Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You didn’t have to give up your bed, you know,” she says to him as they sit on his couch. She already feels bad about showing up at his house unannounced and putting him out, but she had nowhere else to go when Michael turned up at hers earlier.

“Vazquez, it’s fine,” Turner says, with enough resigned conviction to let her know he isn’t all that interested in her niceties. “My bed’s big enough for two people, this couch isn’t.” 

For some reason, Naya finds her mind taking off with that first part. Wandering to the concept of his bed and the people—the women —he’s had in it. He comes off as such a lone wolf, so tightly wound, that it’s impossible for her to imagine him opening up enough for that kind of intimacy. 

But what the hell does she know about men anyway? He was nice enough to change out the sheets before Gael crashed there, even after she insisted they could just sleep on top of the duvet and use throw blankets, so maybe he isn’t as hardened as he seems. 

“Hey, I’m just thinking about your back, old man,” she jokes. 

She can chalk up her loose tongue to the couple big gulps of bourbon she’s had, because after Turner mentioned he had it, all she could think about was the tension that needed easing from her body. He just told her to bring out an extra glass for him when she asked if she could have some. 

He cuts her a look now, tepid in its humor. “No one could accuse you of being meek, that’s for sure.” It’s nothing, a throwaway contribution to her banter, but it might be the nicest thing he’s ever said to her. 

Sucking in a breath, Naya polishes off the last of the whiskey in her glass. “Right, well, sorry I’ve kept you up. I will remove myself from your bed now.” 

Turner clears his throat and admits, “It’s fine. I don’t sleep much anyway.” 

She halts halfway off the couch, unsure what to make of his sudden honesty: whether it’s an invitation to stay, or if he’s just putting it out there. She’s been honest enough with him tonight—more so than she thought he would ever allow her to be—so maybe it’s good he’s reciprocating at all. 

“Me neither.” He turns to look at her, and she feels a sort of acceptance from him. She sits all the way back down. “We don’t have to talk about it. But…I don’t know, if you wanted to…” She doesn’t finish the sentiment, but it’s obvious what she means. 

He lets out a heavy breath and leans forward, his body tense almost like he’s restraining himself from doing or saying something. It’s strange to see him fighting with the control he usually seems to maintain so tightly. 

“I don’t,” is all he ends up saying. Naya nods, it’s how she expected him to reply. What she doesn’t expect him to follow-up with, however, is, “And I’m sorry. You did the right thing, you know—coming here.” 

Whether he’s referring to his house tonight or Yosemite in general, she doesn’t really know. Either way, she obviously knows now , in hindsight, that removing herself and Gael from the situation was the right thing to do. She should’ve done it the first time Michael ever put a finger on her. 

But it’s still vindicating to hear from someone as taciturn as Turner. 

“Yeah, thanks,” she says, feeling the weight of what happened a couple of hours ago beginning to settle over her. “Gael’s safety is the only thing that matters to me. I never want to feel scared for him like that again.” 

She says it without thinking. It’s true, of course, and a natural thing to say given the whole ordeal, but it might not be the best thing to say to a man who lost his own son and clearly still beats himself up for not being able to keep him safe.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Turner interrupts before she can push her foot further into her mouth. “Don’t do that.” His voice is rough, firm, but not angry. “We understand each other without having to do all of that.” 

Naya nods again, lets the silence wash over them. Somewhere, she can see him lift his glass to his mouth and drain the contents. 

Somewhere, she knows she shouldn’t be waiting for him to tell her to go to bed—she should just do it because it’s late, and they’re not very sober, and she knows how this one goes. It’s still hard to imagine him letting his control slip enough, but the longer he allows her to sit here without saying anything, the more she understands that he’s just a man. 

And like any other man, he’s not immune to loneliness or the quick fixes for it.

“I should…” She trails off again. Weirdly, the whiskey seems to have limited her ability to say more than a few words at a time. Thinking it’ll help with the sentiment, she places her hand on his arm, right below his shoulder. “But thanks again for letting us crash, I owe you one,” she tells him lightly. 

There’s only one light still on in the living room, to the right of the couch, and it cuts weakly over Turner’s face. He looks uncharacteristically amused by her attempt at sincerity, looking down at her hand on him and lifting an eyebrow. 

When Naya still doesn’t drop her hand or make to get up, feeling suddenly caught there, his amusement is quickly snuffed out. It’s the rough breath he lets out as her fingers slowly dip under the sleeve of his t-shirt, skating over the bare skin of his bicep, that does it for her. 

She doesn’t wait for him to break eye contact, she just leans forward and presses her lips right to his mouth. 

In an instant, one she couldn’t have imagined if she tried, he’s fisting his hands into her undone hair and pulling her bodily towards him, swallowing her gasp with his own bitten-off sound. He tastes like whiskey and the toothpaste he used some time ago now, sweet and terrible because she knows this is the last thing she should be doing, especially while her son is sleeping several doors down. 

As if he needs to stop thinking too, though, Turner just maneuvers her down on the couch so decisively that she feels she has no choice but to follow. 

It’s not like she expected him to be gentle, because no other part of him is, but he’s also…older, so yeah, it catches Naya a bit off guard the way he then shoves her underneath him, and keeps kissing her like handling her is the easiest thing in the world. 

She moans, unbidden, when he sucks her tongue into his mouth, and he again answers her with a low sound of his own that, too, seems out of his control. It thrills her to know she’s affecting him this much. 

But everything inevitably comes to an abrupt pause soon after. He pulls away from her, a thin string of spit connecting their mouths before it breaks and with it, the moment. 

“Christ,” he says, all rough and fraught. He digs the heel of his hand into his eye and sits up a bit. 

“No,” she goes, desperate and pleading. “Please don’t, not tonight. Please .” 

He looks down at her, searching. There’s understanding somewhere in his eyes, but it’s overshadowed by reason, because he knows this is the worst thing for them to be doing too. The thing is that all it really takes is her shifting under him, wriggling for purchase, and then she can feel him heavy and hard against her stomach, and all the reasoning seems to eddy from his mind at once. He groans, frustrated and turned on , says, “Fuck, we’ll never talk about this again.” 

“Never,” she affirms. “One and done.” Turner— Kyle —shakes his head, refusing to return her small smirk, but it doesn’t matter. 

He gives her the only thing she wants right now anyway. 

The boxers he lent her end up on the floor, along with his shirt and the bra she manages to take off from under her t-shirt. He reaches up and flicks the light off, and then they’re touching each other all over, like the dark is the only permission they needed. 

They have to be quiet and neither of them are doing a spectacular job at it, but Naya hasn’t been touched like this in so long, so when he shoves his hand under her shirt and gropes at her breast like a man starved, she has to muffle her moan into her hand. 

They choose to kiss rather than speak, as if they’re both afraid of breaking the spell. Kyle only pulls back from her lips when he finally slips a hand into her underwear. 

“You’re so wet,” he breathes in a shudder, running his fingers up and down her opening like he can’t quite believe what he’s feeling. She likes the way he touches her, confident and precise, even when he’s not aiming for anything. “God, I forgot you’re so young.” 

That pulls a nervous laugh out of her because she doesn’t know if that will make him change his mind or not, and she really, really doesn’t want him to. “Kiss me again,” she begs instead, and digs her nails into the back of his neck to urge him where she wants him. 

He obliges her easier than she thought he would, and that only makes her wetter. 

If she were completely sober and had waited a few extra hours for the adrenaline to work its way out of her system, she wouldn’t be pushing herself into his hand now, practically begging him to fuck her. She’s done the whole mixing-work-with-pleasure thing, and she swore never to make that mistake again. 

But Kyle just alternates between kissing her and watching her beneath him as he gets her off on his fingers, looking almost like the act is giving him something too, and Naya briefly wonders what his excuse is. Sure, he threw back a couple of fingers with her, but rumor has it he’s no stranger to drink. 

So unless he was drinking before they showed up at his door, he can’t possibly be drunk enough for his judgment to be altered like this. 

She finds that she doesn’t really care, though. Not when he pushes a third finger into her beside the other two and that familiar burning stretch slams through her in a heady rush. 

“Oh, fuck,” she pants, feeling her cunt tense up like it’s trying to push him out. 

“Relax, Naya,” he says, his tone firm and commanding even in a whisper. He strokes his left hand over her hip to help her, and that along with how he said her first name, all low and rough, makes her even slicker. And that helps too. “There you go, I need you ready.” 

Men and their egos ; she almost laughs and rolls her eyes. His sure strokes inside of her don’t really allow her to do anything other than gasp and clutch at his forearm, though. Figures, anyway, because he only seems to have a few seconds of patience left in him, and then he’s pulling free from her to drag his sweatpants and boxers halfway down his thighs. She follows suit, shimmying her underwear down her legs and tossing them on the floor, before focusing on him again.

And suddenly she doesn’t feel like laughing anymore. It’s dark, but she can still see him. It would be impossible to miss the heavy thickness curving up towards his muscled stomach. 

“Do you have a condom?” Naya asks breathlessly, like maybe it’ll distract her from her fresh nerves. She’d be embarrassed about how raspy and thick her voice has gotten if she could focus on anything other than her terrible want.

“Fuck. No,” he swears, sobering for a second. “I don’t exactly fuck women who are at risk of pregnancy scares anymore.” 

In her lust-addled state, it takes her a second to realize that he’s referring to the age demographic of the women he usually sleeps with, and she has to admit that it’s kind of hot Turner goes for women his age rather than, like, twenty-something tourists passing through the park. Maybe she likes that she’s an exception for him, too.

“We can—I’m on birth control,” she offers lamely. If that was another sign they shouldn’t be doing this, she’s not going to heed it. 

Kyle stares at her, deliberating for a second. He doesn’t say anything, but she can see the moment he seems to say fuck it , and dives for her mouth again. She has to say she didn’t expect him to like kissing as much as he does. Not that she’s complaining, because she can’t remember the last time she was with a guy who actually knew how to use his tongue. 

It makes her think all sorts of things—like what other places she’d like to feel his tongue. 

She’s so caught up in the mental imagery that it takes her a second to realize he’s at her entrance and has already started to push in. Another second and the stretch catches up to her, and then she’s white-knuckling whatever’s closest to her, gasping out oh fuck ’s and wait ’s while he mostly ignores her save for a reassuring squeeze to her hip and a locked-gaze. 

“You’re so big,” she says, annoyed to feed his ego at all. But it’s true, and she can’t stop it from leaving her mouth. 

“You can take it,” he argues back roughly, leaving no room for doubt. His praise goes to Naya’s head like a drug. It’s almost better than the act itself.

“Show me.” 

And he does. Through clenched teeth, Kyle breathes, “Like this,” while dragging her by her hips until she’s flush with his own hips, his cock seated all the way inside her. It’s pressure that momentarily whites her vision, making her clench and gasp and cling harder to the cushions on either side of her. 

He’s right there with her, if the wounded groan he buries in hair is any indication. He just keeps fucking into her, though, making her take it, breaking her in until there’s only pleasure and her cunt isn’t pushing back against his thrusts anymore. She moves one of her hands to his hair then, running her fingers through it and pulling when he goes a bit lax at the sensation. 

“Fuck,” he groans again, dragging his hips against hers slowly, getting so deep it’s right there beneath her stomach, strangling the oxygen from her lungs.  

With every thrust, she feels the adrenaline leak from her body and in its place, there’s this overwhelming, too-much feeling that she tries to chase away by meeting him with a roll of her hips, helping him fuck her until they’re both breathing heavily and clutching at each other. 

He looks at her and sweeps his thumb just under her eye. She didn’t even realize a few tears had escaped. She tries to either turn away or tell him it’s fine, she’s not really crying, but he stops her from doing either.

“I know,” Kyle whispers. “I know, sweetheart.” He doesn’t elaborate but he doesn’t need to: she knows, too. They both have fear, exhaustion, and nightmares. They understand each other in ways most people don’t. They need this right now, so they let each other have it. 

Just for tonight.  

It feels too good to have him inside her. So good neither of them are going to last. Naya snakes her hand down between their bodies to get her fingers on her clit, and he lets her for a few moments, returning his lips to hers once more, kissing her while his hips pick up momentum again. It’s a good way to muffle their mutual noises, she realizes, biting down on his bottom lip when he starts to fuck her harder. He fists his hand into her hair, pulling. 

And then he can’t seem to take it. He braces his weight on one hand, using the other to grab her wrist and replace her hand between her legs with his own. 

“Oh my God,” she whimpers right into his neck, wrapping her legs around his waist to give him better access.

“Yeah?” He manages to sound so smug , it’s awful. He knows he knows how to touch a woman and he’s just torturing her now. 

“C’mon, old man. Don’t remember how to make a woman come?” she taunts, just because she can. Just because it makes him take her thigh in a bruising grip, hitting a spot inside her repeatedly that she knows she will probably feel for days afterwards, and because it makes him make her come at last. 

With his thumb unmoving from her clit, her orgasm seems prolonged and intensified, and she can feel the exact moment it triggers his. 

He says her name when he comes. Fuck, Naya. It makes her come again, and he holds her through it, whispering words that are far too nice for her to take. 

Afterwards, he has his boxers and pants pulled up so fast she doesn’t even remember seeing him do it, even in her peripheral vision. 

The reality of the situation hits her just as fast. He’s kneeling above her, still breathing heavily, and she can feel him watching her but she doesn’t feel like she can really look at him yet. 

When she goes to maneuver herself out from underneath him, though, Turner snags at her wrist to stop her. “Wait,” he says. She shoots him a look, trying to appear more indifferent than she really is. “I’m sorry. Are…are you okay?” 

Naya rolls her eyes. It doesn’t come off as very playful either. “I’m fine. I’m a grown woman; you didn’t take advantage of me, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“It wasn’t,” he states instantly. That catches her off guard. “Well, yeah, maybe it was. But I haven’t—done this in a while and I’m just—well, are you? Okay?” 

It sounds like it takes literally everything in him to get it out. He seems as exhausted and stretched-thin as she feels. 

“You haven’t had sex in a while? Well, that certainly explains things.” She’s joking, lying , really, because of course it doesn’t explain anything. Kyle Turner fucks like a man who has had copious amounts of good, regular sex throughout his long life. 

To prove her point, he just scoffs, shaking his head with a small, reluctant smile like he knows she’s lying, rather than getting angry and defensive about it. “I haven’t had a one night stand in a while, Naya, Jesus.” 

She hates that she likes the way he says her first name. She hates that she wishes he could use it all the time.

“Is that what this was for you?” She raises an eyebrow at him, relishing in the panic that flits over his features for a second. “I’m kidding, Turner. Now let me up so I can go get ready for bed.” 

He lets out a quiet, exaggerated groan and drops back to a sitting position on the couch, giving her the freedom to grab her clothes from the floor. 

After she’s dressed again and has cleaned herself up with some soap and a wet paper towel—she’ll shower first thing in the morning, she decided—Naya stops back in the doorway of the living room. 

“I wanted it,” she tells him. She wants him to know, because it’s true. She hadn’t been laid in a while, Turner looked like everything she shouldn’t have—like someone who could both take care of her and make her forget for just a second—and she took the opportunity. “I needed the distraction, and it helped.” 

He nods, scrubs a hand over his face. “He won’t touch you or your son again, you know. I’m going to put him away.” 

Naya stills, eyes widening for a few time-stopping seconds before she nods back at him and sniffs. “Thank you,” she says. She believes him about Michael. He let justice be elusive before, he doesn’t seem the type to let it be again. “For everything.” 

“Get some sleep, Vasquez. Don’t think I’ll be letting you off the hook tomorrow,” he returns. Gruff like he usually is, only she knows it’s for her benefit this time. 

She scoffs, turning on her heel, playing along, but she’s almost smiling as she silently climbs into Turner’s bed and settles in beside Gael.