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yellow-ochre · 2 months

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a lover's pinch | four

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni summary: after a conference in new york, you and j miller phd take things a step further. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, i think i describe reader as having sweaty palms about 1500 times so it deserves a warning, alcohol consumption, the plight of being a woman in academia, oral [f receiving], unprotected piv sex [IN A BED ??? GASP] for you filthy animals, prone bone, a little roughness and then not much at all, uhhh pet names during sex.... uhhmm intimacy errrrrr.... soft!joel... feelings... okay bye word count: 9.3k series masterlist | main masterlist a lover's pinch playlist a/n: hey folks, thank you so much for all your patience as i took my sweet sweet time writing this. we get to know our prof a little better in this one so a fair amount of dialogue for you but yeah anyways i hope you enjoy it, and i'd love to hear what you think! [and if i Fell Off because of the depression, don't tell me lol] A WORD ABOUT THE TAG LIST: i will continue the taglist for this part and for part five, and after that i will rely solely on my notifications account @hier--soirupdates so pls follow that and turn on notifs to be told when i post writing x this is part four of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two, three.

Saturday.

The conference centre is vast.

A large space that protects you from the threatening clouds that loom over New York City, and exposes you to countless dense conversations.

An NYU teacher’s assistant is glued to your hip, parading you through the centre with a wayward index finger that points out the bar, the room where the keynote speech will be given [large, with an imposing stage], and the room where you will give your presentation [less large, with a far less imposing stage].

Your presentation.

You fight the urge to pull up the email for the thousandth time while she explains how there will be fifteen minutes to set up beforehand, and advises on when the doors will open for guests, and reminds you that you have a strict allotted time of 20-minutes, do you understand?

But the email is branded on the inside of your eyelids after this morning’s flight was spent reading and rereading and rereading the words. So you nod and smile and placate her on the tour of the centre, as you run through it in your mind.

We look forward to welcoming you to NYU’s Annual Classics and Ancient History Conference. Our team was intrigued by the presentation devised around your translation study in Athens…

“Did you hear me?”

You wish she wasn’t dressed so casually.

Loose balls of lint are collected on the back of her cardigan like trinkets, weighty and threatening to fall off in a sort of bread crumb trail behind her every movement. It makes your dress feel all the more serious, all the more formal. Navy blue and a little tight, with sleeves that slant across the middle of your bicep and a hem that cuts modestly across your lower thigh. Professional, smart, sexy, but not too sexy. You and Nora spent two hours at the mall picking it out last weekend. And you can see people in suits, in blazers, in dresses, everywhere you turn, but your eyes keep returning to the TA’s cardigan. Little pills, sad morsels of broken fabric.

She says your name sharply.

“Yes,” you snap to attention, and clock her poor attempt not to roll her eyes. “You were saying?”

“It’s an open bar,” she continues from a few steps ahead, slowly back away while raising her voice to be heard over the countless others sprouting across the room. “And food is served after the Keynote.”

Finally free of her and her cardigan, you scale the edge of the hall, curious eyes glancing across faces familiar and not. You notice some other postgrads from UNE, and some professors from your alma mater. But it isn’t until three hours into the conference that you notice him.

You’re in a painfully long conversation with Professor Carmichael, an ancient history department head from Boston, when you notice them.

“Well you see,” he’s saying, slowly. “The First Roman Triumvirate was very unique. Surely you agree with me there, my dear?”

“Of course,” you nod amiably. A waiter floats past you holding a tray of glasses. You grasp one with a grateful smile, and turn back to face him with a sip of cold white wine moving down your throat. “The Big Three, it’s all very interesting. Although I must say, I am personally more interested in the second triumvirat—”

“Oh they all say that,” he waves his hand. “Everyone is so taken by Antony and Octavian that they forget about Crassus! So tragic.”

“A very tragic death,” you offer an exaggerated frown. “I agree.”

Carmichael hums, eyes narrowing as if you’ve said something wrong. Sipping your wine, your eyes float over his shoulder, determinedly trying to spot any sign of food, gaze spilling across countless faces and tables and waiters and professors until one set of people makes you pause. Wild dark hair atop a floral dress floats in your vision, her pale hand hovering over the sleeve of a tall man in a suit. You watch the backs of their heads; the way the woman tilts her chin upward to speak to the man and laughs at what he says in return. That laugh. You frown, and feel yourself take a step forward, a step in their direction.

“Is something the matter?” Carmichael asks and you halt, flash him a sweet smile and shake your head.

“No,” you rush, practically tasting the opportunity to escape the conversation. “I’m sorry, Professor, I thought I saw someone waving me over. If you don’t min—”

“Always so many people to talk to at these things,” he says in a sing-song tone of voice, smiling obliviously. “All in due course, dear. You’ll find them later I’m sure.”

It’s not until fifteen minutes later that the tap comes on your shoulder. You turn and feel relief wash over you as you come face to face with Rachel, with her tangle of curls and bright orange dress. But then a jolt shudders through your frame, for you spot the man accompanying her; the man you watched her traipse around the room with, the man in the sleek black suit—Joel, hovering a step behind her.

“Rachel,” you blink. “Joel. Hi—”

“I didn’t know you’d be here!” Rachel says. Her eyes are wide, lips pulled back into a crooked grin that immediately sets you at ease. Joel, on the other hand, looks uncomfortable to say the least. You watch him tuck his hands in his pockets and then take them out again quickly, lips pursed together in a tight line as he glances between you and Professor Carmichael.

“Joel,” she grips the sleeve of his blazer and tugs him forward to stand beside her. You watch where her hand grazes him - the ease with which she jostles him around. “Did you know?”

“No.” He stares for a moment, lips parted and eyes darting across your face, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t know.”

“I’m giving a presentation,” you explain quickly, eyes darting between the two of them, fingers tightening around your glass every time your eyes settle on him. He trimmed his beard again; the hairs are shorter, neater—almost too short and too neat for your liking. His shirt is pressed and crisp, shock white beneath the midnight black of his jacket. He’s wearing different glasses. Tortoise shell glasses. Someone clears their throat to your right, snapping you out of your reverie. You apologise quickly, “This is Professor Carmichael.”

“Of course,” Joel nods, stepping forward to grip the older man’s hand. “Good to see you again, Professor.”

“And you, Professor Miller,” Carmichael chuckles, patting a shaky hand against Joel’s shoulder. “When was the last time we crossed paths? A year ago?”

“Must’ve been a year,” Joel smiles easily. His eyes slip to look at you every few seconds. “The conference in Ottawa.”

“The conference in Ottawa!” Carmichael cheers, nodding away. A weight sinks in your stomach like a cinder block as you watch the Professor gear up to wrangle Joel and Rachel into another conversation about Crassus’ untimely demise. But then Rachel slips away, called out to by someone across the room. And before Carmichael can open his mouth, Joel is speaking again, that honeyed drawl like music to your ears.

“Excuse me, Professor Carmichael,” he smiles again. Two of his fingers grip your elbow, tugging you a step backward. “Do you mind if I steal my star student for a few moments?”

Joel tilts your body to the left, and then the two of you are veering off into the crowd, wandering through throngs of people, his warm fingers pressed against the soft flesh above your elbow.

“Didn’t know you’d be here,” you say under your breath, glancing around warily, trying to spy any curious eyes that might notice the two of you.

“Could say the same thing,” he murmurs, dragging you to a stop at the edge of the hall with his eyebrows raised. “When’s your talk?”

“At one. Overlaps with the Keynote, which I’m a little relieved about,” you smile, a pinched, tense thing. “Hopefully everyone will go to that, and I’ll have a smaller crowd.”

Joel’s eyebrows raise. You think you notice his shoulders stiffen. “S’that right?”

A persistent pang of hunger stabs through your stomach, you rub a hand over the front of your dress and nod. Curious brown eyes follow the movement.

“Here,” Joel reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. His fingers graze your skin as he tucks the shiny rectangle of foil into your palm. “They don’t put out any food until after the Keynote.”

It’s a granola bar. Peanut butter and banana. You stare at it for a moment, almost dumbfounded by the kindness of the gesture. By how attentive he is; how much he notices without you even having to speak.

“Thanks,” you say. Nestle it into your purse and give him an appreciative smile.

“Sure,” he nods jerkily. Adjusts the glasses on his nose. “I’m disappointed to miss it.”

“Oh?” you blink. Your eyes focus then, flitting downward to focus on the badge hanging from his lanyard.

Joel Miller, Ph.D.

University of New England.

Keynote Speaker.

“Oh, shit.”

“Mhm,” Joel squints at you. “Sorry if I don’t share the sentiment that everyone comes to watch me instead of you.”

“Why didn’t you…” you gape. “You didn’t say you were giving a talk?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“The Keynote speech is a big deal,” you say, as if he wouldn’t know.

“I was their third choice,” he shrugs you off with practiced ease. “First two weren’t interested.”

“Third time lucky then,” you smile, and he chuckles. Someone calls Joel’s name then, and you both spin to see Rachel across the room with a group of people, all eagerly waving him over. Something nasty curls in your chest – something bitter and unwarranted and cruel. You smother it with a mouthful of wine and a soft smile of farewell to him as he turns and walks in her direction.

A hand clasps down on your shoulder and you flinch, turning to see Professor Carmichael beaming.

“Where were we then, my dear?”

You eat Joel’s granola bar at the back of the hall five minutes before your talk and walk onstage with the taste of peanut and banana on your lips, brushing crumbs of dried oats off your fingers.

Fifteen people attend, spotted miscellaneously across the amassed rows of chairs. The slide clicker is damp in your palm, and your thumb hovers trembling over the button, awaiting each moment you need to press down.

“Working alongside some fantastic translators,” you tell them. “We focused on studying the disparities between how Greek texts are translated by men and women. Particularly, we aimed to delve into the way emotive language has been downgraded or elevated depending on the lens through which a text is being viewed.”

Professor Carmichael sits in the front row, those sun-spot covered hands clasped in his lap, offering an encouraging smile as you shift upon the stage. Rachel is a few rows back, and she nods intently whenever you glance in her direction.

“One of our main points of focus,” you continue. “Was to understand points of difficulty in translating while accounting for cultural nuances, and how the context of differing authors can impact upon this. In my next slide—”

It’s as you turn to glance at the display that you notice them for the first time. Three rows from the front, where a group of men sit. Two of them young, maybe around your age. You change your slide and watch them whisper in each other’s ears. One of them points at you. Or not you, rather—your legs.

And you yearn for it to be meaningless. A meaningless gesture between colleagues. Meaningless legs, meaningless dress, meaningless curves and slopes and dips and spins. But as you continue, you know it can’t be. The way they talk through your presentation, as if they aren’t bothered to be heard. The way they leer at you over Carmichael’s shoulder, grinning to each other. Your words in one ear and out the other—simply a talking point for them, a blue dress, something to stare at. Your dress feels hot, tight, and your chest feels hotter, tighter under the lights as those eyes glaze over you. You glance back towards Rachel. She gives you a thumbs up that doesn’t serve to cool your nerves.

“When translating word for word in our field, it’s uncommon,” you stutter to a stop, eyes flashing warily. “Sorry, it is not uncommon to find that narratological creativity dwindles.”

You hear a chuckle to your right and swallow down the urge to shoot daggers in the direction of the sound. “Translators struggle to maintain the in-depth imaginative expression that the original Greek text inspires. But through my discussions with Professor Samaras, we found that…”

It’s in the final minutes that you notice him. Tucked away in a back row of the room, arms folded across his chest. You pause for a moment, words caught in your throat. But Joel merely gives you a short nod. The faintest hint of a smile, of the corner of his eyes slanting upward, and it’s as if a cool breeze washes over you. Hands steady, knees lock, and you push through. You don’t look at any of their faces until it’s over.

And when it is, and scattered applause decorates the air, you can’t help but cast a smile in Joel’s direction. A smile that slips and wavers when you spot the broad expanse of his back, that sharp black blazer, as he slips out the doors without wasting a second.

The rest of your audience follows suit, a slim line that wanders out the doors without a second glance—spare Carmichael, who tells you he was quite taken with how you presented yourself, my dear.

You hear your own name and turn to see Rachel approaching, a burst of floral frock and swinging earrings. Her smile is wide and crooked, and you can’t help but smile back.

“That was wonderful,” she cheers, squeezing your shoulder. “I was so taken by how you spoke about the importance of linguistic quality assurance when translating emotive texts. Brilliant!”

Your face warms. “Thank you,” you shake your head quickly. “It was… thank you. That’s very kind.”

You glance over her shoulder, wondering if he’ll reappear – perhaps share her sentiments, maybe shower you with praise. He doesn’t.

She catches you looking. “Joel was in a rush,” she offers easily. “Lots of people wanting to talk to the man of the evening.”

“Of course,” you swallow thickly. Another smile.

Rachel stares at you curiously. “He’s very impressed by you, you know.” Her voice is warm, gentle—soft spoken like a mother who can sense the slightest flash of insecurity. You cringe immediately, feel your arms cross protectively across your chest. Don’t give the game away now. “Honestly, I think he read your comparative paper on the katabasis three times. Practically raved about it when I asked what it was.”

“Oh,” you blink, shifting uneasily under her gaze. “That’s… wow, I’m flattered.”

“He sees a lot of potential in you,” she says.

“Right,” you nod. “Well, he’s a grea—you’re both great teachers. I’m very lucky to be learning from the two of you.”

She doesn’t speak for a moment, and you fear your face grows warmer in the silence. Can feel the slick on your palms returning, the flash of heat in your chest, the longer you sit in it. You make a quick and tumbling excuse to flee the scene, spitting a mess of thank you so much and just need some fresh air, before you’re stumbling out of the hall and wandering outside on newborn deer legs. You snag a flute of something bubbly off the bar on your way, and find yourself on a secluded bench in the breezeway behind the conference centre.

You sit there alone and watch the grass, the way the light from inside shines out across the green. Feel the chill of the wind slip past you, rustling your hair and raising goosebumps on your bare legs. Sip dry Cava and contemplate how many more of these things you can feasibly imagine attending in your career. There’s a single text from Nora on your phone, asking how the presentation went. You tuck it into your purse, leaving the message unanswered.

By the time you hear the door hinges creak, the glass is near empty. You spy a shadowy form snaking its way down the path, headed in your direction.

“Mr Keynote Speaker,” you hum. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Funny,” Joel mutters dryly, knees cracking as he falls onto the bench beside you. A heavy sigh slips from between his lips, fingers lacing together in his lap as he gazes across the breezeway. You down the last of your drink and place it on the concrete by your feet. “Needed some god damn peace and quiet. All that chit chat drives me insane.”

You murmur in agreement and stare at the side of his face – the neatened beard, the thick frame of his glasses. Purposeful or not, the side of his body is pressed against yours. Thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder – he’s sat directly in the centre of the bench. Heat radiates off his body and it’s almost too warm, and yet you find yourself relaxing against him.

“First time at one of these?” Joel asks gruffly. He’s still not looking at you, his eyes trained on a pigeon pecking at a discarded foil wrapper on the grass.

“Is it that obvious?” you grimace.

“Only because I’ve been to twenty of the damn things,” he says. “Y’learn how to smell the nervous energy comin’ off the first timers.”

“Twenty?” you mutter. Feel your stomach curl and twist at the idea of doing this day nineteen more times.

“Somethin’ like that.” Joel glances at you from the corner of his eye. “Went to a lot during my second degree. Had to get good at talkin’, fast.”

“Ahh,” you say. “So, you weren’t always such a sweet talker then?”

He lets out a low chuckle, as if amused by the thought. “Sweet talker, huh? That what I am?”

You shrug, suddenly emboldened by him following you outside, by how close he is, by how open he seems.

“I suppose,” you say slowly.

“And what gave you that idea?”

“You here alone?” you offer a poor imitation of him, voice low and breathy with your awful take on a Southern twang. “Meet me in the bathroom.” You wink, quietly delighted by the way his lips have tightened into a flat line.

“Funny,” he says again, entirely unamused now.

Something warm shifts in your lower stomach. Something wet—a vivid memory of him on the ground behind you in the bathroom of a bar, of hands spreading you open, of his tongue pressing inside you, of The Eagles playing faintly in the background.

“You do that kind of thing often?” you ask.

“Do what?”

“Approach young women at bars,” you wiggle your eyebrows, smirking. “Rob them of their virtue in the bathroom and then hope you never see them again.”

“You? Virtuous?” Joel rolls his eyes. You can see the corner of his lip curling upward. “Must be gettin’ yourself confused with somebody else.”

“Maybe,” you smile.

“Sometimes,” he casts you a look, after a moment. “Not… often. And not young.”

“Younger,” you counter quickly.

“I didn’t expect you to be…” he trails off and shakes his head. “It’s not a thing I do, alright?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t date then?”

He tilts his head at you curiously, eyes planted firmly on your face now. “Not for a long time.”

“Why not?”

“Been busy,” he grunts, clearly growing impatient by the line of questioning. “Spent a lot of time studying. Working.”

“Where did you study?” you press.

“This twenty fuckin’ questions?” he snaps, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Came out here for—”

“You came out here,” you interrupt. “Because I came out here.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t try to deny it.

“Night classes at Texas A&M for my undergrad,” he grits out. You smile sickly sweet, pleased. “Did my postgrads part time at UT Austin,” Joel says.

Your eyebrows kick up again, the teasing pretence all but forgotten. “Sounds… unconventional?” you offer softly.

“That’s one word for it,” he agrees vaguely. “Spent the better half of a decade at school just to end up teaching at one. Ain’t that somethin’.”

“And before that?” you press.

“Before that,” he continues with a wry grin, one full of distaste and frustration and resentment. “Was a contractor for a long time. Houses, buildings.” He rests a hand against his shoulder, fingers pressing against the muscle there, as if working out a decade old knot.

And for a moment you can see it. Can almost taste it. Collared shirts and glasses replaced with hard hats and hammers and dirt in the lines of his palms. Joel carrying a plank of wood on his shoulder, wearing a toolbelt. Joel on his knees, sweat shining on his forehead while he wields an electric drill.

Your dress feels too tight suddenly. Too warm.

“A contractor,” you say distractedly, and hope he doesn’t notice how your thighs press together.

“Mhm,” Joel nods. “With my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

He ignores that. “Where did you study?”

“San Diego State,” you flash him a grin. “Go Aztecs.”

“Good school,” he hums. “You’re a long way from California.”

Only a little further than Texas, you think.

“You did good up there,” Joel adds.

Your smile dips and wanes into a scowl, uninterested in the change of subject.

“What?”

“It was…” you shake your head slowly, face warming as you glance down to your lap.

“What?”

“It just wasn’t what I expected.” You pick at a loose thread on the hem of your dress. “That’s all.”

“And what did you expect?”

“To be listened to,” you grunt. “Not gawked at by some ancient jerkoffs that were only there to stare at my ass when I turned to change a slide.”

Joel nods, quiet.

“I wanted it to matter,” you mutter. “Wanted to… fuck, I wanted to impress them.”

“I was impressed.”

“Oh yeah?” you snort, finally looking up. “You hightailed it out of there pretty quickly.”

Joel shakes his head and stares back at you, gaze heavy. His hands tighten into fists against his thighs, knuckles lightening to white as he squeezes. You shuffle on the seat—ignore the flare of heat that erupts where your shoulder nudges firmer against his.

“I guess you could say,” he speaks slowly. “I’m tryin’ to keep my distance.”

You arch an eyebrow and attempt to swallow the laugh bubbling up your throat.

“Well, you’re doing a great job,” you smirk.

Joel laughs and your smile falters, mouth going slack at the sound. How rare it is, and how much rarer to have it all to yourself like this. For all of his sharp angles, his sweet talking, his harsh words, and harsher touch—that laugh is the cruellest part.

He jostles his shoulder against yours a little. An acknowledgement; perhaps a glimpse inside. Something that says, I know, I see it, I feel it, I can’t stop either.

“You make it hard,” he says then, and his voice is soft—almost a whisper.

“How’s that?” You match his tone, as if you’re two little kids who’ve snuck outside to share secrets where no one else can hear them.

“You bein’ here,” he murmurs, eyes searching. “Startin’ to feel like you’re everywhere I turn.”

A breeze swims past and you shiver, locks of hair floating in a mess around your face until you pat them down. Joel moves almost imperceptibly, curling his side tighter against yours to shield you from the onslaught.

“I know the feeling,” you admit.

The muscle in his jaw ticks and he clears his throat, looking out across the green again. For a moment the pair of you sit in silence. Not as professor and student, but simply a man and a woman on a bench. Breathing the same air, soaking in a shared silence that only the two of you could understand. And there are so many more questions you want to ask him, so much more you feel compelled to know, but instead you settle for this—sitting on a bench together, shoulders and thighs and chests pressed side to side, two frames moulded around the welcoming shape of one another. For now.

“It gets easier,” Joel says then, jaw tense as he spares a glance back in your direction. “This stuff, these people, all the talkin’.”

You acknowledge him with a small smile, just the slightest twitch of your lip. Don’t bother saying, maybe for you. Maybe for a man.

“You know,” you suck in a breath and give him a lazy smile instead. “I think this might be the longest conversation we’ve had without ripping each other’s clothes off.”

“Mm.” He leans his head back to rest on the wall, eyes focusing up towards the sky.

“I like it,” you say quietly. Hear how vulnerability chimes in your voice – a wobble that begs to be ignored and understood all at once. “It’s nice… talking like this.”

Joel’s head tilts towards you, dark eyes locked on yours. He doesn’t say anything, but you can see that wariness in his eyes. The same wariness that poured out in flecks of brown and amber and gold in the light of your bedroom a week ago, when he told you he was fifty. A hesitant curiosity, an incessant suspicion, a bark of disbelief. You feel the desire to pluck the feeling out of him and swallow it whole. To lock it safely inside yourself and make it so he never has to feel it again.

So you lean in a press your lips against his. Painfully soft, just a whisper of two mouths slotting together. Chapped and dry from the wind, he tastes like bitter sparkling wine. You sigh into him, uncaring. Hook your ankle around his, place your hand on his thigh, and sink closer, deeper.

He pulls back an inch, mouth still hovering over yours, the tip of his nose pressed into your cheek.

“Shouldn’t do this here,” he warns quietly, eyes still closed. His breath is hot against your face, and you inhale the taste of mint and Cava and Joel.

“I know.” You grip the lapel of his blazer and kiss him again. Firmer this time, grazing your tongue along the seam of his lips until he welcomes you inside to taste behind his teeth. The frame of his glasses presses into your nose, your cheeks, and you smile into his mouth. Rough palms and lazy fingertips graze the skin of your bicep, your neck, until they find a home at the nape of your neck. His thumb presses against the hinge of your jaw, hot wet tongue working your mouth open until you’re whining, teeth nipping at his bottom lip and fingernails digging into the meat of his thigh.

Only when you move to press a hand beneath the collar of his shirt does Joel pull back again, this time to stand and take a step away from the bench. A tinge of scarlet creeps its way from the hollow of his throat to the apple of his cheeks. He clears his throat and glances over his shoulder, towards the door. When he looks back, there’s something new there. Some dangerous that flashes in his eyes and lingers when his gaze dances down the curve of your body against the seat.

“Where are you staying?” you ask, breathless.

For a minute he doesn’t answer. Simply stares, contemplating, broad chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. The lenses of his glasses are fogged, and you watch them slowly clear.

Then— “The Pendry.”

Joel reaches into his pocket and retrieves something small and laminated. You take it from his outstretched palm carefully. “Fifth floor.”

You stare at it for a moment. Turn it over in your palm once, twice. Read the room number printed on the key card before tucking it safely into your purse. When you look up again, Joel is already walking back inside.

It’s nearing midnight by the time you arrive at the Pendry – a high rise in Manhattan West, the kind with a fancy lobby and a doorman in a neat black suit. The polar opposite of the hotel where your suitcase lies unopened across the city. You feel out of place in an instant, but you’re still in your dress, and the staff don’t bat an eye at your presence. The key card he gave you is hot where your fingers curl around it, plastic damp and foggy with the sweat from your palms. By the time you reach his door you have to wipe it on your dress before the sensor will recognise it.

A hollow beep echoes through the hall, and his door presses open with a soft hiss.

The room is enveloped in darkness. Moonlight shines in through a slim gap in the curtains, highlighting vague edges of the space. A desk against the wall, a large bed on the left of the room. For a moment you consider that he isn’t here—that he got caught up at the conference, sweet talking into the midnight hour with other professors and alums. You can hear sounds from the street, music and car horns blaring, even from the fifth floor. But nothing else. No Joel.

Tentatively, you take a step inside the room. And then another. Kick your heels off and feel rough carpet hairs sift between your toes. Holding your hands out into the darkness, fingertips ghosting the wall for support, you venture further into the room, only pausing when your shin thumps against the corner of something sharp and sturdy.

You spit a surprised curse and stumble into the wall, hands falling to grip your leg where it throbs and smarts.

“Jesus fuck,” you hiss, smoothing your fingers against the already forming lump.

A lamp flicks on, and the room lurches into view, tinged in a soft yellow light. You jump, eyes squinting against the sudden brightness. Bed sheets rumple and shift, and Joel is frowning at you from his place amongst the pillows, a hand raising to drowsily scratch his chin.

“The hell are you doin’?” he rasps.

Heat flares in your face as you straighten up, mirroring his frown. He moves slow, a sluggish stretch out of bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, and he looks almost concerned. It gives you pause for a moment, eyes unsure of where to settle, as you note just how much of his body you’ve never seen before. The soft muscles in his legs, the dark hair over tan skin. You can see the slight round of his stomach through the thin fabric of the shirt.

“Were you asleep?” you accuse.

“Thought you weren’t coming,” Joel mutters, and the sound is a fractured medley of words and yawns. You feel a dull pang of disappointment in your chest as you watch him rub sleep from the corner of his left eye.

“Were you hoping I wouldn’t?”

He doesn’t respond.

“You gave me a key.”

“I know,” he sighs.

“Of course I was going to come.”

He nods. Yawns again, hand snaking upward to cover his open mouth.

You turn your back on him slowly. Take a glass from the little kitchenette and let the faucet run a cool burst of water into it. Little specks of water splash up, dotting against your hand. Your feet ache from wearing those damn heels all day, but you wilfully ignore the pain, gulping down half the glass while staring at your reflection in the splashback. Blue dress, hair tucked behind your ears, charcoal smudged around the curve of your eyes.

Joel’s fingers wind around yours, peeling the glass from your clutch so he can steal the final few sips. He discards it on the counter and leans against it. You try to make out his expression in the shadowy light, wiping your water-dotted arm against your side.

“S’a good dress.” He looks more alert suddenly, eyes sharp and focused, wide shoulders squared.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.”

“Didn’t say anything about it earlier.”

“Was tryin’ not to think about it,” he says plainly. “And how badly I wanted to take it off.”

Your hand stills. That misplaced disappointment slips out of the room, an unwelcome third party, and you grin at him. A sleazy, sleepy smile, and walk backwards in the direction of the bed without taking your eyes off of him.

“So take it off,” you challenge.

Your heartbeat is a steady thrum against your breastbone as he crosses the room. Badoom, badoom, no less than three strides and he’s there, gripping your waist to turn you so his chest is against your back.

Your zip is a low whir in the air, spinning downward slowly, slowly, from the nape of your neck to the sloping base of your spine. Deft hands trace skin, grazing every mark, every freckle as they are revealed to him, until the material of your dress is a gaping smile across your back. You shiver as the air rushes to meet your bare flesh, and then careful—cautious—you feel a pair of lips press against the top of your spine, soft pink against steely vertebrae. You say his name, low and surprised, and he doesn’t say anything. Those hands push the dress down your arms, and you watch it tremble and fall, a mess of blue at your feet.

You can hear his breathing; the way it stutters and jumps as he traces the clasp of your bra, the arch of your spine beneath it.

“Take it off,” you say again, and feel a sharp scratch of desperation that perhaps this time he won’t deny you this. This something that you’ve not experienced even once, and yet you find yourself missing.

The idea of his skin against yours is something prophetic, something inevitable, something divine—something determined far before the two of you met in that bar. It’s out of your control or his, irrevocable—a beast bred from desire that claws and snaps at the bars of its cage, calling you kicking and screaming into each other’s arms.

His fingers pluck at the clasp, and you smile. Sigh in relief as your bra hits the floor and the weight of your breasts are borne to the increasingly warm air. Joel is still behind you, still not seeing you. But broad palms splay across your back, massaging and flexing into your skin as they roam your sides, your stomach, up your front to cup your breasts. You gasp, eyelids fluttering as he squeezes softly, palms warm and solid against the stiff peaks of your nipples.

“Fuck.” Joel’s nose buries itself in your hair, his forehead against the back of your head. Your legs shake, and you lean back into his chest, your body a soft and tremulous thing that would surely float away if he weren’t here to hold you up.

His hands are on your breasts, sweet and tender and finally, and you wonder how long this wanting will feel like burning. Like nicks of flame that gloss over you and spit embers at anyone who dares to get too close—at him, sparking and sputtering as they collide in a spitfire symphony. This man who lives set ablaze in his own right. This man who welcomes your flame every time—swallows it whole, and lays kisses against the back of your neck with lips still warm.

Calloused fingers roll and circle your nipples, playing gently, listening for every gasp, every sigh, before diligently repeating whatever it was that called the sound forward. Your underwear is all but ruined, already damp and clinging to the slick skin between your thighs. And you can feel him against your lower back, albeit unmoving—not grinding against you, not pushing you down onto the bed, but waiting – for what, you can’t be sure.

You turn around faster than he can stop you. Hook fingers into the band of your panties and drag them down in a swift movement before straightening, holding his gaze all the while. And Joel—

He looks in pain. Dark eyes lock onto on your face and don’t stray. Don’t dip downward, don’t glance around the room. His hands hang by his sides, palms facing upward in a dejected fashion, jaw slack as he just—waits.

“Why won’t you look at me?” you whisper.

“You don’t….” he shakes his head. “If I look, I won’t be able to forget. And I—I can’t—”

There’s a flash of that memory again. Sweating in the dark bathroom of a bar in Portland. Joel wiping stained lipstick from your chin. The words I’m gonna remember this dripping from his swollen lips.

You take a step forward. Feel your nipples graze the soft material of his shirt. “And what if I don’t want you to forget?”

He says your name quietly, shoulders tense. But when you grip the hem of his shirt, he doesn’t stop you. Rather, he lifts his arms and lets you drag the fabric over his head. You marvel at the bare skin, eyes dancing across jutting collarbones and the soft swell of his stomach. Watch the way his chest rises and falls as stilted breaths flurry inside him before spilling into the air between you. Admire the trail of dark hair that rests between his bellybutton and the soft band of his underwear. His eyes don’t leave your face as you push the boxers down his legs.

“So handsome,” you say and Joel exhales, hands hovering a hairsbreadth from your waist. The weight of the moment hangs heavy between you. This moment of more. To be with him like this feels like more. To be naked feels like more.

You grip his hand and raise it to your breast again. Squeeze your fingers over his. His thumb flicks across your nipple and you gasp. His eyes darken, nostrils flaring as he fights to restrain himself.

“Joel,” you whisper. “Look at me.”

Finally, he does. Those brown eyes flickering downward to rake in the sight of your body.

He’s on you in a second, mouth slanting desperately against yours while his hands drift aimlessly across skin, untethered in their access. Fingers pinching and grabbing and squeezing, teeth searing at your lips, and you gasp as his cock presses against your stomach. The long, thick weight of him, drooling and needy. Your fingers slip around him, rub softly over the underside of his head, the vein on the underside of him. Joel grips your wrist and pushes you backward a step, his lips leaving yours with a wet smack.

“Sit on the bed,” he orders firmly.

You wander backward, stumbling onto the edge of the bed when your calves collide with the heavy wooden base. He watches you, hand drifting to wrap around the base of his cock. He strokes himself gently, black eyes tracing vigilantly over every inch of your body. And you expect him to push you down, to crawl on top of you. Instead, you watch with bated breath as Joel drops to his knees in front of you. His knees crack as they bend but he ignores it, nudging your thighs apart so his broad frame can fit between them. Hooded eyes gaze between your thighs, roaming across all of the bare skin on show. Slowly, he lifts a hand and rests it gently on your mound. Calloused fingers stroke over the dark hair there, stroking through the short curls. You sigh and cant your hips up, but Joel only grunts, his free hand squeezing your thigh to hold you against the mattress.

Before you can process it, he’s leaning forward, nose nestling in your hair as his warm tongue parts your folds. You groan in unison, your fingers carding through his curls to hold him against you. He murmurs something that you don’t quite catch over the roaring in your ears, but you don’t care. Too caught up in a smooth slide of his mouth slotting against you. The flat of his tongue glides up and down your sex, smearing a mess of slick and saliva in his wake. You gasp as it flicks sharply across your clit, your jaw tensing at the harsh sensation. Joel notices—pulls back.

“Tell me,” he urges.

“Slower,” you say quickly, voice feeble and desperate.

“Slower,” Joel repeats with a nod, and he massages your thighs as he licks into you, fingernails scraping your skin as his grip tightens and loosens and tightens and loosens. He traces slow circles around your clit with the flat of his tongue that have you gasping and bucking against his face. And when his tongue presses inside of you, you moan, fingers twisting in his hair and tugging.

“Fuck,” he growls into you, and he likes that. You do it again and his eyes flick open, pupils blown, gaze darting wildly across your stomach, your arms, your breasts, your face – watching, admiring, taking in every detail of the offering that you’ve laid so generously at his altar. The tip of a finger curls inside you and he grins when your thighs tense around him. He rears his head back to watch how you welcome him inside, eyes locked on the way your weeping cunt clenches and drips around one of his fingers, and then another.

“Yeah,” you sigh, nose scrunching at the slight stretch. “Yeah, like that, fuck.”

“Look at you,” he mutters. “Christ.” And then the cut of his wet red mouth is back on you, lips parting to suck against your clit until you’re crying out, voice a hoarse shout as you speed rapidly towards your end.

“Shit, Joel,” you gasp. One of your legs kicks out straight and his hand drops from your thigh, one set of fingers working you open while the other comes up to part your lips, giving himself more access. As he lathes wet kisses against you, the coarse hairs of his beard scraping your inner thighs, you can feel it. That liquid heat that coils and stirs in the base of your stomach.

“Joel, I—ohh—I think I’m gonna come,” you whimper, hand shooting out to grip his shoulder. Your nails dig into the tense muscle there, using the leverage to rut your hips against his face.

He groans into your sex, fingers moving faster, unforgiving against that spongy spot deep inside that sets you alight. His teeth graze against your clit, the lightest brush, and your stomach is tensing, every muscle in your body locking up.

“Give it t’me,” he says gruffly. “That’s it, come on, baby.”

A choked gasp falls from your lips and then you’re coming, twitching against his face, pussy bearing down on thick fingers that stoke you through the high. Your hand leaves his shoulder to grip the back of his neck, holding his face against where you’re aching for him still. Joel moans, a low sound from deep in his chest, dragging his fingers away so he can drink down every heady drop of your orgasm.

Baby.

The word rings in your head, bouncing inside your skull, a fierce ricochet. Baby.

Trembling fingers feather across the cowlick at the crown of his head, twisting and petting soft wayward curls as his mouth pulls back, a wet drag across the skin of your hip. You catch a glimpse of his cock, heavy and throbbing between his thighs.

Joel’s teeth nip at the sensitive skin of your thigh, a sharp pinch that makes you flinch. Tired muscles tensing, face twisting up as he sucks and licks, hot tongue soothing over the stinging red mark. He breathes your name, mouthing the sound into your flesh once, twice.

“I’ve been tryna remember this,” he murmurs. “Only ever had it for a second.”

You whimper as he licks into you again, slowly. And you’re so sensitive, and maybe—maybe—it’s too much, too soon, but he doesn’t care. He grips your calf and tucks it over his shoulder. Holds it there in a vice grip.

“Wasn’t enough,” he says. Dark eyes look up and you’re rapt in them—bound and boneless simply from having those eyes on you you you nothing but you all he sees is you and he loves it, you can tell. Thrives on the way you melt beneath his rough fingertips, the wet drag of his tongue. “Remember that first day in my office?

Remember, remember, remember, how could you forget? I’m gonna remember this this this.

“Yes.” Your leg trembles against the side of face, the coarse hairs of his beard scratching your skin. The tip of his tongue lathes slow circles around your clit. A cruel, leisurely slip of flesh on flesh that has you gasping and twitching beneath his hands.

“I wanted this that day,” Joel rasps. “Needed it. But you were gone so soon, ‘n’ I couldn’t help myself.”

“What—oh fuck—” He flicks his tongue faster, hot swipes from side to side that have your thigh clamping down against the muscles in his neck. Your mind is a blur, eyebrows furrowed as you try to make sense of his words.

“Fucked my fist the second you left,” he growls. “My fingers in my mouth, the taste of you—Christ, couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout it.”

“Joel,” you gasp, impatient. “I—get up here. Please, just—”

Strong hands push you up, push you back, further onto the bed until your head hits the pillows. His hair is a wild fray around his head, knotted and mussed from your fingers raking through it.

“I don’t have anything,” he says.

“I don’t care,” you say.

His knees press onto the mattress on either side of you and his eyes glance down your chest before he grips your waist and he’s turning you. Your stomach meets the sheets and you move to arch your back, to tilt your hips up towards him, but a firm hand rests on the small of your back, and keeps you down.

“Like this,” you hear him say. “Trust me.”

His chest is flush to your back, and you can feel him there, knuckles brushing the flesh of your ass, spreading you apart so his cock can press inside. The pillow swallows your wet gasp, and your eyes pinch shut against the stretch as he sinks deeper and deeper. Every delicious inch splits you open wider, further, carving out that space that’s just for him, and it’s more. Your vision blurs and you clutch at the sheets, fingers tangling in linen as Joel’s breathy groans fill the air.

“God,” he grunts. “Always so fuckin’—tight.”

You cry out as he begins to move, pressing you further into the mattress. The stretch of him is so broad—so deep—it has hot tears pricking in your eyes. Your legs are straight, almost clamped together, leaving the smallest gap for him to break through. His chest melts against your back, sweet sweat sliding from skin to skin. And his stomach is soft against the base of your spine, but his teeth are sharp where they nip and smart against the skin of your shoulder, your neck. He sets a pace that has you biting down into the pillow to muffle your groans. It’s almost overbearing how good it feels, how he surrounds you. Flat against the mattress, there’s nowhere to hide from the pleasure, no way to twist or curl your body away from how good it feels. A choked moan is muffled by the pillow.

And then his fingers are in your hair, dragging your head up.

“What are you fuckin’ doin’?” he grunts. You gasp, eyebrows furrowed and mouth ajar as you take take take. He pulls your hair harder when you don’t respond, presses his chin against your shoulder, lips curling against the skin of your neck as he speaks. “Don’t do that, not here. No more hidin’, I wanna fuckin’ hear it.”

He grips your hips and drags you upward so you’re on your knees, bracing against your forearms, and then his hand snakes around the front of your body, fingers dragging between your thighs as he begins moving again.

“Oh fuck,” your eyes widen in surprise, jaw hanging slack as he rolls his finger in expert circles over your clit. “Fuck, fuck.”

“Yeah?” he gasps.

“Fuck,” you repeat, mewling every time one of his thrusts sends your face forward into the pillows. “Yes, oh god.”

“Yeah, you fuckin’ like that.” Each word is punctuated by a thrust of his hips. “That’s it, lemme hear it.”

“Joel,” you cry out, voice cracked and broken. “So good.”

“I know, baby,” he grunts. “I know.”

“You’re so—deep,” you gasp.

“I know,” he soothes.

“I missed this,” you babble, mouth moving faster than your mind. “Missed you.”

“Christ,” he spits, pulling you up until you’re leaning against his chest. His fingers are a blur against your clit, cock a fast wet shift in and out in and out.

You tilt your head back against his shoulder, mouth hanging open as you press your ass back into him.

“Missed me?” Joel says, and his cheek is warm against yours. Wet. Your face is wet. “Gonna show me how much?”

“Yes,” you moan. His free hand grips your breast, squeezing and pinching.

“Need to get my fuckin’ mouth on you,” he growls.

“No,” you beg. “Joel, don’t—fuuuck, fuck, don’t stop.”

“Wanted to,” his hips stutter against you, losing momentum for a second. “Jesus, wanted to take my fuckin’ time.” You snake a hand behind his head to grip his hair again, to press his face into your neck. His mouth latches onto your skin, spit mixing with sweat where his teeth and tongue trace your roaring pulse. Your thighs are trembling, knees weak and wobbling against the mattress as he pistons into you, unrelenting, unforgiving.

“I’m—” your eyes start to roll back. You can feel your back arch and twist against him, toes curling into the sheets. “Oh my God.”

He says your name in a panicked hiss and pulls out.

You gasp at the loss, eyes flying open in alarm. He moves your body, not wasting a second as he lowers you down onto your back presses inside again, hands gripping the underside of your knees, holding them against your chest. Practically bent in half, you tremble in his grasp, eyes blurred and wet as you sob his name.

“Lemme have it,” he goads you, voice a dull vibration against your chest. “Bein’ so fuckin’ good for me, yeah, just like that.”

And it feels like something splinters within you as heat floods your senses, vision whiting out until all you can see is the soft edges of his curls against your chest, the wet smear of his tongue over your nipple. All you can hear is the words he speaks against your skin.

I’m close, he warns, and you say yes, say please, say I want it, because you do.

“Where?” You call the shots.

And you say, Inside, say, I want it, because you do.

Because you want everything. Everything he has and whatever dark matter is left after that. And everything is a naked thought, a stark realisation, a frighteningly bare streak of madness that zips down your spine and melts in your belly, and you can feel yourself tightening around him with the enormity of it. Can feel your body squeezing and sucking and holding it holding it holding it and with black eyes, spheres of a night sky’s pitch, he stares at you. Unruly eyebrows pinched tight. Mouth slick and swollen and snarling, white teeth grit like prison bars, keeping everything contained inside himself, just out of your reach.

“Fuck,” Joel spits, pleading, desperate. “Don’t—”

But his hips are bruising against yours and you relish in the ache. The jut of bone amidst the softness of his skin, a reminder of the coldness in him, the determination, the impatience. And you know that you can only have so much softness until there is stone. But you cannot understand don’t, you never have with him, so you grind upward. Meet him thrust for thrust, and shiver in delight as a tortured expression passes over his face. And when you come again he curses, broad palms bearing down on you, holding your frame into the mattress as he pushes you through it, prolonging that naked thought, that fearsome idea. You only hope that he cannot see how your own everything spills. How it cools and congeals around him with its palms spread open, longing to receive as much in return.

Joel comes with a shout, hips dragging backwards so his spend can spill across your stomach and the puffy lips of your sex. He grips his cock, milking himself for all he’s worth until wet ropes of his come are smeared across your thighs too. You gasp and writhe against the bed, trying in vain to keep your heavy eyelids open, not wanting to miss a second. The shine of your slick on his thighs and lower stomach is clear in the dim lighting, and you smile at the sight of it – your claim on him. Chest heaving, he follows your gaze, fingers swiping across his skin before sinking into his mouth. He groans around his fingers and you stomach lurches as he lowers his chest to the bed, mouth drifting between your splayed thighs.

You cup his jaw and hold him still.

“I can’t,” you murmur, and your voice is cracked and broken. “S’too much.”

And he agrees, tracing the marks on the inside of your thighs with his mouth until your eyes drift closed.

Time passes slowly after that. You don’t open your eyes for a while. Too fucked out, too tired, too tender.

There’s a warm glide of something soft and wet over your stomach, your thighs, between your legs—Joel cleaning up his mess. You almost wish he wouldn’t.

“Sorry,” you mumble a few minutes later. “I’ll go in a second.” But your eyes are closed, and the sheets smell like him.

You feel the mattress dip beside you. Hear a soft click as he turns off the lamp, and darkness swells around you once more.

“S’okay,” he says, and his voice is so close, as if he were whispering against the shell of your ear, breathing the words into you. “Don’t have to go.”

And it makes sense not to go. To stay, to stay, to stay. To sink deeper into the hotel mattress, and let the sounds of his heavy exhales lull you further to sleep. He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t come any closer. But you can smell him. Can feel his warmth, a radiating sun that shines across the side of your body closest, and you sink deeper still.

You think of the katabasis - the hero’s journey spiralling down into the underworld. Of Orpheus seeking the safe return of Eurydice, his love lost too soon. Of Odysseus, guided by Circe to discover Teiresias on his quest for homecoming. Of Aeneid, venturing downward to meet his father and hear his true destiny. This descent into the afterlife, into the realm of the dead, wherein upon return our hero is irrevocably changed. But to stay, to stay, to stay. So warm it is here, you think, so lovely and warm to descend wholly into this wanting, this burning, this everything.

“Is this a good idea?” you murmur, voice a drowsy call into the darkness. “For me to stay?”

Joel doesn’t respond.

tags: @lovely-ateez @nana90azevedo @stevie75 @evyiione @dameron-grant-spector @brittmb115 @ashhlsstuff @casa-boiardi @bbyanarchist @hopplessilse @joeldjarin @anoverwhelmingdin @bluevxnus @kelp-dreaming @prettyinpunk85 @spacelatinos4life @iluvurfather @mrsquill @sarap-77 @sunnywithachanceofjavi @alleyy-katt @zeida @mendessi @love-the-abyss @myrealmofchaos @a-roving-woman @punkshort @gracie7209 @whichwitchwanda @fellinfromthetop @bitchwitch1981 @suzmagine @@lmariephoto37 @harriedandharassed @cumberpegg @tonysttank @ourautumn86 @my-tearsricochet @shotgun-shelby @5oh5 @psychedelic-ink @what-is-your-wish @sugadolly @elissaaa @nobodycanseeinsidemysoul

thank you for reading! x

#fic recs #nsfw #tlou #fic: a lover's pinch

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yellow-ochre · 2 months

Text

a lover's pinch | three

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni summary: joel gets a little birthday surprise, and you get a little too drunk. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, pining, f!masturbation [barely], sending nudes, joel finally locks his office door, dirty talk, the slightest slip of possessive language, uh.. ahem.. biting, protected piv birthday sex, a messy dinner party, excessive alcohol consumption [i'm talking embarassing], irritating men, soft!joel. word count: 10.3k series masterlist | main masterlist a lover's pinch playlist a/n: let the pining commence folks. hey siri, play brown eyed girl by van morrison. special thanks to @bageldaddy for the emotional support as i endured the labour that was the final hour of editing this. hope you guys enjoy! this is part three of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two.

Thursday.

A fortnight passes in the slow blink of a bleary eye.

Fall nudges Summer out the door, solidifying its presence in Maine with flaxen leaves and rolling grey clouds.

The rain comes at night. Rivulets of moisture that leak onto the windowsill, seep into the cracked wood there and fill your room with the sweet smell of petrichor. It clears before the sun rises most days, but you unpack of a box of sweaters and hang them in your closet, nonetheless. You enjoy communal coffees in the kitchen and try not to frown when the morning light doesn’t warm your legs the way it used to. Force yourself not to feel mournful when you get home one afternoon and find Pete on the sofa with a blanket over him.

And perhaps that’s why when you wake on Thursday to sunshine—to warm bed sheets, to blue sky, to bright whites and yellows coming through the window—you feel lighter. Start the day with a calm countenance that has you blinking sleep from your eyes and smiling drowsily as your fingers trail the windowsill and come off dry. You share a pot of coffee with Pete; let him explain soil vapour extraction to you for the fifth time. Listen, smile, nod, and don’t roll your eyes when he asks do you get it now? And when the time comes to get ready for the drive to campus, you are smiling. Shoulders loose, eyes bright.

It had been a tiresome couple of weeks.

As the middle of the semester drew closer, you’d spent days on end poring over a laptop with tired eyes and cramping fingers. Writing and editing—and then rewriting and re-editing—your first round of essays and analyses. Balmy afternoons spent nursing glasses of cheap wine with your roommates evolved to late night coffees alone in your room, eyelids drooping as you fawned over every word, every quote, every fucking comma – all of it for him.

Him who you hadn’t been alone with in almost fifteen days.

Him whose texts were seared into your memory, left unanswered on your phone.

Him who you could hardly look at during lectures, for fear of losing your train of thought.

Him who you were hellbent on impressing.

Joel, Joel, Joel.

And as busy as you’d been, it hadn’t stopped the stares. Brief, intimate glances from down the hall in the history commons. The flash of a knowing smile as you shuffle toward the exit after a lecture. The graze of fingertips against your elbow, muddling your mind as you rush to meet a text translation study group.

Watching, waiting, wanting – a near insufferable task since that afternoon in his office.

Late into the first week you’d discovered that, upon focusing hard enough, you could still feel the ache in your knees; the rug burns his carpet had left on your skin. And then you shoved the memory of it down; compressed it somewhere deep inside, hidden away until you had the chance to open it back up again, and take your time with him like you truly wanted to.

And it seems today was that day.

You stare out the window for a moment. Sip your coffee and rake in the greenness of the grass, the cloudless sky, the ray of sun shining across your bedroom floor – and decide you’ll wear a skirt to Joel’s seminar.

The pin on his shirt is blue.

Not cerulean, or baby, or steel.

Not like how the sky was blue as you drove to campus with your windows down. Not like clear turquoise waters on a white sand beach in Greece, or like a robin’s egg swathed in leaves and sticks. But a deep, rich colour. Royal blue. A folded circular pin, with two tassels coming out the bottom of it.

It’s the first thing you notice when you walk into the lecture hall – the thing your eyes snag on repeatedly as you wander towards the third row and tuck yourself into a seat. That vivid splash of blue against a plain white t-shirt. No buttons today; formal wear forgone in place of a simple tee that hugs the vast planes of his chest, snug against the thick span of his biceps. His arms are almost enough to distract you from the gaudy brooch.

Joel won’t stop moving at the foot of the room, pacing the same length of floor over and over again, waiting for the crowd to settle. Hands busy themselves at his waist, wiping a small square of cloth against the lenses of his glasses. A muscle in his forearm twitches with every swipe of fingers against glass, and the sight has a hazy flush rising in your neck. Despite yourself, you try in earnest to catch a glimpse of what the pin says. Bare thighs tensed in your seat as you tilt your torso forward, eyes squinting.

The last students wander in, and he’s shifting, sliding those glasses onto the bridge of his nose, and snatching the slide clicker from the desk. He offers a polite greeting to the room.

It doesn’t take long for someone to speak up. “Special occasion?”

Joel’s hands still, chin tilting down as he glances at royal blue and then back out at the group, a wry smile breaking across his face.

“Just a thing the faculty does here,” he clears his throat awkwardly, laughs a little. It’s a soft sound, his laugh. Tickles your ears and makes you want to smile in return. “Some of the others started it a few years back… they make everyone wear one on their birthday.”

A chorus of surprised well-wishes chime from around the room, and Joel waves them away with a broad palm, shaking his head.

Even from three rows back you can see the pink in his cheeks; the resistance in his eyes as he intercepts the kind words soaring in his direction. You recognise a shyness there, an unwillingness to be the centre of attention, and it surprises you. Joel always seems so confident, standing week after week in front of 30 odd people and talking for hours. But you suppose then he can hide behind his words; behind years of knowledge and study and practice. When it’s about him? He falters. Tries to hide. You almost want to curse at him for being so endearing. And maybe you would – if it wasn’t his birthday.

“Nah, none of that,” Joel tuts, shaking his head. “Let’s get started, alright?”

He claps his hands once, and the sound reverberates through the quietening room. The fabric of his pants clings to the meat of his thighs, tightening around muscle as he rests against the edge of the desk. You fight to keep your gaze on his face.

“Today we’re gonna start with talkin’ about the instigators in our parallel texts.”

And you try to listen, you really do.

Try to focus on his words as he talks, spouting thoughts about antagonists of war, about Helen and Menelaus, about Paris of Troy, but you can’t get past the spread of his thighs against the desk. The way his body moves when he finally rises, wandering to-and-fro across the space. How his thick thumb presses against the clicker in his hand, slides shifting on the wall behind him. There’s a dull ringing in your ears, the rough spell of his drawl vibrating inside your mind, spinning it’s yarn, and tangling itself in the space where rational thought normally resides. Birthday. It’s Joel’s birthday. Your hands clasp in front of your face, knuckle snagged between teeth, biting down, clinging to some far reach of clarity; something to bring you back to the ground and halt the dallied trance you seem to come under whenever he’s nearby.

Birthday, birthday, birthday.

As he discusses the Judgement of Paris, your mind wanders to a teacher you had as a child. A stern woman in her sixties who was fearsome among the gang of six-year old’s you roamed in. One year it had rained on your birthday, a spitting storm of hail and thunder. And when you cried, she told you that it only rains on your birthday when you’ve been a bad little girl.

It was sunny the next year, but she wasn’t your teacher anymore, and there was no one around to praise you for how good you must’ve been that year. For how hard you must’ve strived to achieve such wonderful sunshine on your special day.

A wry smile splits your face, tucked into the back of your hand, for you know better than anyone else just how bad Joel has been. And yet today, for his birthday, the sun shines.

He steps closer to the front row of seats, and your eyes glean across the lettering on his pin; the words Birthday Boy laid out in gold. A huff of laughter escapes you, and then your eyes are drifting up, past tan skin and scruffy facial hair, to find Joel staring straight at you. Dark, intrigued eyes. Assessing you, undressing you. Frowning.

“Somethin’ to add?” he clips.

The smile slides off your face. “Sorry?”

“Do you have somethin’ to add?” he drawls, unimpressed. The words slow and paced out as if he were speaking to a fool. “You seemed amused.”

“Oh,” you blink.

You shift awkwardly in your seat, straighten up, aware of every set of eyes in the room on the two of you. Joel’s face is stony, unimpressed. It’s the first time he’s made direct eye contact with you since you stepped into the room, and he is… on edge, clearly.

“No,” you decide on the safe answer, tone firm. “Nothing to add.”

He stares for a moment and then nods. Mutters a stern Pay attention underneath his breath before returning his gaze to the rest of the room. You scoff quietly, and swallow down the stab of embarrassment his words bring. The feeling is sour in your mouth, like the seed of a lemon is stuck behind your teeth.

Two seats to your left you hear a poorly concealed titter. Turn your head to spot a woman, maybe a year or two younger than yourself, giving you a pitiful smirk. You arch an eyebrow. Mouth what?

She simply shakes her head at you and turns to look at Joel, all glossy lips and doting gaze as she listens to his continued ponderings about Menelaus' role in the Trojan War.

You watch her for a moment. Note the way she laughs at his jokes, smiles as he goes off on a mindless tangent about something you aren’t paying attention to; hanging onto his every word. And you wonder if this is how you look to other people when you watch him. Another stark-raving Maenad, thirsting and possessed by the spirit of this Bacchant of a man. The Roaring One. The one with bedroom eyes and cheeks like wine. Joel Miller; fraught, brooding, and willing to embarrass you in front of a room of your peers to feel an inch of the self-control you've so easily ridden him of. A Dionysian fit to oppose the doomed Bacchant inside of you, whose mouth foams and eyes roll in ecstasy at the mere presence of him.

He crosses the front of the room, back and forth, and you imagine him as a bull of a man. Golden locks and thorned head, thyrsus in hand as he commands the attention of an enthralled audience. Corrals them to follow him, to adore him. And yet the image you create is distorted at best, a watered-down version of the truth, for what spites you the most is that he simply… doesn’t have to try. There are no attempts to convince; no persuasion in his voice, no dishonesty necessary as the room swoons for him. As you yourself yearn for him. Covet his touch, his body, akin to that of a God’s.

And perhaps there is some immorality there, some gross misalignment of hubris, that yearns to reset the scale. To remind this man that indeed you have knelt before him, but he knelt for you first.

The thought has your thighs pressing together.

“Well, Juno hates Aeneas because she hates Trojans. And for that we have Paris to blame,” he answers someone’s question with a chuckle. Gains a few scattered laughs in response. “Because we all know how Juno feels about Paris.”

You rise from your chair, legs shifting before your brain can catch up. Take careful, tip-toed steps towards the exit. Joel’s eyes drift in your direction, curious gaze draping over the bare skin of your legs as he talks. Just for a second though, a split second, before he’s looking determinedly back to the room, and you’re disappearing from his line of sight.

“And so, she thwarts the Trojans every chance she gets,” his voice grows softer as you stray farther from the door, until it’s nothing more than a vague purr down the hall. You wander into the women’s bathroom and slip inside an empty cubicle.

Birthday, birthday, pay attention, birthday, they make everyone wear one on their birthday, pay attention.

Your brain is abuzz, nerves alight as you place your phone carefully atop the toilet paper dispenser. Trembling fingers graze the hem of your skirt, the warm skin of your thighs, and yes you’ve been wet since you saw him. Turned on from just the sight of him, the sound of his mellow voice, the idea that maybe, just maybe, today you will get to touch him again. You can feel how it clings to your panties, sweet soft warmth pooling out of you, a dizzying wetness that longs for Joel to come and find you. To take you in his hands, tilt you down to his parted lips, and drink it from the source.

Your fingers are cold against your skin. A delighted shiver swims down your spine as you graze them along the front of your underwear. Barely touching, hardly any pressure, simply grazing over the spot where your clit has begun to pulse. A little firmer now, you press against the thin material of your underwear, let it slip between your soaked folds. You bite your lip to contain a soft sigh, and smile as you feel how wet the material is getting. Once you’re satisfied you pull your hand away, leave a shimmering streak against your leg where you wipe your fingers, and reach for your phone.

Position one foot on the closed seat and rest your back against the cubicle wall, angling the phone between your spread thighs. Tilting your phone this way and that until the camera catches you in the perfect light; the flared material of your skirt bunched around your hips, the shiny smear across your inner thigh, the damp stain of slick against the front of your light blue panties. You take a few pictures. Trail your hand down your stomach and let it appear in some of them as well; fingers poised over the band of your underwear, just a tease. Finally content, you tuck your phone away, splash some cold water on your neck, and wander back into the lecture theatre.

Joel looks up when you walk inside. He’s seated behind his desk now, the room quiet as people jot down notes, eyes flitting between their laptops and the presentation displayed across the wall. Furrowed eyebrows and brown eyes shining with that barely-contained interest they always seem to hold when he looks at you these days. You offer him a nonchalant smile before turning your back to him. Sway your hips with exaggerated emphasis as you waltz up the stairs, slide back into your seat, and take your phone back out.

No one’s watching you now. Not your fellow Maenad, with her sharp judgemental eyes. Not even Joel. Your fingers dance their way into your text thread with him, and you select your favourite from the pictures.

You glance at the two lone messages in the thread, gaze lingering on the second message.

That can’t happen again.

Hesitation grips you, fingers hovering over the screen as you contemplate the seriousness behind the words. And then you hear him answer someone’s question, and the rough drone of his voice has you pressing send anyway.

Happy Birthday Professor x

You imagine you can feel the vibration of his phone. Feel it groan and shift in the pocket of his pants, screen lighting up. You wonder if he’s saved your name in his phone, or if a picture of underneath your skirt just popped up from an unsaved number. You try to focus on the article laid out in front of you. Stare at the messy under linings, at the notes on the margins made in your chicken-scratch handwriting, and wait.

It doesn’t take long to feel the heat of his gaze, almost paranormal in its effect. You can feel it’s weight – how it glides across your skin, sticky, viscous, and impossible to ignore.

When you glance up, you have to resist the urge to shrink into your seat. Joel’s face is a mess of emotions. Square jaw clenched tight; lips sealed. Stormy eyes that dart furiously between you and his lap, where you imagine his phone rests. Previously neat curls are now tousled and stressed over. You watch he glares downward, and drags tight fingers through the locks again. He doesn’t look up for a long time after that. Shoulders hunched forward, chin to his chest as he stares down.

Joel doesn’t stand up for the last 90-minutes of the seminar. Doesn’t smile, doesn’t joke. And he certainly does not look in your direction again. Not until the little hand on the clock strikes 11 o’clock, marking the end of his seminar, does he even entertain your side of the room. And not until the last student files out the door do you rise and meet him by the desk, a knowing look in both of your eyes.

You walk ahead of him the entire way to his office. Joel keeps an all-too casual distance from you, but you can hear the weight of his steps against the hardwood floors. Can feel his looming presence over your shoulder – sense his bursting need to get you alone. You only fall into step beside him when the office door comes into view, and then he’s herding you towards it, palm pressing flat against the small of your back in trivial, insistent shoves.

With a final glance over his shoulder, Joel nudges you inside his office.

There’s music playing inside. Soft waves of sound undulating toward you from the record player, and yet when he drags the door shut behind him you still hear the undeniable click of his key turning the lock. The window is closed, curtains half-drawn, and the air in his space is warm; almost stuffy from lying dormant and empty for hours.

Silently, Joel makes his way across the room to where his record player sits. Your eyes trail him faithfully, trained on how his shoulder blades shift like tectonic plates beneath the thinning fabric of his shirt. The urge to wander forward and pull it off him is intense. To run your nails down his skin and leave marks on his body the way he’s done to you.

“You think you’re funny?” his voice comes, a low murmur that you almost miss through the music. He lifts a hand and pulls the glasses off his nose. Tucks them carefully onto the table.

“Funny?” you reply, mouth suddenly dry.

Joel shifts the needle, restarting the record. Momentary silence swells into a bright intro, and he’s turning to look at you, thick arms folding across his chest. Your heart is a galloping staccato behind your sternum. A bead of sweat glides from the hollow of your throat down your chest, dampening the fabric of your shirt.

“Sendin’ me that picture of your pussy all wet for me,” he tuts softly. “Knowin’ damn well, I couldn’t do anythin’ about it.”

You swallow as he takes a step towards you. His hands drift to the front of his body, and you watch with bated breath as long fingers begin working at the silver buckle on his belt.

“Y’gimme nothin’ for weeks, don’t even pay attention during my fuckin’ classes, and then…” he pauses, almost glaring at you. But it’s not contempt in his eyes. No, it’s something else, something deeper—black brown peppered with frustration and lust and… There’s a lump in your throat. Something heavy that presses against your windpipe and makes it hard to swallow.

“You get off on this, hmm?” he asks, voice gravelly. “Torturin’ me? Makin’ me wait?”

“I’ve been busy,” you murmur, eyes fixed on where he drags leather through the beltloops of his pants. He discards it on the ground between you – an offering, an invitation.

“Busy girl,” he murmurs dryly. “And what about now? Now that I’ve got you here all alone… you gonna make me beg for it?”

Your pussy clenches at the thought of him on his knees, palms clasped in his lap, and it has that slick heat pooling between your legs. You want to denigrate him the way you feel he has done to you. Order him to kneel, to apologise, to fucking beseech you. But Joel’s eyes are dark, face drawn as he watches you. And you know that you’ve already gotten even.

Royal blue swims in your vision and you give him your best smile. Shake your head and say, “Not today, birthday boy.”

Something glints in his eyes, hands twitching by his sides. You mirror him, finally inching forward a step across the carpet. His belt is solid beneath your shoes.

He’s shifting in an instant, swallowing the final stretch of distance between you until his chest knocks into yours. The breath rushes from your lungs at the contact, and his hands are clasping your face, mouth slipping against yours in a brutal collision.

It’s rough, messy, teeth knocking and chapped lips. It’s the first time you’ve kissed since that night at the bar, and it consumes the both of you.

Joel’s body seizes yours, wraps around you and holds you to him, gripping the skin of your arms, your neck, your face, anywhere he can reach. Saliva pools in your mouth and wells into his, low sounds of desire being swapped back and forth between dripping tongues. There’s something desperate about it – how his lips bruise against yours. Something earnest and needy and urgent in the way his thumbs dig into your jaw, fingers tangling in the hair around your ears.

You’re gasping into his mouth, hands dropping to undo his zipper in a frenzied hurry. You can feel him behind the material, a firm bulge that becomes more and more evident as you work to get him undressed. His hands drop to your waist, your ass, and he’s pressing up, up, up the hem of your skirt, nails digging into skin as he squeezes and pulls you flush against him. Broad palms splayed across searing flesh, the tips of his fingers dragging dangerously close to where you’re aching for him. Your fingers shift from his pants to your own shirt, gripping the hem to tear it over your head—but Joel stops you. Bats your hands away and hoists you off the ground instead.

“Shit,” you huff in surprise, holding his shoulders for support as his arms tighten like a vice beneath your thighs and around your waist. He cuts you off with another sweltering kiss, and he’s moving. Stumbling blindly backward, a blurred mess of two people, all harsh exhales and clashing teeth, tilting back, back, back until his calves hit the armchair and he’s dissolving into it, dragging you down with him. Your knees sink into the plush fabric on either side of his waist, and his hands are on you, bunching your skirt up around your hips until your underwear is visible. He breaks the kiss and looks down quickly, lip curling upward as he takes in the sight of your barely covered cunt hovering over his lap.

“Fuck me,” Joel breaths. He cants his hips upward, clothed cock grinding against you. The pressure on your clit is exquisite. It has your nose scrunching up as your shallow breaths flutter the curls across his forehead. “Dress like this for all your classes?” he asks, fingers snapping at the band of your panties before his hand drops to cup your entire sex. “Fuckin’ filthy girl.”

“No,” you gasp as his palm settles over you. “Only—oh fuck, no, no, only yours.”

A rough sound escapes him, and he’s pushing the material of your underwear to the side. Thick fingers glide over the coarse hair on your mound, dipping in between your folds, right to the beating centre of you. You stare at his face while he stares at the swollen mess between your thighs.

“S’damn right,” he grunts. His eyes are ablaze. “Just for me.”

Your eyelids flutter closed, face warming at the words, and you’re whimpering as he rubs firm circles over your clit. Joel’s tongue presses against yours, coaxes your jaw open until it aches.

“So fuckin’ wet,” he marvels into your mouth. “Always so fuckin’ wet.”

A finger drops to your slick hole, slips slowly slowly slowly inside until the tip of it is curling against the soft spot inside you that he reaches so fucking easily. The air in the room is thin, his breaths a hot wash against your face, and a languid moan snakes its way out of your throat.

“Quiet.” Joel adds a second finger. It’s everything and nothing at the same time. Fingers so long, so thick – fingers that pale in comparison to his cock.

“I want you,” you gasp.

“Hmm?” he hums dangerously.

“Please,” your head tilts back, mouth ajar and thighs trembling as he works you open on his fingers. Joel lets out an impatient sound, and then his fingers drop from your swollen core, and he’s holding a condom. He must’ve pulled it from his back pocket, or between the cushions of the chair, but you don’t dwell on it. Don’t care where or how or why, too restless to be filled to ask; just give a pleased nod and lean back so he has enough room to free his cock from his pants.

The thick weight of it rests in his palm. He’s swollen and thick, the tip a deep rosy colour that reminds you of his flushed cheeks, his puffy lips, and has your mouth watering. And it’s wet with slick strands of precome that drip down his length to meet the movement of his fist.

“S’this what you were thinkin’ about?” Joel breathes shakily. “Got your cute little panties all soaked thinkin’ ‘bout my cock?”

“Yes,” you bite your lip. Watch him tear open the foil packet and roll latex down his length. You ignore the familiar urge to say forget it just take me I’m here and I’m yours just fuck me. “Please.”

“Fuck,” he hisses. Drags his cock against the dripping seam of your cunt. “Say that again.”

“Please,” you repeat, fingers twisting in the front of his shirt. “God, Joel, please.”

A sharp wet smack and a trembling gasp fill the air as he taps the tip against your clit, and then rests himself at the notch of your entrance.

“Show me how bad you want it,” he orders huskily, hands drifting to rest on the arms of his chair. “Go on, fuckin’—ride it.”

Breathing heavily, you reach down to grip him. holding his length still as you lower yourself over his lap.

There’s a stinging resistance there – your body pushing back against the size of him, against the angle.

Joel’s fingers drape against your clit and he rubs soft circles above the spot where you’re connected. You grip the back of the chair, face twisted in muted concentration.

“C’mon,” he breaths, jaw set with clear intention. “Fuckin’ drippin’ for me, y’can take it, I know you can. Yeah—yeah, that’s it.”

You sigh, body relaxing, and you’re pressing down, through. Sink down on him another inch, and then another, until he’s bottoming out inside of you and the skin of your thighs is flush with his pants and he’s making this rough, low sound from deep in his chest. Your mind goes blank for a moment, vision whiting out and lungs squeezing as you hold your breath and adjust to the sheer size of him, to the delicious burn between your thighs where he’s stretching you. And everything is soft and hazy around your mind, but you can see Joel’s eyes on you. The glassy, blissed out expression on his face as you clench around him. His hands drift to your waist, fingers groping bare skin underneath where he holds your skirt up.

“Fuck,” Joel pants. “So god damn tight.”

A pathetic whimper catches in your throat as you grind down, clit rubbing against the coarse hairs at his base. You’re so full, every sense heightened by the feeling of Joel, pressing you apart and making a home for himself inside of you.

Slowly—tentatively—you rock your hips forward, rutting against him in short, shallow movements. His hands encourage your body, guiding you along his cock as you gain confidence.

Soon enough your hips are lifting and dropping back onto him, over and over, tilting against him, doing whatever it takes to drag more hopeless sounds from his mouth. The music from his record player is a low, thrumming bassline in the back of your mind, every bright refrain of guitar punctuated by sharp gasps and elongated sighs.

Joel’s eyes shift from the space between your bodies to your face. Pupils blown, sweat beading along his forehead. Watching you, he seems to fall backward, into himself perhaps. His body goes slack against the armchair, head lolling back as he stares.

“Jesus,” he mutters lowly. “Missed this perfect little pussy.”

There it is again. Perfect, perfect, perfect. You clench around him at the word, rut your hips in a particularly rough movement that has Joel’s eyes rolling back and a guttural moan falling from his lips. His chest is heaving with ragged breaths, the tendons and veins in his neck on display as his chin tilts upward. A bright red flush has raised across the exposed skin of his collarbones, his neck. You lean in and lick the skin there, skirt your teeth across his pulsing jugular. Joel’s palm clasps the back of your neck, holding you against him. You can feel his thighs tensing below you, and then his hips begin to snap upward, meeting you thrust for thrust. The angle is harsh, and he's filling you to the brim, the tip of his cock bruising against the deepest part of you. You cry out against his skin, and the hoarse sound only spurs him on.

His wide palm shifts to hover at the base of your neck, slips beneath the collar of your shirt. Splays over your collarbone, dull fingernails grating against the skin above your breast, by your armpit. You lean back to let him see you, and his eyes drop to watch the way your hips roll over his lap. His finger snags on the strap of your bra and it snaps against your skin.

“Take it off,” you mutter urgently. Need to feel his skin against yours. Chest to chest. Heart to hea—

“No.” His hips snap up into yours faster, knocking the breath from your lungs. One hand grips the armchair, one his shoulder, trying to find some kind of leverage as he pistons into you from below. That fucking Birthday Boy pin is still stuck to his shirt, and blue flashes in the periphery of your vision. A particularly rough thrust has a loud moan parting your lips, but as soon as it begins Joel’s hand is crashing over your mouth, fingers gripping your face to silence the sound. Your eyebrows raise, silently questioning overtop his hand.

“Need to shut up,” he grits out. “Gonna—ohhh—gonna get us caught.”

You glide your tongue against his palm, taste the salt on his skin. Feel his fingers squeeze your jaw harder in response. And then your own hand is moving from his shoulder, fingers gliding across the sweaty skin of his neck, to slot over his mouth. You stare at one another, wild eyes locked, palms sealed over slick lips, and something fiery pulls taught between you. Liquid heat spreads through your muscles, tightening and loosening with every movement of his body against yours. You can feel the coil at the base of your stomach tightening. Your pussy throbs in a rhythm sympatico to that of your heartbeat, and your fingers squeeze around his face.

You can feel the vibration of Joel’s moans against your hand, and then his teeth are sinking into the soft flesh of your palm. For a moment you wonder if he’ll pierce the skin. Let your blood seep from the wound and spill across his tongue; a sacrificial offering. Drink you down, devour you as he lies within your body. You bite down on his palm in return, holding his gaze as your bodies grind and rut against each other.

Your back arches suddenly, and your forehead knocks against his as your orgasm steadily approaches. Joel’s eyes stay locked on yours. Your shoulders begin to lock up, thighs burning, but he doesn’t let up. His hips collide with yours at a devastating pace, and his free hand drops between your thighs. The pad of his middle finger circles your swollen clit, and you jerk against him, every nerve inside your body fraying and sparking.

Joel slurs a curse against your hand and then you’re coming with a haggard whine into his hand, walls constricting around him in a vice grip. You close your eyes only to discover that royal blue is stained on the inside of your eyelids, unavoidable. He is unavoidable. Even in the darkness of your own mind, he lurks. The smell of him in your nostrils, the taste of his spit in your mouth. You think you hear a garbled version of your name spoken into your palm, and then a stinging sensation rips across your ass as Joel starts to come, fingernails dragging across skin, as he grinds his cock desperately into your pulsing heat. Your eyes flutter open, body shivering with the aftershocks of your high, and you watch him. Admire the way his jaw softens beneath your grip, teeth retracting and leaving dull indents on your skin in their wake.

There’s a low pinch between your thighs. It rings out minutes later, a sullen ache, as you lift your hips and let him slip from your wet clutch. His hands fall from your body, and you suck in stale air, taking a clumsy step off his lap to stand shaking on the ground before him. There are circular white marks on his cheeks, lingering reminders of how you held him, smothering his wanton groans of pleasure. You watch them slowly fade to pink, and try to settle the unsteady breaths that wrack your frame.

Your fingers drop lazily to adjust your underwear, but then those hands are tilting your hips, encouraging you to turn until your back is to him. They slip beneath your skirt, find purchase on the band of your panties, and slide the drenched material down your legs. You step out of them, and gasp in surprise when he flicks your skirt up again. A shiver travels down your spine as he glides a finger through your swollen cunt.

“Joel,” you whimper, lips poised to say that it’s too much, too soon, that you need a second to breathe.

But Joel exhales a quiet groan, and something sharp nips the sensitive skin of your ass. Peaking over your shoulder, you find Joel’s mouth there, wet tongue soothing over the mark his teeth made on your flesh. There’s a slip of blue clenched in his fist, held protectively in his lap beside his softening cock.

You feel the vibration of something against your skin, a murmur of words that you can’t quite make out, before he pulls back. Retracts all points of contact, carefully removes the condom, clears his throat softly as he tucks himself back into his pants. The tell-tale sound of the moment drawing to a close. You swallow down that familiar tang disappointment and hold out a hand for your underwear.

And then Joel surprises you.

This soft, teasing smirk lights up his face, and Joel knocks your hand away. A huff of surprised laughter escapes you as he rises and wanders toward the desk. You watch, stunned into silence, as he drags open a drawer on his desk and tucks that blue slip of fabric inside. It slides closed with a definitive thud, and Joel falls down into his desk chair. His eyelids must be heavy, because they droop closed while you watch.

There’s a damp patch at the bottom of his t-shirt that has your face in flames, but he doesn’t seem to care, chest rising and falling with deep breaths as his body relaxes into leather. Your legs tremble as you grip the strap of your bag, taking that as your cue to quietly head for the door.

“Liked your essay.”

You pause with your fingers on the door handle. Turn to find that his eyes are still shut.

“You’re only saying that becau—”

“No,” Joel interrupts, the firm tone a sharp contrast to his lax frame. Eyes open now. “It was good.”

You hum quietly and rock back onto your heels. Unsure of what to say, you settle on offering him a small smile. He nods in return. The silence drifts back in, and you find yourself unable to speak until his eyes close once more.

“Happy birthday, Joel.”

So softly, so as to not disturb. And you aren’t sure whether he heard you or he’s already fallen asleep, but you do notice the corners of his mouth tilt upward ever-so-slightly.

Friday.

A crimson tablecloth covers the expanse of the table. Deep dark red, almost brown, reminiscent of old blood.

Plates smeared with remnants of a dinner long-past litter the surface, dirtied knives and forks stacked precariously atop them. Sauces have hardened to thickened globs on the China, sticky and stale and calling out to be cleaned. But the end of the evening is nary in sight, as Ian, your gracious host, deposits another bottle of wine onto the table.

“It’s a Cabernet Franc,” he slumps back into his seat at the head of the table, directly opposite you. “My parents brought it back from their trip to Bordeaux this past Summer. A gift.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes for the thousandth time in three hours. Pour yourself a generous glass and taste it. Say, “I’m more of a Merlot fan,” despite being drunk as all hell and having zero knowledge to help discern between different wine grapes.

Pete offers a supportive smile, and you watch as his friends light fresh cigarettes that send plumes of smoke to the already stained roof of Ian’s apartment.

Ian’s girlfriend Claire, a wildlife and conservation biology undergrad, is draped across the chair to your left. Eyelids half closed; her slim fingers grip a half-smoked joint for dear life, hand hovering dazed in mid-air between her thigh and her face. You think back on the words Pete spoke to you this morning in the kitchen – there’ll be another woman there, don’t worry. And Claire’s great, I swear. You try to reconcile his words with the girl beside you, and the dank smell of burnt weed drifting toward you through the air. She’d been high when she arrived, and after speaking a measly three words of greeting in your direction, had sequestered herself to a chair and smoked through the entire dinner. When none of the others batted an eye, you held your tongue. And their nonchalance became clear when, upon completion of the meal—overcooked chicken, sticky carrots, and undercooked parsnips—Ian and Henry lit up cigarettes at the table too.

You weren’t sure why you agreed to attend the dinner party.

They’re really cool, Pete had blabbered into his mug that morning. We do it every Friday. It’ll be nice to have you meet some of my friends.

Oh, Pete. Cool, they are not.

Henry and Ian, friends from one of Pete’s environmental engineering units, are filthy rich. The kind that you can smell from a mile away. The kind that radiates from their expensive clothes, their manufactured pearly teeth, their god-awful haircuts. The kind of rich boys that have their own apartments in Portland, paid for by a Mummy and Daddy who holiday in Europe every summer—a trip that Ian has managed to bring up at least once an hour since the moment you met him.

The one beautiful, stunning, gorgeous saving grace is that there is alcohol – enough to ply yourself with in order to deal with Ian, who asked what your postgrad was in and replied slyly, “Oh, a fun one.” Ian, who, upon learning about your translation internship in Greece, said, “Sounds like you had a marvellous vacation.”

In return, you sat like a good little house guest—ornament—and listened to the three of them talk ad nauseam about engineering. Consume glass after glass of wine, decline cigarette after cigarette; you get profusely intoxicated as they debate—interrupt each other—the validity of different pollution control policies.

It’s not until early in the fifth hour of the dinner that Ian raises the topic of philosophy.

“It’s curious, that’s all,” he says, cigarette hanging limply between wine-soaked lips. “That these old guys would just hang out all day and… what, talk? Never understood why people rave about Socrates and Aristotle all the time. Just a bunch of sad sacks that liked the sound of their own voices a little too much, if you ask me.”

You hum against the rim of your glass, decidedly unbothered. Nothing you haven’t heard a hundred times, in a hundred different ways. His dining chairs are stiff, and your ass is aching against the heavy mahogany. Pete shifts awkwardly to your right. You can feel him looking at you, trying to gauge your impending reaction, and your face remains placid, numb from all the wine rushing through your veins.

“Is that what your degree is like?” Ian asks. “A bunch of old guys who love to listen to themselves talk?”

And that almost makes you crack a smile. You respond with a lacklustre shrug that neither confirms nor denies his suspicions, and definitely don’t think about—

“I don’t know,” Henry slurs, shooting a pointed glance in your direction. “I used to date this girl—”

“You fucked her once,” Ian interrupts.

“—Rita—"

“Rose.”

“—and she studied all that shit. Used to tell me about that guy who, he, uhm,” Henry pauses. Belches loudly. “He said something about God committing suicide and like, we’re his body or—wait what is it?”

“Mainländer,” you nod, mildly surprised. “Yeah, it’s a creation theory of sorts – God commits suicide to create the universe, and we’re all living on his decaying corpse.”

“What do you think of that?”

“Of a potential God’s potential suicide?”

“Yeah,” Henry grins dopily.

You sigh. “Would’ve been cooler if he left a note, I suppose.”

Henry guffaws loudly, leans back until his chair is balanced precariously on two legs. The cigarette falls from his fingers to his lap, glowing orange cherry leaving charred ashy marks on his jeans. If you were more sober you might’ve said something. But as if were, you just laugh and drain the final dregs of wine from your glass.

“So, your degree involves stuff like that?” Ian asks then.

“Sometimes,” you hum, already bored with the hint of mockery you sense in his tone. “We study the societies as a whole, so yeah, there’s talk about philosophy on occasion.”

“And mythology,” he wiggles his eyebrows from across the table, fluttering his fingers in the air. “Must be fun to talk about made up ideas all day.”

Henry clears his throat roughly and plucks the cigarette out of his lap, all remaining hints of laughter filtering into silence.

You stare. Feel your hackles rise. Sharper this time, as a more acute sense of irritation floods your system. “You do know that Greece and Italy are real countries with real histories, right?”

Claire moves for the first time in fifteen minutes, takes a long drag from her joint. Exhales in your direction.

“Sure,” Ian shrugs. “But you have to admit, all the stuff about the Greek Gods is a little silly.”

You spare a quick glance in Pete’s direction and find him wearing a tight, awkward smile, looking at you with something apologetic in his eyes.

“Silly,” you repeat the word slowly. It as though your brain is working at a thousand miles a minute, desperate to catch up with the conversation. Constantly two steps behind wherever Ian is dragging you. And he’s giving you this smarmy, sympathetic smile that screams oh your poor thing, you have no idea how poor your future job prospects are, and you’ve seen that smile a hundred times, had this conversation a thousand more, and you can suddenly envision yourself reaching across the table and pouring your glass of wine into his lap.

“And what about the rest?” you ask tersely. The collar of your shirt scratches against your neck, and his cigarette is spilling ash onto the fucking table, and he’s an asshole, and you want to throttle him for getting off on belittling you.

“The rest?”

“The rest,” you nod. “I suppose I can admit that those gods are silly, so long as we’re also admitting how fucking laughable biblical Gods ar—"

Pete says your name sharply. You pause, seal your lips shut. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, the wary glint in his eyes a reminder that you’re a guest in Ian’s apartment. Ian’s apartment that was paid for by Mummy and Daddy; Ian’s apartment that has a crucifix above the kitchen entryway.

“More wine?” Pete asks smoothly. He’s rising from the table before you can respond, lifting the bottle and pouring a swell of red into your glass. Ian’s grin broadens, and a fresh round of irritation flares across the back of your alcohol sodden brain.

“Gimme a second,” you mutter, pushing your chair out. Your body sways as you stand, blood rushing to your head. Blinking the dizzy spell away, you grip Pete’s shoulder for leverage and make your way past him, shuffle down the hall and into a swanky bathroom. Your feet are heavy, mind a blur, as you collapse onto the toilet seat and rest your face against the cool tiled wall.

“Silly,” you grumble under your breath. “You’re fucking silly… asshole.”

Digging your phone from your pocket, you squint against its harsh light. Fingers fumble across the screen to your messages app. Tap Nora’s name, and hold your finger against the voice memo button.

“Nora,” you mumble, nose squished against tile. “It’s awful, you... I need you to save me.”

There’s a roar of laughter from the dining room.

“Why do men always have to be the smartest person in the room?” you continue as the sound dies down. The tile is cool against your skin, a welcome reprieve from the boozy flush that’s taken over your body.

“Pete is such an—” hiccup “—asshole for inviting me to this, I swear—”

Your phone hits the ground with a sharp clatter, and you curse, torso tilting forward as you reach clumsily for it. When you tilt the screen back to your face, a jolt rushes through you. You stare for a moment, dumbfounded, at the picture. There’s the soft sound of rushing water in your ears – your pulse, you realise.

“No,” you mutter, senses sharpening the longer you stare at the picture; your soaked blue panties. At the voice memo underneath said picture, that had certainly not gone to Nora. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, no.”

A moment of painful clarity comes when you make out the delivered sign below the voice message. Blurry eyes dance across the screen, vaguely deciphering the capitalised word MILLER. Panic swirls in your stomach, a churning writhing thing that feels a lot like nausea.

And then a text appears.

Are you drunk?

Your thighs are still numb from sitting for so long, so you slink dejectedly onto the floor and type out a response.

yes

that wasn’t for you

Ten minutes pass. You stare at the bright screen until worn-out tears prick in your eyes.

Doing okay?

tired

ate bad food, drank alotta wine

Probably time to go home.

cant drive

thought you hada phd? telling me to drunk driev

bad profeseor

Five minutes. Pete knocks on the door to ask if you’re okay and you assure him that you’re fine.

Where are you?

You type out the address carefully. Wash your hands in the sink and combs wet fingers through your hair to tame your appearance before skulking back into the dining room, where the vulture awaits you.

“I’m going,” you announce blandly. Claire is asleep, you think. Ian and Henry are playing an aggressive game of cards. Only Pete looks up.

“How are you getting home?” he frowns.

“Got a ride,” you mutter. Collect your things and give his shoulder a brief squeeze before slipping out the front door.

The air is cool outside the apartment building. A sharp breeze whistles through the parking lot, snakes it’s way beneath your clothes to curl against your skin. You welcome the chill. Rub lazily at the goosebumps on your arms as you glance at the last text from Joel.

Be there in 20.

You’re perched on the stoop when headlights finally appear. You curse, eyes smarting as you duck to avoid the harsh fluorescents, and then a black truck is idling a few metres away, engine purring. The passenger door kicks open and you squint, trying—and failing—to see inside through the darkness. Until—

“Get in.”

You’re barely in the car before Joel is pressing a bottle of water into your hand. The plastic is sweating, damp with condensation, and you sigh in relief. Press it against your neck, your face.

“Drink it,” he says sternly. You crack an eye open and look at him. He’s so close. Just a hairsbreadth from you, in a soft t-shirt and jeans. Glasses on the end of his nose. Fluffy hair—bed hair. There’s a soft frown on his face that dips and rolls in your vision. A downward tilt to his mouth as he puts the car in drive and tears away from Mummy and Daddy’s apartment.

“Hey,” you give him a lop-sided smile.

“Hey."

“Were you in bed?”

“You stink,” Joel ignores your question. “You chain-smokin’ in there? Christ.”

“Not me,” you huff in frustration. Take a small sip of water, careful not to spill on the seat. “They were smoking at the table. While we were eating.”

“Who was?”

“Pete’s friends.”

“Who’s Pete?” Joel grunts. He’s got a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, and his eyes are set on the road. Only when you don’t respond does he look back at you.

“Who’s Pete?” he repeats. Something stony in his voice. You smile.

“One of my roommates,” you offer. “Why? You jealous?”

“Quit it,” he bites out. “You gonna tell me where you live or am I s'posed to guess?”

Your smile spreads into a full-blown grin as you type your address into his phone. He snatches it from your hand and tells you to drink it all. You sit in silence for a while after that. Roll down the window and let your hand rest outside the car, fingers fluttering as the wind whips past them. He’s driving fast, green traffic lights blurring in your vision, and you feel your head spin faster, harder. Mumble under your breath.

“What?” he asks, voice too loud.

“Slow down,” you repeat, inhaling a deep breath. You feel him ease his foot of the gas instantly, a hand coming to hover over your knee.

“You feelin’ okay?” he murmurs.

“Mm.”

You let your eyes slip shut. Just for a second. A minute. And then—

“Hey.” A firm hand is on your shoulder. Thumb pressing into the skin beneath your collarbone. “Wake up.”

You jolt upright in the seat. Rub a palm roughly against your eye. Forget that you’re wearing makeup until you see black smeared across your hand.

Joel is saying something as you climb out of his truck, but you don’t hear it. Too busy pressing the door shut behind you and stumbling up the paved path to your house. Cool metal slides in your palm, numb fingers grappling for purchase. You scratch the key against the door’s aperture once, twice, and then feel it slip from your hand. A wave of dizziness hits as you watch it clatter against the ground.

“Shit,” you grumble. Bend down to pick it up. Rise and try a third time as silver swims in your vision. You hear a car door slam, the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, and slur another impatient curse under your breath.

“Let me help,” he says from behind you.

“It’s fine,” you protest, skin searing with embarrassment.

“C’mon.” Joel’s warm hand covers yours. Pries the key from your palm and unlocks your front door in a one easy movement. “Let’s get you inside.”

“I can do it.”

“Just let me help you.”

You practically float down the hall, buoyed by the thick arm around your waist, towing you along. In your room, Joel clicks on the lamp in the corner. Dim orange light envelops the space as you fall back onto your bed with a huff, shirt riding up to expose a sliver of your stomach.

“You need more water before you sleep” he says. “And a fuckin' shower.”

“Mmm,” you agree, eyelids fluttering. “I'm… just gonna lie here for a second.”

The responding sound is that of heavy footsteps disappearing down the hall. A fleeting rush of liquid somewhere in the distance. Your eyes close for a minute, maybe two, and reopen to find Joel’s broad frame hovering in the doorway, holding a glass of water and gripping the doorknob as he assesses your most private space. Your eyes are hardly open, but you can see him in the dim light. Glancing into the darkness of the hall and then back to you, slumped messily against the pillows. After a thick moment of silence, he steps decidedly across the threshold, and closes your bedroom door behind him.

As you watch him, you begin to feel a sense of startling clarity.

Joel Miller, in your house. Joel Miller, in your bedroom. Joel Miller… seeing you make a complete fool out of yourself.

“Oh fuck,” you blurt out.

“What?” Joel asks sharply. He rounds the bed in two quick strides, and then he’s pressing a glass of water on your side table and sitting beside you. His weight on the side of the bed has the mattress dipping, your body tilting onto your side to face his back. A wave of nausea strikes suddenly, and you suck your lips into your mouth. No.

“Y'oughta warn me if you’re gonna be sick,” he warns.

“M’not.”

“You better not.”

“I won’t.”

“Think you’ll need about ten of those,” you hear him say. “But one glass is a good start.”

But there’s already an ocean inside you. Rocky, white-wash waves that lap at the walls of your stomach, press against your lungs, and have your mind swaying even as your body lies still. Fingers, moving faster than your brain, seek purchase. Crawling across the sheets to snag your index through a belt loop on the back of his jeans. Chilled skin against worn denim, an anchor. Something sturdy to calm the eddying current inside you.

“What’re you—”

“Did you have a good day yesterday?” you interrupt, eager to distract yourself.

Joel is silent for a while. Keeps looking down at you until he finally says, “Yeah,” so quiet that your ears strain to hear it.

There’s a hint of something there that you can’t quite read. An emotion that he holds clasped in tight hands, just beyond your reach. You let it be, mind distracted by the soft orange light emanating from the lamp. When you close your eyes it glows against the back of your eyelids, vibrant swaths of sunset and marigold that make it hard to fall asleep just yet.

“Seventy, right?” you tease.

An indignant scoff rings out, and you squeak as a set of rough fingers pinch at the skin of your exposed stomach. The quickest touch, just a graze of flesh, before he’s pulling back. You laugh easily, open your eyes to look at him again.

“Careful now,” he warns. But you can see humour in the lines by his eyes, the quirk of his lip.

Your finger wiggles against his belt loop, tugging on the material there once. A tired patience in your eyes as you wait.

“Fifty,” he finally concedes, smile wavering as his gaze darts to the sheets.

“Mhm,” you murmur. Lips part as you let loose a low, impressed whistle. It comes out as more of a lacklustre exhalation of air. Joel’s shoulders are shaking with silent laughter when he meets your eyes again, a little more relaxed. “The big five-oh, huh?”

“The big five-oh,” he repeats simply. Tired as you are, you can see the question in his eyes. This searching, curious thing that rakes across your features, waiting to note any hint that you might be perturbed by the fact.

“S’nice,” you offer quietly instead. “Get any good gifts?”

The muscles in his neck strain, shirt tightening around his shoulders as he turns to look at you head on. Soft eyes gleam with something darker, teasing, as his lips pull into a lazy smirk.

“Sure,” he agrees, voice low, suggestive. “Good’s one word for it.”

Warmth floods your stomach and your toes curl. But you falter under the intensity of his gaze, a weary heat rising in your cheeks as your gaze lowers to his collarbone.

“Hey," you say quietly. “Look, I appreciate you helping me out tonight, I just…”

Joel’s eyebrows pinch the middle of his forehead, relaxation dissipating as he stares.

“Sorry,” you grimace, skin on fire. All of a sudden, your finger feels swollen in his belt loop, a promise that you can’t keep, the fabric branding hot against your skin as the words tumble out of you. “I’m just, I’m pretty wasted, and I’m grateful, you know, but I don’t think I can—we probably can’t fuck tonight—"

Joel says your name quickly. His hand is gripping your bedsheets, sun-kissed skin against pale yellow. “We’re not fucking.”

Unwitting relief courses through you, and you nod slowly. “Yeah, okay, I just wasn’t sure if you thought maybe… I don’t know—"

“Thought that if I gave you a ride home you owed me a fuck?” he asks plainly, expression tight. A dark, frustrated laughs spills from his lips and his shoulders are tightening, muscles shifting beneath his t-shirt. “That’s not how this goes, darlin’. So don’t go thinkin’ that way, ever, y’hear me?”

You blink, eyes wide. Suddenly alert. Feel the warmth in your stomach spread to your chest, your thighs. Darlin’.

“Okay,” you murmur. “Yeah, that’s—how does this work then?”

The indent between his brows only deepens as he gazes down at you.

“You call the shots,” Joel says. “I thought that was well established by now.”

His brown eyes look so soft in the dim lighting of your bedroom. Honeyed and golden in the warm orange haze. You stare at them for so long that you lose track of whether or not he’s answered your question. Forget everything that isn’t the lines beside his eyes, the dark speck of his pupils, the wild hairs of his eyebrows. You feel yourself drift closer to sleep again.

“Pretty,” someone says faintly. You. “You’ve got brown eyes.”

“Jesus.” He’s still frowning.

“Brown-eyed girl,” you sing—slur.

“Alright, Van Morrison,” Joel grumbles, the lines in his face softening. “Drink up.”

You do as he asks, gulping down half the water while he watches. His fingers rest cautiously at the base of the glass in case you drop it. And when you’re finished, he takes it from your hands, stands. Another wave crashes inside you when the mattress shifts in the absence of his weight, and you drift, unmoored, onto your back again.

Joel is staring at you. Towering over the bed, hands jammed awkwardly against his hips. His presence so large, so looming. He crowds your small space, his size ensuring that there is no room for another; only you and him, you and him, you and him, and you call the shots. You squeeze your eyes shut, determined to block that thought out.

“I think I’ll go to sleep now,” you mutter. “If that’s alright with you, teach.”

Joel says something, but it’s a far away sound. You tuck your face further into your pillow.

You think you hear him say good night, or some version thereof, but you don’t hear him leave. Don’t hear his boots on the hardwood, or the creak of your bedroom door. Don’t hear his truck start up outside.

And when you wake, alone, you find that droplets of rain have settled on your windowsill, marking another wet September morning. But you don’t frown as you drag a sweater from your closet, nor as you draw the curtains and clamber back into bed. Don’t yearn for the warmth of Summer as the dull ache of a hangover ricochets inside your skull. For you can smell Joel on your sheets; can still feel his presence lingering in the corners of your room.

And that’s warm enough for you.

tags: @lovely-ateez @nana90azevedo @stevie75 @evyiione @dameron-grant-spector @brittmb115 @ashhlsstuff @casa-boiardi @sinfulrock @bbyanarchist @murc0cks4eva @hopplessilse @joeldjarin @anoverwhelmingdin @bluevxnus @kelp-dreaming @prettyinpunk85 @spacelatinos4life @iluvurfather @daisies-yellow @mrsquill @sarap-77 @sunnywithachanceofjavi @alleyy-katt @zeida @mendessi @love-the-abyss @myrealmofchaos @a-roving-woman @punkshort @gracie7209 @whichwitchwanda @fellinfromthetop @bitchwitch1981 @suzmagine @lmariephoto37 @harriedandharassed @cumberpegg @tonysttank @ourautumn86 @my-tearsricochet @shotgun-shelby @5oh5

thank you for reading! x [and idgaf okay i was gonna put that birthday boy pin on him no matter what shitty excuse i had to come up with]

#i am very not normal about this #fic recs #tlou #nsfw

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