools do it also undermines the entire #point of school uniforms which is. uniformity! 🤨 i feel like the minute differences in brand and so forth and so on give kids easy ways to #compare each other and potentially bully each other. the differences in what people provide Could be distracting! if your kid is the only #one wearing a plaid jumper while everyone else has khaki bottoms on‚ they're going to stand out!#so what pray tell is the point 😭 imo it's best to let kids have the freedom of self expression and show up to school however they'd like #in an appropriate way ofc. but i digress 😩 this business is just. deeply frustrating + as if the work itself was not overwhelming‚ the #parents have to throw tantrums about it... I'm so tired! 😭#and they insinuate you fuck around + or say you don't give a shit.. ma'am I've worked so much overtime this year + that's not even counting #the relentless shifts I've worked in my nightmares that occur every night. like.. literally the only thing i do is give a shit about your #order!! at the expense of my sleep and wellness lmao! I don't eat lunch and i barely hydrate because I'm constantly working #but it is thog mode.. thog don't care... 😑 it'd be funny if i didnt care either 🥴😐#to sum up a long rant ig i entered the shower feeling very depressed and I've left angry 🤯 but this is normal methinks #anyhow l + ratio + you work at your family's store + you work customer service + u trip over yourself when u talk etc etc etc 😑😑#one day i will blow that store up with every parent ever. it will be so funny 💖😐😩😑#sriracha.txt #negative cw

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confetti-critter · 2 years

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I wonder just how much time I spend thinking about if I'm autistic or have adhd 🙃😔

#cuz i feel like a have a moment where i do at LEAST once a day #abnormal #i think about it too much #it popped up in my mind clearly a couple years ago and now i can't stop thinking about ittttttt #maybe highly preferring to play alone when i was a kid was normal. maybe not making eye contact until ppl gave me shit about it was normal.#maybe writing 'this year i will pay attention to class and not look around a lot' in grade 5 was normal.#maybe getting up from the table at dinnertime so often my parents tied me to my chair with jumprope was normal.#maybe relating to almost everything talking about adhd/autism symptoms is normal #maybe its just fucking normal and im wasting brain space thinking so much about it!! maybe its normal to feel like an alien who knoe #who care #personable

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jacob-lockley · 2 years

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how do u feel about people shipping alters in moon knight? ik it’s become quite popular, but what are ur feelings about it? just curious, not hating on it, im supportive of all ships and just want to hear ur thoughts!

So. When I first got into MK comics a while ago I did a lot of research into DID and it's cousin OSDD and the general consensus was that every alter is their own complete person. Obviously there's a bunch of nuance there, on the psychological side, and since they're essentially different parts of the same consciousness, and also since the goal of a lot of people who go to therapy for DID is to kind of merge all their alters eventually (there's a different term for it that escapes me atm, I think it's considered more like fusing? Idk I'm not an expert) but generally, particularly as they exist in MK, they are completely separate individuals.

Basically I have zero problems with it. Marc and Steven (and Jake!) are different people that just so happen to share a body, in a sense, so while the logistics get tricky I say go live your wildest dreams lol. Not really my thing, necessarily, but I can totally see the appeal.

#moon knight #teddy talks #personally i see steven as more of a stand in for Randall for Marc at least emotionally #its this guy hes been charged with taking care of and you can be damn sure hes gonna get it right this time #but i can see the appeal since marc and steven (which im assuming is the pairing were referring to) fit pretty well into #existing ship tropes (red/blue + gruff warrior/ball of sunshine type deals that pop up a lot in fandoms of all kinds)#so yeah i personally have 0 problem #its weird that i have such a presence in this space that im getting asks about my Thoughts on fandom activity lol #but i have way too many thoughts on everything all the time so feel free to send me stuff like this @ anon or anyone else who wants to #im always happy to overshare my thought processes #its the adhd baby #i do want to add that most of my research was in online communities #this was a while back when most people didnt believe DID existed so almost all the information was firsthand accounts of people with DID #which is a really interesting rabbit hole to fall into actually #and weirdly enough there have been debates about this in online DID communities about whether alters could have relationships #from a moral/ethical standpoint but the consensus was usually yes #so yeah i listen to firsthand accounts first and foremost and make my opinions with that in mind no matter the topic #this got kinda pedantic so imma leave it here but short answer: go for it dudes live your lives

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jewishvitya · 5 months

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A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

#riki babbles #I had this in my drafts for ages and I was like 'not the time' but a friend encouraged me to share so here it is #palestine

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headspace-hotel · 3 months

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The USAmerican imagination cannot consider land that is multi-purpose.

A corn field is Corn, an endless monoculture, and all other plants must be eliminated. A residential area is Houses, and absolutely MUST NOT!!! have vegetables or fruits or native plant gardens or small livestock. A drainage ditch is only a drainage ditch, and cannot harbor Sedges and native wetland plants, A sports field is for A Sport, and let no one think of doing any other event on that field, shops and storefronts must have their own special part of town that everybody has to drive to, which requires parking lots...and God forbid we put solar panels on roofs or above parking lots or anywhere they can serve an extra purpose of providing shade, instead of using a large tract of perfectly fine land as a "solar farm."

Numerous examples. But it is the most annoying with agriculture. The people who crunch all the numbers about sustainability, have calculated that a certain percentage of Earth's land is "Used up" by agriculture, which is troubling because that leaves less "room" for "Wilderness." It is a big challenge, they say, to feed Earth's humans without destroying more ecosystems.

Fools! Agriculture is an ecosystem—if you respect the ways of the plants, instead of creating monoculture fields by killing everything that moves and almost everything that doesn't. Most humans throughout history, and many humans today, sustain themselves using a mixture of foraging and agriculture, and the two are not entirely different things, because all human lifestyles change the ecosystem, and the inhabitants of the ecosystem always change themselves in response.

Even if you are a hunter-gatherer that steps very lightly in the forest and gathers a few berries and leaves here and there, you are being an animal and affecting all other parts of the ecosystem. By walking, breathing, eating, pooping, drinking, climbing, singing, talking, all of those things affect the ecosystem. If you gather leaves to sleep on, that affects the ecosystem...if you pile up waste, that affects the ecosystem...if you break a tree branch, that affects the ecosystem...if you start a fire, if you create a small shelter, if you cut a path, that DEFINITELY affects the ecosystem.

This idea, that human activity destroys the ecosystem and replaces it with something Else, something Not an ecosystem, is so silly. "But you just said that even the earliest most technologically simple human societies altered their environment!"

Yes, I did. Because we believe that "pre-agricultural" humans could have no effect on their "wilderness" environment, we ALSO believe another false idea: That when humans affect an environment, they destroy "Wilderness" and change it to something else, like Agricultural Land, that can never have biodiversity and never benefit many life forms.

I think it is the European idea of agriculture that it always involves people settling down and relying on a few special plants that are domesticated intentionally and grown in specially dedicated fields. After all, this idea of an agricultural lifestyle, is in contrast with the "hunter-gatherer" lifestyle, which is assumed to be what humans do before they "figure out" agriculture. The European mind imagines "pre-agricultural" folks ignorantly bumbling about, thinking plants and animals conveniently pop out of nothing for their benefit.

Bullshit! I shake my head in disappointment when I see websites describing Native Americans using wild plants as if those plants just-so-happened to grow, when those same wild plants just-so-happen to thrive only in environments disturbed by humans in some way, and just-so-happen to have declined steeply since colonization, and just-so-happen to be nonexistent in unspoiled "Wilderness" locations, and (often) just-so-happen to have an incredibly wide range where they either once were or are incredibly common, making it very...fortunate that they just-so-happen to have a wide range of uses including food, medicines, and materials for clothing and technology.

Accidentally of course, without any human impact from the humans that were impacting everything. /s

"But if it wasn't an accident, how did it happen?" Here is how to understand this idea: Look at the weeds! The weeds will teach you.

Look at the plants you always see growing without being planted around human buildings and roads, and learn their history. Often you will learn that these plants have many marvelous properties, and have actually been used by humans for thousands of years.

In fact, some of the most powerful and difficult to control weeds, were once actually some of the most essential and important plants for human civilizations to depend on. The dreaded Kudzu, in its home in East Asia, was one of the main plants used for clothing for over 6,000 years, and not only that, it has been cultivated for food and medicine for millennia. You can make everything from paper to noodles out of Kudzu! And Amaranth, the most expensive agricultural weed in all the USA, produces edible and healthy grains as well as several harvests of greens per growing season, and several species of the genus have been fully domesticated and formed a staple crop of Mesoamerica.

Meanwhile...some people have come up with this neat "new" idea called Polyculture, which is where you plant a field with two crops at once and somehow get better yields from both of them. WITCHCRAFT! Unrelatedly, there are other ideas like "Cover Crops" and "Agroforestry" that for some reason have the same beneficial effect.

Wow...It turns out, sterilizing the whole environment of every plant except one crop...isn't actually a good way to do agriculture in many places in the world.

Just think about it from an energy point of view...

We have some places used for "Agriculture," where we wring the land as violently as possible to squeeze green vegetation from light energy.

And we have other places for Other uses, where we spend massive amounts of fossil fuels mowing, chopping, poisoning and trimming to STOP the land from producing its incredible bounty of green vegetation.

And in the agricultural fields, we spend even MORE resources killing the unwanted plants that grow spontaneously

This system is hemorrhaging inefficiency at both ends. It simply isn't a one-to-one conversion of land and fossil fuels to food energy. The energy expenditure of agriculture is mostly going into organizing the vegetation's energy into the shape and configuration we want, not the food itself.

In the Americas, indigenous agricultural systems involve using the plants that exist in the environment to construct an ecosystem that both functions as an ecosystem and provides humans with food, clothing, and other important things. This is the most advanced way.

Most of our successful weeds are edible and useful. A weed is simply a plant that is symbiotic with humans. My hypothesis of plant domestication is that it was initiated by the plants, which became adapted to human environments, and humans bred them to be better crops in response. Symbiosis.

Humans did not pick out a few plants special to intensively domesticate out of an array of equally wild plants, instead they just ate, selected, and bred the plants that were best adapted to live near human civilization. That is my guess about how it happened.

Just think about it. Why would you try to domesticate teosinte (Maize ancestor?) It sucks. Domesticated plants in their wild form are usually like "Why would you put hundreds of years of effort into cultivating this?" Personally I think it's because the plant grew around humans and humans ate and used it a lot because it was abundant. So we co-evolved with the plant.

Supporting this hypothesis, there are many crop plants that mutated and evolved back into weeds, like "weedy" rice, "weedy" teosinte, and "weedy" radishes. Also weeds develop similar adaptations to crop plants to survive in the agricultural environment.

Consider Kudzu. Everyone in the USA knows it as an invasive weed, but since ancient times in China, it was a crop that provided people with fabric from its bast fibers, food from its enormous starchy roots, and many medicinal and other uses. Kudzu is not evil, it simply has a symbiotic relationship with humans, and just as any other species might serve as a biological control, the main biological control of kudzu in nature is the human species.

Think of the vast fields and mountain sides of the South swallowed by thick mats of Kudzu covering lumps that used to be trees. Think of the people toiling away to clear the Kudzu, while wearing clothes made of cotton that was grown in a faraway place using insecticides and depleting fresh water, using energy from their bodies that came from crops grown in fields far away.

Now imagine people working to harvest the Kudzu, to cut the new vines and dig up the starchy roots and use the plant the way it is used by the people who know its ways. Imagine the people using the starch from the Kudzu root to make flour and noodles and sweet confections. Imagine workers processing the vines into thread which is woven into fabric. The hillsides and fields flourish with plants that used to be suffocated, and hillsides and fields in faraway places also flourish with their own plants, instead of being made to grow cotton and crops to provide for the needs the Kudzu provides for.

Imagine the future where we accept our symbiotic relationship with the plants!

#from my drafts #the ways of the plants #plants #weeds #plantarchy

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fairy-hub · 20 days

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𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐝𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬! fluff, suggestiveness - talking about/hinting towards satoru fingering/eating you out but nothing happens, kissing, satoru fondly makes fun of you a lil, he also carries you around, collage au, collage student!reader, collage student!gojo

fey: I’m still gonna be on hiatus for a little longer but in the mean time have this fluff nugget inspired by my hubby

Satoru huffs and pokes your cheek till you swat his hand away. He flops on the bed next to you, the soft breeze and movement disturbing your carefully placed papers.

You whine “Satoru!”

“Sweet pie! You’ve been studying and working in that essay all day for the past three days please!” He throws his hand across his forehead, clutching his chest. “I beg of you feed me attention before I starve. I’m wilting away before you! How cold hearted can you be.” His eyes are with tears.

Tossing your throw blanket over him, “This should keep you warm.” You take you eyes off the screen to read the open text book next to you. Before referring to your notes then glancing back up at your computer screen.

He pops his head out from underneath the blanket with gasp. “No I’m not cold! You’re cold hearted!” He sits up and wraps his arms around you. “Please just an hour, we can order some food, take a shower get you out of your funky funk.” Pinching his nose and waving his hand in front of his face.

“You’re foul.”

You can hear the smile in his voice. “Like your armpits! Study starting break now! I your wonderful boyfriend refuse to let you be stinky.” He slowly closes the lid on the rough draft of your paper.“I’ll help you write some more after, if you don’t give your mind a break you’ll fry it and make it useless.” He kisses the top of your head.

“Let’s go lil’ stink!” He drags you off the bed, your feet dangle in the air as he holds you to his chest.

Squeezing you whilst you protest, “Hey you can’t steal that! I don’t wanna hear it from the one with the stanky attitude making me take a break for my health how dare you.” He carefully sets you down in the bathroom.

He waves a hand in your direction, “Yes yes, how dare I care for my beautiful girlfriend and rub her naked body down with my large soapy hands in a warm shower, that I as her perfect boyfriend know the temperature of.”

He lights some of the candles arranged around the bathroom. And starts the heater that he insists your bathroom needs. After not stepping into another cold bathroom after a hot shower you can understand why.

You rid yourself of your clothes, throwing them into the hamper. “Do you need to toot you own horn?” Relieving yourself then washing your hands.

Turning around and watching him strip. His arms flex as he pulls his black shirt off. His v line peeks out of his sweatpants, which he pushes down. Your gaze lingers on his soft cock and large balls before you glance up into his sparkling blue eyes.

He corners you against the counter, booping the tip of your nose with his long finger. “You’ve been neglecting me for days I might need to remind you what a awesome boyfriend I am! What if you’ve forgotten!” He pouts.

You slide your fingers through his soft silver white hair. Pulling him in, your lips close to his, “I could never forget, you won’t let me, but I suppose it’s part of your charm. I guess it’s kind of cute when you’re cocky.”

Satoru smirks into the slow passionate kiss he gives you. Lifting you up, reflexively you wrap your legs around his waist. It’s easy to forget everything when you’re kissing him. There is the safety of his arms, the sweet passion of his soft lips on yours.

When he breaks away Satoru suggests, “After our shower would it be too cruel of me to give my girl a happy ending? As some stress relief and reward for all her studying of course.” He massages your cheek. His large warm hand feels wonderful targeting your sore spots.

You softly groan, “Please! I don't know if I wanna ride your face, fingers or cock.”

“Why not all three one after another? I can suck on your pretty clit and let you cum on my fingers then I can fill you up.” He carries you into the warm shower, supporting you with one hand. Closing the curtain behind himself.

He stands underneath the warm water, steam billowing off it. “‘M sorry for not texting for three days, you know I’ve missed my amazing boyfriend, you’re just so talented at so many things like distracting me when I need to study.” He helps you onto your feet, placing your backside facing towards the rushing water.

He protests, “I can behave and help you study.” Pouring some of his favorite strawberry and sugar scented body wash onto his hand.

You close your eyes tilting your head back. Soaking your curls and letting the water wash over your face. The water melts away some of the tension building in your neck and shoulders.

You rub your right shoulder and winch whilst insisting, “You tell me that every time.” Turning around and stepping out of the water, closing your eyes. It’s relaxing knowing he’ll take care of you, from washing your body, to treating your curls to applying your face care.

Rubbing soap over your back and ass, leaving soapy white bubbles. He massages your shoulders whilst pleading his case, “Please lemme help you study! We have the same essay due and test to take. Our study sessions is how we got together I miss them.”

You softly sigh and cave in, “I miss them too, ok you win can stay, you’re too charming.”

He playful croons “I always win.” Kissing the top of your wet head. “You won't regret it I'll be the best study buddy!” You widely smile, the delight in Satoru’s voice is heartwarming.

#jjk #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk fluff #gojo fluff #gojo x reader #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo fluff #gojo satoru fluff #satoru gojo x you

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angelsheartts · 29 days

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✩‧₊˚ I HOPE NOBODY CATCH US !! .

(but i kinda hope they catch us, anyway)

#pairing : lucifer, adam, alastor, vox x gn reader

#cw: suggestive content, +18 mdni, cuss words lmao, getting caught in suggestive situations ig?? tentacles on alastors part my bad, vox likes to get caught.

#notes: guys please feel free to ask requests, i’m getting out of ideas and i don't know what you all wanna read on my blog help.

PART ll

˖ ˚ ༘✶ LUCIFER .

you both were having a pretty steamy make-out session in your hotel room at the hazbin hotel, clearly not the best idea since everyone was still at the hotel, and HELL does lucifer gets loud.

"ah-, my love, " he whines loudly, pressing his forked tongue deep inside you. feeling him humping against your bedsheets as you wrap your legs around his neck, you knew he was close. "lucifer, you make me feel so gooood~" you moaned, grabbing his horns as you felt like your orgasm was soon to come.

well, nobody warned you how SENSITIVE this man was when someone touched his horns; his wings literally popped out in a second. "fuck, fuck, i’m so close (name); can i cum, honey ? please i-"

a door opened, making lucifer wrap his wings around you both. "(name), i heard some noises. is everything alri-" well, this was akward. "IMSOSORRYISHOULDHAVEKNOCKED" she said, embarrased, closing the door, leaving you and lucifer with a flushed red since you both literally got caught, by HIS daughter WHILE having an orgasm.

after that 'accident' charlie started knocking every time she entered your dorm, and apologised to you many times.

˖ ˚ ༘✶ ADAM .

adam can be very tiring sometimes when keeping his hands to himself, he would literally fuck you anywhere so everyone could see who makes you feel so fucking good if you would just let him, but of course you wouldn’t allow something like that.

except for today, you and adam had a meeting with the other angels so you wouldn’t have guessed that your husband had already been planning on how to convince you to do not-so-holy-things to skip the meeting.

until, you started noticing how touchy he was getting with you, at the beginning it was a playfully kiss on your neck then a slap in you ass and somehow you ended up giving him a blowjob.

"you’re so hot when you shut the fuck up" he said, smirking while gripping your hair tightly to make you go deeper. "fucking bitch, sucking it while having you on your knees, as you fucking should 'cause im the original dick, babe!" letting him talk to you like that reeallyy turned him on, just the thought of you being so obedient to him makes him want to cum.

"what the fuck" a voice made you both turn, noticing a lute with a very disgusted look in her face cursing at you both for being so reckless.

sadly this wasn’t the first time lute walked in on you both, so she just left LMAO.

˖ ˚ ༘✶ ALASTOR .

alastor tries to have the least amount of physical contact during such activities, so it wasn’t a rare occasion for you to finger yourself, while listening to his voice telling you what to do.

you didn’t really know if it was because you were bored, or you were just horny, but you had the urge to have some intimacy with alastor. he didn’t mind because it had been a long time since you both had some intimacy.

"you have been such a good partner, my dear” he praised, smirking widely like he always did. "I think it would only be fair if i give you something in return."

well, that was 15 minutes ago, and now here you were feeling his tentacles thrusting into you so roughly. alastor would only chuckle at your expressions while ocassionaly telling you to touch yourself as he wanted. seeing you trying to get some release made his bulge twitch inside his pants.

well, at least it made it twitch until someone interrupted you both, making your partner disappear the tentacles who were just inside you a few seconds ago.

angel dust was the one who accidentaly walked in on you both, and alastor told him if he ever talked or made jokes about what happened he would transmite his screams on his radio broadcoast. angel dust still teases you though.

˖ ˚ ༘✶ VOX .

vox actually wants you both to get caught, like he really has no shame at all. he loves fucking you if it means that you both might get caught in the act.

sadly, you can’t even recall how you ended up with him having you bend over his desk right before a meeting with the VEES.

surely, you both could have stopped if you wanted, but why would you even consider that when he’s literally vibrating just in the right spot, making you fuzzy from the overstimulation.

"fuck, yeah" your boyfriend's voice is shaky as he keeps thrusting in you, seeing how his cum rolls down your thighs, makes him increase his pace. "you really want us to get caught, don’t you, babe? squeezing me around as if i would even think about fucking pulling it out" he says chuckling with a slight glitch on his voice. "ah- vox, it’s too much i-" vox slapped your ass, making you yelp from pleasure as you were feeling so overwhelmed.

both of you being so close to your orgasm, didn’t noticed when velvette and valentino entered the room until velvette shouted at you both for fucking like animals, and not waiting until being in a more private place, alongside her was just a valentino smirking, while being dragged by velvette. valentino would have been glad to accept the offer if you would have invited him though.

#lucifer x reader #adam x reader #alastor x reader #vox x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #lucifer smut #adam smut #alastor smut #vox smut #hazbin hotel smut #getting caught #hazbin hotel fanfiction #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel adam

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hellishjoel · 4 months

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cherry thrill | lights

9.2k / pairing: daddy dom tattoo artist!joel miller x sub virgin f!reader

series masterlist | main masterlist | notifications blog | ko-fi chapter summary: your tattoo artist, joel miller, takes your virginity. chapter warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), no outbreak, implied age gap, swearing, virginity loss, dom&sub dynamics (/not lg), size kink, praise kink, degradation kink, daddy kink, innocence kink, corruption kink, swearing, dirty talk, pet names (princess, bunny, baby girl, sweetheart, etc.), oral (m&f receiving), fingering, protected p in v, joel talks you through it, protective!joel, slight pov switching, reader is described as having no tattoos or piercings, as well as hair, but otherwise no physical description, no use of y/n series summary: Trust and devotion. Ink meets innocence. Your tattoo artist, Joel Miller, shows you what it really means to give up control. Reeling from the loss of your job, you’re running out of options, until a passing comment from Joel and a video camera give you just the right idea. A/N: this was supposed to be a one shot but just like everything else I try to write, I expand on the characters too much for it not to become a series. also, thank you for 2,000 followers, I promise to do something soon to show my appreciation <3 I'm bad at giving thanks and receiving attention so anyway - dividers by @firefly-graphics (thank you, daisy!)

During your first consultation, there was something in the air.

Glances that lasted a few seconds too long, a charged energy replicating that of two strong magnets. You stand frozen in a dark office down the hall from the shop’s main entrance. The walls are painted black. A gallery wall displays different art and posters in gold frames. There’s a large red neon sign with your tattoo artist’s initials, J.M.

Joel Miller.

You sit opposite of him, leg anxiously bouncing and nails subconsciously piercing the chair’s leather arms as he listens silently to your request before his mind starts to work. It doesn’t take much time to draw up an example or two with your guided tweaks and fixes.

Other than the scribble of a graphite pencil, silence falls over you both. And observation takes over.

Joel surrounds himself with scattered drawings on loose paper that litter his desk. You watch the way his eyes screw inward to focus on the sketch he is drawing up. A small vein protrudes from his temple, his jaw shifts from side to side with tension.

He’s a blunt sort of handsome. With harsh edges and lines, jaded and carved with precision like precious marble. It makes your pulse jump a bit in your neck and wrist.

You think your first tattoo should be something special, especially since you’ve waited so long to pull the trigger. He was a bit intimidating like you imagined a tattoo artist to be, what with his brooding demeanor and how he looked you up and down upon taking one step inside his parlor.

Virgin.

That’s what he called your skin, untouched by any ink or piercings.

He didn’t know that it described you down to your core. No one had popped your cherry, taken your virginity, made you theirs. Untouched.

Now, half an hour later and sitting anxiously in his back office, he finishes drawing up the sketch and asks about the precise placement you had in mind.

“I was thinking here,” you mindlessly point to a spot on your upper thigh. There was a level of secrecy to it, in case any future employers cared about that sort of shit.

You can’t help the way your skin vibrates under his touch, when he aids you in taking off your bottoms and runs his calloused palms up the smooth skin of your thighs.

You shakily exhale as he warms you.

You definitely don’t let yourself fantasize that he’s feeling you up, or even think about wanting him to explore every inch of your body. You know he’s just doing his job.

But the way his eyes flick up to yours when he feels the goosebumps he knows he’s created is otherworldly. Like he knows you want him to fuck you. The way your muscles twitch under the warmth of his palm, feeling pliant under his touch. Fuck.

His eyes gleam as his mouth forms into a barely-there smirk.

There was no point in playing coy. Your body changed at the contact and Joel knew it.

It was damn near degrading the way he let you simmer. It set a light inside of you no one had before. So that’s when you knew you’d let him, Joel Miller, take your virginity.

It would be no easy task. You didn’t know how to pursue him, or anyone for that matter. Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have said virginity.

You try not to stare for too long, but even with his gruff demeanor and silence being second nature to him, he was handsome. A rugged sort of handsome with different facial piercings.

A septum in his nose highlighted its aquiline structure. And a small hoop in his right eyebrow, with greys tickling through like pretty streaks in the hair. It made him look deliciously too old for you. Perhaps that’s what you enjoyed most, though. He was no amateur.

The moment his fingers dipped into your flesh to work on your tattoo's placement, you knew he felt it, too. Supple under his touch. Squishy. Something he could sink his teeth into. Something that obeyed.

“You prepared for the pain, sweetheart?”

His southern drawl is sweet like honey, deep and husky nonetheless.

“I think so.”

Your response is meek. It’s your wavering nerves from having him so close and unsure what the feeling of being tattooed will be like. Joel looks for certainty instead. He insists on it.

“Need ya t’tell me. Not that you think, that you know.”

“I’m sorry. I know so.”

Joel squeezes the back of your thigh fondly, a proud little smile twitching at the edges of his mouth. “Good girl.”

The praise alone was enough to make your thighs sticky with arousal. Joel sent you home that day with an ache between your legs that your fingers had to fix. And you thought about him the entire time.

How his cold tongue piercing would feel against the warmth of your clit. Holding you with his strong, protective arms swirled with black ink. How his staggering dark eyes would look into yours as he fucks you.

But thinking about him wasn’t enough.

You tried to string out the process, anything you could do to fix more time with him. Anything to get his tough palms on your skin.

You fiddled with different placements, opting to show a little skin as you rid yourself of your top and pointed to your ribs during your next appointment.

A breath hitches in your throat as he eyes your bra's innocent pink color. Lacy and pretty. Delicate. He clears his throat and runs his fingers along your side, evidence of his touch causing an effect on you displayed with more goosebumps. Your body could simply not hide the attraction you felt towards him.

“Would hurt. A lot. The ribs move every time you breathe, which makes the tattooing process more painful.” Joel gently cups your side with his large palm and squeezes your ribs, holding you in place as you shakily breathe with the hold he has on you. “Can’t tell ya where to place it, can only advise. Just don’t want such a pretty girl to shed any tears.”

That’s when you knew you could trust him. That even a man as hardened as himself could treat you with such care.

He excuses himself for a moment, opting for more transfer paper and leaving you topless in his private office.

Your ears were ringing, you could hear the quickening beat of your heart. You slowly inch off the portable tattoo table, glancing around Joel’s dark academia-style office.

He’s an enigma, you think, the more you look at his surroundings. Quiet but dark, you knew he was concealing a hidden desire. You hope to unlock it. That he’ll trust you enough just as you trust him.

Articles of clothing start to drop to the floor, one by one. You knew you’d be ambushing him; you didn’t want to scare Joel. So you left yourself in your soft pink-colored bra and panty set. You thought it was classy and cute. Not too forward, but sweet. Definitely planned out, you hope he doesn’t notice.

All your confidence quickly disappears as soon as he comes back in through the door. You could feel your heart slowly sink to your stomach, your lips parting to come up with some sort of reasoning.

“I-I’m sorry,” is all you can think to say. Joel is stilled at the entrance of his office, door still ajar as he blankly stares at the delicate angel standing in the middle of his office.

He clears his throat and finally closes the door, leaving the two of you in silence. You can’t read his expression.

“What do ya think you’re doin’?” He asks, sweet southern drawl dripping with tension as his heavy boots slowly make their way closer to you.

You can only shake your head, unsteady hands concealing as much of your body as possible. You decide to face the mirror, keeping your back to him.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, I was just-” Lie. “I was just looking at your full-length mirror to see other placement ideas.”

Joel merely shakes his head, a knowing look in his eyes. “I can tell when you’re lyin’ t’me, baby girl. You wanna try tellin’ me the truth now?”

His tone only makes the ache in your core grow with desire as your pulse quickens under his eyeline.

You feel embarrassed, heat coursing through your body and making you tingle as his stare lingers selfishly, basking in the glory of your figure. You watch with want in the reflection as his eyes stare at the curves of your hips and your ass. A handful, he probably thinks.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxes, moving closer and enveloping you in his musky pine and whiskey scent. It’s almost knowing what he says next. “Tell me what y’want.”

You swallow the lump protruding in your throat before you decide to be honest with him. Like you said, you could trust him. You play with your fingers and pick at the skin by your nails.

“I want you.” You say barely above a whisper.

Joel simply shakes his head, takes another impossible step closer, and cranes his head down to hear you better. His lips and coarse beard hairs tickle at the shell of your ear.

Your eyes close shyly as he speaks again amid your silence.

“Say it again, baby. Can’t hear ya.” His toned front meets your back, forcing a whimper past your lips.

You work up the nerve to take a glance at the two figures in the gold-framed mirror. Perfect opposites. Young, beautiful, a little inexperienced. Older, handsome, sure as hell looks like he knows what he’s doing.

His height looms over you. His eyes are an unknown shade of obsidian and he’s radiating a comforting warmth. Your hand reaches for his, only able to look him in the eyes through the glass as you guide his hand to your hip.

Your thumb rolls across the faded tattoo on the backside of his hand. There used to be a cross there, but it looks to be covered up by some sort of python now. With a shaky sigh, you try again. “I want you, Mr. Miller. I want you to take my virginity.”

You’ve prepared yourself to hear his laughter, a snickering, degrading comment of disbelief. You felt ready to experience shame. But you were wrong.

Joel places his pointer finger under your chin, using his other hand to guide you in his hold to turn and face him. His thumb grazes over your lower lip as he guides your head to tilt up and look at him properly. Your soft eyes meet his lust-driven ones and your heart surges at the sight.

You’ve never seen a man so hungry.

“You want me to take your virginity, little bunny?” He hums seductively. Suddenly, you don’t feel so doomed. It’s placed with a little bit of eagerness now. You wanted your spoils.

“Yes. Want you to do whatever you desire with me, I’ll do anything you want.” You sound like a devoted cult member, but the energy you feel is undeniable. You’re sure you’ve soaked through your panties at this point.

Slowly but surely, Joel begins to nod. He’s mulled it over and he’s made up his mind.

“Whatever I desire, huh?” He tuts almost degradingly. Your nod of enthusiasm makes his blood rush.

He hesitates, untrusting of his own words.

“Want you to call me Daddy,” He starts haphazardly, gauging your reaction. “Think you can do that, sweet girl?”

Your wide eyes soften, a notch of confusion knotting your eyebrows.

“You- what?”

“Want you to call me daddy. Want you to be a good little girl for me and hop up on that desk. Can ya do that for me, princess?” His chin juts up and signals toward his office desk.

The swirling in your stomach just won’t stop.

“Go on now.” His orotund voice projects his instructions. You back up a few paces until you feel the cool metal of his desk hit your backside, slowly moving to sit on it with hidden excitement and a shiver up your spine.

You do want to be good, if there’s anything you want in this world right now, it’s to play along and be good for him. Knowing he would take care of you was making you leak.

His fingertips delicately touch your skin, starting at your wrists and moving upwards to the straps on your bra. He’s intimidating to look at, so you fixate on something behind him. But it doesn’t help when he clouds your vision. Even his aroma, from the smoke of his cigarettes to the musky spruce cologne, was putting you in a tailspin.

You don’t anticipate the way your body moves for him. His hands skim to the back of your bra, and your spine straightens. It makes the right side of his mouth twitch up into a smirk.

“Nervous?” He belittles.

Your long lashes innocently flutter, you think you might be doing it on purpose. You sort of like playing along.

“A little… Daddy.” You test cautiously, the word tangling on your tongue. But it’s unforgettable the way his eyes light up at the name. You find yourself already willing to do whatever it takes to recreate that signature look of his.

Joel hums appreciatively, thumb making minuscule circles over your chin. “I’ll take care of ya. Ya know that. Or else you wouldn’t have chosen me.”

All you can do is nod. Because he knows that your selection process was a real thing. You had danced around it once during your first consultation when he asked if you had a boyfriend. All you could feel was heat rising to the back of your neck, shy eyes evading his warm brown orbs.

“No, definitely not.”

“What’d’ya mean definitely not? You’re a pretty girl.”

You shrug in a noncommittal way. “I’ve never had to really worry about stuff like… boyfriends. Or girlfriends. Any of that sort of stuff.”

His eyes flicked up to yours in an instant, a mutual understanding of your underlying words. “I see. I understand, angel.”

Joel works your bra off with one hand, you gasp as you feel the material loosen around your body. His opposite hand taps at the top of your thigh. You’re all too aware you are eagerly sitting half-naked on his desk.

“Open.” He directs, voice laced with smoke.

You nip at your lower lip and slowly inch your clamped-shut thighs open for him. He instantly makes eye contact with the wet, dark little circle that’s ruining the pristine innocence of your panties.

He decides not to make fun of it, but it’s truly a compliment. Your adoration for him. “This all for me, angel?”

You work up a few quick nods. Now that he was so close, you wanted him to hurry the hell up.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

You feel heat tingle at the sides of your neck. This would be your first time really talking like this with someone. He made it feel safe to talk so dirty. To try, to learn.

“Yes, daddy.”

You can’t deny how proud you feel to be the reason a certain warmth brightens in his eyes and on his smirk. You did that, you pleased him. Little did you know how he’d thank you for it.

“You said you’re a virgin? Hard to believe.”

A shaky sigh leaves your parted lips as his warm palms slowly pull your bra down, revealing your breasts to him. “Just never found anyone I really trusted or liked enough.”

He mutters something quiet in understanding, all too distracted by how damn pretty you look.

Joel is silently observing your body, he can’t help but want to touch the delicate flower in front of him. A gasp leaves your parted lips as his calloused hands come up and cup your breasts. He starts to squeeze, and a happy little whimper leaves your mouth with a small smile.

“I like that.” You tell him, hoping it improves your chances that he’ll do it again. Which he does.

“Good.” He compliments, pinching your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, turning them into peaks that send electricity down your spine.

A sweet and experimental moan leaves your lips. Joel stands between your parted legs and you feel his erection for the first time against your skin. You can tell by the shape protruding through his pants that he’s a large man, already thick and swollen for your taking.

“No one’s ever been inside of you?” He damn near growls, raising an eyebrow after the beat he offers you to answer.

You shake your head again. “I’ve tried my fingers, but I’m sure it’s not the same.”

A scoffy little breath echoes out of his nose. “No, not quite. Lay back for me, bunny.” His hands release your breasts, pebbled nipples left abandoned as you slowly move down onto your elbows and then onto your back.

There was a sudden peak of anxiety, not being able to fully see him. But perhaps this was the point, to fully surrender yourself under his touch. To trust him.

His rough hands grip the sides of your panties, slowly pulling them down your legs. He gets about halfway down your thighs before you quickly sit up on your elbows again.

“Joel?” Your voice anxiously chirps.

He stops, eyes flicking up to you from your cunt still concealed by your sticky thighs.

“We can stop,” He says before you can explain. “S’okay if you’re not ready.”

“No, no, that’s not it, God, that’s not it,” You rid his worries, feeling your chest quickly rise and fall under his all of a sudden protective gaze.

“I uh-... I know you don’t owe me this, we’re not together, but… can you talk me through what you’re doing? I want to learn, and I can tell you’re experienced, I know it’s a lot to ask but-”

“S’not too much to ask.” He quickly intervenes, gently taking your hands and guiding you to sit up fully once more. Your soft eyes graze over all the layers he’s still wearing, and suddenly you’re reminded how naked you are.

“Use your voice, sweet girl. Can tell you wanna say somethin’. This is your time.”

The sentiment means a lot. It is your time, your first time, and just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean it should be any less special. So you decide to make it your time, the way you want it.

“Can you take your clothes off too? And is the door locked?” You trail off upon seeing his amused smirk.

“Go on.” He nods again, letting you list your needs and wants.

“And can you kiss me, please, Daddy?” You ask more softly than the rest of your demands. You know that kissing is romantic, but you think it might help settle you. Pull you back from drifting away, keep you here with him.

He watches you for a moment, a bemused grin on his lips before he gently cradles your face. “The door’s locked. I’ll take my clothes off. And I’ll kiss you as many times as you like as long as you keep askin’ that nice.”

For the first time during your interaction, your face lights up with a smile. It’s small, it’s thankful, but it’s there. There was an undeniable connection you shared with Joel, it made you feel safe under his curious eyes.

With his large hands cupping either side of your jaw, he leans down while simultaneously guiding your chin up as your lips meet. It’s gentle at first, soft. His mouth tastes like a cigarette, it’s oddly intoxicating and you find yourself wanting more.

You know how to make out at the very least. So when you gently bite down and tug on Joel’s lower lip, both of your eyes open as a throaty little groan escapes him.

He kisses you a little harder this time, hands falling to your hips as he pulls you closer so your fronts align. The force makes your lips part and Joel takes the opportunity to let his tongue invade your mouth. He moves fluently to explore, both of you falling into a sweet lull as your bodies meld into one.

Inadvertently, he hooks his pointer finger into your panties halfway down your thighs and finishes pulling them to your ankles. They land somewhere on the floor in a pile of your other clothes.

Unbeknownst to you until he took his hands off your body to pluck open his belt do you realize how you were on fire for him.

You wonder while he pushes down his trousers and tugs off his shirt if he’s ever slept with a virgin before. If you’d be his version of a first time just like he’d be yours. No, not his first ever, you weren’t that foolish. But maybe you could teach him a thing or two as well.

There’s no way to mask your surprise when he pushes down his boxer briefs, the dark band revealing all that was underneath. His half-hard cock raises towards his stomach, rosiness fluttering at his tip. You were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little hooked, deliciously curving upwards.

With a new sense of confidence, your hand reaches forward and you start to shift your hand up and down his length. Joel’s quiet grunt shatters your thoughts. He gently cups the side of your neck and twirls a piece of hair around his finger.

Joel takes your hand off his cock and you worry you’ve done something wrong already. He holds it palm-side up and nods encouragingly. “Spit on your hand, baby.”

He nods after you look up at him with shy, blown-out eyes. But you obey.

You spit into your hand and let him guide your hand back around his member. That seems a lot better. He glistens with your spit and you have the urge to keep shocking him with your confidence.

You lean forward and directly spit onto his tip, looking up to see his approving little smirk.

“Fuck- That’s- mmm, that’s good, angel,” he sighs with a certain happiness, loving the feeling of getting his cock taken care of. “Feels real good.”

The praise sets off a million pistons in your brain, feeling yourself scrabble off the desk, dropping to your knees as you continue to pump him.

He’s heavy in your hand, and you gently lean forward to give sweet kisses to the tip. You swallow the lump in your throat before parting your lips, taking the head of his cock into your mouth. He’s salty, musky, but not dirty. In fact, he was rather well-kempt in his nether regions.

You force yourself deeper and Joel already has his hands in your hair to pause you.

“Woah, slow your roll, pretty girl.” He says with shortened breaths. Heat floods your body, you hate being so new to this.

Joel continues to stroke your hair back, gently gliding a thumb up your cheekbone before he cradles one side of your face. “I see you gettin’ all shy, I know this is your first time, but I’ll teach you the basics. And no one’s perfect on their first try, okay? So just get that thought outta your head now.”

Your chest swells at his eagerness to relax you, so you nod gently and lean in to kiss the base of his stomach in appreciation. The right side of his mouth tilts up as he swipes his thumb across your plump bottom lip, a silent thank you for the kiss.

“You’re a real good girl, you know that?” A bigger smile breaks across your lips and you eagerly tug on his cock with eagerness. Joel sighs, already in defeat at how you’re willing to get it right for him, to learn, to listen. To obey.

“You’re gonna wanna relax your jaw,” his fingers guide you, your lips parting and letting your jaw drop lower, lower, lower for him. “And the whole part is to suck, not just put your mouth on it, okay, peaches? So hollow your cheeks, no teeth, and only go as far as you feel comfortable.”

You shake off your nerves and clear your throat, feeling your mouth fill with spit intended for him. You place your hands on the back of his thighs, feeling the dark hairs under the pads of your fingers.

Slowly, you wrap your mouth around his tip once more. You swirl your tongue around him, adoring the way he hisses when you glide your tongue across the slit leaking a salty substance.

Over the introduction, you try to take him down your throat properly. And he’s a mouthful, literally. He’s a lot. But you try to just enjoy that there’s no real pressure.

A lot of saliva starts to build in your mouth, and you swallow it around him. You’re awestruck when he lets out a low moan, strong hands weaving through your hair and lightly tugging. Your eyes flutter up to him through your lashes, and he’s looking at you so deliciously.

You can tell he wants to fuck your mouth, holding his hips back from really letting you have it. And maybe he could do that to you someday, but for now, today was slow. And Joel knew that too.

Joel gently tucks your hair back, your lips suctioning around his length before he drags you back towards him, indicating for you to start moving, to bob your head.

It takes a few tries, but you really feel yourself going further down his cock. You breathe through your nose, but it’s hard when you’re trying not to gag around him. Finally, after little to no error, you slip up. His tip unexpectedly hits the back of your throat and you gag around him. Joel must feel your whole body tense with anxiety because he’s quick to gently hush and console you. Your eyes well up with tears, but your first instinct is to keep him inside your mouth and swallow around him.

A long, low groan leaves Joel’s mouth, a compliment to your first big challenge.

“Holy fuck,” he pants, weaving his fingers into your hair and fisting eagerly to keep himself grounded. “You’re doin’ so fuckin’ well, princess, you have no idea, fuck,” he grins. “Try using your hands on what you can’t take, come on, baby.”

You can feel yourself physically gush at his compliments, your stomach swirling with a newfound desperation. To please.

With new instructions, you work your hand at his base and pump up and down with the rhythm of your mouth. You worked on gently squeezing and releasing your hand, making Joel go slack-jawed as a husky groan leaves the back of his throat. Sucking and licking and bobbing your head in earnest, he’s already twitching in your mouth.

“You’ve done this before baby,” his voice drips with a smirk, pulling yourself off for some deep breaths and a few desperate swallows.

“Haven’t, promise, Joel,” You coo with a proud little smile, your voice thick and wrecked as you continue to pump his cock in the absence of your mouth.

Joel lets your hair go and guides your hand off his cock before helping you up from the floor.

Your face is obviously written with disappointment, you could have continued. You sort of wanted to continue despite the ache hanging around in your jaw.

“You were gonna make me come, don’t wanna come yet, angel,” Joel pants weakly, ducking down and connecting your lips. You’re a little taken aback. Not by the kiss, but by the fact you already had him nearly ready to finish.

“Really?” You murmur hopefully against his mouth, wishing he wasn’t just saying it to compliment you.

The way that his features started to twitch and his tummy and chest fluttered with his jagged breathing, it would have been quite a sight to see him finish. Maybe he would have even done it right on your tongue. The thought alone gives you goosebumps.

Your insides swirl as he licks inside of your mouth and gently runs his tongue along your bottom lip, moving you back towards his desk. You hop up without his instruction, feeling him smirk against your pouted mouth.

“Now you’re gettin’ a hang of things.” He murmurs into your mouth, carrying on where he had left off before, sinking down to his own knees at the edge of the desk and positioning your feet to rest up on the edge. He seems to stare at the glistening arousal you’ve been creating for the last hour straight.

That nervous feeling settles in your stomach, completely bare and open for him. A shocked gasp leaves your mouth, not prepared for him already to be diving into your pussy.

The breadth of his tongue slowly swipes up the center of your core, purposely flicking off of your clit and making you yelp at the contact. His cold tongue piercing against your sensitive bundle made a shiver shoot up your spine.

He gently smirks as he places a sweet kiss on the inside of your thigh. “You’re jumpy, kitten. Take a breath. Wanna make you feel real good.”

You let out a shaky sigh and move off your elbows, back flat on his desk as your eyes slowly drift close. Then, as he starts to truly taste you, learning you and what you like, it’s unexpected how much you enjoy it. It never really dawned on you that some people truly enjoy eating pussy, but Joel Miller sure does.

Your broken little whimpers and strung-out moans turn into writhing on his desk under him. He was such an expert, meticulously swirling his tongue around you and suckling your clit into his mouth.

It didn’t take long for your fingers to wind up into his hair as his shoulders lay bracketed between your thighs. It was heavy, it was stomach-twisting, in fact, it was rolling through you like a storm. The it in question was your first oral orgasm.

“J-Joel,” you gasp, your jaw dropping down as he slowly prods the tip of his finger at your entrance.

“Need to get you ready for my cock, sweet girl, keep focusing on how good you feel,” he encourages. Your face pinches as his finger slowly sinks into your entrance, but you realize how grateful you are for all the extra spit and arousal Joel has provided.

It doesn’t necessarily hurt, it’s a weird ache at first. But then his finger starts to slowly pump inside of you, and it’s a new craving. Especially with the way his tongue moves around your clit, the pistons in his brain firing all to figure out what you like.

Do you like when he flicks your clit with his cold metal piercing?

“Ohmygod-” you gasp.

Do you like when he swirls his naughty tongue around you in tight figure eights?

“Joel, please,” you say, needing more.

Did you like it most when he suckles around your sweet bud?

“Joel!” You cry out, tugging tighter at his hair, not sure if you want to tug him closer for more or push him away because it feels too good.

“O-Oh, oh my god.” Lying still was a foreign thing to you now, all you could do was wiggle and grip your fingers into his hair, tugging harshly as he grunted against your core in enjoyment.

He actually likes pleasing you, he likes tasting you! It’s a compliment without words as your eyes dip close and your head digs back into the desk.

Suddenly, your stomach starts to drop like you’re on a rollercoaster. You’re not unfamiliar with the feeling of an orgasm, but this, oral, it hits differently.

“Fuck,” you curse unexpectedly, making Joel cock up an eyebrow as he glances up at you. All you can do is watch as his mouth suckles harder around you, his finger pumping faster and adding a second.

Because if there’s anyone in this world that can break you out of your shell, Joel wants it to be him.

Now you’re really aching for him, wishing that it was his cock slotted between your walls, pushing you towards euphoria.

“Know you wanna come for me angel,” his fingers quirk upwards in a come here motion, and a long, strung-out moan of his name leaves your lips.

God forbid any of the shop’s workers or clients hear you, but you can’t think of a singular reason to care right now.

Your walls flex and squeeze around Joel’s two fingers, truly feeling the stretch as you come around his digits. It leaves you a whimpering mess on his desk, hot pants leaving your pretty lips.

Joel is in heaven, lapping you up and moaning against your core as your clit starts to twitch with the overstimulation. His hands squeeze at the flesh of your thighs before he sits up and kisses up your body, his own lips meeting yours. He’s hungry, and you’re still bouncing back. But you want it so bad, and you’re so close to finally having it.

“Joel, I’m ready.” You coo, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He breathily laughs and pecks your lips once more, tasting your own arousal and making you feel warm inside.

“Desperate for my cock, ain’t that right, pretty girl?”

God, he was such a menace with his mouth. Your adorably shy grin is all the answer he needs. But you give him one anyway, because he likes when you talk like that with him.

“Yes, daddy, I just wanna feel it already,” you try out, Joel’s lust-filled eyes meeting yours as white-hot heat spills into your stomach.

“I’ll give it to ya, baby girl. Wanna give that tight little virgin pussy my cock, don’t want anyone else to have ya. Mine.” Joel huskily grunts, a choked moan leaving your lips.

Joel reaches past your head and to the drawer on the other side of the desk. He jimmies it open and searches his hand around blindly. He flips open his wallet and pulls a small square foil package from the slot.

Oh, duh, a condom. In all your excitement, you sort of forgot to be safe. But you’re glad he was prepared.

You watch with adoration on your features as Joel lifts the condom to his lips, pearly teeth ripping the foil off but not hurting the condom. His other hand rests sweetly on your hip, thumb running soothing circles into your pretty skin.

It’s a soothing feeling, one that he doesn’t have to do, but he does because he’s being considerate and maybe even a little protective. You gently lay your hand on his forearm, fingers tracing fresh black ink and older green ink on his arm’s sleeve.

A shaky sigh leaves your lips as he uses both hands to glide the condom down his shaft. It’s nearly invisible, the way it’s so thin and tightly wrapped around his cock. Besides the band that rests at the very bottom of his shaft. He grumbles something incoherent, probably his annoyance with the fussing of the condom and how tight it probably felt around him.

You take in a shaky breath and nod at him once he comes to rejoin your centers.

“You’re sure you’re ready for this? Don’t wanna wait for someone y’love? Or trust? Or just... Anybody but me?” Joel’s face is pinched with genuine concern.

You smile softly and gently cup his cheek. “I do trust you. It takes a lot of trust to allow someone to alter your body forever with a tattoo. So, you’re giving me a tattoo, and you’re taking my virginity. You’re sort of doubling down for me right now, honestly.”

Joel flashes a genuine little smile. It’s the most you’ve said consistently all day with him, even with a little drip of sarcasm and wit.

“Okay. But ya gotta say it.” He says more seriously.

“I’m ready, Daddy. Want you to make me feel good. I know you can.” You can already feel yourself picking up his dirty talk. It makes your smile twitch as you gently grip both of his forearms, his hands spreading your thighs open for him.

He enters the space, his heavy cock resting over your core and slowly slipping up and down your wet folds.

You let out an unexpected little scoff as he grinds himself down against you, your arousal soaking the condom. He holds himself at his base and taps his tip down against your already throbbing clit, making you hiss out a desperate whine.

“M’not usually this… gentle.” He admits through gritted teeth. You’re sort of shocked by that. Sure, he has a rough and tough exterior, but he’s treated you with such delicacy that you assumed he was like this all the time.

“So, what are you usually like?” You pose, your breath hitching in your throat as one of his hands abandons your thighs and guides his tip from your clit to your entrance, up and down, several times. Your thighs twitch impatiently. Your entrance squeezes around nothing.

“M’just... not this gentle,” is all he can say without breaking into a bemused smile.

“Yeah? Maybe you can show me next time what you’re really like.”

Joel playfully scoffs as his face starts to pierce with concentration. “Not sure if you can handle it, kitten.”

“I’m sure I-” your words are cut off by a loud gasp, your lips parting as his tip penetrates your walls. You’re phased for a moment before you gulp and recollect yourself. You whimper, louder and louder as he pushes on, watching Joel move with such caution.

He really is holding back, you think. You wonder what he’s like when he can just fuck how he pleases.

“Baby,” Joel’s voice breaks your concentration. “Breathe.”

A loud huff of air leaves your mouth that you hadn’t even realized you were holding in. The ache in your hips and core only builds with tension as Joel pushes on, his length and girth surely parting your tight walls.

“So fuckin’- tight.” He says with gritted teeth, his fingers piercing into the delicate flesh of your outer thighs, making you whimper.

“Joel,” you quietly cry for him, tears threatening to spill at the pain. It’s just- a lot. It’s a lot for your first time, and maybe you wouldn’t have signed up if you knew what he was packing, but in a weird way, you loved it. He felt made for you.

“M’here, angel, look at me.” In all the excitement and overwhelming feelings of pain and pleasure, you hadn’t even noticed you were clenching your eyes closed. You slowly peek them open, greeted by his heavenly features.

“There’s my girl.” He compliments, warmth and sweetness shooting through your body.

“Fuck,” you say, your voice a bit wet as Joel comes down closer to aid you. He’s all the way in now, you can feel his balls flushed against your sopping wet cunt.

The arousal helps, the condom sort of doesn’t but it’s fine, that’s life, you think. You’re torn between pain and pleasure. Honestly, you just feel so fucking full.

He tells you between breathy pants that he would have used lube if he had any, but he didn’t, and he’s sorry, and his pretty voice starts to turn into static with how fucking good he feels inside of you.

“You’re doing so good for me, angel,” he praises, sponging a few kisses along your cheeks and tasting your salty tears. You feel like some weak pathetic being under him. He’s been sweet, but you’re sure he’s just treating you like he found a wounded animal.

“Move, Joel, please” you weakly demand, lassoing your arms around his neck and holding him close to you.

“No.” He says through gritted teeth. “Just-” he pauses and takes a deep breath, knowing that you’re dealing with a million emotions right now as he’s trying to breathe around the death grip you have on his cock. “Just wait a minute, sweetheart, let yourself adjust.”

A pouty, bratty sigh leaves your lips as you continue to blink away tears. You eventually nod and he only smiles adoringly as he returns to kiss at the tears.

Your senses are spiked. You can smell his cologne, feel each gristle of hair from his salt and pepper beard. It’s erotic how much more you can feel while at the edge of your emotions.

One of your hands roams into his darling chocolate curls, instinctually going to gently scrape your nails delicately against his scalp. You’re sweetly surprised to hear him mutter a sweet little moan just for you against the shell of your ear.

Your hands flutter across dark tattoos on his shoulders and arms, your blurry vision trying to make out the shapes as you trace a pretty angel on his upper bicep.

Joel Miller was inside of you. Joel Miller has taken your virginity. The hottest man you’ve ever set your eyes on is fucking you at his place of work, on his desk. And you convinced him to.

Joel was right. The pain, ache, and burn slowly turned into a real yearning for him to move. It felt like what was right, a certain neediness to be filled and fucked.

“Daddy,” you whisper more sweetly this time, more to your character. “Please fuck me, you feel good now, I can take it. Promise.”

It takes him a moment to gather himself as well, smiling sweetly as he keeps his mouth by your breasts where he is sucking a gentle hickey into your soft skin. Color flushes to the area, feeling his teeth gently nibble on the spot before he finally lifts off.

Marking you, you think. It makes another gush of arousal flood your core, liquifying your spine as you become putty in his hands.

His mouth twitches in a small smile as he captures your lips. Unbeknownst to you, the sweet kiss was just a distraction.

Joel slowly began reeling his hips back which was a whole new sensation. His strangled moan harmonized with the gasp you let out into his mouth, moaning out the breath you were holding as he plunges himself fully back inside your warm cunt.

You whimpered weakly, needy and anxiously happy, you wanted more. More, more, more.

“Oh- my god,” you whimper, feeling him start a steady rhythm inside of you. Your jaw slowly drops and your eyes flutter closed, feeling your tits start to lightly bounce every time his hips perfectly align with your own.

“So goddamn tight, still,” he grunts each word, forehead against yours as he watches your face unfold with a million reactions.

Something primal switches in Joel, knowing he’s the first one to do this sort of stuff with you.

It’s strangely possessive and arrogant, he knows it, but being the first man you trust to fuck you properly was feeding his ego. You’re a beautiful young woman with big doe eyes who waltzed into his shop and insisted he rail you, take your sacred first, talk you through it, and carry you through this dark and fearful forest.

You trusted him. He wouldn’t break that bond.

You came here wanting something, knowing how to get it. You came here asking, and Joel was open to teaching. The last thing he wanted was for some asshole to hurt you, something your sweet nature couldn’t afford was poison.

Maybe he could teach you more, if you wanted. If he offered you an invitation to his world, would you take it? He only shared a slice of his lifestyle with you today, would the rest scare you, or entice you?

Joel can’t help the way his hips buck faster at his thoughts, a little sob leaving your lips. He’s absent, just for a moment, feeling your skin slap against his as he holds you down and fills you fully. His tip hits your cervix for the first time and heat floods your stomach as you cry out his name.

“Shit,” he panics and quickly comes back to his senses, wide eyes meeting your bleary ones, “you okay, angel? M’sorry” Joel whispers, returning to his original rhythm.

“Yes-yes, fuck, please keep going, keep doing that, I can’t believe how good it feels.”

Joel weakly smirks, proud to see you taking him so well.

The desk squeaks and juts with each of his heavy thrusts, that’s how you know it’s fucking good. You came here wanting to lose your virginity, but now that you’ve unwound Joel Miller, you want him to fucking rail you.

Licking your lips, you lean up and pepper kisses up his wirey jawline, feeling the patch of hair that fades out and then back in again. He’s so sweet right now, but you wonder what he was talking about before. What was he when he wasn’t gentle? How good would rough feel? Would you like it? Maybe you could learn, explore, adventure. Surely Joel with his experience could be a guiding light.

You watch with glittery eyes as Joel pulls his head off yours and licks across the pads of his fingers.

“What are you- shit,” you whimper as his fingers start circling your clit, taking a moment to find your sweet little rhythm, one that somehow matches his hips. Now, your skin is slapping and it’s echoing around the room. Your moans are louder and uncontrollable, as are Joel’s. Your hips ache but you don’t find the will to care, he feels like fucking heaven.

His cock is somehow inching deeper, as if your walls have decided to invite him in further, where he hits this perfect little spot inside of you that makes you squeak Joel’s name with robbed breaths.

You’re not sure if you can hold on much longer, your stomach starts to swirl as all the knots inside your belly begin to untie themselves.

You brace Joel at his shoulders and look into his eyes as you moan his name. A certain hunger flickers behind his dark brown orbs. His jaw clicks and he starts fucking you in earnest, filling you up each time as his hips snap with vigor. He feels fucking amazing, piercing your walls and marking you as his.

“Joel-”

“Say what I wanna hear, baby,” he rasps. You quickly nod and gulp.

“Daddy, please, I-I’m so close,” you moan sweetly as your head digs into the desk, jutting your chin up and arching your back. Joel takes full advantage of your breasts in his face, burying his nose in between them and nipping at the sensitive flesh, nearly making you yelp.

“M’right there with you, angel baby, come for me,” he insists breathlessly.

His hips were losing their precision, going buck-wild, so you knew he was close. But he was holding out for you.

You clench your eyes closed, feeling yourself lose all control. Your heart races in your chest, beat thrumming in your throat as you hold Joel against your front as his hips continue to snap and fill you. You don’t know what to do with your mouth, so you feverishly land your lips on his and make him mask the moans of your orgasm.

Joel’s groan echoes loudly into your mouth as you gasp against his lips. Your walls clench eagerly around his cock as he spills into the condom.

It’s blinding, deafening even. Your face goes slack and your eyes see stars. You think you might be shedding a tear or two because Joel is cupping your face kindly, thumbs swiping under your eyes as he encourages you out of your haze.

“Lemme see those eyes, pretty girl,” he pants sweetly, watching for any sign of doubt. But he wouldn’t find any.

You’re not so sure where he starts and you begin, your mind is so fuzzy.

A soft hum leaves your lips as you soothingly run a hand through his dark hair again, gently stroking the longer curls away from the sheen on his forehead. Both of you were so warm, it felt like a fire was set between you two. When you curl a strand around your finger, you weakly smile as it coils back up and bounces.

“How was your first time, angel?” Joel pants, still buried balls deep inside of you. Your hips ache, but part of you wasn’t ready for him to pull out yet.

“I can’t believe I finished twice.” You admit with a shy smile, running a thumb up his cheekbone and glancing up at his eyebrow piercing. He notices you staring but keeps his eyes on your own.

“Did it hurt?”

He shakes his head.

“What about the one in your nose?”

He shakes his head again, this time with a smile.

“Or your tongue?”

This one made him ponder before he finally gave a light shrug.

“You don’t remember the pain after a while. Just like tattoos. The pain is temporary.”

Your mouth tilts in a lopsided smile, feeling messy with both of your spillages still puddled around your centers.

Joel grunts as he slowly stands up from his bent-over position on the desk, pulling himself out of you and tying up the condom before he tosses it into the waste bin.

You whine quietly to yourself as you close your legs. It hurts a little more now. Your hips and your core, a certain soreness. Or maybe it was missing him already.

“Oh,” you whisper, starting to feel a little bit of leakage glide down your thigh. “Joe, do you-”

“Course,” Joel says assuringly, hands already on a towel as he neals down and gently glides the material up the inside of your thigh. You bite down on your lip as he cleans you up with the soft towel and a little bit of water.

You glance around the sterilized room and realize he’ll probably have to scrub this place down for the most part. Whoops.

You’re slow to dress. Joel’s already buttoned his pants by the time you find your panties. He snickers quietly and helps you dress with a smirk.

It’s not awkward like you feared it would. It sort of felt like you guys were friends. Then, something sort of unexpected happens.

Joel fondly strokes a hair out of your face, pushing it behind your ear and smoothing out the little knots he had caused while fisting your hair during his blowjob. He’s soft and gentle with you. It makes you oh so curious what he looks like when he’s not soft and gentle.

You sigh softly as you look at yourself in the mirror. You sort of felt proud, like you’d be a whole new person leaving the shop today. Even without a tattoo.

“Joel, I don’t want anyone to see me leaving your office.”

“That ashamed of me, huh?” He scoffs at you playfully, running his hand up and down his chest hair before he finally throws on his shirt. “I have the back office, so we can just go out that door.” He juts up his chin to behind you and you follow his eyeline. “Goes to the alley behind the shop.”

You note the dark green painted exit door, and you’re thankful you don’t have to parade through the front of the shop or go past any other clients.

The gentleman that he is, Joel walks you to your car as dusk settles in, marking the sky an orange and red horizon.

“I gotta clean up the shop and close. You gonna be okay until I see you next?”

You nod meekly, a sweet smile on your face that twinges with a little shyness. “I’ll be okay. I still need that tattoo.” You tease to which he grins.

“You do. I’ve worked real hard on it, so you better come back an’get it.”

You nip at your lower lip as he stays guarded by your window, like a handsome pierced, and tatted bodyguard.

It’s itching at you too much to let it go. You’re just too curious. “M’not this gentle.”

“Yeah? Maybe you can show me next time what you’re really like.”

“Not sure if you can handle it, kitten.”

You gulp and clutch his hand before he fully stands up to walk away from your car. “You’ll show me again sometime? Like you said?”

Your eyes glimmer with a certain hopefulness, but his own seem to harden out of caution.

It was just insane that he knew so much more than you. You wanted to unlock all forms of pleasure you were comfortable with. You like that he was holding something back.

You were wet clay in his massive hands, he could mold you to his liking. You could learn his pleasures, his kinks, what unravels him beyond repair. You could learn a thing or two about yourself in the process.

Joel sighs.

“You don’t know what you’re askin’ for.” He warns, lips crooked in a snarl. His eyes beg for you not to want him, not to want this.

But nothing set your nerves on fire like seeing him in control of you, just that brief second where his eyes flashed from amber to black and he fucked you like nothing or no one was stopping him. What if you gave it all up to him?

Submissiveness dances behind your eyes, and Joel’s a sucker for that sweet look on your face. He debates if this is what you really want, or if it’s something else. He can’t deny he enjoys the trust you put in him.

Joel quietly sighs with hesitation, eyes the way your small hand desperately holds his before he finally squeezes back.

“You don’t know how t’take no for an answer, do ya?” He asks, a small smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth. “That’ll have to change.”

You grin and nod, biting down on your lower lip as you shift uncomfortably in your seat. Joel takes notice, not wanting to see you in any sort of discomfort, especially from something he caused.

“Take some pain medicine and relax tonight, angel. You were perfect.”

Your heart swells at the compliment, the appreciation, the care. He gently pats your window a few times before standing up straight and backing up from your car, moving back towards the dark green exit door. “I’ll see you soon.”

Driving away, you’re giddy with excitement of the unknown. It was a dark path you wanted to pursue. And maybe it was fucking stupid how you could trust a complete stranger like this, how none of your past partners felt worthy of your first time, but the tattooed and pierced old southern gentleman did. It was fucked. But you were sort of fucked for Joel Miller.

You hum to the radio as you experience pure adrenaline, thumb gliding over the raised numbers on his business card. You glance down and notice a small stamp of a fern in the top right corner, adjacent to his name and professional title.

The Obsidian Gallery

Joel Miller

Senior Tatoo Artist

You can’t explain how your heart inadvertently races as you remember flashes of his hips rutting into yours, those same delicate fern leaves decorating the front of his hips. You were so fucked for Joel Miller.

next chapter ->

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vanteguccir · 3 months

Text

Lovestruck boy | Matt Sturniolo

Matt Sturniolo x reader

Summary: Where Nick and Chris are trying to record wednesday's video, but Matt's lovestruck gaze keeps going to Y/N, distracting himself.

Warning: None.

Requested?: Yes, from anon.

Author's note: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

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"Matt! Hellooo, is anyone there?" Nick spoke from behind the camera while moving his arms around exasperatedly, looking at his brother, who had his eyes focused on the couch in the back of the room.

Matt is the kind of guy that when he loves, he loves hard.

So to say that Matt was crazy about Y/N was an understatement, all that was on his mind day and night was his girlfriend; His days were happier with her by his side, he felt like he had more energy and strength to do anything, only because of her.

His favorite thing in the world was seeing her happy, so his heart warmed every time he heard her talking about the books she was reading with so much passion and affection - so much so that he lost count of how many times he took her to the bookstore and bought more than 100 dollars in books, just to be able to hear her talk about the characters that Matt never memorized the names of and the story that always made she speak too quickly and with so much devotion.

Whenever Matt was with his brothers or friends, he would mention his girl. It was automatic, everything reminded him of her. He was obsessed. With all that said, it was inevitable that, being in the same room, the boy wouldn't be able to take his eyes off her.

The theme of that Wednesday's video was something suggested by Y/N herself, as just a few minutes ago the four of them were lying on the sofa in the living room, the girl with her feet on Matt's lap while starting a new book, while the brothers watched old videos of themselves on television.

His hands caressed the tops of her feet covered in fluffy Iron Man socks, which she had probably stolen from his side of the drawer. Every now and then Matt's right hand would go up her legs to Y/N's left hand, taking it away from the book and to his mouth, sealing the warm, soft skin with love, keeping his eyes on the TV screen.

A smile grew on Matt's face every time his brothers made vomiting sounds, calling them disgusting. While Y/N felt like her cheeks could explode from how red they became.

Matt's teenage voice coming from the videos made Y/N's heart warm, and seeing the silly smiles on the triplets' faces as they traveled through the land of nostalgia made an idea pop into the girl's head, who instantly put down the book and paused the video, catching the attention of them.

And this takes us to the current moment, after Y/N has separated some pictures from when they were children, teenagers or nowadays on Nick's phone, having created an album to be used in that specific video.

Matt and Chris were sitting at the kitchen table, facing the camera, Nick - who was standing behind it with the album open on his phone -, and consequently also facing the sofa, where Y/N was sitting comfortably as she flipped through her book, a smile appearing every now and then on her face as her expressions changed according to the events in the story.

A cup of cappuccino that Matt made for her rested on her legs, keeping her warm, while her right hand came out of the book every now and then and picked up the drink, taking a sip.

It was the third time that Nick caught Matt's attention, who seemed to get lost in his girlfriend's figure, and all external sounds, including his brothers' voices, became muffled.

To disguise it, the boy would randomly guess the name of one of his brothers or himself when Nick showed a small part of a picture, getting it wrong almost every time. This led to him having the lowest score.

"What? Yes, that's Chris." Matt blinked his eyes quickly, looking away from Y/N and to the phone in Nick's hands.

"Matt, it's you!" Nick exclaimed, rolling his eyes and sighing, he knew the video would continue like this if he didn't get Y/N out of the room, but his best friend looked too comfortable on the couch.

"Pay attention, dumbass." Chris slammed the palm of his left hand against Matt's forehead, earning a slap back on the arm.

Y/N lifted her head from the book momentarily, holding back a laugh as she saw the brothers fighting, rolling her eyes playfully before returning her attention to the story, adjusting her position on the couch.

"I'm sorry, I'll pay attention. I promise." Matt raised his hands in surrender, swallowing hard as he glanced briefly at Y/N and saw her laughing softly, returning his eyes to his older brother and forcing himself to keep them there.

"For those of you who aren't understanding, Y/N is sitting on the couch reading, and Matt can't stop looking at her. He's obsessed, I swear." Nick muttered behind the camera, shaking his head even though they couldn't see him.

When the first round ended, Chris got up and took Nick's place behind the camera, agreeing to be the next to show the pictures and be the jury.

Nick handed him the phone and sat down next to Matt, looking briefly at the couch and closing his lips in a thin line at Y/N's wide eyes at the book, probably surprised by some absurd scene.

The oldest looked at Matt, seeing that his brother was already looking at Y/N, too. Their eyes quickly met when Matt felt Nick looking at him, a laugh escaping both of their mouths.

"Are you ready?" Chris asked after choosing the first picture he would use, receiving a nod from the two brothers, who had both arms on the table so they could reach the "button" faster.

The youngest zoomed in on the pic and turned the screen towards the two, waiting for one of them to get it right.

Matt had never moved so fast, his left hand slamming against the post-it too hard as his eyes were wide in euphoria.

"It's me! Look at Y/N's hand there." Matt shouted in excitement, raising his right hand and pointing at the phone behind the camera.

"Yeah, that's Matt." Nick sighed, knowing that even though he got it right too, Matt spoke first. "You only got it right because Y/N is in the picture!"

"Obviously, he knows Y/N's traits more than he knows his own." Chris scoffed from behind the camera, zooming out of the image and looking for the next one.

The picture in question was from a day when the four of them went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant about a year ago, Nick and Chris were sitting on one side of the table and Y/N and Matt on the other. Matt had his elbows resting on the wooden table and his hands crossed, laughter escaping his lips when he heard something Chris said, while Y/N joined him in laughing, her hands crossed around his right bicep and her head resting on his covered shoulder.

The pic was taken by Nick, being the passionate photographer that he was, and Chris felt a smile stretch across his face as he remembered the moment.

Even though they made fun of their brother so much for being a crazy in love for Y/N, they felt their chest fill with joy for their brother every time they saw them together. They knew that their brother had found his other half, and seeing him as happy as ever made them just as happy.

"I know, he's obsessed with her." Nick commented again, receiving a slap on the back of his head, letting out a laugh when he saw Matt roll his eyes, but don't deny anything.

The girl looked up again when she heard her name being said by one of the boys and her person being mentioned more than once. Her eyes met Matt's blue ones, who looked at her with love and affection, an easy smile appearing on his face almost automatically.

Y/N smiled back, blowing a kiss, which the boy pretended to catch with his left hand and keep in the pocket of his hoodie.

When the round changed again, it was Matt's turn to stand behind the camera and choose the pictures.

The boy got up from his seat, fixing his pants and walking over to where Chris was, taking the phone from his hand and closing the last picture chosen by the youngest.

His thumb scrolled across the screen, looking for the first one he would use as he let his brothers settle down.

A smile stretched across Matt's face as he passed by a picture of Nick and Y/N, where they were both wearing sunglasses, with feathers around their necks and making faces at the camera. Nick had his left hand raised showing a peace sign, and it was there that Matt decided to zoom in, but not before lingering his eyes for a few seconds on the full image, admiring his girlfriend there.

Matt took advantage of the fact that his brothers were in a silly argument and turned around momentarily, looking at his girl, who was now in a position that in his head was probably very uncomfortable, but he already knew that for Y/N, the most different positions were the best.

The girl felt eyes on her and looked up, seeing Matt standing there admiring her. A reddish color took over her cheeks, and her fingers played with the pages of the book, trying to hide her shyness.

Matt nodded briefly at the book as if asking her how the story was going. Y/N smiled at the action, making a chief kiss gesture with her right hand while her left held the book open, afraid of losing the page she stopped at.

"I want to hear all abo-" Matt began in a low voice, just for Y/N to hear, but his sentence was cut by a hand hitting the table.

"I'm going to get Y/N out of the room if you don't turn around now and do your job." Nick said, crossing his arms. Chris held back his laughter beside him, his face turning red from the force he exerted in the action.

"You're so unnecessary." Matt rolled his eyes, throwing a wink at Y/N, who had a goofy smile, before turning to face his brothers again.

"No, you are." Nick responded, opening his mouth to argue against Matt again, only to be stopped by Chris, who smacked his left arm while laughing.

"Go ahead, Matt." The youngest asked, straightening up and clearing his throat, looking at his brother as he waited for the first picture.

Nick sent a bored look to Y/N, who was still watching them intently. The girl laughed softly, turning her attention back to the book as she felt her heart warm.

Y/N felt so grateful for her boyfriend and his brothers, who she saw as family. She would never forget the day Nick thanked her for how happy she made his brother, but little did he know, it was Matt who made her the happiest.

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Extra - comments:

"Matt looking behind the camera every 2 minutes with a lovestruck look on his face was the cutest thing I've ever seen 😔"

"Matt being able to guess the picture that had Y/N in it just because of her 😭"

"I love how Nick and Chris make fun of Matt for his love for Y/N all the time"

~ "deep down, they love them together more than the couple itself lol"

"I want to have a boyfriend who is as obsessed with me as Matt is with Y/N 🧎‍♀️"

"Y/N is a total bookworm, and I'm here for it!"

~ "petition for her to make tiktoks about the books she reads ✏️📄"

"it's incredible to see the difference between Matt before Y/N and Matt during Y/N. She's so good for him 🥺"

"Matt smiles so much when Y/N is near 😫"

"Matt and Y/N >>>>>>> any other famous couple"

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My asks are always open. Feel free to send requests or anything at all 🩷💋

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roosterforme · 4 months

Text

Sneak Peek | Hangman x Reader

Summary: You spent so much time around the boys, they counted you as one of them. You were firmly stuck in the friend zone with Jake, so it was time to move on with a guy who could see past your flight suits. It's not immediately obvious to either of you that cranky Jake is actually jealous Jake.

Warnings: Fluff, language, mentioned smut, 18+

Length: 6000 words

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Female Reader

Happy birthday @beyondthesefourwalls!

Seriously, who let Jake on my masterlist!? Banner by @mak-32

"It's my turn to buy a round," you said, standing up from the table and grabbing the empty beer bottles before turning toward Jimmy and Penny at the bar.

"Thanks, Rodeo," Jake murmured, and you turned back briefly and smiled softly at him. His gaze slid down your body the same way it would with any other woman, the only difference was that he had started to notice just how many other guys were regularly checking you out, too. And he wasn't sure how he felt about that fact.

When you squeezed yourself between two stools at the bar to order four more beers, Bradley asked, "Who are you staring at, Hangman? Rodeo?"

Mickey laughed as Jake quickly shook his head and turned his attention back to his friends. "I just wanted to make sure she can manage carrying everything."

"I'm sure she's fine," Bradley replied with a laugh of his own. "I got a little nervous for a second there."

"Why?" Jake asked, his eyes slowly drifting back to you, watching as you slipped your credit card into the back pocket of your jeans.

"Because first of all," Bradley said as he smashed open a peanut on the table, "Rodeo is practically one of the guys. And second," he added, popping the peanut into his mouth and chewing, "it would be weird if you start looking at her like you do all the other random pieces of ass you take home with you. Even though she is cute."

"She's cute, for sure," Mickey piped in. "But once you've seen a girl throw up in the parking lot after a drunken karaoke night, the appeal kind of wears off."

Jake smiled as you headed back toward the table, because the drunken karaoke night was when he got to drive you home and carry you to your bed while you repeatedly tried to tell him you could walk by yourself.

"Oh, you know who else is cute?" Bradley asked just as you set four new beers on the table. "That redhead with the huge tits at the dartboard."

"Damn," Mickey groaned, and now you were looking in that direction, too. But Jake kept his eyes on you.

"Do we have to talk about this in front of Rodeo?" he asked, sipping his fresh beer and starting to wish Bradley and Mickey would wander off. "In front of a lady?"

Bradley snorted so hard, Jake was surprised his beer didn't shoot out of his nose. "A lady?" he asked as he looked at you and cuffed you on the arm. "Nice try, Hangman, but Rodeo doesn't count."

"Well, you don't count either," you told him, and Bradley tapped the neck of his bottle to yours. "And neither do the two of you." Your gaze met Mickey's before settling on Jake. "You know I don't mind when you guys talk about girls. I get it. You're all hot."

But your knee was rubbing against Jake's thigh at the tiny table, and for a brief flash, he thought maybe he wanted to count in your mind as a guy you could be into.

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

It was a strange dynamic, working with mostly a bunch of men all the time. They saw you in a flight suit once, and they never looked at you like you were a female ever again. And that was fine. It made your job easier in a lot of ways. There were fewer distractions, and you knew for a fact that they liked you for your personality. They wouldn't invite you to hang out all the time if they didn't.

But on nights like this, it did sting a little bit to watch the three of them tripping over themselves to go talk to the redhead who was clearly eating up the attention. You were essentially wearing the same outfit she was: jeans and a black shirt. And you thought you looked cute. And what exactly was wrong with your boobs? You looked down at your body and kind of shrugged. You didn't get it.

Natasha handed you a pool cue, and you sank a shot. You made up the excuse that you wanted to play so the guys wouldn't feel bad about abandoning you to go talk to girls, but Jake had been hesitant at first, so you shoved him along. That was a mistake, because you were reminded of how solid and muscular he was under his soft shirt.

The first few times you glanced his way, he was already looking back at you. If he were any other guy, you would have just asked him out by now, but you were so firmly in the friend zone with all of them that it was embarrassing. The rejection would be laughable.

So you put your head down and focused on the game and the chit chat around you. But after a while you got curious, and when you looked up again, Bradley and Mickey were walking back toward the table where your empty beer bottle sat. Jake had won. The redhead was running her fingernails through his hair. It was all over for the night.

You weren't jealous. You weren't. You just didn't understand why it couldn't be you. As you sank the eight ball, you said, "I'm beat. I'm going to head home."

"Me too. Want a lift?" Mickey asked, and you nodded, not sparing a single glance back at Jake.

Maybe you were the problem. Maybe you weren't sexy. You spent most of Sunday scrutinizing yourself in your bedroom mirror and going through all of your clothing. There really wasn't much of it since your closet was lined with uniforms and flight suits. And when you looked in the mirror, it wasn't like you could even tell what the problem was. You were just you, but it was starting to feel like you'd been playing around in this male-dominated world for so long, you were just blending in there.

"Fuck it," you muttered reaching for your phone. There was a text from Bradley detailing the pricing for tickets to a Padres game, which you desperately wanted to go to. It sounded fun. Then you realized the beer drinking and peanut eating would simply be moved to a different venue in which the guys would be looking at all the other women around you. Suddenly it didn't sound so fun.

There were also a handful of texts from Jake. He must have kicked his guest out early if he was asking how you were doing this morning. You sent back a short message before finding the app on your screen that had been dormant since you got stationed in San Diego last summer. Tinder. It was right there.

Nervously, you entered your login information, terrified that you'd just end up with a bunch of guys you saw on base as your best options. They would undoubtedly take one look at you and have the same reaction your male friends did. But you spent the rest of the day thinking about it. You looked, but you didn't sample. You found some guys who were surprisingly not in the Navy, but you didn't swipe. And maybe part of the reason you didn't was because Jake kept texting you all day long.

Monday was your tipping point. You were all ready to fly in your boots and flight suit when you ended up surrounded by the guys in the hangar. "We getting Padres tickets, Rodeo?" Bradley asked. "Day drinking at Petco Park?"

You nodded at him. "Sounds fun."

Then Mickey cut in as Jake walked over. "Hey, Hangman. How was our little redheaded friend?" he asked with a smirk, but Jake's expression stayed the same as his eyes met yours.

"Wouldn't know."

"Oof," Bradley said with a goading laugh. "What, you kicked her out without even talking to her afterwards?"

You swallowed and looked down at your boots as you thought about the guys on the dating app. Maybe a little change of scenery wouldn't hurt anything after all.

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

"Can you just knock it the fuck off?" Jake snapped. "I didn't even spend the night with her." He watched you put your helmet on as you walked toward your jet. "And I don't like talking about this shit around Rodeo anymore."

"Alright," Bradley replied with a tiny smirk. "No need to get mad about it."

When Jake took to the air, you were all business, as usual. You and he flew well together, like you always did. But back on the ground at lunchtime, you barely spared a glance in his direction in the cafeteria. Instead, you were completely absorbed in something on your phone as you picked at your food.

"What's wrong?" he eventually asked, and you looked up at him like you were surprised he was still there.

"Nothing," you murmured, taking a drink before returning your attention to your phone. "Just working on something."

"On what?" he asked, voice almost as snippy as it had been earlier. He found he didn't like it when your attention wasn't focused on him, which was absolutely infuriating, because it's not like the two of you were anything.

"My Tinder profile," you replied smoothly as you licked your lips, and Jake thought he must have misheard. Since when were you looking for a guy?

"Tinder?"

"Mmhmm," you hummed. "I'm just trying to sort out which photo to use, because I like this one where I'm in my flight suit, but guys don't really tend to go for that sort of thing."

You turned your phone to show him, and Jake swallowed hard. It was a photo he had taken a few months ago. He remembered that day. Your sunglasses were hooked on the top of your suit, and your helmet was tucked under your arm, and your smile was infectious.

"I like that one," he told you softly.

But you just rolled your eyes and groaned. "But you don't count, now do you?"

Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Why are you on Tinder anyway?"

Now you laughed as you set your phone down. "Why do you think?"

He didn't want to think about it, even though he knew why. You were looking to hookup with someone. Or maybe it was even worse. Maybe you were looking for an actual boyfriend. Someone to spend all your time with. You'd be at the Hard Deck after work less frequently. You'd be going to the Padres game with some faceless idiot, and he'd be the one carrying you home after you overdid it at karaoke night. Worse yet, you could have your pick of any guy on that app who caught your eye, but Jake knew for a fact none of them were good enough for you.

"Rodeo," he grunted, unsure how to voice his concerns. You just tapped your screen a few times and then smiled at him as his heart clenched a little bit.

"I went with the photo from Reuben's wedding instead."

Jake ran his fingers through his hair. He didn't even have to ask. He also knew that photo well too. His voice was soft as he said, "Blue dress. Holding a martini. Hand on your hip." He didn't like the idea of a bunch of guys he didn't even know looking at you wearing something so pretty.

"That's the one! And now my bio is live on the app," you said as you tapped your screen one last time. "Wish me luck."

You stood with your tray and Jake told himself he would do no such thing.

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

"That photo must have done the trick," you mumbled the following day in the rec room on base as Natasha helped you sort through your matches.

"I'm sure it did," she replied in awe. "You look hot in it."

You wanted to believe her, but it didn't even matter right now, because the two of you were staring at a photo of a hot guy who had sent you a message. You gasped. "Is this for real?"

"Looks like it," she replied. "If you don't fuck him, I will. Happily."

"What are the two of you over here whispering about?" You looked up into Jake's smiling eyes and gave him a grin of your own.

"Rodeo is getting all the Tinder hotties," Natasha replied, and suddenly Jake's smile vanished. "Let me know if he sends you a dick pic."

"He better fucking not!" Jake growled as he tried to reach for your phone. "Show me what this asshole looks like so I know who to pound to dust if he sends you one." You rolled your eyes and held up your phone so he could see. "His name is Tony? And he's a dentist?"

"What's wrong with that?" you asked quickly.

Jake crossed his arms over his chest. "If you have to ask, then you don't want to know."

You scoffed and opened your messages. "You're being dramatic. And I don't get on you about who you decide to hook up with."

"So you're just trying to hook up with this asshole?" he asked, his lips curling in disgust.

Honestly, you weren't really sure. But he sounded nice in the messages he sent. "Would it really be so bad if I was?"

Jake scrutinized your face like he was in pain, and you had the craziest thought flash through your mind that perhaps he was jealous. But then the pinched lines on his forehead vanished, and his voice was completely calm as he said, "You do what you want, Rodeo. But don't come crying to me about it later."

"Fine," you told him as he walked away. And that's what spurred you to reply to Tony's message with a more flirtatious one of your own. You were allowed to hook up with him. You were allowed to go out on a date. Maybe you'd even eventually request a dick pic. Jake wasn't in charge of your Tinder profile or dating agenda.

A few short exchanges back and forth was all it took, and suddenly you had plans for Saturday night that didn't involve hanging with the guys at the Hard Deck for once. Tony was going to take you out to dinner, and you were already excited.

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

"Where the hell is Rodeo?" Bradley asked as he returned to the table with three bottles of beer instead of four. "She's usually here by seven."

Jake rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. "She's not coming. She's on a date with some smug looking asshole named Tony."

"Good for her," Mickey piped up, earning a glare from Jake. "I hope she gets laid. You wanna grab Javy and play pool?"

With a groan, Jake dragged himself out of his seat and forced his body through the motions. He hit the cue ball with perfect precision, but meanwhile, all he could think about was some other guy's hands all over your body while he shoved his tongue down your throat. "Fuck," he growled, trying to fight the urge to text you. If you wanted him, you knew how to reach him.

Between shots, he glanced around the bar at all the other women, but he couldn't find a single one as pretty as you. He spent the rest of his night barely conversing with his friends while he hoped that your date was a complete flop. And when he left to head home alone, he caved and texted you to make sure you got back to your place safely.

That was over twelve hours ago. Jake still hadn't heard back from you. It was damn near noon on Sunday, and he was left assuming that you spent the night with Tinder Tony. When you finally texted him back, the response made him toss his phone aside.

Sorry, just seeing this now. Yes, I made it home safely. See you tomorrow.

Monday was worse. You were glued to your phone at every opportunity you got, and Jake could tell by the little smile on your face that you must be talking to that asshole.

"Rodeo, how was your hot date?" Bradley asked, bumping your helmet with his while he winked at Jake.

"Pretty good," you replied with a little laugh.

"You get laid?" Mickey asked obnoxiously, and you rolled your eyes before glancing at Jake. He was dying to know the answer to the question, but also terrified to hear it.

"Wouldn't you like to know," you replied, returning your attention to your phone. "Put it this way... I'm going out with him again for dinner on Wednesday."

"Who goes to dinner on a Wednesday?" Jake scoffed. "That's when we usually go to the bar! And what did you and Tinder Tommy even talk about the whole time? Dentures? Teeth?"

"No," you snapped at him. "He told me how pretty he thinks I am, and that he was nervous to meet me in person. And his name is Tony, not Tommy. So don't be rude when we stop by the bar after dinner on Wednesday."

"Can't wait to meet him," Jake grumbled, highly disappointed that your date had been even somewhat successful. And he still wasn't sure if you'd gone home with Tony. Or worse... if he'd gone home with you.

Jake had crashed in your bed with you once a few months ago when you hosted game night. Mickey, Nat and Bradley all passed out in your living room, so you'd taken him by the hand to your bed. Every time he thought about it, he could practically feel the warmth of your body next to his and your foot hooked over his ankle. The idea of someone else there engaging in pillowtalk or fucking you just right was way too much for him to handle, because he was starting to feel like he wanted to be that person.

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

Okay, so Tony was a little boring. A lot boring, actually. And on Wednesday night at dinner, he actually did mention dentures, and you could practically hear Jake scoffing from the Hard Deck. But Tony was hot and nice and he paid for dinner. Could you really hope for more than that?

"So, you mentioned stopping at a Navy bar?" he asked as you walked back to his car. "I keep forgetting you're even in the Navy. It just doesn't seem like you."

Maybe you should have used the other photo for your dating profile since you'd had to remind him twice already that there were a lot of women in the military now. "Yeah. It's called the Hard Deck. I usually hang out there on Wednesdays, and I thought maybe my friends could meet you?"

"Sure," he replied, and he even played boring music on the way there. But when he walked you inside, he kissed your cheek, and that felt kind of nice until Jake was looking. You felt embarrassed and a little guilty when he scowled at you from the pool table, so you eased yourself away from Tony and took him by the hand instead.

"Hey, guys," you said cautiously as you approached the pool table. "This is Tony."

Jake's jaw was clenched tight as he reached out to shake hands with your date in a death grip, and you cringed as he said, "Nice to meet you, Tommy."

And it all went downhill from there. You had to correct him three times, even though you were sure he knew Tony's name. And even the other guys didn't really seem to mesh well with Tony. Bradley looked scandalized when he told them he didn't like beer or playing pool, and Mickey tried to make a dentist joke that just didn't land.

You wanted to crawl into your bed and not come back out for a week. You also kind of wanted to ask Jake what his problem was. Tony was a nice guy. His hand on your back felt nice, and his goodnight kiss at your front door was nice. There was even some tongue, and you didn't stop his roaming fingers. Maybe another date or two and you'd ask him to come in.

"Would you like to get dinner on Saturday night?" he asked as his lips grazed your neck. "At the Boathouse?"

You closed your eyes and leaned back, and the image of Jake took over. His lips were on your earlobe, and he was whispering your name as you led him to your room. His hands were settling on your hips and squeezing gently as you melted into his touch.

"What do you think?" Tony asked, and you were jarred back to reality by his voice.

You swallowed hard and nodded as you opened your door. "Saturday night sounds good," you said as you ducked inside. "See you then."

You couldn't have Jake. You just needed to get it through your head that he didn't want you like that.

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

Jake knew he was behaving poorly even as he was doing it. Tony looked annoyed by him, and you looked embarrassed, but he just kept calling him the wrong name and standing off to the side like a dick. He was actually the asshole. Not Tony. And he needed to apologize to you at work the next day.

He found you in the hangar, pacing back and forth as you played with the strap on your helmet. When you turned, he started to say, "Hey, Rodeo, I'm really-"

"I need your help," you blurted out when you saw him heading your way. "I need you to come shopping with me tomorrow after work, because I wore my only two dresses already, and everything else in my closet is ridiculous. And Tony is taking me to the Boathouse on Saturday, so I can't just throw something together and call it a day."

Jake ground his back teeth together. The Boathouse was nice. As in, he could think of at least three people he knew who got engaged there. How much money did dentists make anyway? He was full blown jealous now. He knew that. But you'd asked him for help, so of course he was going to do whatever you wanted. Your eager eyes were enough to make him agree on the spot.

"Where are we going shopping?" he asked softly.

You looked so relieved as you said, "The mall. I don't think it will take too long, and I can treat you to dinner as a thank you."

"No," he replied. "You don't owe me anything, Rodeo."

"Thanks, Jake," you whispered as you threw one arm around his neck and pulled him in for a hug. "I know I can trust you to tell me what looks good. Because you're a guy, and you know what guys like. I've been in such a rut, and I don't even know what looks nice on me anymore. But I trust your opinion."

He wrapped his arm around your waist and held you a little closer. If you trusted him, he wouldn't let you down. He never wanted to let you down. He would take you to the mall and tell you which outfits looked nice on you, even though he knew it would be all of them, and he would be cool about you dating Tony. "Sure, Rodeo. Anything you want."

When the time came, he was miserable. You seemed excited, bouncing on your feet in your jeans and sneakers as you collected dresses and cute little outfits to try on, but he knew none of this was really for him. You'd just be giving him a little sneak peak of what Tony would have his hands all over.

"How about this one?" you asked, holding up a red mini dress that made Jake's mouth dry up. Then you moved it in front of your body and looked down. "It's probably too much for me."

He wanted to tell you that you couldn't pull it off, but he knew the fucking thing was made for you. "Try it on and see," he said softly, so you added it to your pile. Then he followed you like a puppy dog to the fitting room, holding half of the dresses for you to try on. When you passed the lingerie section, Jake had to watch you grab a few lacy items. "Have you slept with Tinder Tommy yet?" he snapped when you picked up a black bra and added it to your arms.

You looked up at him with a soft pout. "Well, no. That's why I'm trying to buy some sexy stuff, you know? Just in case I want to take it there."

Jake had seen you in your bathing suit many, many times. You didn't need to be wearing anything made out of lace and silk to look sexy, but the sight of you in half of this shit would probably give Tony a damn heart attack. Then he realized as you led him along that he himself might not make it out of the fitting room alive.

"Just stand out here, okay?" you said softly, guiding him against the wall. He grunted in response and watched you line up everything you wanted to try on inside the fitting room before closing yourself inside. You kicked your shoes off, and then he watched you push your jeans down to your feet through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. You stepped out of them, and his imagination started to supply the rest.

You were completely naked now, he was sure of that fact, and you were only a few feet away from him, separated by a flimsy door. His head tipped back against the wall as his breathing grew a little deeper. Your toenails were painted bright green, and you were talking quietly to yourself as you stepped into a black dress and started to guide it up your legs.

"This isn't too bad," you muttered, and a few seconds later you were unlatching the door and pulling it open with an apprehensive look on your face. Jake's jaw dropped open as you stepped right up to him and asked, "What do you think?"

"Rodeo," he grunted, fisting his hands at his sides to keep them from touching you as you spun slowly in front of him. "Looks good."

You frowned a little more. "I was hoping for better than good," you replied, twirling away from him and back into the fitting room.

Jake's body was thrumming with desire as he watched that black fabric pool at your feet under the door. "It was better than good, Rodeo," he said, nearly choking on the words as you stepped to the side and bent to pick it up.

"I'll try the red one," you informed him, and he had to press his lips together, knowing what was coming next. This time it took you a little longer, and he watched your feet under the door as you turned in front of the mirror. "It's really short," you finally said as you opened the door again.

"Jesus Christ," Jake moaned softly. The thing fit you like a damn glove. Every curve and soft dip of your body was right there, begging to be touched. His palms were sweaty as he wiped them on his jeans, and then you spun, ending up just inches away from him again.

He couldn't speak, and maybe you took that as a bad sign. "It's too much," you said with a little laugh. "I know it's too much, but it was fun to try it on anyway. It made me feel sexy," you said with a little shrug, barely able to meet his eyes. "I think the black one might be better for dinner at the Boathouse? Or do you think this one?"

Jake snapped out of his daze and remembered why he was here, suddenly pissed that this little fashion show wasn't just for his own benefit. "Come on, Rodeo. Tinder Tommy? Really? You think he deserves this?" When you just kind of shrugged at him, he said, "Get the red one if you're just looking to get laid."

"Okay," you replied, your little pout back on your pretty lips.

He pushed away from the wall until he was nearly touching you. Practically snarling, he said, "Are you just looking to get laid?"

"Maybe," you said softly, looking at his neck. "He's actually into me, so maybe. I don't know, Jake. It's been a long time since a guy chose me, you know?" He opened his mouth to tell you that any guy in the world would choose you when you said, "I have one more dress."

Then he had to stand there and watch the red fabric hit your feet before you guided the tiniest little green dress up your calves. He was jealous. He was so jealous. And the fact that he'd had a whole fucking year to ask you out instead of fucking wasting his time was crashing down on him right now. You were going to wear one of these dresses to the Boathouse tomorrow, and Tony was going to take it off you. He was going to fuck you, and then someday you'd probably get married. Jake would be at your wedding sitting between Mickey and Bradley and making himself sick over this whole thing.

The door opened. You were stunning. You didn't even leave the fitting room doorway this time in that green dress that was hugging your tits and your waist and showing off so much leg that Jake thought he was going to black out. "I can tell by your face that it's not good," you said with a wince. "It's a little too low cut, so I couldn't imagine wearing it in front of Tony."

His voice came out low and rough as he said, "You're wearing it in front of me just fine."

"But I don't count, remember?" You closed and locked the door, and Jake was immediately leaning against it. Literally each dress was hotter than the one before it, and Jake didn't know how to articulate what he was feeling right now. How on earth did he end up so far in the friend zone that he couldn't claw his way out if he tried? What the fuck made Tinder Tony so special? Why were you looking around on the app anyway? He couldn't even pinpoint when it had happened, but you were never going to take him seriously, even if he knew he could be what you wanted.

The rustling of fabric and the sound of the zipper had him resting his forehead on the door. "Rodeo, Baby, you can't...buy one of these dresses. Not for Tony. Okay? Come on. He's not good enough for you."

"Oh." That was all you said. You just replied with one word, and Jake's blood was boiling. He wanted to dismantle the entire fitting room and take you back home and tell you that you could do a hell of a lot better than some lame ass dentist who didn't like beer or playing pool. But you'd just muttered one word, and he was dying to know if he could ever stand a chance at making you happy.

"Rodeo?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. You unlocked the door and he stepped back a few inches so you could open it, expecting to see you in your jeans once again with the dress of your choosing in your hands. "Oh, fuck," he groaned, his heart hammering in his chest. "Absolutely not!"

Jake pushed you back further into the fitting room and managed to wrench his broad shoulders through the doorway before kicking the door closed. You were biting your lip, your eyes wide as his hands came to rest on your lace covered hips.

"Jake," you whispered as he shook his head at the sight of you in a lacy black bra and tiny underwear.

"What the hell are you thinking?" he groaned, fingers digging gently into your warm body as he listened to the little sound you made. "You're killing me here." Your hands came up to his wrists before you slid them up along his arms, and Jake took a step closer until his jeans were brushing against your bare belly. He would need to be removed from the mall in a body bag at this rate.

Then you whispered, "I like you. And maybe there's a chance that you like me, too? And maybe that's part of the reason I asked you to come here with me."

Jake swallowed hard as he leaned in, dizzy from the way you smelled so sweet and felt so perfect in his hands. "Dump him. Dump Tony." You whimpered at his words as he slid one hand down further, teasing the lace covering your ass at the same time his other hand went up to tug at the side of the bra. "Because this? This should be for me."

"Jake." Your voice was a needy whine as you scraped your fingernails along his shoulders and chest, trying to pull him closer. But he shook his head as he pushed you back harder against the wall, lips hovering over yours as you whispered his name.

He knew what he wanted. He'd known for a while, really, but now he was ready to take it. "I want to kiss you. But if I do, I'm not going to be able to go back, okay?" he asked, his voice a deep rumble as you wrapped your arms around his neck. "I won't go back to being Rodeo and Hangman, just friends. I will not do that. Not with you. Not when you count more than anyone else."

Your lips crashed against his, and Jake sighed in relief as he held you in his arms the way he'd been dying to for so long. The lingerie and all the little dresses were only for him. Your kisses and your smile and your fingers in his hair were for him, not Tony. He ran his hands down to your ass as you giggled and nipped at his lips.

"Pick a dress, Baby," he muttered between kisses. "And we'll get the lingerie, too."

"Okay," you replied with a smile before you took his bottom lip between yours, making him moan.

"Tomorrow night, I will take you out, and you can show me this little getup again if you want to."

You looked up at him with the prettiest smile he'd ever seen. "I want to."

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

You nudged Bradley with your elbow. "Hey, she's cute," you said, nodding toward the brunette across the aisle. "You guys should go talk to her." He and Mickey both leaned forward to look without any subtlety whatsoever, and you laughed.

"Maybe at the end of the inning," Bradley replied, manspreading so much in his seat at the Padres game that he kept bumping your leg and nudging your shoulder. But he was grinning, and you could already tell that he and Mickey were about to turn it into a competition to see who could get her phone number first.

But there was one key player missing from their game now, and you smiled as you saw Jake apologetically climbing over everyone else in your row before plopping down into the seat next to you and kissing your cheek with a smile. "The line was long as hell for your favorite beer," he said as he handed it to you. "Did I miss anything?"

You shook your head as Bradley said, "You're just in time to watch the real show, Hangman. Rodeo, I want you to time how long it takes before I get her number."

But you weren't really listening as Bradley and Mickey started to argue, and neither was Jake as he kissed your cheek again. You didn't feel like you were simply blending in, and you didn't feel like you were just one of the guys anymore. You were grinning and sipping your beer as Jake's lips met your ear and he asked, "Are you wearing that black set right now?"

"I'll let you find out later.

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

Happy birthday, Alli! I hope you enjoyed the blonde one! Big thanks to @mak-32 @thedroneranger and @sylviebell for all your help!

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