Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Truth be told, regardless of what the rest of the 141 thought, I did not hate Lieutenant Riley. “Ghost,” as they called him—not that I would have ever called him that. I liked to keep as much distance between us as I could manage, for my own sake. Not because I hated him, not even because I disliked him.

Because I very, very desperately wanted something I knew I could never have.

That’s how it was in our line of work. I didn’t believe in settling down, not while in the military, and I never pegged the lieutenant as the marriage type. I was wary of even dating, even giving a slice of myself to someone for any period of time, physically or otherwise.

Except for when it came to Lieutenant Riley.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, he and I were… something. Nothing remotely defined, nothing remotely romantic—it was sex, and sex only. Aggressive sex at that, just something to get our minds off what we both had seen and done on the missions we had returned from. Afterwards, he would let me lay my head on his chest while he massaged my scalp with his fingertips until I fell asleep, or he would lend me one of his t-shirts and lay with me for a while. Sometimes we’d talk, sometimes we didn’t. That was our deal, and it worked for a time.

Until I found a little too much meaning in the look in his eyes while he’d fuck me. Until I felt him kiss my forehead as I drifted off to sleep. He never kicked me out, even if he should have.

I was incredibly lonely; in this line of work, most of us were, and he was… He was there. That’s all I could ever use to explain to myself how I could let myself get in so deep. He was there when I needed someone. He was there to offer me another human’s touch, another human’s warmth. He was there, and I fell in love.

I was officially, absolutely, undeniably delusional to believe that Lieutenant Riley of all people would ever see me beyond a body. A warm, willing space to put his dick.

What a fucking idiot.

I never told him. It was bad enough that I knew I loved him. Much easier to just stop speaking to him, to stop looking at him, to shut him out and pretend I didn’t know what my name sounded like grunted out of his mouth.

Oh, my name. God it sounded so soft and warm out of his mouth, so much better than Nefeli, what everyone else called me. But my name… He was the only one who knew it and hearing him say it was enough to make my stomach twist.

And when he moaned it into my ear… Into the crook of my neck… Into my pussy…

When he would grab fistfuls of my skin—my tits, my hips, my thighs—and squeeze until it bruised, saying my name like it was a prayer before he buried his face between my legs…

I shifted in my seat, crossing my legs in hopes of putting the thrum of blood pulsing between my legs to rest. They were talking, talking, talking, the way they always did, and here my mind was, going back to Lieutenant Riley, the way it always did. I wondered how much of this brief I’d missed, how much of it I’d spent in the memory of Lieutenant Riley saying my name like it was the holiest thing he’d ever say.

My eyes shot to the board, squinting to read the diagram laid out in the ugly yellow light of our conference room, to our leaders breaking down our plan. Another building in the middle of nowhere, another target whose head they wanted on a platter, another wave of people we’d have to mow down in the space between the rest of the world’s breaths.

Until—

I slammed my fist into the table. “No, we’re not doing that.”

The man speaking—his name lost in the fog of Lieutenant Riley saying mine—stopped abruptly. “Excuse me?”

Everyone’s eyes darting to me left my cheeks red.

“It’s bad enough there are at least 40 men in that building other than our target. You are not sending me in with the man whose head they want the most. And while our nearest reinforcements will be, what, twenty minutes out? At least? That is a death sentence, and while I may not be in the position to demand much of anything, I refuse to embark on whatever suicide mission you’ve just doomed me to.”

“Nefeli—”

I crossed my arms over my chest and shot up, sending my chair flying back behind me. “No. Absolutely not. I will not go in that building with Lieutenant Riley, so either you can send me in with someone else, or I’m not going in at all.”

I felt his eyes slicing gashes into my skin. I wondered if he was angry. Maybe confused. Not that it mattered, really, but he had always been so hard to read. Maybe when I had come to know every single scar and freckle on his body, I could have read what that stare meant. But now, with the locations of his scars a faint memory, I couldn’t even begin to interpret the wave of heat I felt coming from his eyes.

Maybe if I would just look, but I hadn’t looked at him in months. Not since the last time I had left his room some months ago and watched the emotion in his eyes dry up when I stepped into his doorframe. The first time I had looked at him one last time before I stepped out into the hall.

That was when I knew I was in over my head, when I looked at him with a stupid glimmer in my eyes no matter the time, and he only ever really saw me fully when I was naked. Clothing rendered me useless.

But why? Why, when I would have knit him a sweater out of my own nerves if he had just asked?

“Nefeli, there will be no changes to this OPORD. Do you understand me?”

I scoffed and dug my nails into the flesh of my wrist. “Sure. Of course, sir.”

My cheeks and chest were burning. My eyes, too.

“Anything else, Nefeli?”

“Not a thing,” I said, digging my teeth into my cheek.

And with that, I swept my chair back into its spot with my foot and made a beeline for the door. He was still staring at me, leaving claw marks into my back. My hearing and vision were beginning to go fuzzy. I didn’t have long left before I’d cry.

I hated that about myself, that at the slightest hint of frustration my first instinct was to cry. But no one else had ever seen me cry, and this was not the day that would start. Not with Lieutenant Riley in the room. He’d seen all of me, so I didn’t have much dignity left to protect, but I would defend it with my life from him.

I couldn’t let him get that close to me again. They wanted him next to me, close enough to touch me. They were asking me to talk to him again, to look at him again. They wanted his voice in my ear…

That voice had haunted me and chased away my sleep for months.

If I heard his voice in my ear one more time, if I felt his skin brush against mine one more time, if he dared to say my name one more time… Would I ever sleep again? Would I ever go through the day without replaying his voice in my head? Would I be free of his phantom touch, his fingertips dancing across my cheeks, his grip around my throat?

Oh God, his hands around my throat…

I fled down the hall and took the first corner I found, leading into a short, dead-end hallway with a janitor’s closet at the end. I took a seat against the wall and sucked in a deep breath to center myself.

He was everywhere, there were hints of him everywhere.

And I missed it. So, so badly.

I wanted what he could never give me, what he was never remotely interested in giving me. There would come a day in the future where he is desperately trying to stuff a bullet wound in my stomach with gauze, or I am covered in his blood from dragging him under a shower of bullets to cover so I could throw a tourniquet over his emptying femoral artery, and then what?

Then I am plagued with the empty, lost look in his dead eyes for eternity rather than his voice praising me in my ears.

The choice I made was obvious.

Right?

I opened my eyes, trying to erase the sound of his voice telling me just how much he loved my body, trying to dodge visions of him worshipping it, to find boots standing just a few inches away.

His boots.

The sound of my heart pulsing in my ears drowned out the slip of my name from his lips. Somewhat.

Not Nefeli.

My name.

Tears pricked my eyes like needles, and my cheeks flushed.

Please, no. Please don’t do this to me.

Though I wouldn’t look at him, I could see him extending his hand to help me up out of the corner of my eye. My jaw trembled, and I swallowed hard. I didn’t think I could breathe.

And then he crouched, and I estimated his mask would be just inches from mine… if I would just look up. If I would just look at him, he would be close enough to feel his breath on my cheek. I could still remember what it felt like to feel his breath on me, to feel the graze of his lips against my collarbone while he drove me into insanity underneath him.

But I couldn’t look. I wouldn’t let myself.

“I won’t let them hurt you, kid,” he said, his voice gruff but oddly soothing.

And then he stood up.

I whimpered, the sound tiny under my breath. My breaths became ragged, heavy, punctured.

God, the smell of him was enough to make my heart clench. Judging by the gentle note of the detergent he normally used, he had just washed the heavy black jacket he wore. So familiar, and so comforting—I knew Lieutenant Riley so intimately, all the small parts of his infamy that no one else got to see, and yet…

Yet here I was, at his feet while he lingered for a moment longer than he should have, my head bowed intently. I wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

I wanted him to leave. I wanted him so far away even my thoughts would get tired of running in circles around us. I never wanted to see him again, not if I couldn’t have him.

Lieutenant Riley let out a sigh, almost inaudible, and the sound of his boots down the hall followed shortly after. That was the closest he’d been since I last left his bedroom. I hadn’t ever planned to let him get that close again, and now that he was, I felt ruined. Tainted.

Teased.

I released a strangled breath. I didn’t cry, or at least I didn’t think I did. I wondered if he thought my outburst was out of fear. A building full of men and just the two of us to hunt them, that must be scary to anyone else. But without anything to leave behind, I had no fear. Nothing to lose, and less to cling to. Dying was easy. It was living painfully in love with Lieutenant Riley that was the hard part.

I waited until I thought I couldn’t hear him in the hall anymore before I made my way back to my room, though my hearing was dampened by the repetition of my name on his tongue, all husky and scratchy.

Oh God, the way he said my name… So reminiscent of the many times he was buried inside me and right at the precipice of release. Slightly whiny, but aggressive, passionate, the only thing he knew how to say—enough to tell me that I was going to give him what he wanted, that I was going to let him stuff me until I couldn’t fit even another drop.

My insides squeezed themselves into a knot.

With that, I instead made a beeline for the gym, hoping to work off the thundering drum between my legs if I wanted any hope of sleeping tonight. I had to swat away vivid flashbacks of kissing down his flushed, toned chest—Oh God, what I wouldn’t have done to—

My thoughts were interrupted by the doors to the gym opening, nearly connecting with my cheek. I was met with a garbled string of words I couldn’t quite understand—

Soap.

“Hi, Soap, Sorry man. Lost in thought,” I apologized, crinkling my nose. “Didn’t even see you there.”

“Don’t sweat it, lass,” Soap replied with a bright, friendly smile and an odd glint in his eye. His hairline was damp, beads of sweat still at his temple and upper lip. “Would’ve hurt me worse than it hurt you. Never seen anything cause you pain, much less a door.”

I chuckled softly, only enough to entertain the joke, before stepping inside. If only you knew, Soap.

 It was mostly empty inside, likely because it was dinner chow hours, minus a few stragglers on the bench in the corner and the leg press towards my left. I shrugged off my uniform coat and folded it into a small heap at the base of a squat rack. I hated squatting in boots, but the heat simmering in my abdomen was threatening to boil over if I dared focus on anything outside of the plates I was loading onto my bar.

2 pairs of plates was fine—my usual, and it was enough to quell the throbbing in my core. Inhale down, exhale up… Inhale down, exhale up… Inhale down, exhale up…

It was peaceful, quiet in the gym, nothing but the sound of metal bars clanking against the rack or rubber plates against the ground. Three sets of deep, heavy squats in the quiet was enough to settle my nerves and reduce my arousal to none. I threw on another pair of plates, a tad more than I was confident I could squat alone, but for the sake of concentrating on something other than Lieutenant Riley, I pulled the bar onto my shoulders.

And it was fine. Truly, it was, until the doors opened and I saw Soap poke his head through the crack of space between them. His eyes scanned the gym, looking intently for something. Odd enough, considering he had just left when I had come in.

Even more odd when his eyes landed on me and he craned his neck over his shoulder.

I was mid-squat when Lieutenant Riley entered the room.

God fucking damn it.

I braced my core, sucked a sharp breath of air into my belly, and pushed upwards into a stand. My face was flushed crimson, sweat dotting my nose and upper lip, and I racked the bar. Guess I would have to try a full set with that weight another day.

I heard them shuffling behind me somewhere; I couldn’t pinpoint where because I didn’t dare look at them in the mirror. I knew he still looked at me, even if only out of the corner of his eye sometimes. I could feel him lurking there in the edge of my peripherals any time he was near, his gaze like a train barreling into my side. Never any peace with him around.

Looking pointedly at the ground, I grabbed another bar and 2 pairs of rubber plates to deadlift with. Might as well give Lieutenant Riley a show, I supposed, if he was watching. The stupider part of me hoped he was paying perfect attention, not just noticing my presence but watching the swell of my ass in uniform, too.

Maybe he’d fuck me again if he did.

I winced and set up against the bar, wrapping my hands into the sharp grate on the grip. He was not going to fuck me again because I was not going to let him.

But as I lifted the weight, I couldn’t help but think about it.

It was just so good. As abrasive as he was normally, I wouldn’t have thought he could top that. But oh, did he. So attentive, and so observant, but so mean, which I was sure most people wouldn’t have found sexy, but I did.

Just made it more worth it when he would mumble those sweet, fire-inducing words of praise in my ear, his voice breathy and gravelly.

“That’s my sweet girl,” he would purr into my skin.

“So good, so fucking good…”

“You taste like heaven, I’d let you sit on my face all day if you’d allow it.”

And just like that, I was throbbing, the heat between my legs sweltering. All I could think about was the feeling of his fingertips running through my slick, his thumb rubbing deft circles into my clit while his fingers teased my opening.

Godddd…

I set the weight down onto the platform and wiped my palms off on my shirt, blinking hard. I looked into the mirror to judge how awful I looked right now—

And then I fucked up.

For the first time in months, I made eye contact with Lieutenant Riley.

My heart plunged into my stomach, and bile rose in my throat. His eyes were a slab of onyx, and mine were bewildered, large, obviously caught. It lasted for no more than a few seconds before my eyes darted away, but I felt him continuing to stare me down while I quickly racked my weights up.

The air became gelatin, stuck in my throat and lungs. I had to go, and now.

Grabbing my top off the floor, I scurried out of the gym, not even bothering to throw my top on before I threw the doors open. I jammed my arms into my sleeves while hurrying down the hall, trying not to think about what I had just done.

It had been months since I last looked at Lieutenant Riley, and one look seemed to shatter my whole resolve. He saw me, he looked in my eyes and read me.

I threw myself into my room, slamming the door shut behind me and pressing my back against it like I had a horde of zombies chasing after me. Chest heaving, I ran my hands through my hair, pulling it out of the sweat keeping it stuck to my face.

One look and the heat between my legs was on the verge of imploding.

God, his eyes.

Staring me down while he drove himself inside me, his hand gripping my cheek to keep my face in place.

“Look at me,” he had breathed. “Look at me, and don’t you dare look away, or I won’t let you cum. You understand me?”

I whimpered, fighting the urge to flutter my eyelids shut while he held my thigh back towards my stomach with his other hand. “Simon…”

“Answer me,” he demanded, the pressure of his fingertips growing. “Tell me you understand and you won’t—fuck—you won’t look away.”

“I won’t look away,” I swallowed hard. “I won’t, I promise. I won’t, I won’t… I won’t…”

I felt the knot in my abdomen tighten similarly to how it had then on the brink of orgasm. With a long exhale, I threw my clothes off on the way to the shower. I needed an ice-cold shower, stat.

The water hit me like a swarm of bullets, so cold it stung my skin, but I wouldn’t relent. I stood under that shower until my toes went numb, my eyes squeezed shut. I scrubbed at my skin, hoping I could remove every skin cell that he had ever touched.

As horny as he made me, that wasn’t quite it. It was too superficial to say I liked to fuck him. I loved him, most things about him. At least, what I knew, and I saw quite a bit of him. Not just his body, but his heart, and his soul—not his past, he would never bring it up, and I would never ask. But we liked to talk about the future, about what we would do someday far, far away if we didn’t get killed in the field first. Debates, and our beliefs, and what we would name a pet if we could have one while he ran his hands up and down my arm or ribcage.

Maybe I was exaggerating by calling it love. It didn’t matter now, I supposed. I had tossed him to the side, and he was never going to come back. What little I had of him then, I would never see that again.

I shut off the water and squeezed my hair out, sucking in a deep breath to fight back tears.

Oh, Simon.

I miss you.

After my shower, I threw on a big t-shirt—I was almost positive this was Lieutenant Riley’s, or maybe one I stole from my father years ago—and pajama shorts. My full laundry bin had caught my eye when I slung off my towel.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep my mind off him. At least for a few moments.

Laundry bin on my hip, I deadbolted my door and scuttled down the hall, blinking to adjust to the harsh white light. I threw a load in and shuffled back to my room, still cradling my laundry bin against my hip.

I had missed dinner chow, but I could possibly swing by the cantina…

That was what I was thinking before I opened my door and all thoughts were vacuumed out of my head.

Lieutenant Riley.

Sitting on my bed.

My heart and brain must have short-circuited for a moment, because I stood in my doorway gawking at him like an idiot. He looked poised on my bed, like he was supposed to be there, like he had always been meant to be there. He had slung off his jacket and laid it over one of his thighs. So casual, like this was typical behavior.

My throat tightened, threatening to squeeze any word I dared to speak to death. He and I stared at each other for a few moments, maybe 100 seconds, maybe 100 years—truly, I had no idea.

“What are you doing here?” I finally managed, my throat failing to capture them on their way out.

“Tired of you ignoring me,” he said simply.

I blinked and furrowed my eyebrows. “Huh?”

“Don’t act dumb, Sergeant.”

I winced, thankfully only internally, and cautiously set down my laundry basket before turning to release the deadbolt of my door. It shut with a low creak behind me, sealing Lieutenant Riley and me inside.

“I’m… not. Just… didn’t expect to come back from the laundry room and see you on my bed,” I stammered. “Did you need something?”

He was quiet for only a second. “Come here.”

I hesitated for a second but ultimately obeyed. I stopped a foot in front of him, but he waved me closer with a single look. My heart flipped, my nerves aflame.

So close… He was so close. The closest he’d been in months, closer than I had ever thought he would ever be again. So close I could smell his cologne, warm and spicy and intoxicating. My stomach flipped next.

“Why?” was all he said.

I knew what he was asking, but feigning stupid was easier. “What do you mean?”

He stood then, towering over me so intensely that I wished I could shrink back into my closet and lock him out forever. I eyed it over his shoulder for half a second—too far. And it didn’t lock from the inside.

His hand made its way to my cheek, tenderly at first. He stroked my cheek with the well-worn thumb of his glove, brushing against the line of my lower lip. Lieutenant Riley inched his thumb over to my lip, running it over the swell of my lower lip with a spark in his eye.

I stared at him, right in his eyes, for a second, watching the thoughts unfold behind his irises. Naturally, though, his stare was too intense for me to take, and I opted to look at the white lines etched over his balaclava instead. My stomach was looping in circles, my heart in a continuous plunge, the flame in my core beginning to flicker.

He held his gloved thumb against my tooth. I bit it, knowing what he was asking, and he slipped his hand out before retrieving the glove and tucking it into the pocket of his pants.

His thumb pressed back against my lip, and I gave entrance to it, letting my tongue gingerly glide against it. The look in his eyes darkened, strengthened, broadening until it filled the entire room.

Oh God.

I closed my lips around his thumb and ran my tongue along the calloused pad, then over the nailbed. His other hand came to rest against my waist, hot even through his t-shirt.

He muttered my name, softly, longingly.

I met his eyes warily, giving the pad of his thumb a teasing graze.

Please don’t say my name like that again. I don’t want to have to relive this moment any more than I am already doomed to.

He pulled his thumb out of my mouth, opting to trail his hand into the hair at the back of my head instead. His hand at my waist gripped me harder, creating a thunderstorm between my legs. I opened my mouth to say something but lost my entire vocabulary. I was not even sure I could speak English if I tried.

He lifted his hand from his waist, and I nearly whined at the loss of contact. Now that he was so close, I couldn’t stand the idea of him being away. Even an inch was too far.

He lifted the edge of his balaclava over his lip, and he kissed me for the first time in months.

The world came to a stop with the force of a train running into a mountainside. I sucked in a breath that seared my lungs while he replaced his hand, this time on the small of my back to press me tight against his chest. His hand in my hair gave it a urging tug, tilting my head back to deepen the access he had to my mouth.

“Oh, God,” I whined into his mouth, gliding my hands up the broad expanse of his back, over his shoulders, and then into the soft tufts of hair at the nape of his neck.

Lieutenant Riley bent his knees, moving the hand at my waist to slide his forearm down to the backs of my thighs, and he lifted me without much of an effort at all. I slung my legs around his hips while he backed me up into the wall beside my bed, and my back hit the plaster with a soft thud.

He pulls himself from my mouth to instead pepper kisses down my jaw and neck, sucking the skin between his teeth. With a ungraceful moan, my neck fell back until my head hit the wall, and I squeezed my thighs to press myself against his groin.

“Fuck,” I whimpered while he nibbled at my collarbone.

He chuckled lowly against my skin, pulling me tighter against his unbelievably hard cock. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, sweetheart?” He said, sucking a mark into my shoulder. “But I think I still know what makes you tick. Don’t I, love?”

Hearing him call me that made my heart sputter, but the feeling was drowned by the flames of arousal that gripped my body like a snake.

“Yes,” I breathed, dividing all my remaining attention to the feeling of his tongue dragging over my pulse point.

Lieutenant Riley pulled his face from my neck and pressed a hard, final kiss to my lips before pulling away to look at me, his eyes shimmering with mischief. He looked me up and down once, meeting my eyes again, the glint in his eyes sharp enough to cut through my clothes.

“You’ve deprived me of your mouth for so long… Wouldn’t even use it to speak to me,” he hummed, bending down to plant my feet firmly on the floor. “I think I’m going to make good use of that fucking mouth tonight.”

As soon as my feet were steady, one of his hands gripped the hair at the crown of my head, and the other moved to my shoulder to push down to my knees. I stumbled but complied—willingly, though I wouldn’t admit it to myself—and steadied myself onto my knees comfortably. I peered up at him, eyes wide from this angle, and rested my hands on his thighs, feeling them tense and ripple underneath my hands.

“Go on,” he said, tightening his grip on my hair. “Don’t make me ask again.”

I licked my lips nervously, butterflies suddenly on a rampage in my stomach. Almost on autopilot, my hands flew to his belt, undoing it as I had so many nights ago. My fingers trembled, heart caught in my throat, and when I looked at him, I found him following every quake of my fingers with his eyes.

When his belt came undone, I struggled with the button for a moment, unable to control the storm in my nerves, but it came free of the loop soon enough. He helped me pull his pants and boxers down and off his legs, replacing his hands in my hair as soon as he was finished, keeping me pinned there.

Where I belonged.

I licked my lips again and met his eyes, wondering if he could see my heartbeat in my irises. I sure could feel it everywhere else. His large palm slid along my cheek, tucking a stray piece of hair back into his hands.

“Simon…” I mumbled, the first time I’ve said his name since the night I left. I drifted my fingertips over his thighs, bending to press kisses along his quads and upper stomach. I peered up at him again, pulling back and resting mere centimeters away from the head of his cock. His grip on my hair strengthened. “I want this so bad. Please let me make you feel good.”

One of his hands left my hair to caress my cheek, his eyes soft and warm as he looked at me. I couldn’t see his smile, but by the creasing of his under eyes, I could tell he was pleased.

His hand returned to my hair before he guided my lips to his cock, and I parted my lips, allowing him entrance. My entire body tensed like it were on the brink of orgasm just from tasting him. A soft pant escaped from his mouth and went straight to my pussy, adding fuel to the existing fire. I couldn’t imagine how my panties must have looked by now.

In my mouth, I lapped at his slit, delighting in the taste of his pre-cum beading at the tip—proof, undeniable proof, that he was aching for this just as badly as I was. I drew back to suck the head, teasing it with my tongue. Simon tugged my hair, just enough to send sparks down my spine, and he let out a stiff groan that would have had my knees buckling if I weren’t kneeling. I moved my hand to his cock, still running my tongue around the head.

“Look at me,” he grunted, followed by another deep groan. “Now, whore.”

The knot in my stomach tightened, and I obeyed immediately. Our gazes met, hot enough to put the sun to shame, explosive enough to dim any supernova. I removed my hand to take his whole length into my mouth—a struggle, given how big and thick he was. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have been sure I could take it if I hadn’t so many times before.

Fully seated in my mouth, his tip rested in my throat. I bobbed my head back and forth, shallow strokes to let him fuck my throat. Simon’s moans were so beautiful, thick like honey, deep like a valley, easily the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

I pulled away for a few moments for air, treasuring it while I still had it—which did not last long, because Simon dragged my head back to his dick and slid his dick back into my throat. He held my head in place, fucking my mouth with deep, long strokes until I was drooling onto my thighs.

“So good,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut. “Can’t believe… you’d deprive me of this for so long… God how have I made it… without your sweet, whore mouth?”

His praise made me whimper on his dick. He continued to fuck my mouth at an increasingly-brutal pace, and I could tell he was right there. And God, did I want him to cum. I needed him to cum; it was all my brain could focus on, how badly I wanted him to cum, how I would suffocate on his cock if it meant he would cum. I’d do anything, anything…

My hand reached up to cup his balls, massaging them gently in my palm while I dragged my tongue along the underside of his cock. Simon’s hips began to stutter, and his moans grew in volume and richness.

“Fuck, gonna cum,” he breathed, his muscles under my free hand tensing and flexing.

I nodded enthusiastically, drooling harder at the thought of him flooding my mouth with his cum.

Instead, though, Simon pulled me away from his cock by my hair and wrapped one of his hands around his shaft, pumping it to cum on my face. I shut my eyes and stuck out my tongue, my pussy absolutely melting, while he painted my face. A few drops dribbled onto my lips, which I greedily lapped up.

God, he tasted so good. He always did. The best I had ever tasted, that’s for damn sure. I wasn’t sure anything more divine could exist in this world.

Simon knelt, chest heaving, and I opened my eyes to look at him. He took his middle and index fingers and wiped up the splatters of cum on my cheeks and nose. I opened my mouth, beckoning him to let me clean his fingers. He obliged, and I wrapped my lips around his fingers, my tongue swirling around the digits to lap up every last drop.

After, his other hand wrapped around mine to help me up. My knees were wobbly but mostly stable, only threatened by the adrenaline rampaging under my skin. He led me to the bed, scooped me into his large arms to lay me down on it before throwing off his hoodie and t-shirt, leaving it on the ground somewhere with his jacket and gloves.

He lifted his balaclava again as he settled over me, just enough to expose his lips, before his kissed me. I spread my legs out to make room for his broad frame, letting him rest comfortably between my hips. He kissed me slow and long, his hand snaking under my t-shirt to graze my breasts.

I gasped when his hand cupped my left breast, taking it entirely in his palm. He kneaded it firmly with the pressure he knew I liked, enough to have me beginning to writhe underneath him. A moan escaped me, floating right into Simon’s mouth. He took my nipple between his fingers, rolling and pinching it just the way I liked, forcing a soft squeak out of my mouth.

Simon’s mouth drifted down to my neck, nipping and sucking at my skin while his hand moved to my other breast. The drum between my legs was beginning to get insufferable now, especially with his hardening dick pressing into my core. I shifted my hips, begging for friction—something—if he wasn’t going to touch me yet, but his hand moved away from my chest to press my hips back into the mattress.

“Greedy fucking slut,” he growled into my ear. “So fucking impatient. Can’t take what I give you as I give it to you?”

I whined, “Simon, please. I want it so bad.”

His hand crept into my shorts, then into my panties, floating against the top of my slit, just a hair away from my clit. “Yeah? Yet you’ve gone all these months without it. Surely you can go a while longer.”

I huffed, squeezing my eyes shut as his lips began his rampage again. His fingers didn’t move any lower, just rubbed delicate circles into the skin of my vulva.

“Please. Do you want me to beg? I’ll beg, I will, just… I need it, Simon—I need you.”

 He chuckled, low and deep. “Oh yeah? I bet you do, whore. That’s why you cut me off out of the blue and wouldn’t so much as look at me. Because you need me, right?”

I groaned, tilting my neck back as he moved down to my collarbone. “That was a mistake, Simon, I’m sorry. Please don’t make me wait, I need you so badly.”

He chuckled again, but it didn’t sound nearly as entertained as before. I could tell there was more he wanted to say but decided against it. The air between us held the words he couldn’t say, and I could feel them… I just didn’t know what else there was. He had always been so unreadable, and never more unreadable than this moment—on the cusp of making me a screaming, begging mess, but clearly upset by the circumstances.

“You’re sorry for what?”

I sighed, still impatient. This was what he wanted to do right now?

“Apologize, or I’ll leave. I’ll leave you here to make yourself cum like you’ve had to every night since you left,” Simon demanded, his hand leaving my panties to wrap itself around my throat. His grip was firm, just loose enough to allow me room to speak—enough to remind me of the consequences if I didn’t. “Say it, whore.”

 I chewed my lip but decided to acquiesce to his demands. Even if I didn’t mean it, I would at least get what I wanted. And there was no way he was this upset about it—must have just been a ruse to get me riled up. He was too detached to have felt anything, not the way I did at least.

The thought made me sad for a moment—because God damn did I feel things for this man, and I knew he would never feel anything remotely similar—but only for a moment because Simon squeezed my throat in warning.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry for leaving, for not pleasing you,” I said, licking my lips. “Please fuck me.”

His lips met mine again, more frenzied this time, his hand around my throat moving back beneath my panties. I gasped when his fingers danced over my slit, parting my lips and granting him access. His tongue met mine, tasting me, exploring me for what felt like the first time, committing me to memory. He bit down onto my lower lip just as his fingers found my clit, pulling a needy cry from my throat.

Two of his fingers spun around my clit in a circle, his pressure light, just enough to tease. I pressed my hips upward into his hands pleadingly, hoping to urge him into giving me more. Simon pulled away from my lips to shoot me a glare, shaking his head firmly.

“No, no… I won’t let you lay here and act like a desperate fucking whore, even if you are one,” he scolded with a click of his tongue. “You’re going to let me touch you how I want to if you want even the slightest chance of cumming tonight.”

My core clenched, the feeling shooting all the way up to my lungs. I nodded hesitantly, eyes wide, as he continued to just barely graze my clit, just enough to have me aching.

“Good girl,” he praised, his voice a low vibrato against my jaw.

His fingers travelled lower, pressing up into my dripping entrance. He ran his fingers up and down my labia, slicking his fingers, before he eased two into my core. I stifled a moan with my hand as he pumped his fingers into me, slowly still, clearly with the goal of driving me just to the brink of orgasm without quite throwing me off the cliff.

“Oh no,” he said with a curl of his fingers that had me seeing stars. “I said I’m going to make good use of that mouth tonight. That includes making you fucking scream.”

“Simon,” I half-moaned, half-protested, clenching down onto his fingers. “Fuck, Simon, but they—”

“Don’t care,” he cut me off, driving his fingers into me harder. “They all think you hate me anyway. Would never suspect it’s me fucking you into tears.”

He curled his fingers with every stroke now, rubbing right into the spot that had me crying his name out.

“There it is, sweet thing,” he cooed into my skin. “So fucking tired of them not knowing how much you want me. I want this whole damn post to know it’s my fingers, my cock, that you cum on. Sick of everyone thinking you don’t belong to me.”

I whined, his fingers and his words driving me painfully close to orgasm.

“Tell me you belong to me.”

It took me half a second longer to understand his words with my brain swirling so blissfully; I could barely understand English, much less speak it. But for Simon, for the sake of finding my release, I’d have to try.

“Yours…” I squeaked, followed by a desperate moan. “I’m yours, Simon. All, ah, fuck, yours!”

He slowed his fingers, driving the stars at the edge of my vision away. My eyes shot open with a pleading cry. “Doesn’t sound like you mean it. Try again.”

I gulped, my throat scratchy and stinging. “I’m yours, Simon; I belong to you, you can use me however you want. Anything to please you, Simon, please. I need it, I need you, I’m yours, please make me cum.”

He laughed mockingly, resuming his original pace right at that spot that had me crying out to God. My fingernails dug into the skin of his back, raking across the vast expanse. Tears pricked my eyes, the pleasure so great after not having it for months, sliding down my cheeks.

God, I was right there. So, so fucking close, but I feared he wouldn’t let me have it. I feared he would punish me for leaving without even knowing my reasons.

I stuttered, “P-please, Simon… So close… Please…”

I could feel his lips curl into a cheeky, taunting grin. “You’ve been waiting for this, huh? Could see it in the way you were squirming in your chair earlier. You need this, you’ve been dying for me to make you cum, huh? Is that it?”

“Yes,” I gasped, my vision blurring at the edges. “Could only think about you fucking me, needed you so badly all day. Please let me cum.”

“Aw, my sweet thing wants to cum…”

His thumb came up to my clit, rubbing it in soft strokes while his fingers curled against my g-spot. The tears came harder now, my body shaking and twitching under his, as I fought the urge to cum until he let me.

God help me if he didn’t let me.

“You want it, huh?”

“Yes,” I cried.

“Then cum. Cum on my fingers like the desperate bitch you are. Now.”

With a cry of his name loud enough to disturb anyone on this floor, I came, tensing and quaking beneath his broad frame. His fingers continued to work me through my orgasm until I was begging for a break, backing my hips into the mattress.

Simon pulled his fingers from my pussy and sucked them into his mouth, keeping his eyes on mine. As if I hadn’t just came, my core twitched, heat flushing my skin all over again. I sat up on my elbows and panted, eyes glued to him, trying to guess what he planned to do to me next.

And it didn’t take long for me to find out. He pressed my chest down, pushing me back into the pillows, and he crawled between my legs. Within seconds, he had my shorts and panties thrown into some unknown corner in my room. I opened my mouth to protest, but Simon quickly hushed me with a death grip around my throat. Pressure flooded my face as he buried his into my sensitive pussy.

He loosened his grasp on my arteries enough to allow me to take a frantic breath. He licked a stripe up my slit, the tip of his tongue teasing my clit softly, but still enough to make me twitch.

“Simon, I can’t,” I breathed, balling up the blanket into my hands so tightly I thought my knuckles would shatter.

He shook his head. “You can.”

I inhaled sharply, his tongue lapping fully at my clit now. “It’s so sensitive, Simon…”

“So?” He paused briefly, removing his hand from my throat to wrap his arms around my hips and pull my thighs apart. “Let me make you feel good, sweet thing. I haven’t tasted this pussy in months. Let me enjoy it.”

One of my hands trailed down to rest on the back of his neck. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“That’s what I thought.”

He moved his mouth to my thighs, a short reprieve from the lightning striking my nerves. He bit and sucked a mark into my inner thigh, then peppered tiny kisses back up to my core. I met his eyes as he pressed the flat of his tongue against my clit.

God, the pressure was just right, just enough to leave my head spinning, enough to grab the knot in my abdomen and tug at it. I spiraled, squeezing my eyes shut as he kept his tongue on my clit, alternating between soft, gentle sucks and licks.

I didn’t think I would last long, truthfully. I couldn’t, not with how well he knew my body. His mouth had me arching my back off the bed, my pussy drooling into his mouth.

And when I thought the pleasure couldn’t get any more consuming, he slid two fingers inside of me and crooked them. How he could find that spot so easily, I would never know, and I couldn’t think about it with the pressure inside me spreading even into my brain.

I whined, my nails moving to his shoulder to dig them into his muscle, looking for some sort of anchor to reality, the pleasure so great I thought he might knock me unconscious.

And then, right at the edge, Simon pulled away from my clit and withdrew his fingers.

My eyes snapped open, and I cried out, my eyebrows pinching together in frustration and outrage. My pussy was pulsing, tensing, contracting around nothing.

“You cum when I let you,” was all he said, sucking his fingers into his mouth.

“But—”

“Don’t care.”

I groaned. Insufferable bastard.

He repositioned himself over me, giving a soft kiss to my lips. “Don’t worry, little one. You’ll get to cum.”

But I want it right now, I pouted, reaching back up to kiss him. My hands held his cheeks under his balaclava, feeling prickly stubble under my fingertips. For a moment, I was convinced we had gone back a few months with how tenderly he kissed me—that there was never any tension between us, that I was falling in love, that he was still mine to some extent.

He pulled me from my thoughts by pressing the tip of his dick against me, gliding it between my flooded folds.

“So wet,” he mumbled against my lips, pulling away to press his forehead to mine. “Tell me how badly you want it.”

I gulped , speechless, hoping he might just give it to me even if I didn’t say anything. When I met his eyes though, steely and cavernous and staring right into my soul, I knew I would have to offer myself up to him, or else.

“So bad,” I breathed, my lips sweeping across his. “I want you so badly. Might just die right here if you don’t fuck me.”

He chuckled under his breath, clearly amused, but I lost all knowledge of humor when he took my hand in one of his hands and braced my hip with the other, pushing into me.

Dear God, if I didn’t know from experience that it would fit, I wouldn’t have thought I could take it. Every inch stretched me to Heaven, closer and closer to my judgement day. He stuffed me slowly, bit by bit, though I knew with how I had to be flooding the room by now Simon could have made me take it all at once.

But he didn’t. It was torture, and he knew this. Worse, I think he liked it.

When he was finally seated in me, I unscrewed my eyelids and looked at him, watched the pleasure spread onto the few facial features I could see. Simon paused for only a moment, the only break I was sure I would get, just long enough to press a shaky kiss to my temple.

Simon fucked me with long, brutal strokes, punching air out of my lungs. My free hand wrapped around my ribs to claw my nails into his back. With every thrust, I struggled to focus on reality, clinging to the ragged grunts in my ear. He dragged me between Heaven and Hell with every single stroke, igniting every single neuron and nerve in my body and brain like a forest fire.

I cried out his name among an intelligible string of sounds, most of them not even English, stinging his back with my nails. I cut deep enough to bleed, I was sure of it—though judging by the absolute symphony of curses and moans in my neck, Simon either didn’t feel it or really liked it.

“So fucking tight,” he hissed in my ear, vocal chords wrenched by the pleasure. “Gripping me so good… God, I’ll never let another man have this.”

My breath hitched but was quickly dislodged by a shift of his pelvis, reaching into places I didn’t even know existed. With every pound of his hips, my vision went dotty at the edges.

“All. Fucking. Mine,” Simon snarled into my ear, each word punctuated by a snap of his hips.

Simon’s free hand went to my throat again, clamping my arteries.

I whimpered, the sound mangled by the pressure gripping my throat and face. I could feel it then, how I teetered at the edge, right at the borderline of orgasm, spurred onward by the oxygen he deprived me of.

I croaked, “So close, Simon, so close…”

He was dragging me by my ankles to the edge of the cliff, stroke by stroke, second by second.

Oh, I was right there—

Until Simon released my throat, withdrew himself out of me, and grabbed me by the hips to flip me over onto my hands and knees, all within the blink of an eye. Right at the peak, and then back at the very bottom of the pit, all before I could even comprehend that his hand had come off my throat.

In my haze, I didn’t even hear the clink of his belt behind me, and it wasn’t until he had tied my wrists together that I wailed.

“Oh, you thought you were going to cum?” He teased, pressing my chest deeper into the mattress with the calloused palm of his hand against the valley between my shoulder blades. “No, no, not yet. With how fucking mean you’ve been, depriving me of this precious pussy, I don’t think you’ve fucking earned it. Have you, whore?”

His hand moved into my hair when I didn’t answer right away, still blinking away my disbelief and settling back into reality. Simon took a thick fistful of my hair and yanked my head away from the mattress, his other hand slipping beneath my breasts to pull the upper half of my body up.

“Fucking answer me, bitch.”

I swallowed hard, my throat scratchy, beginning to ache. “No, no, I haven’t, but I said I’m sorry, Simon, please…”

He strained my body in his direction and released the hand in my hair, only for it to meet my cheek in a harsh, resonating crack. The sting spread like wildfire up the side of my face, reactivating all the hot, desperate nerves that had just begun to settle. I felt my entire abdomen clench, my stomach twisting, my pussy throbbing in desire.

“Again,” I half-whispered, half-begged, eyeing him as well as I could at the uncomfortable angle he had me twisted. “Please, Simon, hit me again.”

“You would like that, slut,” he chastised, though he ultimately gave in and slapped me again. And again, it fanned the embers of my yearning. “You like to be hit, huh? You like to be hurt?”

I nodded, and Simon returned his hand into my hair, pushing my face back into the mattress as he lined himself up between my slippery, dripping folds. He leant down to press his lips to my ear, his warm breath soft and welcome against my burning skin.

“Is that why you chose to hurt me, huh? You thought I’d like it?”

When he grabbed my hips and pushed back inside me, I lost all train of thought. Every merciless thrust scattered those thoughts, driving them further and further out of my grasp. My pussy accepted him, hungrily, enthusiastically, hysterically, swallowing him up and clutching his cock like I might be able to stop him from edging me this time.

Simon’s fingertips dug into the swell of my hips, clinging to me as if I could move. As if I’d want to move, as if I’d want to be anywhere other than beneath him. This was the most divine place I’d ever been, and after this, the most divine place I’d probably ever be.

I never wanted to be anywhere more, never wanted to be anywhere other than right here, next to him, underneath him, beside him—anywhere as long as he was within reach of me. Now that I had it again, now that he was driving me into euphoria again, I didn’t think I’d be able to bear being anywhere but.

Simon shifted, leaning over my body, his hand not in my hair planted by my head. The change in angles had him grinding into my g-spot with every vicious, rough thrust. Stars clouded my vision while black encroached on the edges.

“Simon,” I shrieked, mouth half-full of my comforter. “Simon, you’re going to make me fucking cum.”

“Oh yeah?” He grunted, removing his hand from my hair, allowing me to angle my head out of the blankets. “Is that what you want?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will away the building tension between my legs. “Not… not if you’re not going to let me…”

Simon snickered above me, and from my position, I was clueless to his hand floating above my body until his fingers found my clit, circling it, caressing it. My eyes rolled into the back of my head so hard I swore I saw the folds of my brain somewhere beneath the stars.

With every pass of his fingers, my hips shook. I gasped for air, losing it faster than I could take it in, and I craned my head to look at him pleadingly, begging him wordlessly to not deprive me this time.

“Yeah, you want to cum, sweet thing?” Simon asked, his fingers and hips still relentless. Faster, even. When I said nothing beyond a imploring moan, he continued, “Oh, you must be right there…”

I nodded frantically, tears pooling in my eyes.

"Mhm, right there huh? You’re about to cum?”

I whined, sucking in a hungry breath, struggling to keep driving my orgasm away.

“I want you to, my pretty girl. I want you to cum. Cum so hard you can’t fucking see. Cum so hard this entire fucking post hears you.”

My body quaked beneath him, my muscles straining beneath him as he teetered me right on the edge.

“Come on, you can do it, love. I know you’re right there, please cum for me.”

I cried out, sobbing into my comforter under his touch, stuck on the last thread.

And then he said my name. He moaned it, feeling my pussy squeeze him tighter, pulsing, convulsing, right at the very precipice.

That was all it took. One single moan of my name from Simon, and my orgasm hit me with the force of a nuclear bomb, leaving me writhing beneath him, pussy spasming, milking him, begging him for anything he would give me. The world went black, empty, filled with only the feeling of his hands on my hips and the sound of his voice grunting and moaning my name like he was calling out to a deity.

“I’m going to cum,” he mumbled, words breathy. “I’m going to fucking stuff you, you want that? Tell me you want it.”

I nodded, still euphoric, but begged him to cum anyway.

Inside me, that was the only acceptable option.

When Simon came it was like listening to angels sing. My lower half was flooded with warmth while his hips stuttered and his fingers dug into my flesh so hard I wondered if he would crush my bones.

And I would have let him, too. I would have let Simon do anything to me.

He eased to a stop, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his chest. Simon’s hands moved to my ass to caress it, kneading gentle circles into my muscle. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding while he withdrew from inside of me, promptly followed by a warm drip of cum down the inside of my thigh.

Whatever. I’d wash my blankets after.

He held me up in his arms to undo the belt around my wrists. After, I lowered myself onto my stomach, soreness shooting up my spine from the way he had my body bent for the last… however long.

I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling, and reality fell onto my face like a bag of loose bricks. Dear God, what had just happened? What had I just done?

Simon seemed to realize it, too, judging by his silence. We sat awkwardly, naked, sweaty, together but somehow so, so far apart, for some period of time I couldn’t estimate. I sat there debating my options, debating how I’d explain this to anyone who heard—and I knew people would have heard.

They all thought I hated Simon Riley. How was I going to explain crying his name out to the heavens? There was no explanation, none that anyone would buy anyway. Even if I had told them I was simply touching myself to a stupid, dirty fantasy and got carried away, any one of my neighbors would have heard his voice at minimum, if not the plethora of lewd noises we made.

Simon’s voice pierced the silence. “You going to tell me what the fuck the last 4 months were about?”

I winced. “You don’t want to know.”

“Wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t want to know,” Simon countered, turning his head to look at me. I debated continuing to resist if it meant he’d stay even 20 seconds longer. I didn’t think he’d put his clothes on and leave until he was satisfied. “You owe me an answer.”

“I do not,” I replied, looking down at my fidgeting fingers instead. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

The mattress sunk and shook as he moved, coming to take my face in his hands. My heart plummeted into the floor, almost stilling completely.

He whispered, “Look at me.”

Something about the odd soft tenderness in his voice compelled me to look. I froze, gripped by the look in his eyes, the same one that drove me to push him away and run 4 months ago. My eyes stung, his face becoming watercolor through the screen of my tears.

“Simon, please don’t look at me like that,” I begged, the words barely making it out of my narrowing throat. “Please, let’s just not do this right now. It will be so much easier if we just go back to how things were before we had sex.”

“Am I supposed to care about that?” He argued, seemingly for the sake of his own curiosity.

That was why he fucked me—he wanted something from me. That’s all it ever was for him. Me, giving him something he craved, and that was it. I was stupid enough to fall in love with him, and he was just using me as a pawn in his own personal depravity.

But when I looked in his eyes, I was convinced that couldn’t have been it. How could anyone look at another person with such benevolence and warmth in their eyes if it were for nothing? Could he be that cruel to me?

I leant up and pressed a soft kiss to his lips over his balaclava. Simon didn’t flinch the way I expected him to. Instead, a calloused finger tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, and he just kept looking at me with those eyes.

Those eyes I had stared into for hours, those eyes I had come to know, those eyes that had begun to reveal bits and pieces of his soul to me when it felt right.

Those eyes I hadn’t looked into for four months.

I sighed. It was now or never.

“I want things from you I could never have,” I revealed, my throat still tight, eyebrows furrowing slightly at the center of my face while I monitored the look in his eyes. “Things that don’t exist for people like us. Things that you wouldn’t be interested in giving me even if they did.”

Simon was silent for a moment, but the look in his eyes didn’t falter. There was nothing else in the world then, nothing but Simon and his glimmering eyes.

“Because you never asked.”

A tear scorched a path down my cheek. Simon took the pad of this thumb and wiped it away, the heat of his skin enough to convince me this was real. But it couldn't have been, could it? That there was a chance...

This was real.

Lieutenant Simon Riley, with the same sentiments as me.

God, pinch me if I am dreaming.

“Lay down with me, love,” Simon mumbled, scooping me into his scar-dotted, tattooed arms as he inched us further up the bed. “Let’s talk, like we used to.”