Push n’ Pull (R-18)

Push n’ Pull (R-18)

“You keep leaving, and I keep breaking. Maybe that’s the pattern we’ll never escape.”

I should’ve known it was too quiet.

Everyone had been watching me like I’d break again — Vittorio, Luna, even Rafa, with his carefully rehearsed concern and glassy-eyed stares. And maybe I did look breakable. Maybe I was. I hadn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t eaten anything real in two days. My own reflection felt like a stranger.

So I said I needed a break. Time away. A drive. Some air.

No one stopped me.

That should’ve been the first red flag.

I remember the road. The way it curved through the hillside like it was taking me somewhere worth surviving for. My phone buzzed three times — Luna, then Rafa, then silence.

Then headlights.

Too close.

Then—

Nothing.

I woke up choking on panic.

My chest felt tight. Like something heavy was sitting on it. My fingers gripped soft sheets, cold with sweat. It took me a second to realize I was in a room I didn’t know. Not a dungeon. Not a warehouse.

A cabin. Wood-paneled. Fire crackling. Pine in the air.

Too clean. Too warm. Too quiet.

I scrambled out of bed, hands trembling, heart racing so fast I thought it might explode. Every sound was a threat — the wind, the fire, the creak of floorboards under my bare feet. There was no phone. No bag. Just me in a black slip dress and borrowed time.

I found a fire poker and gripped it like it was a weapon.

And then the door opened.

He walked in like he’d always belonged in every room I bled in.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

“Silas.” His name came out like a curse and a plea in one breath.

He looked the same. No — worse. Like something had been eating at him from the inside out. Dark circles under his eyes. A bruise blooming at his jaw. Dried blood on his sleeve.

“You—” I couldn’t find the words. I was shaking so badly it hurt. “You kidnapped me?”

“You were being followed. They were going to intercept you before you even hit the highway.”

“So your solution was to drug me and stuff me in the back of a car like I’m some hostage?!”

He didn’t flinch.

“I couldn’t let them take you.”

“You could’ve told me!” My voice cracked. “I thought—” I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, trying to breathe. “I thought something happened to me. I thought I was—”

I didn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t.

Because I’d already been through that fear once in my life. I’d already woken up in blood and loss and silence. I couldn’t survive it again.

Tears burned down my face without permission. My knees buckled, but I caught myself against the edge of the fireplace.

“You keep doing this,” I whispered. “You keep breaking me open and then walking away like you didn’t leave your fingerprints inside the cracks.”

He stepped toward me. I stepped back.

“Don’t come closer. Don’t you dare come closer.”

But he did.

And I let him.

Because he always knew the spaces between my rage. Always knew exactly how close he could get before I shattered.

And then — arms.

Strong. Familiar. Wrapping around me like he remembered how to carry every ounce of my grief.

I hit him in the chest. Once. Twice. He didn’t move.

“Why do you keep doing this?” I cried. “Why can’t you just let me go?”

“Because I can’t.”

“I hate you,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“I hate you for making me wait. For making me hope.”

His fingers tangled in my hair, gentle.

“I’ve missed you,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve missed you so much I feel like I’m dying.”

I stopped breathing.

Not because of the words — but because of how quietly he said them. Like they’d been rotting in his throat for years. Like saying them out loud made them more dangerous than any bullet he’d ever fired.

I pressed my forehead to his chest, trembling.

“I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I don’t either.”

We stood like that for what felt like hours. The fire crackling behind us. My tears soaking his shirt. His hand steady on the back of my neck like it was the only place he ever found peace.

No kiss. No apology.

Just us. Pulled together by something unkillable and unforgivable.

When I finally looked up, his eyes were already on me.

“Why did you leave?” I asked. “Back then. After she died.”

He looked like he wanted to lie.

But he didn’t.

“Because I knew what I’d become if I stayed.”

And just like that, I didn’t feel like I was standing in front of a stranger anymore.

Just a man who broke with me — and never stopped bleeding.

The silence the next morning was different.

Not like the cold ones we used to share — not the kind heavy with unspoken grief and distance. This one felt like… a fragile breath held between two people who no longer knew where they ended and the other began.

I woke before the sun, curled beneath thick blankets that smelled like cedar and smoke — and him.

He wasn’t beside me anymore.

I sat up, blinking into the golden early light that filtered through the blinds. The fire was still going, and across the cabin, Silas was pouring coffee into mismatched mugs.

He hadn’t heard me move.

He moved like he always had — precise, quiet, controlled — but there was a softness in the way he reached for the sugar, added just enough milk, and stirred like he remembered.

Like he’d memorized the exact way I liked it.

He brought the cup over without a word and crouched beside the couch where I sat, draping a blanket over my legs.

“I didn’t think you’d remember,” I murmured, wrapping my fingers around the mug. His warmth lingered in the ceramic. “The coffee.”

“I remember everything,” he said.

He knelt again — this time with a small metal tin in hand.

“Your bandage is slipping,” he said quietly. “Let me.”

I didn’t answer.

He peeled the blanket back slightly, just enough to reach the gash near my hip, where shrapnel had grazed me after the explosion. His fingers were warm against my skin, calloused, steady. The ointment stung, but I didn’t flinch.

I watched him the whole time. Studied his jaw, the slope of his throat, the concentration in his brows. Like taking care of me was something sacred — and terrifying.

“You don’t have to be gentle,” I said softly.

He glanced up. “I do.”

The silence returned. Heavy, but not suffocating.

And then — my hand reached out, slow, unsure — and brushed against the edge of his shirt.

He froze.

I lifted it slightly, and there it was. The scar. Pale and jagged, right below his ribs, like something had tried to gut him from the inside.

I traced it gently with my fingertips.

He flinched — not from pain. From memory.

“Did it hurt,” I asked, barely above a whisper, “when you died?”

His eyes met mine. Tired. Raw. Real.

“…Not as much as watching you grieve.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I kissed the scar.

It wasn’t about the wound. It was about everything it meant. Everything he carried in silence. Everything I never got to ask before he disappeared.

He sat back on his knees, like he didn’t know how to breathe around me. I leaned forward, pressed my forehead to his, and for the first time in years, we didn’t run from the closeness.

I slid my hand under his shirt, across the warmth of his chest, felt the way his heart stuttered against my palm. His breath hitched as I brushed my thumb over the curve of another scar.

His fingers found my waist, slow and uncertain.

My nightshirt slipped off one shoulder, and he traced the skin there like it was breakable — like I was something holy.

Neither of us spoke.

We didn’t need to.

His hands moved over me like a promise — not rushed, not hungry — just there. Learning me again. Touching every place grief had hardened, fear had frozen, love had once lived.

And still lived.

When his lips met mine, it wasn’t a kiss of desperation.

It was reverence.

A slow unraveling.

He held the back of my neck as I breathed against his mouth, my hands splayed across his chest, and we stayed like that — tangled in heat and ghosts, hearts beating too loud — until the fire burned low and morning threatened to find us.

He didn’t ask for anything more.

Neither did I.

We just… stayed.

Breathing each other in. Holding what was left. Trying to remember what it meant to feel.

And for the first time in years, I didn’t want to disappear.

Because somehow, even after everything—

He still made me feel like I was someone worth staying for.

“Ahhhhh,” I can hear my own hearbeat, his kisses are like fire, burning eaach part ofmy body, I never felt this feeling, I can’t describe this one. Is this lust? longing? I don’t know.

“Please tell me to stop, because after this, I can’t promise that I’ll still have the sanity to get off you,” his voice is ragged, like he’s trying to refrain and prepared himself too.

I didn’t, I looked at him, and kissed him deeply, I felt his hand on my waist down to my thigh, he caressed it, then down in between my legs. I gasped when his rough and warm hand touches mine.

“You’re fucking wet,” I don’t know how to react, if I should be mad, or embarrassed or laugh, I’m not sure, “Fuck,” he muttered as he starts to explore my body. His kisses goes down to my mound, like a hungry infant, both mounds have their own pleasure to give, then down to my stomach.“Shit!” I muttered aas his lips touches my clit, “Ahhh, S-silas!”

“Hmm, you’re so sweet and wet, and hot,” He said and continued to eat me, while I’m here, trying not to shout, I fel a little bit uncomfortable when his finger starts to play near inside my private part.

“What are you doing? Stop teasing me,” I almost whispered.

“I’m making your ready for me, my love,” that’s when I reaalized he was controlling himself not to hurt me in any way, “I’ll be digging,” he said, aand then I felt a finger entering me, like a sharp object, “Does this hurt you?”

“N-no, it tickles,” I saw him smiled, I tried to relax my body, I think he felt that, his fingers sstarts to dig deeper and faster, I gasped when I felt his tongue, playing with my clit. “Fuck, Silas, what are you doing?! Ahhh!”

He didn’t answer, he just ate it like it’s the most delicious food in the world, we met with eyes, he was looking at me intently, while doing his thing. I can’t help but bit my lips, his left hand played with my mound, it was heaven. Pure ecstasy.

My eyes widen when I felt something building up in my abdomen, “S-silas, I think something is—” he stopped.. he stopped! “What the fuck—” I halt, he removed his top, then swiftly removed his pants along with his underwear.

I was shocked when I saw how huge he is, he was still looking at me, I didn’t know that I could be hungry as this. My throat dried up. “It’s big!” I Exclaimed, he chuckled, “Will that fit?”

“It will, baby. I’ m sure of that,” he pulled both of my legs, and starts to rub the tip of his shaft on my entrance, he lie on the top of me aand kissed me, “I’m giving you last chance to turn away, Aria. You can still stop me,” but his voice says otherwise, I grabbed his napa and kiss him, that was his cue. I felt an unbearable pain, like something inside of me iss tearing apart, a tear escaped my eye, he saw it, “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry,”

“Just—just put it all,” I muttered, “Ahhh!’

“I love you, I love you,” He kept on kissing my tears as he thrust. I felt his control, little by little the pain became tolerable, and it starts to feel the pleasure. I start to move my hips, he bit his lips, his sweats dripping from his hair and body, he took from there.

He put my legs on his shoulder and starts to slammed inside, “Fuck,” I heard him say, as he thrust, eyes closed while biting his lips. A work of art.

“I think I’m cumm-ing,” I said, I’m not sure if he heard it or not, but his thrust became more deeper and faster, “Silas!”

“Cum, baby. It’s fine,” he said between his heavy breath, “Ahh, fuck,”

“Shit, shit,” I felt my release, but Silas wasn’t done—not yet.

He held my waist and turn me around, grabbed my waist down and my hips up, and with no hesitation he put his shaft again and starts to thrust again. “Fuck!” It was painful yet feels good, “Ahh!”

“I’m cumming, love.” He muttered, and in a few deep thrust I felt his sloppy ones, and felt a hot liquid inside me, “Ahh,”

My body felt heavy, I collapsed on the bed, my eyes starts to shut, as I felt tired and body ache, I don’t know what happen next, and I’m not even sure if I was dreaming or heard him right.

“I’ll marry you,”