a safe haven l six
Post Outbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader
series masterlist l previous chapter l next chapter
summary: Joel opens up to you about a very traumatic loss; he makes a confession about his feelings towards you; you make a confession of your own and it leads to something more.
warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. fluff, infidelity, Joel and reader are having a full blown affair at this point, angst, talks of child loss (Sarah), lots of feelings come to the surface, two idiots realize they are in love. SMUT. oral sex (m receiving), size mention bc i will always be convinced our man is packing) unprotected p in v sex (wrap it up pls), reader discovers she likes praise, creampie.
word count: 8.4k
August 2024
The next two and a half weeks that had passed by had done so without major incident, but things had taken a somewhat complicated turn.
You and Joel still manage to see one another a handful of times even with the exhausting amount of hours he’s been putting into his patrol duties, though it isn’t nearly as often as either of you wanted or would have preferred. But there was no other choice.
After numerous sightings of a group of potential raiders earlier on in the month, Tommy had no choice but to assign every last competent, able bodied patrol person, including himself, to work double shifts to ensure the safety and security of Jackson. He and Joel had come across the remnants of a campsite just about fifteen miles south of the settlement and they worried the group was hiding out, planning a violent, ambush attack on the community when it was least expected. Tommy had done his absolute best to keep the word from spreading throughout the commune to avoid causing a panic, but he found himself having to fess up when people went up to him and all but furiously demanded to know the truth—the real reason behind why their loved ones were now being asked to be on the other side of wall twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Joel, who you’d come to learn is one of the sharpest and strongest shooters out of everybody in Jackson besides his younger brother, reluctantly took on the role of lead patrolman. He had been assigned an absurd amount of double shifts to work, including the overnight routes, making it almost impossible for you to see each other. You’d understood he had no choice but to comply, but still—that didn’t make the situation any easier to deal with. Both of you tried to make the very best of what little time you managed to get together, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. As if not being able to see Joel wasn’t agonizing enough for you, the fact that he was out on the other side of the wall scared the hell out of you. The only way to keep yourself from losing your goddamn mind was to distract yourself.
You did everything that you could to keep your mind off Joel being out there. Burying yourself deeply into your work helped for the most part.
Besides that, Joel had asked you, as a favor to him, to keep a watchful eye on Ellie in light of his absence. You’d spend most of the day with her in the stables, you would have lunch with her in the mess hall along with Dina, and in the evening, you would go home and make dinner early enough to fix an extra plate of food for her so she had a nutritious homemade meal to enjoy instead of two decades old canned ravioli. You would take it over to her place and drop it off before Luke came home from the clinic. Ellie waited until it was late in the evening and he was asleep to return the plate back to you, and the two of you would take a lengthy, late night stroll through the town, keeping each other company for a while before heading off to bed. She hadn’t seemed to be all too concerned about Joel, but then again, Ellie had known better than you did that he could take care of himself out there just fine. If anything, you spending so much time with her had been more for your benefit than hers, and you started to suspect that just like Joel had asked you to keep an eye on Ellie, he had also asked her to keep an eye on you too. After all, you had made it abundantly clear to him that you were nervous about him being out on patrol while there was a possible threat looming in the shadows.
By the time the middle of August came around, no additional traces of the group had been found—they seemed to have vanished into thin air, causing a wave of relief to sweep through the town. Tommy and Maria finally decided to ease up and end the double shift assignments, allowing every single patrolman and woman to return to their normally scheduled work rotations. Joel went back to his usual early morning and afternoon patrol hours, which meant that the both of you could resume your clandestine meetings out behind the barn underneath the stars.
“I missed you,” you say, sighing out contentedly as you lean back against him.
You and Joel are sitting out on the large, vacant patch of field behind the barn, his soft, green flannel blanket acting as a barrier between your bodies and the itchiness of the grass the animals would graze on during the day. You’re nestled in between his long legs, your back against his warm chest as the two of you share the delicious, ripe peach he’d brought along with him as a surprise for you.
“Mm, probably not as much as I was missin’ you, sweet girl,” Joel replies with a hum before taking a bite of the fruit. Noticing there’s only a couple bites of it left, he reaches his arm around and holds it out for you, his bulging bicep straining against the sleeve of his faded black t-shirt. “Here, darlin’. Want you to go on and have the rest.”
“These will be out of season in a couple of months.” Giving a sad little pout to nobody in particular, you sigh again and sink your teeth into the peach. Through a small mouthful, you realize, “Who knows when we’ll ever get peaches around here again.”
Joel’s lips meet the spot on your neck right behind your ear and you feel him grin. “S’alright with me. I’ve got my sweet, perfect little peach right here. And I’ve got her all year round.”
You playfully elbow him in his chest. After polishing off the rest of the peach, you lick off the pit and toss it out into the distance.
“Didn’t think you’d be the type to litter,” he teases.
“It’s biodegradable,” you retort with a tiny laugh as you leaned your head back against his shoulder and gaze up, admiring the stars that sprinkle the velvet night skies. “Or at least, I think it is. Come to think of it, I never paid much attention in life science when I was in FEDRA school. It was my least favorite subject.”
You gather your hair in your hand, bringing it over your shoulder to keep it out of Joel’s face.
“Mm,” he whispers, licking his lips as his eyes fall to the delicate flesh of your exposed neck. He ghosts his mouth over your pulse point and his warm breath fans against your cool skin, prompting your eyes to flutter closed. “Just temptin’ me on purpose now, ain’t you, baby?”
“I would never do such a thing,” you object in an innocent tone, and he immediately clocks the smirk behind it. A comfortable silence falls over the both of you and while you’d normally welcome the peaceful, tranquil moment with him, tonight it feels impossible. You had gone so long without Joel over the last couple of weeks—at least, it had certainly felt long—and you realize one of things you’d missed most about him was the sound of his voice. “Ask me a question, Joel.”
“What kinda question can I ask, darlin’?”
Feeling brave, you offer, “You can ask me anything you want. No limits.”
Humming curiously to himself, he tries to think of something he hasn’t asked you before. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Really, Joel?” You snort, trying to mask your laughter as he rests his chin on your shoulder, the scruff of his beard tickling your skin as he presses his cheek against yours. “I just told you that you can ask me anything you want and that’s your question? What’s my favorite color?”
“Yeah,” he answers, simply. “I wanna know what it is.”
He turns his head, lifting it off your shoulder to brush a gentle kiss to your temple. Joel could not, for the life of him, even remember the last time he’d shared this kind of physical tenderness with anybody. Forehead kisses, holding your hand, all sorts of little tokens of affection he didn’t think he could still be capable of giving to someone came to him so naturally with you. You had brought out an entirely different side of him, one that had been buried beneath his rough exterior for well over two decades, and the part that Joel still can’t quite wrap his own head around is that you’d done it with such ease. He’d go as far as to say that you had done it without even trying.
“So?” Joel prompts you. “What is it?”
“It’s brown,” you answer.
“Brown? Why brown?”
“Because. It’s earthy, it’s warm—and your eyes are brown,” you state, grinning to yourself as you feel his loud laugh rumble through his chest and against your back. “What about you? I mean that’s if Joel Miller even has a favorite color,” you giggle teasingly, placing a hand on one of his denim clad legs. You then add, “Actually, I’m kind of curious now. Do you have a favorite color, Joel?”
Joel hesitates, momentarily holding onto his answer.
“I do. It’s purple,” he finally responds after a brief bout of silence. “Purple’s my favorite color.”
“Purple,” you repeat after him, unable to mask the surprise in your tone. “Really?”
Joel chuckles. “What? That weird or somethin’?”
“Uh, sort of. For one, you just don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would have a favorite color in the first place—and even if you’d told me you did, I would have never in a million years guessed that it was purple,” you admit, sheepishly. You trace a small circle around his knee with your finger and curiously ask him, “Why is purple your favorite color?”
“‘Cause. That’s my daughter’s favorite color.”
You scoff playfully. “Come on, Joel. Ellie’s favorite color sure as hell isn’t purple. Her favorite color is green. But red’s a close second.”
When he speaks again, his voice is so quiet you almost don’t hear him despite being in such close proximity.
“I ain’t talkin’ about Ellie.”
At first, it doesn’t quite register, but after a moment of processing, the pieces click together in your mind. Joel has another daughter.
Your smile vanishes and you slowly turn around between his legs to face him. Looking at him with wide, shocked eyes, you utter, “What?”
“Her name was Sarah,” he confesses, softly.
Was.
Your throat dries at his use of past tense.
Because you know exactly what that means.
Opening your mouth to speak, words fail you and you close it. You suddenly remember the way he would tap dance around certain details of his first life in Texas. Whenever he would speak about his life before the outbreak, he would be cautious, careful to watch himself and his words. You’d known Joel had been keeping something from you, something he wasn’t ready to disclose to you for one reason or another—but never would you have guessed that him having a daughter would be the secret he had been hiding.
By now, you’ve turned your body around and you kneel in front of him, sitting back onto your heels. Not wanting to push him too hard or too fast, you clasp your hands together in your lap and wait silently—patiently—for him to continue when he’s ready.
“Sarah’s favorite color was purple. She’d wear it all the time. Her backpack, her school supplies, they all had to be purple or she wouldn’t use them. When she was nine years old, she begged me to paint the walls of her bedroom purple. One day, I took her to Home Depot after school to look at all the different shades.” He laughs, musing, “Didn’t know there could be so goddamn many of them. Anyhow, I told her I’d think ‘bout it. I went back to the store the next day while she was at school, bought a couple cans of the lavender shade I knew she’d like the best and by the time she got home, I had it all painted for her,” he explains, a sadness glazing over the fondness of the memory. “She loved purple. It was the color of the t-shirt she was wearin’ the last time we were together on the night of the outbreak.”
Your heart sinks. “Joel, you don’t have to tell me—”
“S’alright, peach. I wanna tell you ‘bout her,” Joel assures you, reaching out for your hand and taking it in his own. “I trust you, baby. Trust you more than enough to tell you ‘bout Sarah.”
Nodding, you lace his fingers together with your own.
“I was never married,” he starts to say, knowing whether or not he’d also had a wife before the world ended would be a question on your mind—that’s if it wasn’t already. “I was never with Sarah’s mom. I met her in high school and we’d been friends up through senior year of college. We started to date then, but after a year, we realized we weren’t a good fit together. We broke up and a couple months later, we found out she was pregnant with Sarah. Her mom and me, well we both made an agreement to co-parent her as best as we could. Just a few months shy of our daughter’s first birthday, she realized she couldn’t handle raisin’ a child at our age. I tried real hard to convince her to stick around and keep tryin’ but I couldn’t get her to stay. She bailed out on me, but the worst part of it was that she bailed out on Sarah.”
He stops for a moment and you give his hand a gentle, but firm, encouraging squeeze.
“As if bein’ a father to a baby girl didn’t scare the shit of me, being a single father made it all feel so much scarier, y’know? I was young, in my early twenties. I was always workin’ so damn much, tryin’ to build my construction business with Tommy. Now I had this tiny little person to take care of, and I honestly didn’t know how the fuck I was gonna do it.” Joel pauses, his sixth sense detecting that your knees have started hurting from the position you’re in. He closes his legs together and pulls you to sit on his lap. “It wasn’t easy, and I probably made a lot more mistakes than I’d like to admit. But somehow, I made it work and it turned out alright. Sarah was my best friend in the whole entire world. Hell, I loved her more than fuckin’ life itself. She could be a handful, but she was perfect in every single way. She was my sweet little butterfly, my ray of sunshine on even the darkest of days.”
Swallowing harshly, you ask, “What happened to her, Joel?”
Joel sighs, resting a hand on your bare thigh. His fingers skim the scalloped hem of your floral shorts. “It was the first night of the outbreak. We were tryin’ to get out of Austin. Me, Sarah, and Tommy. We didn’t know where the hell we were gonna go or what we were gonna do, but we just needed to get far away from the city. We got separated at one point when our pickup truck got into an awful wreck. I had Sarah in my arms ‘cause she couldn’t walk. She’d broken her ankle in the crash. Tommy told me to get her to the river where she’d be safer, said he’d find his way over there to meet us.”
Your heart begins to pound. Part of you almost doesn’t want to hear how his story is going to end—because in a way, you already know how it’s going to end. But if Joel is telling you about Sarah, it’s for a reason. He’s opening up to you, the way you’ve opened up to him. He’s sharing his heartbreaking loss because he trusts you—and Joel Miller doesn’t trust anyone that’s not his family.
Draping an arm around his shoulders, your fingers toy with the curls at the nape of his neck as you anxiously wait for him to recount the event that follows next, the event that will surely shatter your heart into pieces.
“The streets were crawlin’ with infected. One caught us in its sights and chased after us. Tried to dodge it through a buildin’ but it followed us, runnin’ us out into a field just a mile from the river. I didn’t think we were gonna make it—then, a soldier came outta nowhere and shot it dead. It felt like some kinda fuckin’ miracle. I thought we were lucky. I thought we were gonna get some help.” His voice grows hoarse, thickening with emotions he’s not too sure he can hold back this time. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was given the order by his command to kill us both, even though we weren’t sick. I tried tellin’ him over and over we weren’t infected, but it didn’t matter. He shot at us. He grazed me in my side, but Sarah—he got her. Got her multiple times. I was foolish enough to think it hadn’t been fatal. I tried gettin’ her up, begged Tommy to help me—but it was useless. Sarah died in my arms. Took her very last breath in some field outside of Austin.”
“God,” you whisper shakily, a sharp, painful ache shooting through your chest at the thought of him cradling his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms, her purple shirt soaked in crimson. “Joel, I don’t—I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry.” Willing yourself to keep it together for his sake, you hold the back of his neck in your hand, fingers coaxing him to look up and meet your gaze.
“After that, I just didn’t see any point in carryin’ on anymore. I’d lost the most important thing in the fuckin’ world to me. I couldn’t see in the darkness now that my little ray of sunshine was gone. So, a couple nights later, I picked up my gun and tried to end my own life,” he confesses. Even though it’s been over twenty years, traces of shame still linger behind. “Put the barrel of a pistol to my temple. Told myself it was what I wanted to do and I pulled the trigger.”
Without thinking, you reach towards the scar on his right temple with your opposite hand, the one you’d noticed for the first time before he had kissed you in Ranger’s stall. You lightly brush your fingertips over the jagged, raised patch of skin. You’d wanted to ask him about it on several different occasions, but never had the courage to actually do it. Now that you know he’d gotten it from his own hand, it just makes the entire thing all that much more heart wrenching.
“M’sure you’ve guessed it by now, but I missed. I flinched and I missed. For twenty fuckin’ years, all I could do was wish I hadn’t missed. Spent a long time hatin’ myself for missin’ what should’ve been the easiest goddamn shot of my entire life. Then, Ellie came along.” Joel moves his hand, gingerly taking your chin between his thumb and index finger. “And not long after her, I met you, sweet girl. The two of you came at me outta nowhere.” He can’t help but chuckle, remembering his first encounter with Ellie, the way she had flown at him with her switchblade clutched in hand only to end up thrown against the wall. “You both came outta left fuckin’ field and brought out sides of me I thought had been dead and buried for years now. You and her, you mean more to me than I can fuckin’ explain. You’re the most important things in the world to me now.”
Your breath catches in the back of your throat at his declaration. It’s not like you didn’t know Joel cared about you. Of course you know that. But the extent to which he did had been something of a mystery, at least up until this very moment.
“I didn’t know I could feel this way ‘bout anyone again,” Joel admits. He slides his arm around you, pulling you closer to him. “Openin’ up my heart to Ellie, that was one thing. But openin’ it up to you? That’s been somethin’ else, peach. I don’t think you even realize the hold you’ve got over me and my heart. What really fuckin’ gets me is that you don’t even gotta try. All you gotta do is look at me with those eyes and give me that pretty smile of yours, and I’m fuckin’ done for. You’ve got me wrapped all the way around your little finger and then back again, baby. Y’need to know that I’d do just ‘bout fuckin’ anythin’ for you. You understand that?”
You stare at him like a deer caught in headlights.
“Joel,” you stammer his name, your nerve endings feeling like they’ve been lit on fire. “You really need to stop talking like that.”
“Why’s that?”
You don’t even think—you just blurt the words out before you can stop them.
“Because I think I’m falling in love with you.”
The tables turn and it’s now Joel who is at a complete loss for words.
Embarrassed by your own admission, you begin to ramble nervously. “Look, I know it’s ridiculous. We haven’t known each other long, but I can’t help it. And maybe it’s for the best if you know where I stand and how I feel. You still have time to back out of this—”
Still holding your chin, Joel carefully brings your face toward his, silencing you by slotting his lips to yours. He moves to cup the side of your face in his palm, forgetting about any kind of softness as he greedily licks into your mouth. He’s kissed you plenty of times before and you thought you knew all of his kisses well enough by now, but you’d been wrong. This one is different from all the rest. His lips move against yours in a possessive manner, but not the kind of possessive you’re used with Luke. No, with Joel, it isn’t a possessive stemming from control and abuse, rather, it’s out of pure need, want, and desire. Even as his mouth devours yours, there’s still a sweet, loving tenderness to it.
“Joel,” you whimper against him. “I—”
You falter, unable to say those three words. There’s something holding you back—maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s knowing that once you say them, you can’t take them back. Not that you would. But it’s a big step, and you’re not quite ready to say it, even if it is how you feel.
And he feels the same.
He deepens the embrace.
I love you.
Joel might not be ready to say it either, but he hopes the way he’s holding you and swelling your lips with his puts your mind at ease and reassures you that you’re not the only one who’s falling.
You shift yourself in his lap, moving to straddle him, your legs on either side of his thighs as your mouths remain fused to one another. He reaches and grabs for every single part of you that he can, running his hands all over you from your shoulders down to your hips, dragging lower until they’re unabashedly cupping the delicious curves of your ass. You whimper in his mouth again and the moment your lips part, his tongue takes advantage, darting inside to start the heated, unhinged dance with your own.
You clutch at his shoulders, your fingers curling around tight around fistfuls of his t-shirt in an attempt, and a very desperate one at that, to keep yourself planted on the ground. You hold on trying to keep yourself tethered to planet earth, but with the way his searing hot mouth moves with yours in perfect unison, it’s impossible. You’re free falling without a safety net, and you don’t even care.
Seating yourself completely on his lap, you feel the bulge of his cock straining against the zipper of his jeans and the wetness pools between your thighs.
Letting go of his shirt, you reach around him and bury your fingers in his curls, lightly tipping his head back as your tongue explores his mouth like it’s the first time all over again. Joel tastes like the sweet fruit you’d shared, a strange mix when combined with the mint from his toothpaste. But there’s something else he tastes like and you’ve tasted it several times before, however even after all this time, you still can’t figure out what it could be. It tastes like Joel. That’s the only way you can think of to describe it. It just tastes like Joel and it’s addicting and you want it on your lips for the rest of your life.
After a minute, you and Joel finally force yourselves apart, your lungs and his begging for oxygen.
“Joel,” you choke his name between heavy pants for air.
“Baby.” He’s about as breathless as you are, possibly even more. “Baby, please. I’ve gotta have you,” he pleads, hands now splayed on the small of your back. “Please. I fuckin’ need you. Or else m’gonna lose my goddamn fuckin’ mind.”
“Barn,” you rasp out, releasing your grip on his hair.
Confused, Joel’s eyebrows knit together. “Barn?”
“Barn,” you repeat as you climb off of him.
You’re unsteady—incredibly unsteady. Knees wobbling, legs trembling and feeling like they’re seconds away from giving out underneath you. But you hold a hand out to Joel, exhaling a tiny, labored grunt as you help him up off the ground. Grabbing his blanket, you give it a shake before taking his hand in yours and leading him around to the front of the barn. Dropping his hand, you use both of yours to slide one of the double doors open an inch or two and take a peek inside to make sure the coast is clear. You then slide the door open a bit further, just wide enough for you and Joel to slip inside.
“Wait a minute,” he chuckles as he watches you slide the door closed. “How’d y’know it would be unlocked?”
“I didn’t know it would be unlocked. I was just hoping we’d get lucky,” you admit, beckoning him for him to follow you. “Come on.”
Through various cracks and gaps and open windows, enough moonlight filters into the barn, shining a decent amount of light into the structure—enough so that it’s not pitch black and you two are left stumbling around in complete darkness.
Joel glances around. The last time he’d been inside the barn was back in June for the summer party. He remembered it having been cleaned and cleared out for the event and now, two months later, it’s packed to the rafters with countless bales of hay. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have been surprised. But as he walks, piles of loose dried grass and herbs crunch underneath his boots and he remarks, “There’s fuckin’ hay everywhere, darlin’.”
“Um, yeah. What else do you keep in a barn?” you jeer lightly, earning yourself a small scoff from him. “Hey, at least they don’t keep sheep and other livestock in here, Joel. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
Joel snorts, masking his laughter at the thought of walking into a barn full of animals instead of an absurd amount of hay. “Yeah, guess that’s fair enough,” he concedes. “Might kill the mood if that were the case.”
You lead him over towards one of the far corners of the barn, your eyes falling to a large, almost bed sized pile of loose hay. Draping the blanket over it, you stand upright and then freeze, your body flooding with nerves once you realize what’s inevitably about to happen between you and Joel.
You hadn’t done anything with him since the night he’d pleasured you out on his front porch. Of course you wanted more, so much more, but that doesn’t make you any less nervous. You’re so much younger, hardly have any experience—you’ve only ever been with one man, and even then, it hardly counts. It’s been such a long time since you’d found sex something you wanted, something you enjoyed. Whenever Luke touches you, it makes your skin crawl, but when Joel Miller touches you?
It sets you ablaze, leaves you needing more of it. Of him.
Part of you wonders if your touch makes him feel the same. What if it doesn’t?
His arms wrap around your waist from behind and you exhale the breath you’d been holding shakily.
“What’s the matter, darlin’?” Joel murmurs softly into your hair, sensing your pensiveness.
“I’m just really nervous,” you blurt out.
“S’okay,” he says, quietly. “M’kinda nervous too.”
You’re slightly taken aback. “Really? What are you nervous about?”
Joel rests his chin on your shoulder. “We’ve both crossed a lot of lines already, peach. But this one? S’gonna be the one we can’t come back from,” he tells you. “Might be what seals the deal between us, y’know?”
Slowly, you turn around to face him. “Yeah, I know,” you respond, peeking up at him through your eyelashes. “And I know I should care, but I don’t. It’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“S’wrong,” he agrees with a tight nod. “But I don’t care either, sweet girl.”
Before you can utter another word about it, Joel crashes his mouth onto yours. He snakes one of his arms around you and lifts the other, cupping the back of your neck as he ravages you with his lips and tongue, kissing you with such urgency, such desperation that it melts you into a whimpering mess in his arms. Your mind is hopelessly lost in a thick, cloudy haze—all you can focus on is breathing him into your lungs like he’s the air you need to stay alive. His hands fall down to the hem of your white camisole and his mouth abandons yours to pull it over your head. He discards it, tossing it over his shoulder somewhere behind him. He then pushes your shorts and underwear down your legs and you kick them off along with your shoes. You’re now standing before him completely naked.
Desperate to feel his skin against yours, you take the hem of his t-shirt and clumsily tug it over his head, eliciting a laugh from him. You throw it somewhere over his shoulder to join yours and your hands eagerly meet his warm, bare chest for the first time. Biting down on your bottom lip, your trembling fingertips brush over several bumps and rough, raised patches of skin that you know have to be his scars. He has so many, and all you want to do is kiss each and every single one of them, but Joel has other ideas. He pulls you into his arms, flush against his chest, and he holds you tightly.
More often than not, Joel feels as if you’re not real—worries that you’re just a perfect, flawless figment of his own imagination. He doesn’t know whether or not you’ve caught onto what he’s been doing, but he steals moments like these whenever he can, moments where he stands there and takes you into his arms and holds you without saying a word.
It’s his own way of reminding himself that not only are you real, but you’re real and you’re his. Joel doesn’t care about the fucking ring on your finger. He doesn’t care that you’re promised to another man. He doesn’t care that he can only hold you in secret, that he can’t walk next you down the streets of Jackson in broad daylight and hold your hand while doing so. He doesn’t get to share a roof or a bed with you and he doesn’t get to join you for dinner at the table every night—maybe this isn’t how he preferred things to be, but he just doesn’t care.
It doesn’t matter to him.
Nothing matters to him except for one thing.
Your heart belongs to him. It bleeds with his name.
You’re his. You’re all fucking his, and only his, in all the ways that truly matter.
And he is yours.
Joel chokes out a strained groan as you press your plush lips softly against his neck, your tongue swiping across his pulse point. You firmly suckle his flesh, hard enough to break the tiny blood vessels underneath his skin and once you’ve left your mark, you trail your lips down his neck, eliciting another strangled noise from him. You sweep them over his collarbone, then down the length of his chest, showing each scar you come across with the affection it deserves. Your teeth nip and scrape at the softness of his belly and you quickly discover that it’s one of your favorite parts of him. Lowering yourself to your knees, your nose skims over the trail of dark, coarse hair below his navel and your fingers suggestively skim the waistband of his jeans.
His eyes widen. “You ain’t gotta do that—”
“I already told you, Joel. I want to,” you assure him, your voice low, sexy, filled with a lust for him and only for him. You make yourself comfortable, a challenging feat since you’d overshot the blanket and are now kneeling directly on the itchy, dried grass. It doesn’t matter, though—you’re more than willing to deal with discomfort for him. You place a hand on his hip and peer up at him. Your eyes meet his in the milky white moonlight. “You made me feel good. Please, just let me do the same for you?”
The nod he gives you is so subtle, so quick, that you almost don’t catch it.
He’d grown tense beneath your touch.
You can’t help but laugh softly—not at him, but at the fact that he doesn’t realize that pleasuring him isn’t a want for you, it’s a need.
Gently, you pat his hip. “Relax, honey,” you encourage him, surprised at how the pet name rolls off your tongue with such natural ease.
Your hands reach for the button of his jeans and you swiftly undo it, then tug at his zipper. You start pulling the denim down his legs. Joel helps you, kicking off his worn, black leather boots before stepping out of his jeans, kicking the article of clothing off to the side. Heart racing in anticipation, you slide his dark boxer briefs down his legs, but stop short, breath hitching the second you feast your eyes on his cock. You’ve felt him through his clothes before, knew he was well endowed, but you’re still shocked to see just how big he really is. The mere thought of his hard, thick length filling you up and stretching your cunt makes your entire body ache with need. You can’t be certain how he’ll fit, but truth be told, he could tear you in half and you would thank him for it.
Joel draws in a quick, sharp breath when he feels your small hand wrap around his base. Just as fast as he’d breathed it in, it’s knocked back out of his lungs when your other hand joins in and you run your fingertips along the thick, prominent vein on the underside of his cock. He twitches in your hands—you’ve hardly touched him, haven’t even put your mouth on him, and he’s already teetering on the edge.
“Christ, baby. You’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me, I hope y’know that,” Joel croaks, tilting his head back to look up at the rafters as he silently wills himself not to explode too soon. His hips involuntarily jerk forward as you lick his tip, collecting his leaking precome on your tongue before wrapping your soft lips around it. Another loud, ragged groan tears from the back of his throat as you take him in slowly, inch by inch, further into your warm, wet mouth. Your own moaning around him causes a vibrating sensation, making it harder for Joel to keep himself from spilling into your mouth.
“Fuck, peach,” he curses, feeling the head of his cock nudge the back of your throat. He’s more than a mouthful for you, but you accept the challenge with eagerness and take him in further, gagging around him as drool dribbles down the sides of your chin. You, the same woman who just moments ago had said she was nervous about being intimate with him—whoever that woman had been, she was long fucking gone.
Joel’s eyes flit down and he sinks his teeth hard into his lower lip. He can see your silhouette as you work him with that pretty little mouth of yours. One glance is all he can handle before he’s squeezing his eyes shut, the pressure building in his lower abdomen and already dangerously close to reaching its peak. If Joel so much as looks at you again, he’ll come down your throat, and that’s not where he’s planning on finishing tonight.
You bob your head back and forth on his cock, your eyes watering each time he slips past the back of your throat—your cheeks hollow as you suck him greedily, and you alternate between that and stroking his long, thick shaft, your tongue swirling around his head.
Without opening his eyes, Joel reaches down with his hand and cradles the back of your head in his palm. The sounds that fill the barn are nothing short of obscene. His grunts and groans mixed together with the sounds of the moans you’d release in between your wet and sloppy slurping. He forces his eyes open and bravely takes another look at you, his heart slamming painfully against his sternum as you move your head faster, chasing his release as if you’re chasing your own.
“Fuck, baby—wait, stop. Need you to stop.” Joel’s hand leaves the back of your head and he cups your jaw, gently, but firmly, forcing you to release his cock from your mouth with an audible pop. “Ain’t gonna last much longer, not if you keep on like that.”
“Isn’t that the whole point?” you ask, smirking up at him as you wipe the mixture of his precome and your saliva away from your chin with the back of your hand.
Joel leans over and takes your arms, effortlessly yanking you up to your feet. His hand dives between your thighs to get a feel—to find whether you’re ready to take him or not. He slips two fingers between your soaked folds without so much as a warning, causing you to gasp out and grip his biceps, your fingernails digging into the firm muscle. Joel withdraws his hand from your cunt, admiring the way his digits come back coated with your slick. He looks at you, his eyes locking with yours as he lifts his hand to his mouth and slowly licks his fingers clean.
That alone nearly makes you come undone, almost makes you melt into a pathetic, whimpering mess at his feet.
“Joel,” you say his name pleadingly. “Please.”
Sliding his fingers out of his mouth, he steps forwards and curls them around your wrist. “What is it, my sweet little peach? Hm? What do you want?”
“You. I want you,” you answer. You’re quick to correct yourself. “No, I need you. I fucking need you—I need you more than anything I’ve ever needed in my life, Joel.”
Leaning down, Joel skims the tip of his nose against your cheek before bringing it down along your jawline. “Where, darlin’?” he whispers huskily, sending a shiver up your spine. “Where do you need me, baby?”
Your mouth falls open slightly unable to say it. You don’t know why you’re suddenly shy, flustered as if you just hadn’t been down on your knees gagging around his cock.
“Tell me, peach,” he coaxes you gently with another low whisper. “Tell me where you need me. Tell me where you need my cock, sweetheart. Need to hear you say it.”
“Inside me.” Blazing heat floods your face. “I need you inside of me—I need you to fuck me. Please, Joel.”
“So polite ‘bout it, too,” he remarks. “What a good girl.”
Though he says it in a teasing manner, his praise nearly makes you collapse.
“You like that,” he realizes, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “Yeah, baby? Y’like it when I call you a good girl?”
“Fuck, I—yes, I do,” you confess.
“C’mere.” Joel wraps an arm around your waist, hand splayed over your back as he lowers you down onto the blanket. He follows suit. You both let out breathy laughs at the way your naked bodies sink down into the pile of hay. Propping himself up with his arm, Joel looks down at you, his smile fading as a serious expression crosses his features. He tucks a lock of hair behind your ear, finger grazing the silkiness of your cheek. “Y’sure ‘bout this, peach? Ain’t too late to stop.”
Smiling softly, you lift a hand to the side of his face, your fingers stroking his graying beard. “I’ve never been so sure about anything, Joel,” you promise him. “If you could take a peek into my mind, you would see how bad I want this, how bad I need this—how bad I need you. I don’t want to stop.” And you don’t just mean the sex. You don’t any of this to stop—the secret, late night meetings, the stolen kisses, the illicit affair. “I’m sure about this. I’m sure about you, Joel.”
That’s all he needs to hear.
Joel reaches down between your bodies, gripping his base, pumping his throbbing cock in his fist before lining himself up at your sopping entrance. Adrenaline courses through your veins—every nerve ending in your body is going up in flames. You spread your legs wider for him, hoping he’ll understand the nonverbal cue. He does. He begins to ease himself into your cunt and you hook a leg around his waist, encouraging him to go deeper. The barn fills with the sound of his grunt and your loud cry at the initial stretch. He sinks his cock further into you until he bottoms out and you cry out again, feeling a delicious burning sensation as he cradles his hips between your thighs.
“M’gonna need you to relax a little sweetheart,” he whispers gently, ceasing his movements to give your body a chance to adjust to him. Joel takes advantage of having you pinned underneath him with your head thrown back and his lips latch onto your neck, hungrily. He fervently kisses his way down the column of your throat, nips his way to your collarbone—but unlike you, he’s careful to do so without leaving any kind of mark behind. He would give anything to have the freedom to leave traces of his loving all over you. Maybe it’s the heat of the moment and the way he’s buried inside you to the hilt that brings out the primal in him, but Joel wouldn’t mind seeing you walk around Jackson covered in his love bites. He wants everyone to know he’s the one who’d left them behind, needs them to understand that you’re his. But that isn’t possible. Joel lifts his head from the hollow of your neck and nibbles lightly at your chin. “You alright, baby?”
Forcing your eyes open, you lift your head and bring yourself to look at him. At first, you feel discomfort, but after a minute, your body finally relaxes around him and it subsides. It’s replaced with the burning desire to feel more of him. The pretty glow coming in from outside the barn illuminates his face and you smile. “I’m better than alright. I’m perfect,” you assure him. You place a hand delicately on his chest, feeling his heart thrum hard against your fingertips. “This is perfect.”
Joel kisses the tip of your nose. He slides out of you slowly, then right back into you in an experimental thrust that brings your body off the blanket, your back arching in sheer pleasure. It’s such a deliciously tight fit, and he almost can’t believe how fucking good it feels to be sheathed in your taut heat. He drops his head, taking your breast into his mouth, tongue swirling around your hardened nipple as he bucks his hips once more. He’s being careful. Too careful.
“Joel—I need you to move,” you gasp. You drag a hand down his chest and over his soft stomach, letting your fingernails rake lightly over his flushed skin. It’s warm to the touch, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. “Joel, please. Fuck me.”
Thankfully, you don’t have to tell him twice.
Joel releases the pebbled flesh from his mouth with a loud, lewd pop. He pulls his cock out of your dribbling pussy, then slams back into you with such force that he places a hand on the crown of your head, keeping you in place underneath him on the blanket. You wrap your own leg around him, locking your ankles together, your heels digging into the firm curve of his ass. You lift your hips just as he rolls his own right into them. The new angle gives Joel the opportunity to fuck you even deeper and he hits the sensitive, spongy spot inside you, making you see stars. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you hold onto him, moans you’ve never heard come out of your own mouth before ringing in your ears and in his. He starts picking up his pace.
“Baby.” He’s breathless and speaks between every snap of his hips. “Fuck, y’feel s’good—s’tight around me—”
“Don’t stop, Joel. God, please don’t fucking stop,” you plead him, your finger burying themselves in his hair. “Keep going, just like that—fuck, you feel so fucking good inside me—”
You bite down on your bottom lip, adoring how Joel squeezes his dark eyes shut each and every single time the head of his cock brushes that one particularly deep spot inside of you. Knowing that you and your body has this kind of an effect on him, it gives you a boost of confidence. You’ve spent the last couple of years allowing a pathetic excuse of a man—if one could even call him that—pick on you, say things about your body, and make you feel like your inability to conceive a child made you defective. Worthless, even. And here’s a real man, one who makes you feel beautiful with the way he talks to you, the way he kisses you, touches you, and fucks you. You’re not perfect by any means, but Joel Miller makes you feel what your own husband doesn’t.
He makes you feel like you’re enough. More than enough.
The barn fills with a combination of moaning, panting, and the sound of damp skin slapping against damp skin.
Glancing down at you, Joel shakes his head and warns, “Ain’t gonna last much longer, baby. M’so goddamn close.”
An unexpected wave of courage washes over you. Planting your hands firmly on his chest, you take him by complete surprise and slide out from underneath him. A small grunt escapes him as you push him onto his back. Amused, you can’t help but giggle at the shocked expression on his face as you guide him to lie down on the flannel blanket. Eager to see his reaction, you keep your eyes trained on his face as you straddle his lap. You grip the base of his cock in your hand and then slowly sink down onto him, your cunt greedily squeezing him as you slide down until you’re fully seated.
Joel’s jaw falls slack. It’s the most stunning sight he’s ever seen.
You, completely naked on top of him, your pouty lips plump and swollen from his kisses. Your smooth, supple skin glows in the moonlight shining through the open window behind you. All while every inch of Joel’s cock was buried deep inside of you, head nudging at your cervix. Eyes glimmering devilishly, the sexiest little smirk tugs at the corners of your mouth. “Like what you see?”
He tries to speak, but he can’t.
You’ve rendered him speechless.
Grabbing his hands in yours, you guide them to your hips. His blood roars in his ears and his fingers dig into the pillowy soft flesh, holding on as you begin to rock them back and forth. You throw your head back, your hair spilling over your shoulder. The friction of your clit against his pelvis heightens your pleasure. Joel had thought he would be the one to topple over the edge first, but he’d been wrong.
Eyes pinching shut, you start bouncing yourself on his cock, your desperation mounting. You feel the tension between your hips coiling back tightly, ready to snap forward.
“Fuck, Joel—I’m gonna—I’m so fucking close.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Fuckin’ come for me, baby,” Joel encourages you, his fingers digging even harder into your hips. One of his hands abandons your side and he reaches up and gently takes your slackened jaw in the palm of his hand. He coaxes you to look down at him. “Need you to be a good girl and look at me, peach,” he instructs you, slipping his thumb between your parted lips. “Need to see that pretty face of yours when you come all over my cock, sweetheart.”
“Oh fuck—fuckfuckfuck!”
Crying out, you unravel and fall apart all over him, the ecstasy blurring the edges of your vision.
It doesn’t take Joel much longer to follow. He lets out a low, guttural growl, choking out a string of profanities as he slams you down onto his lap and holds you in place, spurts of warm come coating your velvet walls. Your pussy squeezes him, draining him of every last drop.
You collapse forward onto him in a sweaty, whimpering mess and he wraps his arms around you. With him still inside you, you both lay there and try to catch your breaths as the high slowly but surely begins to wear off.
After a few minutes, Joel pulls out of you and he shifts your bodies, moving you so you’re now laying beside him. Tucking you against his side, he slides his arm around your shoulders and pulls you even closer. His other hand finds one of yours and he takes it, bringing them both to rest on his chest.
“You alright?” he asks you, lacing his fingers together with yours.
“I’m great,” you answer him tiredly, prompting him to chuckle. “What about you?”
Joel strokes at your hair. “Never been better, sweet girl.”
You groan. “Joel, don’t do that,” you mumble into his shoulder. “You’re going to put me right to sleep.”
He laughs again. “We’ve still got a bit more time, y’know. If you’re tired, you can take a quick nap. I can wake you up in ‘bout an hour when it’s time to head home.”
“No, that’s okay,” you decline the offer, worried he would accidentally fall asleep too. “I really wish we could sleep together—I mean, actually sleep together. In an actual bed. Not having to worry about anything. Just like normal couples do.”
“Well, we ain’t exactly a normal couple, darlin’.”
“No, we’re definitely not,” you murmur. You don’t even realize how sad you’d sounded until you feel Joel give your shoulders a comforting squeeze.
Neither of you say anything else about it as you spend the next hour laying there, tangled up in each other’s embrace, waiting until it was time to go your separate ways.
1K notes
·
View notes
Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader
Warnings: Some Fluff, Talk of Death/Afterlife, Suggested Depression, Suggested Self-Harm, Suggested Breakdown, Suggested Anxiety, Light Smut
Word Count: 3.7K
“I recognized you instantly. All of our lives flashed through my mind in a split second. I felt a pull so strongly towards you that I almost couldn't stop it.”
― J. Sterling
It was a hot and humid day. The type of days Miguel hates the most in September because the heat made him uncomfortable and the humidity made his hair frizzy and lose its shape. It was even worse while sitting in a stuffy classroom with ACs that never worked. The rooms were always filled with the strong smell of teenage bodies and dust from janitorial neglection over the summer months. In addition, the beginning weeks of school were a bore with nothing to actually do but sit there and listen to underpaid teachers repeat the same school rules they hear in the beginning of every school semester.
He was sure he was about to fall asleep at that moment. The heat made him drowsy and the monotone voice of his teacher morphed into white noise. It was nearing the end of the day anyways, and too early into the school year for any teachers to give enough of a shit to write anyone up. He couldn’t take another second of school expectations and the disgusting mix of AXE body spray and floral perfume. But, now when he thinks back on that boring class, he can’t take it on himself to fully hate it. Because, in the same second that he looked toward the clock above the door to check the time, his life changed forever.
It was instant. Maybe not instant instant, but it was just quick enough to call it instant. She had come in late. Very late with a chest that heaved and tried to keep her rapidly beating heart in her body. Sweat made the front pieces of her hair stick to her face, flushed from the way she had run down the hall to make it to class. Of course, in that moment Miguel found her less than ideal, but he knows now that even in that stuffy school uniform the academy mandated every student to wear, she was the most beautiful goddamn thing that walked the entire earth. And when she spoke to give her name for attendance, a voice and name that will haunt Miguel until he takes his last breath, he knew their lives would be forever intertwined.
That thought was concrete the second you had walked down the same row of desks as him, stopping at the desk directly in front of him. The smell of sweetness and a bit of sweat, a smell that only comes to him in the early mornings when he isn’t really awake or asleep, instantly overpowered any other smell in the room. If he skips ahead, he can remember nearly every instance in which he leaned his stomach against the hard edge of the desk to get a stronger smell, everytime he held up a piece of your hair to his face, everytime he snuck out of your bedroom window smelling like you after spending the night making love. But, Miguel is a man who follows a strict timeline, who revels in the chronological order of things.
Instead, he focuses on the first time he had the chance to talk to you. Despite you being only a desk away, it took a few months to hold an actual conversation that was more than, “Do you have an extra pencil?” or “Did you write down the last bullet of that slide?” Despite the lack of communication, the younger Miguel had developed a slight crush on you. He had seen you in the halls between classes and he focused more on you than on the board in class. In all honesty, the delay in conversation was purely your fault. You were an energetic girl, not popular but well known. Someone was always talking to you at your desk in the beginning and end of class. Always laughing with you about something stupid that happened early that day, always asking for help for an upcoming test or assignment, always taking up your time. He could never be mad about it, though. Even if it meant he had lost an extra few months with you. It was okay because even if those months weren’t with you, they were of you. Months filled with the sound of your voice, the addicting sound of your laugh, the glimpses of your smile and shiny eyes. Moments that fill his head when he sleeps at night and when he gets lost in a daydream.
You had turned to him, asking him about some party one of his friends at the time was planning because he had turned 18. They’re simple, small questions: “What was the address again?”, “Anyone is invited, right?”, “What’s the dress code? Is there a theme?”, “Are you going?”. He had to bite his tongue to stop from scaring you off with manic answers. Yes, anyone is invited but don’t bring some random guy with you. Bring me with you instead. The dress code doesn’t matter because you’ll look stunning in anything you wear. I only want to go if you go.
“You… only want to go if I go?” You had asked. Your voice was decorated with a confused giggle and your ears had glowed pink.
Miguel blinked up at you with his own confusion. He had yet to realize his last words had bubbled out of his chest until you were giggling and eyeing him shyly. He was quick to cover his face as it grew warm, and he let out a groan while cursing himself. You had laughed harder then, eyes shining with a build-up of tears as you clutched your stomach. Miguel had spread his fingers slightly so he could peak through them. You were a sight to behold with that enchanting laughter and infatuating smile. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling against his palms. When you had finally reduced your amusement to a toothy smile, you had gently pried Miguel’s hands off his face just enough to see him.
He was sure he looked stupid, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide over the fact you were touching him. Your hands were warm and small against his and he swore his heart was trying to rip open his chest so it could run to you. He almost went dizzy when your thumb stroked his hands in a comforting manner in hopes of easing his embarrassment. He had never wanted to kiss someone so badly before. Would you have minded? God he really hoped you wouldn’t.
“Miguel?” You sang, a teasing smile on your face as you looked at him, “Are you there?”
Say it again. Say my name again, please. You’re the only person ever allowed to say it ever again. God, he was losing his mind. He still is losing it over you. Every goddamn day. Miguel doesn’t think he’ll ever get it back. You took it from him. His mind, his body, his soul. You took everything from him. It’s yours. It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours.
Please, give it back to me.
When he had finally responded to you, your smile had shone brighter and you asked him a question that still leaves his mind dumbstruck when he thinks back on it: What time do you want to pick me up? He remembers the way his breath flew out of his lungs, how his heart had paused and then started running again. Remembers the way your throat bobbed slightly, probably because you had regretted asking the question or maybe, he hopes this is why because he never thought to ask you, maybe because you were nervous too. Just maybe you had wanted to talk to him before this life altering moment. Maybe, somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew you were tied to this fool of a boy too.
He had stuttered out a pathetic ‘what?’ and you had rolled your eyes playfully in response. You ditched repeating the question and had instead given him a time and your address before getting up as the bell rang. While you walked out the door with a small wave and big smile, Miguel sat there in an astonished daze blinking at the board. Time seemed to stop as everyone else around him started walking past him to their next classes. It wasn’t until his friend walked past, jolting him with a slap on the back and a whispered, ‘good work, dude’ before walking out the door that he came back to his senses. It was only then that the conversation finally registered in Miguel’s dazzled brain. He leaned forward and hid his face in his hands again as he closed his eyes and his mouth formed a large smile.
He had a date. He had a date with you.
His shoulders shook with a silent, delirious laugh.
☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆
Miguel knew he was in love. Or, he knew he was going to be in love. It’s complicated to describe, that nagging feeling that wasn’t exactly scary but wasn’t completely comforting either. It’s even weirder feeling it. Having your mind constantly crying out go home, go home, go home but your body pulls you away from every building and straight towards another body like you’re tethered together. Like he’s tethered to you. Sometimes, when Miguel closes his eyes and really concentrates, he can still feel that sharp tug at the center of his chest that tries to bring him somewhere that he tries to get further and further away from.
He can’t lie and say it wasn’t the big things that made him think, know, he was in love. Because it was. But it was also the small things. Like when you found out what his favorite color was, yellow despite popular belief, and how you had come into school the next week with your nails done in the exact shade you had made him show you on his phone. Or that time he had seen your phone light up in class and your display had revealed that you were listening to the same song he was mumbling under his breath the day before on repeat. It was the collection of those small details that made his heart beat a bit faster and for his smile to tick up behind his hand.
And it was that first kiss. That damned first kiss that Miguel can still feel ghosting against his lips. That he feels on his bad days like some sort of silent encouragement that he will get through it. Swears those phantom lips are what pulls him out of his night terrors as if to protect him as he pants and cries in those late hours. The same kiss that he wishes he could feel forever and ever and simultaneously burn from memory. Sometimes, he thinks about pulling some poor, unsuspecting stranger off the street and kissing them to see if it would feel the same. When he thinks like that, he instantly goes to the bathroom and dry heaves until his throat hurts. Of course it would never feel the same, what a silly idea. What a betrayal and discourtesy towards you to even entertain the idea.
The kiss had happened weeks after the party. In between those two moments had been brushed hands, glances in the hallways, and not so subtle flirting whispered during lessons. Each moment had Miguel’s face flushing and heart racing. It left him with a craving for you. So, when you had invited him to study with you in the library, he had eagerly nodded despite knowing he would ace the test without looking over any of his notes. He would be too busy looking at you either way to focus on his chicken scratch.
You hadn’t gotten much studying done that day either. Instead, Miguel had distracted you with whispered words in your ears that caused you to quietly giggle and smile up at him. He can remember every detail. From the way your cheeks grew to match the pink of your lips, how you had fiddled with the mechanical pencil in your hand, how your eyes had twinkled as you leaned towards him. He remembers how you had grabbed his hand, a soft and gentle touch, asking him to come with you to find a book you needed. Remembers how you had pulled him towards the back shelves filled with encyclopedias with bug-bitten pages. Can still remember the slight dizzy feeling he had when you pulled him around one of the old bookshelves and pressed him into it. Can still feel the hands pressed against his chest to hold him in place as you peaked around the corner in case anyone was coming over. He remembers the notes he chuckled as he asked you what you were doing. Can see the smile you gave him before you pulled him down for the only kiss that will ever matter in his entire life.
Your lips were soft and tasted like the cherry lip gloss you wore. He had furrowed his brows as his hands came to squeeze your waist while he moved his mouth over yours. He memorized the trail your hands took as they traveled up his chest and tangled in his hair. He can replicate the way his vocal cords shifted as he let out that satisfied groan when you allowed him to slip his tongue into your mouth. If he were to look down at his hand right now, he could swear the creases of his palms still have your sticky gloss stuck in them from when he had turned you around to press you against the shelves, but his desperation caused books to fall and his hand went to cover your mouth as you pulled away and started laughing. He had smiled down at you and buried his head in the crook of your neck to muffle his own laughter. He never regretted getting detention for the next few days when the librarian had found the both of you. It just gave him more chances to kiss you when the detention instructor fell asleep.
It was during one of those detention kisses that he had whispered against your lips to be his girlfriend. You had answered with another kiss and a delighted yes.
☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆☆*:..。. .。.:*☆
It had been a month or two after the one year anniversary that he finally made love to you. It was sometime in the later months of senior year. Another hot and humid day. But instead of being in a classroom, he had been in your room. Miguel remembers that your sheets had been white with a small flower print, throw pillows and blankets making up for the lack of color. They were soft under the material of his jeans as he held you while you cried.
On that day, your usually clean room was in shatters. Things ripped from your walls, notebooks and papers shoved off your desk, clothes taken off hangers and thrown on the floor. The only things that had survived had been pictures of the two of you and your bed. He had gotten a call from your frantic mother, begging him to come calm you down. That he was the only one that can get through the fog in your mind. He had rushed over, your mother opening the door for him so he could run up the stairs to your room. When he had thrown open the door, his chest broke in a way that made it almost impossible to breathe. He rubs his chest whenever he thinks back to it, like the heartbreak is still there.
You had thrown yourself in a corner, sobbing and rocking yourself back and forth in a way to seek comfort. The mess of your room had surrounded you, barricading you from everything else. When the door knocked into the wall, your face had left your arms and tear-beaded lashes blinked up at him. You had cried harder when you had seen him. He had strived towards you, picking you up easily off the ground and away from the chaos on your floor. He cradled you in his arms, your legs wrapping around his hips as you cried tears into his T-shirt. He had whispered soft, caring words into your ear, an arm wrapped around your waist and a hand in your hair.
You had cried for another hour, hiccuping watery words about a scary future. A life of uncertainties and insecurities. A life where you ended up alone and scared and desperate to get by. A world where dreams don’t exist and your greatest fears consume you. Days where you don’t know how to get out of bed and shut up the nasty voices in your head. Minutes where you’re tempted to listen to them and then the hours that follow where you hate yourself for contemplating it. If Miguel were to go into his closet right now, he can find the same shirt he wore. A single shoulder lingering with black splotches of mascara that never fully washed away. Each splotch represents a worry you had trusted him with.
He had pressed you closer to him, whispering ‘it’s not your fault’, over and over and over again until his throat ached and your cries had died down to soft trembling. Another hour was spent in silence as he had just held you. His hands playing mindlessly with your hair and your breath tickling his neck. The sun had begun to set and a golden glow had lit up your bed in a yellow color.
“It’s your favorite shade,” You had whispered in a broken voice. It was scratchy and rough. Miguel thought it sounded just as lovely as it always has. It reminds him of a pipe organ, beautiful but sad.
He had to turn around to see what you were talking about. He turned his head slightly to see your hand outstretched, fingers playing as the light spilled from them. He can’t remember a time where you looked so peaceful. He had watched your hand, before nodding his head in agreement. “Yes, it is.”
He reached his hand out, taking a hold of yours gently and connecting his fingers with yours like a puzzle. He brought his hands back towards the both of you, bringing it up to his lips and kissing your knuckles. He watched your eyes, red and puffy from crying. He held your hand to his mouth for a while, his thumb stroking the skin. When he had finally dropped your hand, you leaned forward to rest your forehead against his, just staring into his eyes. Your scent instantly filled his nose. It is the same smell that he has stored in his bedside drawer in a glass bottle. He never sprays it in his room, just holds it to his nose with closed eyes and pretends you’re right next to him again.
“I love you.” The words were sweet and poured warmth onto his skin. He closed his eyes and sat there, letting your words echo in his head until he memorized how each letter and syllable sounded when it left your lips.
Miguel remembers the strength he used to grab your waist as he connected your lips to his. Remembers that the kiss was different from any other kiss the two of you had shared before this. He still can’t describe why it was different, but he can still feel it in his bones. He remembers pushing his body into yours and you pushing back. Even though his eyes were closed in the moment, he can see everything clearly in his mind, as if he were a phantom watching it. Can see the exact placement of your hands on his shoulders, can see the way your lips parted and the soft noise you made when he had flipped the two of you over and laid you on your back.
Those soft, soft noises that split his chest open so his heart can absorb them and keep them safe. He remembers every soft pant and plead you had whispered into the air of your room as he stripped you of your clothes, kissing trails down your body. The giggle you had let out when he almost tripped taking off his pants is still trapped between those plaster walls. The soft feeling of your skin under his was like a cloud, your body warmth the sun. He remembers the halo your hair made as the dying sunlight bathed your face and caused your eyes to shine and for your skin to glow. He remembers the light dimming from your face as he slid slowly into you. He had immediately apologized as you whimpered in temporary pain.
He had slowly moved inside you, taking his time as you held him close to your body. The soft moans of his name traveled through shivers that rode down his spine, the sounds quiet to not alert your parents. His response was the repeated saying of I love you, over and over again. He repeated it, looking down at your face, into your eyes, so you could see the realness and vulnerability of the words. He made sure you felt it as he grabbed onto your skin and buried his head into your neck as he thrusted. He felt the love you had for him in every scratch down his back and tightening of your walls around him.
He remembers trying to hold on to his pleasure before it exploded right after yours. He had panted as he looked down at you, your breaths mixing together. He had kissed you softly as he pulled his softening member out of you and you smiled against his lips. He had laid with you for a while before getting up, grabbing his discarded shirt and wiping you down before taking you into his arms again and falling asleep. He held you close to his chest, both of you naked under your blankets as the moonlight glowed against the two of you.
The next morning, he drove you to the closest drug store. The both of you walked to the counter smelling like each other as he paid for a Plan B pill and snacks. It was a story you and him laughed about on the rooftop of your house the night you both graduated from Pym Academy.
CHAPTER 2- THEN: THE CANON
292 notes
·
View notes
unconditional l a safe haven drabble
Post Outbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader
series masterlist
summary: After your first night together in the barn, Joel tells you he’s worried about the possibility of you getting pregnant; You tell him that he doesn’t have anything to worry about and it leads to a heartfelt conversation—and realization.
warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. talk of infertility, mention of pregnancy loss, reader admits Luke makes her feel insecure about her condition, hurt, comfort, soft Joel, dash of fluff sprinkled in at the end.
Word Count: 1.6k
a/n: this drabble centers around a sensitive subject, so please be sure to read all of the tags! i know back in chapter five, the subject of reader not being able to have kids was touched on but i still want to make sure I give a good, proper warning. as someone who struggles with reproductive health (PCOS girlie here) i know i can get down about things of this nature so again please proceed with caution if this is a subject that might be hard for you to read about.
This takes place between chapters six and seven.
You lean forward against the wooden, paddock fence with your folded arms resting gently on top of it.
Joel stands behind you, his chest pressed into your back—his arms encircled you, comfortably caging you between the fence and his body with both his hands planted firmly on the wood on either side of you. His chin rests on top of your head, and every so often you would feel him press a soft kiss into your hair or on the delicate spot on your neck, right behind your ear.
He’d been quiet tonight—a bit too quiet.
Something is off.
You can feel it in your bones.
About twenty four hours ago, the both of you had taken the leap and slept together for the first time. Part of you couldn’t help but begin to spiral a little bit as you began to wonder if Joel had any regrets about what you two had done.
You certainly hoped that wasn’t the case
Because you sure as hell didn’t regret it.
“Joel,” you say his name tentatively.
You’re met with a questioning hum. “Hm?”
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” you state, physically cringing at just how painfully obvious the anxious edge in your tone had been. “Everything alright?”
Joel sighs, his warm breath tickling your ear. He moves one of his hands and places it on your arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Sorry, my sweet girl. I just—my mind’s a bit preoccupied, that’s all it is.”
“About what?”
He hesitates, but then replies, “‘Bout last night.”
Your heart sinks deep into the pit of your stomach.
“You regret it, don’t you?” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.
“Wait, what?” Joel swiftly turns you around in his arms and he takes you by your shoulders. He shakes his head furiously. “No. That ain’t it. That ain’t it at all, peach. ‘Course I don’t regret it—are you crazy?”
You frown at him. “Then what is it, Joel?”
Once again, he hesitates. His hands fall away from your shoulders and he takes a step or two backwards, his gaze unable to meet yours. “The thing is, we were so caught up in the heat of the moment that—well neither of us even thought ‘bout protection,” he’d mumbled the last part of his sentence so quietly it had barely been audible. Even in the darkness, the redness burning his face and neck over the nature of the conversation was evident. “We just went for it without even thinkin’ ‘bout protection and I’ll be honest, baby. S’got me a bit worried, y’know?”
You raise an eyebrow at him.
Jackson is fortunate to have an abundance of a lot of things—condoms aren’t one of them.
“It’s okay, Joel,” you assure him after a minute or two of silence. “I’m clean. Luke is the only person I have ever been with besides you, and he’s been so tired from working so much over the last couple of months that he hardly even touches me—”
“That ain’t what I’m worried ‘bout, darlin’.”
You stare at him with a puzzled look.
Then, a split second later, it sinks in.
“You’re worried about getting me pregnant,” you realize, slowly.
It’s Joel’s turn to seem confused.
“‘Course I’m worried. I finished inside of you last night—wait just a minute, ain’t you worried ‘bout it?”
Your lips part in slight surprise.
Ellie knows about your condition, but Joel doesn’t.
Well, that girl certainly knows how to keep a secret.
“I’m not worried, actually,” you tell him. “Because I can’t get pregnant. It’s not possible.”
He breathes out in relief. “You’re on birth control.”
You toss him an amused glance. “Yeah, you can find bottles of birth control pills in the commune’s market right next to the condom aisle.”
Joel glares at you. “That supposed to be funny?”
Your small smile fades and you look down, your eyes fixing themselves on the dirt. “Actually, there is something you should probably know about me. I, um, I can’t—” You pause just long enough to let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t have children, Joel.”
Although you can’t see him, you feel him staring at you. You can feel the way his eyes had gone wide, the way his mouth fell open in surprise.
“There’s a reason that me and Luke never had any kids over the course of our marriage. And it’s hard to admit it, but that reason is me.” Mustering a bit of courage, you finally bring your eyes up off of the ground and look at Joel. “We tried for a really long time to have children. I did get pregnant once, but then I lost it. That was a couple of years ago. I was never able to get pregnant again, so I think it’s fair for us to assume that I’m the problem.”
Joel frowns. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“You said that you’re the problem.”
“But I am—”
“That doesn’t make you a problem,” he says as he takes a step towards you. He grabs both of your hands, holding them firmly in his own. “It doesn’t make you a problem, peach. You not bein’ able to have children doesn’t mean there’s anythin’ wrong with you, alright? So don’t fuckin’ say it like that. I ain’t gonna let you.”
You can’t help but let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well my husband certainly thinks otherwise.”
Anger flashes across Joel’s features. “He say somethin’ to you ‘bout it?”
“He’ll throw it right in my face whenever we fight,” you mumble to him in admission, feeling a batch of warm tears sting at your eyes. More than being saddened by your inability to conceive, you feel so damn humiliated. Over the years, Luke had all but drilled it into your brain that there must have been something wrong with you if you couldn’t bear his child—what if Joel thought the same? What if he’d start to think something was wrong with you now that he knew the truth? “I’ve accepted that I won’t ever be a mother, Joel. As much as it used to hurt me, I have done my very best to make peace with it because there’s nothing else I can do. But Luke? He can’t do the same. He always wanted a family and I couldn’t give him one.”
“Darlin’—”
“He always makes me feel like me not being able to have a baby makes me less of a woman.” A hot, stubborn tear slips down the side of your face. “And if I’m being honest, sometimes I can’t help but to think maybe I am less of a woman for it.”
Joel squeezes your hands. “Now you listen to me, m’gonna need you to stop that right now,” he all but demands. His voice is tough and firm, but somehow still gentle at the same time. “You don’t say that ever again, you understand me? That couldn’t be any fuckin’ further from the truth.”
“But—”
“Baby. Hey.” Joel drops one of your hands from his. He lifts his hand up towards your face and he hooks an index finger underneath your chin—his eyes meet yours as he delicately tilts your head up towards his. Simultaneously, he leans down and the tip of his nose brushes yours. “There’s no fuckin’ but here, darlin’. You are the most amazin’ woman that I’ve ever met in my whole, entire life. If Luke is too much of a fuckin’ idiot to see how perfect you are, that’s his fuckin’ problem. The way I see it, you’re too much woman for him and he doesn’t deserve somebody like you.”
Your free hand flies to your mouth, muffling a sob.
Joel Miller loves you.
He hasn’t said it yet, but you know that he does.
And not only does Joel love you, but his love, it’s unconditional.
It’s unconditional, it’s pure, and it’s real.
You’ve never known a feeling like this. Never in your life did you think you would even have the chance to know a feeling like this.
Not until Joel had come along.
Joel gingerly wipes at your face with the back of his hand. “I didn’t mean to make you cry darlin’—”
“It’s okay. I just—I didn’t know something like this was possible.” you release a small, tearful laugh.
“Somethin’ like what?” he asks, bringing his lips close to yours. He had known what you’d meant to say, but he needed to hear you say it out loud. He knew slapping a label on what the two of you had wouldn’t make a difference because regardless, it’s solid. He has never been so sure of someone or something in his life. Still, Joel would be lying if he said that he didn’t want to hear you say it and simply confirm what he already knew. “Somethin’ like what, sweet girl?”
You shiver at the way his mouth hovers about a centimeter or two over yours, so close but so far away from where you need it to be. Placing your hands on his chest, you peer up at him through the thickness of your eyelashes and say shyly, “I didn’t know a relationship like this was possible.”
An inexplicable warmth radiates throughout every inch of Joel’s body at the word.
Relationship.
“You make me happy, Joel. So incredibly, stupidly happy,” you confess to him. “You make me feel wanted, you make me feel beautiful—”
He cuts you off, pressing his mouth to yours softly.
After a brief moment, he pulls back slightly and murmurs against your lips, “C’mon, let’s head on over to the barn so I can spend the next couple of hours really makin’ you feel beautiful.”
466 notes
·
View notes