You arrive back in Austin later that night.

The house is dark when you step inside.

You close the door behind you and stand still for a moment, letting the cool of the night settle into your shoulders. No sound from the kitchen. No light from the hallway.

“Mariana?”

Nothing.

You move through the rooms just to be sure, your footsteps muffled against the old wood floors. Still no sign of her.

You glance toward the back door.

The latch clicks softly under your hand, and the night air folds around you. Out past the small patio, in the patchy stretch of yard, she’s there, sitting cross-legged in the grass, head tipped back to the sky.

The moon is thin tonight, just a pale slice over the rooftops. A few stubborn stars manage to push through the city’s glow. She’s still, but not in that brittle, holding-it-together way you’ve seen before. This is different.

You take a couple steps toward her, the grass whispering under your shoes. She doesn’t turn right away.

“When we was on the farm,” she says slowly, each word careful like she’s weighing it in her mouth, “me and my daughter… we sit outside, night time. See everything. Whole… galaxy. So many stars, you don’t know where to look first.”

Her voice wavers, but she swallows it back down, keeping her gaze fixed on something you can’t see.

“In Austin… I don’t see them. I think maybe… glasses,” she gestures to her face with a small, almost apologetic smile. “But not that.”

The pause after is long enough to make you think she’s done. Then softer, almost to herself,

“I miss the stars.”

You can hear the second meaning. Clear as if she’d said it.

You stay there for a moment, letting the quiet sit heavy between you, because rushing to fill it would cheapen something that’s already hanging by threads. You hesitate to touch her. Your hands aren't clean enough.

Later, the shower runs hot, steam curling around your shoulders, but it doesn’t strip the weight from your chest.

When you step into the bedroom, she’s already under the blankets, turned toward your side. She lifts the corner for you without speaking, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You slide in. She shifts closer until her head rests under your chin, your arm finding its way around her waist. You press your palm to the small of her back, a quiet anchor neither of you can name.

Her breathing evens out first. Yours follows, slow and ****, until sleep takes you both.

You wake before the light, already warm under the covers. She’s curled into your side, one leg hooked over you like she means to keep you there. The slow rise and fall of her breathing is almost hypnotic, but the weight of her against you isn’t passive. It’s possessive. Your hand drifts down, fingers curling into Mariana’s hair, loose, silken, still warm from sleep. She murmurs something unintelligible, her breath a lazy rhythm against your chest.You don’t wait.

With a gentle grip, you guide her under the covers, her hair brushing across your stomach, a soft static whisper against your skin. The heat of her breath brushes your cock, already stiff and impatient. She stirs, her lips parting reflexively as you push past them, the wet heat of her mouth enveloping you inch by inch. The blanket muffles everything except the sound of her breathing, and that sound is changing. Slower. Deeper. Warmer.

You set a slow, deep rhythm, savoring the way her lips stretch around your girth. She whines. Not protest, just the drowsy, helpless sound of someone still half-lost in dreams. Your hips roll forward, nudging deeper, and her throat opens for you without resistance. The sheets rustle as she shifts, one hand reflexively bracing against your thigh, fingers tightening as you push in again.

The room is quiet except for the muffled sounds of her mouth working around you, the wet drag of your cock against her tongue. You palm the back of her head, holding her there, keeping the pace lazy and indulgent.

Morning pleasure, slow and deep.

You let your eyes close for a moment, just listening. The faint wet sound of her adjusting against you, the rustle of fabric when you move under the blankets together. Her body tenses as consciousness seeps in, the slow clench of her fingers on your thigh, the hitch in her breath when your cock nudges the back of her throat. You ease up just enough to let her catch it, her lashes fluttering as she blinks awake, lips still stretched around you.

"Good morning."

There’s no hesitation. The moment her gaze meets yours—hazy but willing—you push in hard, filling her throat in one smooth thrust. She chokes, eyes watering, but her hands fly to your hips, pulling you deeper. The vibration of her muffled moan travels straight to your cock as she swallows around you, throat working in tight, deliberate pulses.

You fuck her mouth in earnest now, each thrust bottoming out, her nose pressing into your stomach. Saliva drips down your shaft, her lips red and swollen, but she doesn’t loosen her grip, only sucking harder, hollowing her cheeks as you stiffen against her tongue.

The bed creaks with the unhurried pace you keep, the two of you wrapped in your own pocket of heat and darkness. The orgasm hits like a slow burn, your groan rough as you spill into her throat. She swallows without pause, throat milking every last drop until you’re twitching against her lips. When she's done, she doesn’t leave. Her arms stay looped around your hips beneath the covers, her cheek still resting against you. You can feel her smile against your skin, small and satisfied.

Your PocketWatch blinks from the nightstand, the green pulse cutting through the dim. You reach for it without making her move, the glow spilling across the sheets and catching in the faint movements of her breathing as she stays exactly where you want her to be.

You flick it on.

Alex. A picture that stops you for a moment. She’s not doing anything in it, not really—just tilting her head in a way that makes you remember the curve of her neck, the little flash in her eyes when she teases you. A half-smile that feels deliberate.

Below it, Jeremy’s messages blink in a neat little stack. He’s asking if you got home safe. You type a quick, vague reply with your thumb, though your gaze keeps snagging back on Alex’s photo.

Under the covers, Mariana shifts. A subtle adjustment, her tongue pressing against the base of your cock as she swallows, but enough to send a slow ripple of heat crawling up your spine. Her rhythm changes—not faster, just… more deliberate. You feel it in the weight of her head resting against your thigh, tongue flattening to take your cock back in. You groan as she slides her lips lower, sliding down until it's firmly pressed against the base of your cock again.

The blanket traps the warmth, thick and heavy. You can hear her breathing change, deeper now, syncing with the gentle pace she’s keeping. Every so often her hair brushes your skin, a stray strand catching against the edge of your hip before sliding away again.

You look down at Alex’s picture one more time. The half-smile, the tilt of her chin. It stirs something in you that Mariana’s mouth seems to answer without being asked. Your grip on the PocketWatch tightens.

Mariana hums low in her throat, the sound muffled by the blanket, and the vibration runs right through you. The hand not holding the PocketWatch drifts down into her hair. You curl your fingers, not to push, just to feel her there. A warm, wet sheath while you stare at the screen. Her spit drips down your shaft when you pull back slightly, her lips cling to you as you push deeper once again.

You let yourself sink into it. The glow of the PocketWatch lighting your knuckles. The faint, wet sound under the covers. Alex’s smile on the screen, frozen but somehow knowing.

Mariana whimpers submissively around your cock as you grow thicker, thighs trembling as she lays curled between your legs, taking whatever you give.

You fuck her mouth in slow, shallow thrusts, savoring the way her throat flutters helplessly as you zoom in on another woman’s body. Her tears wet against your thighs as you bottom out, but she doesn’t pull away. Just keeps her swollen lips parted, waiting for the next push.

Your breath hitches. The muscles in your legs go taut as you feel yourself edging closer. But you don't give her what she wants. Not yet.

You close the PocketWatch, set it down beside you, and tug the blanket back.

Her lips part with a soft gasp as you pull her up, your cock sliding free from the wet heat of her mouth. You guide her onto the bed, fingers tracing the flushed skin of her thighs before spreading them wider. You kiss her, and the kiss tastes like the heat you just came from—salt and breath and the ghost of something deeper.

You press into her in one smooth, deliberate stroke, watching her lashes flutter at the fullness. Her back arches, but you don’t move yet—just let her adjust, let her savor the stretch as you lean down to kiss the pulse hammering in her throat.

The blanket slides down your backs, dragging heat with it, and her legs part around your waist like they were always meant to. She hooks her calves behind you, pulling you lower, her nails dragging lightly along your sides. You catch her mouth again, this time slower, deeper, swallowing the sound she makes when your hips settle into hers.

The bed creaks with the first few slow movements, your weight sinking into her. She tilts her head, baring her throat, and you take it. Mouth trailing along her jaw, tasting the warmth there, the flutter of her pulse under your lips. Her fingers are in your hair now, tugging when you press deeper.

Each thrust is deliberate, unhurried. Your cock moving through her with agonizing slowness, stretching her just shy of too much before retreating again. The wet, slick sound of her taking you fills the space between ragged breaths, the heat of her cunt clenching rhythmically around your length. Her thighs tremble against your hips, the muscles jumping with every deep, rolling motion of your body into hers.

You don’t rush. You savor the way her breath hitches when you drag the head of your cock along that spot inside her that makes her back arch, the **** little noises she doesn’t even realize she’s making. Every withdrawal is slow ****, every push back in a deep, claiming stroke that draws another broken sound from her lips.

Her orgasm crests without warning. One sharp gasp, then a shuddering moan as her cunt spasms around you, wetter, tighter, pulling you impossibly deeper. You groan into the curve of her neck, hips grinding in slow circles to milk every pulse, every aftershock from her trembling body. Only when she slumps boneless beneath you do you finally let go, your release flooding into her with a guttural sound she swallows in a kiss, her tongue lazy and warm against yours.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the sound of your mingled breathing.

Then, right into your mouth... the quietest, most undignified burp.

She goes still. Not just still, but statue-still, like if she doesn’t move maybe it won’t count. You feel the warmth in her cheeks first, then the way it blooms, creeping over her jaw and down her neck until you’re tasting it in her skin.

You smile against her, slow and wicked.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, voice thick with the kind of embarrassment that makes her nails twitch against your arm.

You nip her earlobe, close enough for your breath to catch in the tiny shiver that runs through her.

“Ew. Cum breath.”

She buries her face in your chest. You can hear her mutter, “Shut up, stupid man.”

The laugh you let out is low and breathless, tangled up in the sheets and the lingering heat between you, both of you holding on a moment longer before the day catches up.

Eventually, you untangle yourselves. The shower is quick but close, steam curling around the soft press of bodies and the occasional brush of fingers where they don’t strictly need to be. Her hair smells like your shampoo by the time you’re both toweling off.

In the kitchen, the cats are waiting. Fatty is doing his usual trick of pretending he hasn’t been fed in a week, a performance so convincing he could probably get an Oscar if there were a category for “Best Starving Animal Who Just Ate Fifteen Minutes Ago.”

You scratch under chins, dole out food, watch their tails flick in lazy arcs. Mariana leans in the doorway, still damp, watching you with the faintest smile, like she’s memorizing the shape of the moment.

You kiss her once more before grabbing your keys. The door shuts behind you on the smell of coffee, the sound of the cats crunching breakfast, and the warmth you’ll carry with you all the way to work.