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shittybundaskenyer · 7 months

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✹ ▬ 𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐒

rating: Explicit pairing: Female Shepard x Garrus Vakarian summary: the Mako breaks down in a snowstorm on Noveria. Shepard is stuck with her turian friend after some things went sideways in one of the research labs. warnings: first time gone wrong (but then so right), sex pollen, so much kissing, just pure smut (what do you want from me??), does doing it in the Mako is considered car sex?, interspecies sex, love confessions, so much fluff, Garrus is too sweet for his own good word count: 3831

a/n: I had Mass Effect Legendary Edition on my PC for like a year and I'm now cursing myself why I've waited for so long to play the trilogy. The Bioware brainrot took me once more under its influence so I guess I'm going back to my roots. This is almost entirely is pure smut, I guess I can't write anything else nowadays but I'm embracing it now. So have this very rusty, messy love scene I wrote in a frenzy after finishing the trilogy. <33

MASTERLIST | ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Noveria is cold and white and still beautiful in that strange way only death can be. It became the noose woven around Garrus’ own neck too, when it twirled his fate and Shepard's own together in form of a messy string.

It only started becoming strange when Shepard started to tear her armor off of her body, but by then all common sense was out, laying dead in the relentless snowstorm. She became feverish, smelling so sweet, like summer, like sun-warmed earth, like arousal that Garrus had realized all too late. They were warned by the dangers of the labs surrounding Peak 15, the tower that was like an old pine ringed by fungi, all the rot and unethical discoveries blooming under the disguise of neat little buildings that twinkled in the darkened landscape—a constellation hiding in a thick cloud of dark matter.

He knows she was curious. He knows she only wanted to help, but Spirits, it will be the death of her one day, N7 or not, she’s only human. And she’s fragile, a goddamn glass cannon that can blow up the whole universe and crumble from hands that grip her a bit too tight at the same time.

Liara’s warning came too late, they had to cut to the chase and there was no time to think about the consequences of Shepard's stray shot breaking open the containment cell of an unnaturally lush, succulent little flower in one of the labs. It didn’t set in until they were in the Mako and she steered the dumb tank even more recklessly than she did it stone cold sober. A boulder came, then the half of the mountain too, raining down thick globes of fresh snow until the Mako was good and well stuck. She was sweating by then, skin hot and wet and her eyes wild and Liara offered to get help from one of the nearby labs, leaving Garrus to protect his commander with his life. From what, he didn’t know. There was nothing, only snow and wind and Shepard’s warmth all around them for miles. But time trickled by like water on a glass window after a storm, slow, sluggish, and Shepard couldn’t keep herself in line anymore.

She pleaded for a caress she always wanted from him and he wanted to give her everything instead.

(Maybe he loved her all along.)

And now, now Liara is gone and has been gone for hours, and Garrus pushes Shepard into the Mako's seat, his forehead meeting hers, something akin to a kiss only lovers do. Her skin is damp, her hair sticking to her face in messed up crimson ribbons and he tries to trace the constellations under her eye with a blunted talon when blood floods her cheeks, making them twinkle like stars adrift a sea of nebulae. The Mako is dark but not dark enough to hide the fire flickering in her gaze, shielded by a series of curved, dark lashes. Humans and their strange hair—eyebrows and lashes and thousands of fair fuzz that stand up as he moves his hand lover, to the vulnerable skin of her throat, swiping a thumb over her pulse that jumps wildly at the touch.

"Kiss me," she whispers, barely audible for the translator to pick up, and it almost sounds like music like this, a series of hisses and high notes, so he nuzzles his way closer to hear it once more, now pleading, the sound buzzing in her throat.

It's beautiful in a way.

"How?" he whispers against the side of her jaw, warm plates against cooler skin, and she puts a hand to his face, five fingers splaying over his colony markings, urging him upwards until her lips can brush over his mouth. It's strange. It's unbelievably soft. Then— wet as her tongue darts out and tries to coax his mouth plates apart.

He takes the leap and lets her in. Even if he has all the sharp teeth, even if it's wildly different from his own experiences. And Spirits, it feels good. It's tender—even though they started to tear at each other's armor before this, even though he has to clench his fingers into a fist before he scratches her in his hurry. This has to be gentle where nothing in the world is.

His tongue meets hers, and now he understands why humans like kissing so much. He does now too. Shepard makes a sound as he tastes the inside of her mouth, the blunt edge of her teeth and sucks in a breath when Garrus pulls back to gaze down at her and find her looking dazed.

"Alright?," he checks, always, afraid of fucking this precious thing up and Shepard has the audacity to smile. Full of teeth and curving lips, a flash of white in the darkness.

"I'm good," she knocks her forehead against his, nuzzling him, "really good."

Garrus kisses her again as an answer, bolder now, so much braver, and he kisses and kisses her until there's no more left to give, until there's no air in her lungs. Something new shines in her eyes, in the pool of darkness that is her pupils, dilated beyond belief, ringed by a thin strip of wild green, a black hole with a halo. Want. Need. Something more. Something unbelievable.

Garrus rumbles deep in his chest, a sound so low she can only feel its vibration against her sternum, the crook of her neck where his face finds a home. His subvocals sing so many things at once, a confession she can't understand, not yet. Contentment. Gratefulness. Lust. Love.

(Maybe I love you.)

She drags her hand across his face again, that delicate, soft hand that is only calloused in places where wielding a gun made the skin harder. She touches his fringe, and under it, where plates turn into the most vulnerable patch of hide he has on his body. His voice grows louder, more like a growl than a purr, and she smiles again, so pretty something under his keelbone jumps and bursts and flickers—a star being born.

"That's—," he starts and he's not proud of the way his voice trembles. "That's one way to give the night a quick start."

Shepard's fingers stop in their movement, but before she could pull away he takes a hold of her forearm and soothes a thumb over the inside of her wrist, guiding her back to that spot.

"Am I hurting you?"

"Spirits, no," he flicks a mandible at her, his way of smiling, and Shepard puts her mouth to his jaw as her confidence grows. Garrus can feel the plates at his sheath slowly parting and somehow he's hyperaware of her body trapped against his, her knee brushing his own, warm even through metal and ceramic plates.

They have to strip down that damn armor, like, right now.

But Shepard knows this, feels this too, and her hand disappears so she can grab the waist of his pants and tug on it, even though turian armor is not designed in a way that it could make it come off easily.

"Help me, will you?" she asks against the side of his mandible, face and incredibly soft lips still so close, her eyelashes brushing his jaw as she looks down between them in the dark and Garrus desperately wishes that he could feel that fluttering. Instead, he's stripping. The rest of his undersuit that was hanging by his hips goes lower when he unfastens every little clasp and belt he has around his spurs.

Shepard licks his mouth. He rumbles again, louder when the thin fabric of protective weave finally pools on the Mako's floor, and he's right up there against her, pressing close, so close, until his keel digs between her breasts and his side is framed by her knees and he kisses her the human way, with so much tongue and want it leaves her breathless.

"How much time do we have?" he asks against the underside of her ear, finding a soft spot there, one that pulls a whimper from her.

"Barely any," she hisses and lets him nibble on the curve of her neck. "Gonna make the most of it?"

"Trying to," he smiles, mandibles catching her messy hair, blood red on silver, hands going up to cradle her nape, to get lost in that soft sea of crimson.

Shepard likes this, likes the feel of his hide on her skin and she wants more, wants no barriers in those minimal, quiet gaps the differences of their bodies create. Negative space filled with heat and some unintelligible emotion, something like summer, something like home. She melds her body to his and Garrus can't help the low resonance his subvocals start to make.

"Am I hurting you?" she whispers as she lays tiny kisses on his neck, just beside the edge of the plates shielding his spine. "You're trembling."

"No, I just—," his breath hitches as those kisses turn into gentle nips. Right where a bondmark would go. Spirits, he's slipping. She can't know this, she can't— "You just found all the good buttons to push."

He feels her smirk on his hide. He wants to have her mark here, even though the thought terrifies him.

(Maybe I love you.)

"You know I'm good at pushing buttons."

Garrus chuckles but it comes out rasped. He doesn't care. Not when he can feel her body vibrating, shivering as his hands finally roam downwards, onto her sides, her hips, the soft of her belly that is so blessedly bare.

He slides a talon along the muscles leading down, around the small divot in the middle, lower still where Shepard's already lifting her hips up to let him free her of her undersuit pants. There's still some fabric that remains, covering her most intimate parts but she grabs his hands and makes him grip the fabric of it in a hurry.

"Pull this down too," she whisper-commands and he obliges, skims the tips of his blunted talons over the jut of her hipbones, a feature all too familiar on a body made of infinite curves. It traps his gaze, the small hills and valleys, freckled here too, and hairy when he gazes lower, a trail of tiny red curls disappearing between lush thighs as he reveals more of her skin.

The undergarment only gets down one leg, dangles on the other by her knee when he pries apart her thighs, makes himself at home right in the cradle of them. This is all too fast and all too hot, but none of them complains as they meet in another heated kiss. She smells different like this, stronger, sweet and tangy and something else, pure arousal he realizes, and Garrus can't hold himself back any longer, can't will the swollen edges of his sheath to stay closed.

"Show me how to touch you," he asks, almost pleads, because damn, he can't be selfish with her, not when he trusts her with his life and wants all the happiness the world can offer for her. That too, is a confession he's not ready to make, not for himself and not for her, but Shepard stops him in his thoughts as she puts her hand back right under his fringe, driving him wild.

"None of that right now," she pants, breathless as his hands go bruising on her hips. "I just want you inside me."

Fuck, this was not the way Garrus thought he would die.

"I don't want to hurt—" she interrupts him with another kiss, then a hand on his stomach, low enough to almost graze the plates on his groin.

"Please, Garrus," it's a plea. Broken and rasped. Raw, like a fresh wound. Why is she suffering?

"Don't let me hurt you. I could not live with myself and the consequences."

"You're sweet," she smiles quietly, looking up at him from under the shadow of those long lashes, eyes burning with fire and want and that same thing that eats his heart alive, while it still beats a wild rhythm only for her.

Garrus touches a hand between her legs, follows the trail of fascinating hair to where it parts in a seam of flesh, soft folds hiding a hot, wet warmth. It's familiar enough, so much more slick and so much smaller, but there's give in the muscle lower, where his finger finally dips inside her. Spirits, that’s—

She angles her hips, and moans, right beside his ear when his finger slips deeper, almost to the last knuckle in one go and damn if that's not something he'll remember for the rest of his life.

"C'mon," her lips brush the word against his mandible. He puts his forehead to hers and pulls his hand away, moving her instead, three fingers splayed on the jut of a hipbone.

It takes a little more shuffling, a little more angling and gripping for him to slot himself right at the apex of her thighs, her warmth scorching here, a sun, a red giant star, her wetness smearing on the bare hide of his stomach and then he's holding her firm and letting his sheath finally, blessedly open, his cock sliding out and into her in a slow, perfect motion.

Shepard doesn't breathe. She can't. Garrus can feel her shuddering against his keel as he keeps filling her, making way for himself inside her even though there's barely any. He never thought she could— that she would have all of him, like this, with her leg cramping up around his hip, with her throat full to bursting with unsaid curses and whimpers. His subvocals scream, his mind fogged by the feeling of her oh so close, so perfect, so beautiful like this, with her hands bruising his neck and her lips open on some silent shout.

"Fuck, Garrus I—," there's a hitch in her breath, then a fluttering squeeze right on his cock, her muscles clenching up. He's gonna lose his mind just like how he lost control of his voice.

(I love you.)

“I got you,” he murmurs instead, eyes half-closed, hands still gripping her waist. “I got you sweetheart.”

Shepard squirms, pulls his face right down to her, then lower, into the crook of her neck and a deep urge surfaces in him, an instinct buried deep under centuries of civilized life and culture, yet it was never erased from his genes. He evolved like this, with the want, the need, to bite, to mark something that he wants to forever keep his own. Turians mate for life. If she leaves now, he thinks he will die. Can another soul be ripped from his own? He would gladly lay in a cold grave with her. Would follow her to the end of the universe and back, just so he can protect her. Shield the one that wants to keep the world from crumbling. Travel through all the stars and Mass Relays laying dormant, see all the wild emptiness and beauty of the galaxy and it would still be nothing compared to the way she looks up at him now.

There’s water collecting at her pinched brows; sweat, he remembers, and he lifts a hand there to swipe it away. Her eyes are wet too, glossy, glinting in the low light like a starry night sky over home.

“Garrus—” she presses out between her teeth, her face scrunched up in a frown of pain-pleasure he assumes, because she never makes a move to push him away, to halt this perfect joining. He hopes it’s okay. He hopes he’s not fucking this up. Losing her after this would be a killing blow. A heart-shaped bullet hole right on his heart.

“Just tell me how,” he takes her cheek in his palm, angles her so that he can kiss her. Slowly. Softly. It’s a fleeting thing that ends with her nipping on his mouth, his tongue, just to get his attention. Like his every nerve was not focused on her anyway from the start.

“Please move,” she murmurs against his mandible, her body squeezing him tight, making him groan. He pulls back a little, testing, careful, always so afraid of hurting her, his tough girl, but Shepard smiles and it’s enough to make him thrust shallowly into her. “Yeah, you feel so good.”

Garrus’ vision whites out for a second as her insides tug him back inside, so warm and so wet that a messy patch is already forming between their bodies, his sheath hitting her folds, the friction blinding, and the sight even more as he looks down, fringe tangled into her hair, and in the darkness he finds himself nestled deep, her cunt stretched around him, glistening in their combined want.

He moves, spirits, he moves. And his chest rumbles and his hands shake and his mandibles twitch at her cheek and his heart aches so damn hard it makes his breaths get stuck in his lungs like trapped creatures in a bone cage.

(I love you so damn much.)

She moves with him like a tide, like water rising on an endless black ocean alight with stars, then falling back, and even though he knows she's the most horrible dancer the galaxy has, she follows the steps of this tango by heart. Maybe because it's wanted. Maybe because it's with him. He desperately wishes that it would be true.

"I won't last long like this," his voice is barely picked up by the translator and he knows this, hopes that she doesn't mind the sounds he makes. They're real. So perfectly clear in their meaning, so sure in expressing something he's not yet ready to say when she can understand.

(I love you, I love you, I love you.)

She puts a palm to his stomach, just above his sheath, five lithe fingers mapping out the narrow lines of his sides, and damn, it makes his cock twitch, makes him thrust in roughly for the first time. There's a sound of delight. It comes from her, head tipped back and lips smeared with spit and red strands of hair, like fresh blood after a good brawl.

"Yes," she breathes out, dragging him down to her, clinging to him tightly as he finally moves his hips in a hard, steady rhythm. His knees are gonna kill him later but it doesn’t matter because he’s with her, joined like lovers, like mates.

She takes his hand, leads it over her body, to the divot of her collarbones, her sternum, the dip of her stomach, then the soft of her belly where she makes him press down a little, makes him feel the distinct shape of him moving inside her. That's something entirely new.

It makes him even more aware of the fact that this small, fragile woman would take up a krogan in a fistfight and come out alive. It makes him lose his mind. It makes some sick, posessive part of him growl and rumble and hold her so tight he's sure her hips are gonna bruise.

"Shepard," he hisses, one hand gripping the seat behind her to find more leverage, her sounds getting louder, out of breath and high-pitched, his name a silent mantra only muttered with gaping lips. “Show me how to make you come.”

She whimpers, clutches his fingers tighter on her navel. The talons of his other hand tear the Mako’s seat behind her. She drags his palm over the mound of hairy flesh where they join, and he enjoys carding his talons through the curls, then she takes a thick finger and places the pad of it just above where he’s stretching her open with his cock, on a small bundle of swollen flesh that instantly makes her tighten around him. This is something he could never get used to—the tight warmth clinging to him like a second skin under Palaven’s unforgiving sun. He swipes his thumb over it, then draws a slow circle. The tightness becomes almost unbearable. He keens.

“Damn clever turian,” she hiccups, grinding into his touch, into his unsteady thrusts, her hand gripping his wrist instead, not guiding but trying to steady herself. “I’m so close, Garrus.”

He nuzzles her jaw at that, forehead meeting forehead after, then lips with plates, tongue with tongue. The kiss breaks off in a series of desperate gasps, and Garrus murmurs against her, “let me come with you. Senna, please I—”

“Love you,” she pants into the crook of his neck, teeth grazing him, and then biting in when he pushes his whole length into her, the stretch unbearable, her words ringing in his ears like endless echoes in a hallway made of dark matter and stardust, and he claims her, puncturing her shoulder and filling her cunt, his tie growing, the taste of her blood bursting on his tongue. Sweet. Salty. Iron. Just like her.

She tightens on him impossibly so, and then there’s a fluttering, her muscles spasming violently in an orgasm that makes her legs shake and her stomach jump. His thumb slowly stops moving on the bundle of flesh she showed him when her short nails dig forcefully into his forearm.

(I love you, I love you, I love you—)

Subvocals screaming, his whole body trembling, he finally releases her flesh, knocks his nose against hers until her eyes flutter open, dazed and unfocused, brimmed with tears, pupils dilated to infinity. She smiles, blunt teeth flashing white and blue in the low light, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that it’s his own blood on her lips.

He leans down to lick it off, to embrace her tighter, to feel the taste of her tingle in the back of his throat. She bit him. She marked him for life.

“I love you so damn much, baby.”

It’s out and it’s his own shot right through his heart, a shard of metal carved out just in the shape of her, and Garrus knows that nothing ever will be the same. The marks, the blood, his tie cradled by her fluttering warmth, his heart laying bare out in the snow, thawing in her warmth.

Turians don’t like the cold, but Shepard scorches and it's just the right way.

“Thank you,” she whispers, weak now, entirely spent, but not influenced by the poison of want anymore. “I know this was… not how a first date should’ve happened but…” she bites the bruised swell of her bottom lip and he smooths a hand over her cheek, brushing away sticky hairs from her face. “Can we… have a next time?”

Garrus flicks out his mandibles in a smile and hugs her tighter, reassuring, eyes full of hope and wonder and her own disheveled reflection, “I want all the next times with you.”

“Good,” her grin tickles his hide, mischievous now. “I’m looking forward to it.”

(I do too. I do, I do, I do.)

#mass effect #mass effect fanfiction #shakarian #shepard x garrus #garrus x shepard #garrus vakarian #commander shepard #oc: senna shepard #mass effect 1 #mass effect legendary edition #mass effect fanfic #shakarian fanfic #so um i wrote this while being sleep deprived #i'm so rusty #but heyy new babies i can obsess over #i cried so hard at the end of the trilogy i had to do something about it #you call it coping i call it the writer's muse

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shittybundaskenyer · 10 months

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✹ ▬ 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒, 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒

rating: Explicit pairing: Arthur Morgan x F!Reader summary: it’s been half a year since you’ve last seen Arthur, and as you finish the last empty page of the journal he gifted you, a lone rider shows up down in the valley on a familiar, silver-dappled mare. warnings: high honor Arthur, reader is an artist herself, and very lonely, touch-starved, porn with feelings (and minimal plot), i’m not gonna lie 5k of this is just pure smut, cunnilingus, fingering, unprotected sex, love confessions, Arthur being a sweetheart, a little angst and emotional hurt/comfort, bittersweet ending word count: 8457

a/n: i finally finished that wip i started cooking up during uni crunch time, but i’m proud to announce that i finished my master’s in graphic design and i’m finally fucking free of uni. it was a very depressive part of my life, i got completely burnt out in mind and soul too, so writing and drawing was more like a burden than something i enjoy. but now, now i’m so full of new passions, especially towards writing that i couldn’t wait to finish up this piece. i also want to thank everyone who came by to read my stuff even though i haven’t posted anything since like last october or something, love you all! (also special thanks to @wintersongstress bc you kept me going whenever you said a few kind words) <3

MASTERLIST | ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

In the spring Big Valley blooms.

Fireweed and balsamroot and irises, blue and purple and the prettiest shades of yellow and pink, dotting the landscape like careful brushstrokes of a painter’s handiwork. The earth is alive here, black and red from the fallen fir and pine needles, with mushrooms and bugs hiding under the rotting, fallen logs.

It’s a beautiful morning—pink from the rising mist and the early sunlight.

You sit on the porch of your small cabin, its wood creaking as a gentle breeze sweeps over the surrounding forest. Songbirds confess their love above, chirping a sweet melody that sings to your heart just the same. You finish your coffee and place the worn tin cup on the windowsill behind you, leaning back in your chair to pick up your journal.

It’s almost full now; barely a few empty yellowed paper is left. You turn another page, sketch the shape of an eagle with the last chunk of your pencil, so small you can barely hold it right. It’s been many months since Arthur gifted it to you.

It’s been months you’ve seen him the last time too.

Your heart aches a little when the orioles begin another love-song in your small garden. A sweet smell reaches you, a late-blooming wild cherry tree, its honey lulling in bees and birds and flies and the first butterflies of the year. You draw them too, detail their wings and hair and the tiny spikes covering their legs. With shaky, unladylike handwriting you write their names there too.

WESTERN TIGER SWALLOWTAIL

MONARCH

WILD DOVE

As you write the last word, your hand lingers over the drawing, then on the freshly pressed forget-me-not on the other page, it’s blue seeped into the paper around it like a watered up, inky halo.

Little dove. Arthur's name for you.

Christ, you miss him.

Worry clawed under your ribs for so long you no longer feel the ache. You know what kinda life he lives, what he does in the name of survival, the largest devil. You still like him. You still feel anxious every time you go into the town post office and realize that there’s no letter nor telegram from him. He’s been… kind to you. Real kind, even though no one else was.

You draw in a slow breath and flip the pages back right to the first one. It’s crumpled a little from all the time you’ve returned to it before. A simple sketch faces you, the lines and shading so different from your own, patches of light and shadows adding together a face that stares at you every time you look in a mirror. All the imperfections, all the ugliness and beauty your likeness wears, all the messy hair and sparkling eyes he’s grown to know.

Little dove, says a handwritten line under the portrait. Draw me all the other beauties of this land.

You did. Christ, you did it all and he’s still away.

You sigh, fold the journal and wipe your hand in your skirt. It’s still muddy from all the work you’ve done in the garden after you've awoken, so you don’t mind a bit of graphite there too.

The journal returns to its palace on the windowsill, beside the coffee cup and a pack of cigarettes.

Big Valley turns into shades of gold as the sun rises above the treeline, illuminating the wet dirt roads that twist below like giant snakes. You take a deep breath and rise to meet the day. There's a prickling warmth on the line of your spine, a trail of goosebumps that make your breaths come out shaky. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe it's fate.

You stop, halfway turned to the door already, and a rider appears on the winding paths in the distance.

You stand and you watch, frozen in place as the familiar silver-dappled mare canters closer and closer, its rider swaying in her saddle, one hand grasping the reins and the other dangling lazily beside his body. Black hat, a worn leather coat, sky blue shirt and shining spurs. You don’t have to see his eyes to recognize the sun on horseback.

After a few moments he halts the mare before your cabin, her breath puffing against his hand as he pets her forehead after swinging himself down from the saddle. “Good girl.”

You grow weak in the knees, lip trembling as you suck in a hasty breath. Do all wishes come to fruition if one draws it enough times? Do paper, words and shaky lines have this much power?

He walks up the first two steps of your porch, taking off his hat to reveal golden brown locks, long and messy now, wet with sweat and yesterday's rain still dripping from the trees.

There’s a moment of silence when your eyes meet.

A moment of truth when he says your name.

You open your mouth, then close it. There’s so much you want to say, so much you feel, yet the only sentence that leaves your lips is, “You've come just in time for breakfast.”

The silence is awkward at first when you pour him the remaining lukewarm coffee, and even more when you prepare breakfast and lay out everything on your small dining table. Your bed is unmade, there’s mud stuck on the doormat, your laundry stacked in a high pile in the corner and all the dried herbs from last autumn hang low from the ceiling of the single room cabin.

Your home is as much a mess as you are, but it’s well lived-in, like a body. A shell housing a soul.

Arthur doesn’t mind. Never did.

“Is this the wrong time?” he asks when you cut fresh onion leaves on a plate, still dewy from the morning mist that rolled over the valley. The knife stops in your hand. You can hear him breathing, calm, even exhales, yet it feels like he’s not even real.

“No,” you press out, uncertain in your own thoughts, and you keep cutting the leaves until they’re nothing more than a fleck of green pulp on the white porcelain. You don't even realize when he stops you. You just feel the unusual warmth, radiating from around the back of your palm, through your whole arm, until something wild and ancient flickers alive in your ribcage.

“Are ya alright?” The calloused hand retreats and the knife falls from between your fingers.

“I—” you swallow, throat suddenly dry and choked with tears at the same time, “half a year is a long time.”

He closes his eyes and hangs his head. ‘Course it is. You thought he was dead. You thought he got taken to prison and they hanged him like a dog.

The food remains untouched as he swipes a hand over his jaw and takes a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. You watch him, still cautious, taking a mental note of every little change. A small scar freshly healed on his cheek. His beard longer, a bit messy. His eyes oh so tired, like he hasn't slept in days.

“You want me to go? I get it if ya have a husband now an’ I don’t want to cause tr—”

“No!” you almost shout, panicked, and his gaze searches your face. Why do you behave so goddamn strange? You wanted him here for months! You wanted him, wanted— “Jesus, there’s no husband, okay?”

The corner of his lips curl upwards a little at that. Crow's feet crinkle in the corners of his eyes. Those tiny laughing-lines around his nose move.

“I guess I just… I’ve been alone for a long time,” you sigh and force down a bite of cheese-topped bread. Your stomach protests loudly, it wants to escape the hunger or the nerves, you can’t decide yet.

Arthur takes that as a sign to take a bite from his food too, and you know he's hungry. As you watch you realize how tired he is. How worn—like a saddle neglected in care and used until the leather cracked, then split. He eats up the whole slice of bread before you manage to take your second bite.

The awkward quiet persists, gets stronger even, but there's so much to say and so little courage you can muster.

He’s the one who finally runs a bloody knife through the silence.

“Did ya draw for me?”

There’s a distant longing in his voice that’s almost crystal clear. You nod, the nerves tangled in your belly easing. He remembers, he knows. He wants to see.

You bring in the small book from the porch while he finishes his food, and he’s already lighting a cigarette when you arrive and lay the leather-bound pages in front of him. He smiles at how worn it looks, how much fingerprint-stained page edges are littered throughout the journal. It’s well-loved, and well lived-in too.

You silently watch as he flips through a few pages, tracing a finger over bucks and birds and butterflies, over the scratchy sketch lines you immortalized nature with. The Grizzlies covered in snow. Clovers and mushrooms. Your home with opened windows and flowers hanging in pots from the roof of the porch.

“I’m sorry I missed all this,” he says softly, looking up at you like you’re the sun and the moon and the whole world. So fond, so tender it makes you ache for something that never can be yours. “I’m sure this place is pretty in the winter.”

You nod. You don’t tell him about almost freezing to death when the storms rolled in from the mountains in the spring. You don’t tell him about the roaming gangs either, about the bastards camped at the Hanging Dog ranch or the man who got eaten by a bear in his own home. This is a dream world. A valley that can be as easily a good dream as it can be a nightmare. You want it to be a good dream for him. An escape. You know what life he lives. What he runs from.

“It’s even prettier now,” you finally answer, watching him reading your messy handwriting beside the drawings. Forget-me-not. White clover. Blue iris. “Spring came very late, everything is still blooming.” You bite into your lip and after a few seconds you ask, “wanna see?”

Arthur looks up at you and something flickers in his eyes. Maybe hope. He nods, puts out his cigarette, dusts off his hat and puts it back on his messy hair.

“Only if you let me draw ya again.”

Everything around you buzzes and dances and it’s full of life, the valley, the word ‘spring’ written by the hand of Mother Earth in flowing rivers of wildflowers and overgrown grass. Orioles chirp not far away, singing another lulling love-song, matching the rhythm a creek makes above, crystal clear meltwater digging its course from stone and black earth towards south.

Arthur stands a bit farther away from you, with his journal and a piece of charcoal in hand, putting the scenery to paper in blacks and greys and negative spaces. Or you think he’s drawing the Grizzlies and forests and farms littered down in the valley like mushrooms popping from the ground after a lukewarm summer rain.

But instead, he draws you.

The crown of flowers sitting atop your head—the girls at camp taught him how to make one, he said, smiling. The arch of your lips. The shadow of your lashes. The tangles in your hair, the dirt on your skirt, the sun glinting in your eyes.

When he’s done he walks back to you, flops down into the grass beside you to show you his work. The scenery really is just the background. Hasty, faint lines of mountain-spines and plants that curl towards the sun. But you, you’re detailed like an oil painting, from the wrinkles in your dress to the imperfections of your face.

“You wanted to draw the land, ain't ya?” you ask him, knowing, smiling at him as he slips his charcoal into the cord on his hat. He gives you a lopsided smirk, then wipes his hands on the rough fabric of his jeans.

“I just found something so much more pretty,” he looks into your eyes when he says that and it burns like how maybe the sun’s surface would burn. You know there’s a blush rising through your neck, up to your cheeks, and you hope he thinks it’s from the warmth of the day. But he would be a fool to believe that.

“Are ya tryin’ to flirt with me?” you feel like a child. A giddy girl getting her first carved wood pony to play with. You never believed him when he told you you were beautiful. You couldn’t. Yet here, now, in the all-revealing sunlight he seems like his words are genuine. Much more pretty.

He leans back on his hands, the sun caressing his face when he finally takes off his hat. His laughing-lines crinkle.

"Do ya remember last year, when you gave me a kiss?"

If you haven't been burning up, you certainly are now. Something wild and primal stirs in your belly, something that’s very close to want and need. Of course you remember. Of course you can’t forget the way you leaned in and gave him a little peck on the lips, a bare press just because his plump lips looked so goddamn kissable and because you were so goddamn drunk. It doesn’t mean you didn’t want to do it sober. You just didn’t have the courage. But with amber whiskey in your stomach and his hand on your knee you couldn't be stopped. It was the day he left. The last day you’ve seen him alive until now.

You nod and look away. You don’t want to think about a dark future when Arthur wants to talk about kissing you. Jesus Christ.

“I wanted to draw your lips ever since then. Sometimes I did when I dreamt about you. Always smiling, always with flowers in your hair. But I never got it right.”

“I never thought you was a romantic, Mr. Morgan,” you’re truly blushing now, breaking the eye-contact, and picking at your nails instead because hearing this is a lot. The man you were waiting for months, the man you thought you loved and was dead, now sits here beside you, making poetry bubble in your chest. An oriole sings there too, trapped by ribs and muscle, red like the rising sun.

“I— I’m never good with words,” he shrugs, picking on a blade of grass between his fingers. “Ya know I never was.”

You smile at him, still flushed.

“But I thought about the time we spent together in the past and I… I realized I was happy with ya.”

What is this if not a confession?

You reach for him. Slowly, like one would comfort a spooked horse, sliding your palm over his scarred knuckles until the grass he was twirling falls to the ground. He watches your hands on each other, yours so small and mostly soft compared to his large, battle-worn fingers.

"I was happy with ya too," you whisper, so damn afraid yet you know he said it first, it must mean something—

He looks at you, looks right through you, gazes into the deepest depths of your soul where you already carved a space for him months ago. He looks at you and he knows this is not some sick joke, that your mutual attraction was not some mirage you chased for so long.

He leans in and the world falls dead quiet. His breathing, shaky and unsure and deep, the only sound you can concentrate on as he nudges your nose with his own. Right where you left off half a year ago. Right where you imagined this in every dream.

You nuzzle him, brush your lips against the corner of his mouth, his beard prickling and coarse, but his parting lips are soft, gently cupping your own between them, slow and careful and so goddamn sweet. He moves, hands reaching for you as you try to deepen this embrace, reciprocating the kiss, turning your body towards his. His fingers land in your hair, getting caught on the tangles like trouts on a net, and he cups your cheek with his other hand, so warm, it's like the sun is cradled in his palm.

Maybe you're his sun. Maybe he's yours.

The kiss turns needy after a while, tongues dart out and teeth nip gently on plump, rosy lips. He keeps you close, closer, until your noses are squished together and his hair falls into your eyes and you can feel your lashes tickling his skin. He kisses you like no one ever did. He kisses you like it means something.

Need awakens inside you with the force of a hundred galloping horses as his hands find your waist, the line of your spine, the collar of your dress, the outwards curve of one breast. They doesn't move further. It doesn't mean you don't want them to.

Arthur pants against your mouth as you move away, the taste of tobacco and wild cherries still intense on your tongue.

"Will ya draw me one more time?" you ask quietly, against the side of his face, your words tangling into the wild mess of his beard.

"How?" you look him in the eye and he already knows, yet you make a show of it as you pull on your dress and slowly bare yourself to him. There's not a soul for miles, no one to disturb this bubble of peace and strawberry champagne haze you made for yourselves so you're not ashamed. And when you discover that wild flame burning in his eyes—

Your body becomes alive with a meadow consumed by fire, overgrowing and rotting and oozing honey from every pretty flower. You shed your chemise. The shoes. Bloomers come last, already stained with grass and bright yellow pollen.

You sit nude in front of him, a feast for his hungry eyes, yet he doesn't stare at you for long. He wants to commit this to paper. He wants to see this every day from now on—the curve of your breasts, the wide of your hips, the hair nestled between your legs, the smile you can't keep off of your lips.

"For the road," you chuckle with a wink, watching how he scribbles away in his journal. "For lonely nights."

"I could put this up in a gallery and take ya to Paris," he answers with a piece of charcoal in his mouth, smudging the powder on the paper. "Wanna see the world little dove?"

You know it's just gentle banter, but your heart aches the same. You both know it would be impossible. Him leaving this country, his family—a woman is not enough for that.

"I think I have everythin' I wanna see right in front of me," you smirk, then move, not caring about the drawing anymore, and he doesn't care either, gripping your bare thighs as you rise to settle in his lap.

It's spring and you're a flower, and you bloom too, unfolding your body like petals, legs and arms slowly sliding away to reveal soft flesh. There's no shame when Arthur looks up at you like you're the goddamn sun and the stars and the wind caressing his face. Maybe you are when you reach down and slide a thumb over his brow, the downwards arch of his eyelid when he closes his eyes. Two gorgeous pools of blue-green look up at you when your finger slides lower, over his lips, to dig in and make them part, wet tongue darting out around a small kiss.

You watch him. His eyes, his mouth.

His long, golden lashes lower, a dark kind of fire ignited in his gaze, doin’ the only sin he does not regret committing— wanting you.

He grabs onto your side, the flesh on your hip and stomach, leaves heat in his wake there, large palm-shaped sunspots that ooze light into your bloodstream. Christ, you want him to touch you more. To make you burn, to make you into a flame that needs his tending.

"You're so damn pretty, little dove" he murmurs in that low voice, watching how a single flower of forget-me-not falls from your hair and lands on the top of your breast, trapped in a bead of sweat like a fly in amber honey.

The back of his head hits the ground, like it's a pillow woven from freshly sprouted grass and wild flowers and wet earth, and he moves you in his lap, lower, where you can feel him, hard and oh so ready but still waiting for your move.

The spark is ignited. Your sun burns inside your ribcage for this man, a heart shaped from light, and you reach between the two of you to get him rid of his pants. Arthur doesn't move, but he lets you pull up his shirt, over a strong stomach and golden brown hair, over old scars that faded into silvery lines, to a ribcage housing a kind heart.

"Will ya have me, Arthur?" you lean close to him, your bellies touching, your hand still restless at the buckle of his gun-belt, and he sighs into your hair, hips twitching at your eager request as he leans in to lay a gentle kiss on your temple, then the arch of your eyebrow.

"'Course, sweetheart," he reaches up, cradles your nape as he curls his other arm around your waist, turning you until the soft earth cradles you like another lover.

Your bare legs fall open as he settles, with his hand on your knee, his thumb rubbing the spot where the broken grass stained it green. You should be shy. Ashamed. Vulnerable. You should clench your thighs tight, feel the need to be modest, yet your body betrays you even further when Arthur places his other hand on your side, making space for himself in the cradle of your hips.

His shirt is gone.

You watch him for a few eternal seconds, the way his eyelashes cast starlike shadows over his ruddy cheeks as he gets an eyeful of your flushed cunt.

"Gonna have to work ya a little," he says, voice low and husky, thumbs drawing circles into your flesh, as if he's soothing a spooked creature.

There's not enough time to get your fill of his body; the hair-dusted muscles of his chest and arms, the stubble-peppered neck that leads into a strong jawline, the strand of honey brown hair that carefully curls around his ear. You subconsciously nod instead, rapidly, sliding your hand over his own, tugging on his worn knuckles until he's blanketing you with his body.

Arthur smiles into your hair for a second when his free hand trails up your side, up through the valley of your breasts and the bend of your neck until he can cradle your head, his fingers caressing, thumb parting your lips so when he arrives with his own you're already panting a shivering exhale into his mouth. Yes, kiss me. Conquer my lips. Conquer this monster that is my body.

He kisses you, softly at first, cupping your upper lip between his, then the bottom one, and then, just then he lets a hot breath mingle with your own before his tongue finds its way around yours. He kisses you with all the need a starving man can feel, suckling on your lips until they are flushed, swollen, his worn thumb sliding over them once more, between gentling pecks of affection and softly opening eyes. He's mesmerized by the sight of you like this, oh so close, oh so pretty in the sunlight.

You get bold under his stare, curling your fingers into the hair on his nape, into the coarse tangles of his beard before you give him the same treatment he gave you, mapping the plush, hot rise of his bottom lip with your thumb. He kisses the tip of it, then leans in to lay gentle presses on your forehead, your temple, the corner of your mouth. You want to chase him, coax him into another kiss, but he murmurs something against your skin instead, hefting your leg higher at his side, and your belly aches with the burning sun that grows inside it, pressed flush to his.

"Lemme show ya somethin'," he almost whispers, and he descends downwards, draws a curling vine of blooming ivy in the shape of kisses, at the hollow of your throat, at the top of one breast, then the other. He takes your nipples between the same lips you've kissed mere moments ago, still wet, and he almost makes a show of it when a surprised moan slips out from your chest.

Arthur commits the shape of you into his memory, counting each rib, each valley and hill your body has, the soft of your stomach when he arrives there, a star-circle of hot lip-presses, and then lower, at the edges of a gentle trail of wiry hair that leads between your wide-open legs, and then just shy of your cunt, a place so sensitive the kiss wrecks your whole body with a shiver.

He looks up at you for a second, lifting your legs over two strong shoulders, soothing you again with circling caresses on your thigh, even though his eyes are ravenous, chest heaving as he sucks in panting breaths . The want inside you blooms alive. If you could be a forest, you would burn gladly under his hands.

The idea is no stranger to you, you've read your fair share of off-shelved romance novels, but experiencing such an act transcends every sweet worded description you've ever seen when Arthur makes his intention clear with a look full of promises.

Not letting you suffer longer, he leans in and softly nuzzles his way between the folds of your cunt; kisses you there.

Your body grows weak, open, and you helplessly grab into the earth beside you, clawing up dirt and fresh grass, sinking your fingers deep, like you could plant your roots here. A noise escapes you, surprised and breathless, and Arthur mutters encouragement against your mound, " beautiful… ", then strokes his tongue over a spot where nerves meet in a most sensitive bundle.

He sucks and licks there, kissing your flesh like he had been kissing your mouth, with his eyes almost closed, cheeks flushed and beard scraping your skin. It tickles, it scratches, it makes a flock of burning butterflies flick alive inside your belly, it makes want trickle from your cunt when he arrives there. You feel like you're already unraveling, the foreign pleasure spreading through your body like fungi webbing a forest floor, and at every spot his skin touches you, you bloom.

Like a meadow. Like a sun.

He hums encouragement, holds your thighs firmer, pushes his tongue against you harder. You try to squirm, hands scrambling, his mouth curling into a smile at your folds, and you moan, freely, maybe the first time in your whole life, just for him.

He pleasures you so effortlessly, so gladly, and in all the tenderness he offers you feel like you could drown. His mouth is relentless. His kisses even more are. You can't help but wretch open your eyes to look down and find him buried there, in the cradle of your hips, face flushed red and eyes sparkling so pretty when they meet your own. You don't have control over your body anymore.

You blindly reach for his hair, your head thumping back against the earth, spine arching, shoulders rolling into the dirt. "That's it," he murmurs between suckling kisses, and you grind your cunt up, up into his mouth because Christ, you're almost there.

Your eyes flicker open, like candle flames, neck curved back, and you can see the Grizzlies like this, snow-capped, glinting like crystals, between blades of green and sky blue iris flowers. Your whole world turns upside-down.

It's too good—his lips, his tongue, his hot breath fanning against your weeping opening, yet you can't get there, not really, not before Arthur lifts away and the world tries to right itself but turns out all wrong. He is panting, hair messy from all the torture your fingers did on his strands, glinting golden in the sun.

Your thighs slip away, off his shoulders as he returns to you, hastily wiping his face in the back of his hand, lips already seeking your own, soothing you. He tastes tangy, more salt than sweet, like you, and the forest of emotions threatens to split your ribcage open when he presses his mouth to your temple.

"What's wrong?" you ask quietly, whisper the question into his opened lips between two tender kisses, and he answers with a breathless "nothin'."

"Have to open ya up," his fingers squeeze you, harder on your side, and he brings his free hand up to his lips, licking his fingers. That same sinful hand returns to your belly, then lower, cupping your whole cunt in his palm before you feel it, the thick finger teasing at your opening, spreading the wetness, and then gently, slowly slipping inside without any resistance.

Arthur nudges your nose with his own when your eyes flutter closed, lashes tickling his cheek, and he kisses you again, moving his finger inside you, a slow, purposeful stroke.

"Look at me, little dove," he whisper-commands, curling that finger in, making you gasp into his mouth. "Look at me. Yeah, that's it." He almost smiles when your eyes meet his own, and your belly aches as he pulls out his finger and adds a second. They glide in so easy, you can feel his palm growing sticky against your cunt. You want to be embarrassed, but he just stifles a groan against your neck when your pussy squelches, your pleasure steadily rising with the clever thrusting of his fingers.

Shit, if his fingers feel like this inside you, you can't even imagine how his cock will.

He builds you up steadily, like a castle, like a temple, like a stairway right to the sun, and he doesn't give you a warning when he crams in another finger, three now, stretching you truly and good, shushing you with his lips, kissing you breathless until your legs yield and shake.

"That's it," he murmurs, kisses you thoroughly, panting against your lips as your cunt squeezes tight around his fingers. "That's good."

His name escapes your throat, a plea, and you're barely hanging on by a thread now. Arthur is tender in his movements, but not too gentle, making space for himself inside you, making your poor heart flicker and trash under your ribcage like a trapped bird. He kisses you again, with opened lips, tongue clashing with yours, your teeth catching on the side of his face, a right mess, and his fingers slow, then gingerly slide out to lay drenched in your slick on the burning skin of your thigh.

You whine at the loss. Truly, desperately. Such an unladylike sound, yet it rings sweet against Arthur's neck.

You feel so empty.

"Shh," he quiets you, then gently grabs your hand, caressing a thumb over your knuckles, and guides it down, over the still buttoned waist of his pants, where his achingly hard cock strains against the fabric. You gasp a surprised "oh" between his lips, but follow his hand eagerly, helping him with the buttons. "Touch me, darlin'."

You do. Jesus, you do.

You worm your hand between the fabric and his feverish skin, mapping out the shape of him with curious touches. Even though you're inexperienced, Arthur's body teaches you what feels good for him without a guiding word. You grasp him, gently at first, and then firmer, and stroke your hand over his cock until your palm curls around the flushed head of him, finding a bead of wetness there. His stomach jumps, muscles tensing against you, his breath hitching sweetly beside your ear when he kisses you there too.

Did he feel a similar curious excitement like you do now, when he stuffed you full of his fingers?

"You're a natural, sweetheart," he smiles at you, cheeks blooming a pretty red, and you feel his hand returning between your legs, thick fingers pushing inside you again. "Ya think you can take me?"

You can't answer, not at first, too distracted by the stretch, by the burning want that blooms in your belly, by the idea of taking Arthur. You kiss him instead, stroke him faster until he has to break away from you to collect himself.

"Fuck me," you whisper to him, sweet as wild strawberries, your lips brushing the side of his face and he smiles, truly, teeth and crow's feet and wrinkles and all, and Christ, you want him so much it almost hurts.

"Now, you really want me to fuck ya?"

You don't know if he wants to tease, or he's truly concerned about your decision, but you give him a very pointed look, releasing his cock and reaching for his hand that is still pleasuring you, slowly pulling it away until you're empty once more.

"Arthur," you kiss him again, almost pleading and he can't deny you longer. He worries at your bottom lip for a second, then presses his mouth to your chin.

"Spread 'em pretty thighs for me then," he murmurs as he comes closer, bracketing the backs of your thighs with his own, and then hefting your legs around his hips. You open yourself willingly, freely, feeling the heat of him oh so close, and you help him a little, push on his jeans until his cock is free, thick and heavy and hard against the inside of your thigh.

It's the first time you see it. It's the first time your cunt clenches on nothing and it makes you desperate.

"If I hurt ya, say so and I'll stop, alright?" he says as he gives you one last kiss before leaning back and taking a hold of his cock. Christ, you want to watch. To know how he will fit inside you, but the strong bulk of his body blocks your view, sea-colored eyes going half-lidded as he watches your every reaction, sliding against your folds once, twice, and for the third time his fat cock catches on your slick opening.

You gasp and pull him into a kiss with renewed hunger, and it's perfect to muffle your sounds as he slowly, carefully pushes into you.

He has maybe an inch or two inside, but you're already feeling like you could burst, like you could rip apart at the seams and bloom into a bed of wildflowers oozing honey over black earth.

It's—

It's everything.

You can feel his heartbeat race against your breast, and you can feel it inside you, lighting you up, making the unfamiliar stretch good, making it divine. You pant into his mouth, let him nuzzle your cheek as he murmurs praise, his free hand coming up to cradle your jaw and caress your lips.

"That's it, good girl," he whispers, as breathless as you, and you feel him move, deeper, making way for himself when there's barely any. It hurts and it doesn't. Aches like a good day of riding in the sun. Warm. Stretched. A funny sway in your head when it's over. A pleasure-pain so perfect you never want him to stop. "Ya fit me like you was made for me."

"Christ," you hiss, hands curling into his neck and shoulder, digging into the meat of them, almost drawing blood as Arthur's hips meet yours, his hot length fully settling inside you. "Arthur, Jesus I—,"

"Shhh," he quiets you softly, one hand cupping the back of your palm on his shoulder, massaging it until your fingers yield, no longer digging into his flesh, and he brings your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles. A distraction. A gesture so sweet your body warms even more.

"S-sorry," you manage to say, out of breath and tingling all over. He's so deep inside you you can feel it. All the space he fills, all the ways pressure makes you twitchy and sensitive and ready to burst. He kisses your fingertips next, the inside of your wrist, all the while his other hand smooths over your trembling thigh.

"Watchu sayin' sorry for?" his question is a mere whisper against you, a soothing rumble at the side of your face. He waits for you to settle, to let you calm like a rapid summer storm, keeps himself still until the way he holds you open becomes from an unfamiliar intrusion into a shivering spark of something. Can pleasure feel like this too? Can the joy of joining coat your bodies like crushed candy that melts in the sun?

You can't focus on his question, not until he caresses your brow with a finger, and even then you don't know the answer. You just close your eyes and tremble, too lost in the closeness of him, too distracted by the spark of pleasure bubbling hotly inside your belly.

"Tell me when I should move," he brushes your hair back, wipes the sweat that started beading at your temple. "Or tell me to stop."

"N-no. Don't stop, please Arthur. Jus'... just be slow," you murmur against him, your words slurred into his beard, lips brushing a scar there.

He nods then, reassures you with a small kiss that says "I've got you, don't worry," and it's enough for you. Enough to brace for the inevitable outwards pull.

You have to dig your fingers into his arm, have to cling to him for dear life, because even though his movement is careful, you still want to rip apart from the seams, just from his cock gently grinding into your cunt.

You groan, dear Christ, and you clench on him, the pleasure-pain so intense it rushes you towards the edge with the speed of lightning striking a lonely tree out in the prairie.

"Yes, sweetheart, open up for me," he praises you, licking the same fingers he stuffed inside you earlier and returning them between your legs, feeling where he holds you open, and then drawing a gentle circle on your clit, another sharp sparkle of pleasure, and you whine. "Can you come like this?"

You can't answer with words, your throat locks up and tears well in the corners of your eyes as you nod eagerly, racing towards an edge that ends in pure free fall. So he keeps his slow torture sweet, a purposeful grind of his hips and knowing touches with his fingers and you pant, into his neck and then into the soft grass, your head lolling to the side, and even though you're outside, up in the mountains, there's barely enough air to fill your lungs. The only thing you breathe is Arthur. He trickles into your every vein, every muscle and fat and bone, blankets you in honey and dew and the warmth of the sun.

"Look at ya, little darlin'," he says, fond, as he reaches for your face to give your flaming cheek a gentle caress. Your back arches as he pushes in again, his movement turning into longer, truer thrusts. "Look how good you take me."

"Shit, Arthur I—"

"Gonna take care of ya," he murmurs and leans back, settling on his haunches with his cock still rooted deep and your thighs wide open around his hips.

He looks down at your body, at all the imperfections you hate, at all the unique curves of your form, at all the unevenly smooth skin and marks and scars. Then, at your face that is softened by a deep frown of pleasure.

Your eyes meet.

You can see the want flickering in his eyes like blue flames in a marsh, alive and hot, and maybe your own burns the same, because he can't control a hard thrust then. You almost yelp, but your joining is slick now, you can feel wetness collect on your cunt every time he pulls out, so the pain is nonexistent.

"That—" you pant, sucking in a hasty breath, "that felt so good."

"Christ, darlin," he exhales on a smile, and digs the meat of his fingers into the bend of your knee and the puffy flesh of your cunt and you almost scream, the good kind of scream, as he thrusts in again, hard and deep. "You're so goddamn beautiful."

It's your turn to tense up, to clench on him, hot and full and barely hanging on by a thread. He makes you run down the hill of pleasure until you trip, until you're falling, until the pressure becomes too much and not enough all at once. Like graphite grinded into dust and swept by the wind, that's how you float too, towards his calloused hands and sun-worn cheeks and you're a parchment laid out flat, your body the same, bare and vulnerable until his fingerprints stain you, in forms of lilac bruises on your hips, in never ending paths of grey sunlight.

He lets go of your leg, puts a palm on the soft of your belly, just above your cunt, and he feels himself there, moving, filling you so full, so good, so whole, until there's no more air to breathe and no more hill to tumble down on, only the vacuum of a night sky littered with stars, the inside of his irises, watching you as you come. Sudden, violent.

Your body shakes as it sweeps you away, a fire eating you alive like candlelight makes a moth catch aflame, and Arthur leans down to kiss you through it, still fucking you, still not stopping when the too much hits, but oh, he's a great distraction, the way his soft lips apologize, the way his tongue reassures you sweetly that you're doing good. He hums into the kiss, nips on your upper lip as your hands rise and dig into his neck, keeping him close, trapped in your body like a butterfly in sticky honey.

"Ya okay?" he asks softly, whispering the question onto the corner of your mouth, his hands curling around your shoulders, the back of your head. An embrace. Butterflies growing in the same cocoon.

"Feels so good," you whimper, clinging to him, feeling his cock hit deep again, resuming a lost rhythm like one replays a song on a guitar. The same chords flowing for a dance practiced by lovers. "Ar-Arthur."

He keeps on going and you keep taking him, the grass crushing under you bodies and you’re sure your whole backside is gonna be green, just like his knees and palms are. It’s blurry from that, your mind so fogged by pleasure that the world swims, a sea of light and wildflowers and clouds, pools of piercing blue-green eyes and crooked teeth that snarl into a smile.

“Do ya have one more for me?” his forehead knocks against yours, his rhythm slowing.

You don’t understand the question, not at first, but his fingers return between your legs, rough on the sensitive flesh of your clit, circling oh so carefully, and you know, Jesus, you know you want to give him everything you can.

"Arthur," you pant, your lips buried in his hair as he plants a humming kiss into the crook of your neck.

"Hm?"

"Don't hold back. Please. Wanna feel you even when you're gone," your tighten your legs around his hips, answer his thrust with the rise of your own, meeting him halfway, like how the sun meets the horizon when pink dusk falls over the valley.

"Don't ask me that I—" he chokes on his words at your interruption, a soft kiss, placed right on the plump of his bottom lip.

"Please,” you encourage him, plead him. You want this so much it almost hurts. Not where he splits you open. Not where he hits deep as he picks up his pace. No, it’s the chest where you ache, the rapidly beating organ that pumps and beats and jumps and flickers, a mass of red, a cluster of muscle that somehow houses all the feelings you have for this man. A heart full of adoration. A heart full of love.

He kisses you so hard it makes you dizzy. Makes the doves caged in your ribs escape and tear you open, leaving only a wide wound in their wake, a door that leads straight down to the pocket-universe you handcrafted in the shape of a golden-haired, glacier-eyed man.

You can feel him getting close, his hard thrusts falling out of rhythm, his fingers urgent on your abused clit. It sits there, the pleasure in your belly, bubbling, spilling over as he desperately chases your own orgasm, fucking you into the ground almost, planting you like a flower, to bloom just for him, just so you can weave your roots together.

Arthur’s arms tremble as he groans into your neck, pulls back to leave a kiss on the side of your mouth, not focused enough for a proper one and you can’t help yourself. That choking feeling you felt rising from the start overspills, makes a landslide, an avalanche. You swallow and look up at him, mesmerized by his half-lidded eyes, glinting in the sun like twin-lakes, his hands holding you tight to him, his cheeks ruddy from all the loving you did to each other.

You slip, and the world tilts.

"Love you," you murmur, breathless, and there's a sudden shudder against you, Arthur's hands going bruising on your flesh, and he's coming, halfway on his way of pulling out. The warmth startles you, and then his grunt too, when he pushes back inside, because it doesn't really matter anymore, with his seed spilling out beside his cock, and some sick, possessive part of him enjoys how you whimper when he stuffs you full again, everything too wet and too hot. You tremble in his hold, terrified and riled up all at once, because feeling him like this makes you a little stupid and so sick with love it aches.

You come again from it, softly this time.

"I'm so goddamn sorry," he groans, trying to play the gentleman, trying to erase memories surfacing. This is not like it was then. He can still do right by you.

"'S okay," you murmur, almost feeling drunk, out of your mind with the way his cock twitches inside you, spurting one last time. "'S okay, Arthur."

You pull him closer, with your fingers in his hair, in his beard. He sags against you, body weak from both his climax and emotions, and he presses his forehead to yours. It's a thing almost more intimate than a kiss. A thing full of the unspeakable truth, but you're not ready for it, and he isn't either.

He watches you for a few seconds, his eyes flickering, a candle flame in a storm, but finally, finally he gives you a small smile. It's just in his eyes, a secret thing, a treasure so little and so precious it needs to be protected from the ugly cold reality.

"I don't wanna awaken false hopes inside ya," he starts, gently, like calming a wild horse, "but I can't leave ya here thinkin' I don't love you the same."

That's it. That's the time for a tear that sneakily bubbles from the corner of your eye and slides down to the calloused pad of his finger still caressing your face.

"I ain't a good man," he continues, voice impossibly soft, "but I always wanted to do right by ya."

"Arthur," you tremble as you whisper, your hands on his nape, in his hair. Your mouth brushes his brow as you lean in. "Just come back to me. I don't care when. Jus' come back alive."

He nods, then buries his head into your neck, kissing your heated skin, writing a promise there with his lips.

The sun moves and the surrounding mountains start to paint blue shadows over the blooming meadows so you move, first from the embrace, then from the flattened patch of grass and flowers you’ve tangled into each other on. You only put on your dress, no bloomers or shoes, his come still sticky on the inside of your thigh, and he leaves his shirt on the ground too, not ready to let go of this moment.

He looks up at you, eyes sparkling, taking in the sight that is so pretty he wants to never leave. With flowers in your hair, a crown braided from daisies and forget-me-nots and marigolds, with dirt and grass on your skin, with a content smile in the corner of your mouth—you look radiant.

Arthur sits with you in the grass, picking on wild-green blades and chewing on the end of one while he searches for the prettiest little flower blooming right next to your bare feet, nestled close to his.

A perfect bud of white clover. Faith, love, good fortune.

He takes your hand in his, kisses your knuckles, and ties a ring around your finger from the stem, makes the flower sit pretty in the middle, like a chiseled, shiny rock of moonstone.

What is this if not a vow?

What is this if not a promise?

In the morning, after loving each other once more in the flickering moonlight, you wake up sore between the legs and dizzy from an intelligible emotion clawing deep inside your chest. The bed is empty next to you, the coffee that Arthur made still steaming on the table. You don't dress up, just pull the quilt over your body and run outside, onto your small porch to gaze down the valley bathing in golden light. A silver dapple mare gallops down there, on the spine of a mud-snake road.

Arthur rides away.

You stumble back to the chair on the porch, full with something bittersweet. Overripe cherries rotting on a tree. A black heart dripping honey. Your ribcage squeezing your lungs like a fist. You take a shaky breath and when he completely disappears from your view you lean back, almost sit down on a leather-covered book. It's a journal. Another one, smelling like fresh paper and horse hair and him.

You open it as you settle, the quilt drawn tight around your barely covered body.

There's a drawing on the first page, two wild doves huddled together, and a flower of white clover tied into a ring, pressed down into the page.

Under it, scrawled hastily with Arthur's flowing handwriting:

I promise.

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