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Tie Breaker

The Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought stood ready for war.

Its ceramite hull gleamed beneath the harsh battlefield lights, every panel edge crisp, every rivet catching the glow like captured starfire. The macro plasma incinerator hummed with dormant fury, its barrel still warm from the sacred oils applied during the morning’s rites of preparation. Twin storm bolters flanked the chassis like loyal guardians, ammunition feeds locked, blessed, and hungry for the taste of heretic blood.

(The Emperor protects, but a well-maintained weapon protects faster.)

The General surveyed her forces from above. Ranked formations of Space Marines stood ready, Intercessor squads forming disciplined lines, stalwart Bladeguard Veterans anchoring the field. A fine army indeed. They would serve the Emperor proud, march across countless tabletops, and hopefully not get absolutely demolished by Marcus’s stupid Necrons again.

Satisfaction warmed her chest.

Her tail swished behind her..

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound hit like a dropped miniature.

Everything shattered.

The battlefield collapsed back into plastic and pewter. Glory shrank to resin and paint. War became a messy desk in a messier bedroom. General Tristana Kordain, veteran of a hundred tabletop battles, vanished in an instant, replaced by Trist, a twenty-three-year-old cocker spaniel whose round glasses, braces, and dragon hoodie practically screamed nerd girl.

Trist straightened with a tired breath, shoulders rolling as reality rushed back in. Her oversized hoodie sagged at the seams, sleeves freckled with paint, a brush still frozen between her fingers like it hadn’t gotten the memo that the war was over.

“Coming,” she called, the word edged with reluctant obligation.

Trist paused mid-shuffle, one fuzzy sock sliding against the hardwood as she froze in the hallway. Her ears, those ridiculous long-furred spaniel things that never quite behaved, perked forward despite her best efforts to appear unbothered by, well, everything. Her mouth tightened in a small, irritated line, but her tail betrayed her with a nervous little wag that she couldn't quite stop.

The apartment was supposed to be hers tonight. Her brother had practically sprinted out the door three days ago, mumbling something about “woman smells” before fleeing to crash at Marcus’s place.

So who could it be?

She frowned at the door. Had she accidentally ordered a pizza and forgotten about it again? That was, unfortunately, not outside the realm of possibility. Another knock, more insistent this time, and Trist tugged her oversized hoodie closer around herself. The faded dragon on the front was familiar, comforting, a little embarrassing.

She was fine. Mostly fine. The worst of her heat had passed two days ago, leaving behind only a lingering warmth that pulsed occasionally in her lower belly like an ember that refused to fully die. Nothing she couldn't handle. Nothing that required her brother to exile himself like she was some kind of feral creature incapable of basic self-control.

(Okay, so maybe day two had involved an... incident. With her pillow. That she would take to her grave, but that was beyond the point.)

The peephole revealed a wall of wet fur.

Trist blinked, adjusted her glasses, the thick-framed ones that made her eyes look approximately forty percent larger than they actually were, and peered again. Rain streaked down the other side of the door in sheets she could hear hammering against the building’s exterior, and standing in the middle of the deluge was what appeared to be a small mountain that had decided to take up residence on her welcome mat.

Jessy.

She fumbled with the deadbolt, her paw pads suddenly clumsy against the metal. The door swung open and, oh. Oh no.

The Bernese mountain dog stood in her doorway like a drowned god of pathetic, water streaming from every inch of his massive frame. His usually fluffy coat, that gorgeous tri-colored fur she definitely had never noticed was gorgeous, thank you very much, hung in sodden clumps that dripped steadily onto the hallway carpet. His ears, normally perked with that perpetually optimistic tilt, lay flat against his skull. And his eyes...

Those warm brown eyes found hers, and something in Trist's chest did an uncomfortable little flip.

"Hey, Trist." His voice came out rough, tired. "Derek home?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Words, her brain supplied unhelpfully. Words are a thing you know how to use.

“He’s, no, he’s at Marcus’s place.” The sentence emerged slightly squeaky, which was fantastic. Very cool and normal. “What are you, why are you…” She gestured vaguely at his general state of dampness. “Did you walk here?”

Jessy’s massive shoulders lifted in something approximating a shrug, sending a small waterfall cascading off his jacket. “Train broke down on Fifth. Figured it wasn’t that far.”

Wasn’t that far? Fifth Street was halfway across the city. In weather that looked like the sky had personally declared war on anyone foolish enough to venture outside.

A quick glance at the calendar on the wall, the one covered in anime characters that Derek constantly threatened to throw away, made everything click into horrifying focus. Thursday. The second Thursday of the month.

Game night…

Oh no.

The text she’d been composing sat unfinished in her phone, still warm in the pocket of her hoodie: Hey guys, something came up, can we reschedule:

She hadn’t sent it. She’d meant to send it hours ago, had typed it out and then gotten distracted by an isekai with a title that was way too long to justify watching past episode six, and then she’d made herself some truly mediocre ramen, and then she’d sort of… forgotten.

And Jessy had walked. Across the city. In a monsoon. Because she’d forgotten to cancel game night.

The guilt that flooded through her was only slightly diminished by the fact that he looked like a very sad, very large puppy, and some deeply unhelpful part of her brain wanted to wrap him in a blanket and make him hot chocolate.

“I was supposed to, there was going to be a text,” Trist’s paws fluttered uselessly at her sides. “I’m so sorry, I completely spaced on telling everyone that tonight wasn’t, I mean, Derek’s not here, and I’m…”

At the tail end of her heat cycle. Which was absolutely not something she was going to say out loud to her brother’s best friend. The one she’d known since she was eleven. The one who’d taught her how to ride a bike after Derek had given up. The same Jessy who’d once let her cry on his shoulder when No Game No Life never got a second season.

“Not feeling great,” she finished lamely.

Jessy’s ears drooped even further, which shouldn’t have been physically possible. “Oh. Right. Yeah, that makes sense.” He took a step backward, nearly stumbling as his waterlogged sneaker caught on the mat. “I’ll just… I can catch the next bus back. It’s fine.”

Another roll of thunder shook the building. The lights flickered.

Trist looked at him, really looked. At the way he was shivering despite his thick coat, at the exhaustion carved into the lines of his muzzle, at the puddle forming around his feet that was going to absolutely soak the hallway carpet and Mrs. Henderson in 4B would definitely file another complaint.

She could trust Jess to behave, he'd been at every birthday party. Every graduation. Every awkward family barbecue where her dad had burned the hot dogs and her mom had made too much potato salad. He was practically family.

And he was kind of cute, in that oblivious, gentle-giant way of his. Even soaking wet. Especially soaking wet, whispered a traitorous voice in the back of her skull that she firmly told to shut up.

Her heat wasn't that bad. She was fine. The embers barely flickered anymore, really.

(This was a lie, and some part of her knew it was a lie, but she was very committed to the performance.)

“Jessy, come on,” Trist said. She was already stepping back, clearing a way; the threshold offered, a promise of warmth, if only Jessy would take it. “You’re soaked. You can’t just stand out there like that.”

He lingered in the doorway, rainwater trickling from the tips of his ears and running cold down his nose and jaw. His nose twitched suddenly, just once, and Trist froze. Had he caught a scent? No. Probably just fighting off a sneeze after standing out in all that rain.

“It’s fine, really,” he said, backing up another soggy step. “I don’t want to impose. I can wait at the station for the next train.”

The words made something tighten sharply in her chest. He looked lost, barely upright, as if some silent force had wrung every last ounce of will from his body and wrung out whatever comfort was left, too. All for a dumb game night. He’d come all this way for them, through rain that clung to him like a second, sodden skin.

She softened, voice dropping lower. “You walked halfway across the city to get here,” she said. “I’m not letting you turn around and do it again just for the sake of being polite. You can wait here till the trains are running again.”

He opened his mouth, the protest forming already. Too considerate, too stubborn for his own good.

She caught his arm.

It was instinct, unplanned, her hand closing around him through the damp cloth. He was so warm, even through the soaked jacket; he tensed, startled at the touch, but didn’t resist. She tugged and he let himself be pulled inside, a half-amused noise escaping him, breaking the tension like the pop of a bubble.

The door closed with a solid thud, sealing out the storm and sealing in... everything else.

In the quiet that followed, the smell found her. Not all at once, but in layers. Dirty water, something sour and industrial, clinging stubbornly to his fur, the evidence of mud streaked dark along his legs now visible under the lights. Whatever he’d walked through on the way here had soaked in deep, loud enough to crowd the air and drown out anything subtler beneath it. Was that why he’d hovered, half outside? Relief loosened in her chest. Yeah. There was no way he could smell anything past that.

“Bathroom,” she said, already pushing him toward the hall. “You smell like you clipped through the map and respawned inside a Waffle House dumpster.”

He let out a small, embarrassed laugh and glanced down at his soaked clothes before meeting her eyes again. “Yeah. Okay. That’s fair.”

“I’ll find you something dry,” she said, already moving down the hall. “Derek’s stuff might not fit, but we’ll figure something out.”

He didn’t argue, not this time. He let her guide him, the distance collapsing with every step, the door clicking shut behind them, the rain and city washing away as if they’d never existed at all.

The apartment suddenly felt very small. Very warm. Very much occupied by a wet mountain dog whose presence filled the space whether she wanted it to or not. Beneath the mess clinging to his clothes was the smell of him. Warm fur. Body heat. A heavy, lived-in musk that the storm hadn’t touched and probably never could. Trist’s nose twitched before she could stop it, catching on that deeper note, and she very deliberately chose not to examine why it made her legs wobble.

This is fine, she told herself firmly. Totally fine. Completely under control.

Trist shuffled off toward Derek’s room before she could do something stupid, like stand there inhaling deeply like some kind of deranged scent connoisseur, leaving Jessy to navigate the clothing situation on his own.

(She was an adult. A mature, reasonable adult who was absolutely not affected by the presence of a large, wet male in her apartment during the tail end of her heat cycle. Nope. Not even a little.)

Derek's room was its usual disaster zone: gaming posters competing for wall space with band memorabilia, a desk buried under textbooks he probably hadn't opened in months, and a laundry situation that could generously be described as "aspirational." Trist wrinkled her nose and dove into the chaos, pawing through piles of questionably clean clothing in search of something, anything, that might stretch over Jessy's massive frame.

The shorts were a problem. Her brother was tall, sure, but built like a beanpole compared to the mountain of mass that was a Bernese. She finally unearthed a pair of thin cotton shorts, gray and worn soft from countless washes. They looked… small. Too small, probably. The kind of small that would leave very little to the imagination.

Her face heated at the thought, which was ridiculous. They were just shorts. Functional fabric. Nothing to get flustered about.

On her brother, they counted as shorts. On Jessy, they were going to be more of a suggestion. Which was fine. Probably. Her brain, unfortunately, had already helpfully rendered the preview: Jessy hunched a little to fit through her doorway, those ridiculous thighs swallowing the waistband, the hem riding up like it was trying to escape, and the whole thing clinging in a way that made “modesty” feel like an optional rule in a game no one had agreed to play. Just cotton. Just fabric. Definitely not the sort of thing that should make her brain go BURRRR or make her tail flag like her body had rolled initiative without asking.

The shirt situation proved mercifully easier. Derek had an entire collection of oversized sleeveless gym shirts, the kind he wore when he wanted to feel like he was the type of person who went to the gym regularly, despite his actual gym attendance hovering somewhere around "twice a year when guilt struck." She grabbed a black one that looked like it might fit Jessy's chest without immediately splitting at the seams.

Good enough. It would have to be good enough.

Trist gathered the clothes and headed back down the hallway, the sound of running water growing louder with every step. Steam seeped from beneath the bathroom door, carrying the sharp scent of her brother’s generic body wash and, threaded through it, that same stubborn musk. Warm fur. Body heat. Jessy.

She slowed, then stopped, her gaze snagging on her reflection in the hallway mirror.

Oh. She was a mess.

Her hair, those ridiculous spaniel curls that had a mind of their own, had achieved peak chaos, a tangled halo of brown and white that looked like she’d lost a fight with her pillow. (She had. Several fights. Over the past few days.) Her glasses sat slightly crooked on her nose, and the oversized hoodie hung off one shoulder, revealing the strap of the ratty tank top she’d been wearing for… how many days now?

She was short. Petite. Thin, people said, though what they usually meant was mousy, all sharp angles and not enough curves in the places that mattered. Her eyes traced downward: the slight swell of her hips (okay, maybe not completely without curves), the round bottom she'd inherited from her mother's side of the family, the distinctly unimpressive A-cups that the hoodie swallowed entirely.

The urge hit her like a wave, sudden and overwhelming. She could fix her hair. Brush it out, maybe pin it back in that way that made her cheekbones look sharper. She could change into something that actually fit, something that showed off the curves she did have instead of drowning them in faded fabric. That little sundress in the back of her closet, maybe, the one that…

Stop it.

Trist gripped the bundle of clothes tighter, claws pricking through the cotton.

She was not going to primp for her brother’s best friend. She was not going to put on something revealing and bat her eyelashes like some heat-addled cliché. This was Jessy, the same Jessy who still called her “kiddo,” despite the fact that they were the same age.

This was the heat talking. Just hormones and pheromones and her stupid biology trying to override her perfectly functional brain.

She was better than this.

(She was absolutely not better than this, but the performance must go on.)

Trist forced herself past the mirror without another glance, marching toward the bathroom with the grim determination of someone walking to their own execution. The door loomed ahead, steam curling from the gap at the bottom, and she could hear the spray of water against tile, the shift of a large body moving behind frosted glass…

She walked past.

Kept walking.

Her paw was on her bedroom doorknob when she remembered his clothes. His soaking-wet, dripping, probably-staining-her-bathroom-floor clothes. They needed to go in the dryer, or he’d have nothing to wear home, and then he’d be stuck here longer in her brother’s too-small shorts, and that was a thought she very much did not need to finish.

"His laundry," she muttered to herself, already turning back. "I need to grab his laundry. For the dryer. That's a normal, helpful thing to do."

(The lie was so transparent she could practically see through it, but she clung to it anyway.)

She knocked once, barely a tap really, the kind of knock that could easily be missed over running water, and pushed the door open before her brain could catch up with her body.

The bathroom was small, barely big enough for the sink and toilet and the narrow shower stall in the corner, its glass door fogged but not quite opaque. Jessy’s silhouette moved behind it, massive and indistinct, and Trist’s eyes went immediately to the pile of wet clothes on the floor.

That was what she was here for. The clothes. Nothing else.

Her gaze flickered up, just for a second, just a quick glance to make sure he hadn’t noticed her intrusion, and her brain short-circuited.

The glass was fogged, yes, but not that fogged. She could see the broad planes of his back, the way water sluiced down the dark fur of his shoulders. He was facing mostly away from her, head tilted back under the spray, and his arm moved in slow, deliberate strokes as he washed…

Oh.

The red was subtle. Just a hint of color peeking from the dark fur of his lower belly, the slight pink tip poking out from its sheath in a way that looked almost... reluctant. She watched, frozen, as his paw moved lower and then deliberately skirted sideways, washing around the area with careful, almost frustrated precision. His shoulders were tense, his jaw tight, and there was something about the rigid control in his movements that made the ember in Trist's belly flare into something significantly more demanding.

Was it her? Could he smell her through the steam and the soap, the lingering traces of her heat that she'd convinced herself were barely noticeable? Or was this just... a guy thing? Something that happened in showers regardless of external circumstances?

She didn't know. She'd never really thought about it before, what went on in the private moments of the males in her life. But she was thinking about it now. She was thinking about it very hard.

Heat flooded her cheeks, spreading down her neck and into her chest. Her ears burned. Her tail had gone completely still, which was somehow more embarrassing than if it had been wagging.

Move, her brain screamed. Grab the clothes and move, you absolute disaster of a person.

Trist dropped the clean laundry on the floor and lunged for the wet pile instead, scooping up the sodden jacket and jeans and, oh god, were those his boxers? She was holding his boxers. She clutched the whole mess to her chest like a shield as water immediately soaked through her hoodie, cold and shocking against the heat of her fur.

“Laundry!” she squeaked, already backing toward the door. “For the dryer. I’m just… the dryer needs… I’ll be right back.”

She did not, in fact, go right back.

She fled.

The door slammed behind her harder than she'd intended, and she stood in the hallway with her arms full of wet clothes and her face burning hot enough to start fires, her heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to escape.

From inside the bathroom, she heard the water shut off.

"Trist?" Jessy's voice came through the door, confused and slightly alarmed. "Everything okay?"

"Fine!" Her voice cracked on the word. "Totally fine! Just being helpful! Clothes will be in the dryer!"

She didn't wait for a response, practically sprinting toward the Laundry room.

Trist was not fine.

The brief walk to the laundry room had practically drowned her in his scent, that masculine, earthy musk clinging to the wet fabric pressed against her chest, seeping through her hoodie and into her fur until she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Her traitorous tail flagged high behind her, and she felt her nipples stiffen against the thin cotton of her tank top, two traitorous points that the hoodie mercifully concealed.

She tossed the clothes into the dryer without ceremony, slammed the door shut, and jabbed at the buttons with trembling paws. The machine sat there. Silent. Waiting.

(She did not, in fact, turn it on. A detail that would become relevant later, though Trist's heat-addled brain had already moved on to more pressing concerns.)

"I just need to calm down," she muttered, pressing her back against the cool metal of the dryer. "Just need to clear my mind."

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

"I can do this. This is nothing." She pushed off the machine, squaring her shoulders with the determination of someone marching into battle. "He's just Jessy. Same Jessy as always. Nothing has changed."

Everything had changed. Or rather, nothing had changed except her ability to ignore how broad his shoulders were, how his voice rumbled in his chest, how he smelled like safety and something darker that made her want to bury her nose in his neck and…

She entered the living room and promptly forgot how to breathe.

Jessy stood in the middle of the room, still damp around the edges, wearing Derek’s borrowed clothes with the stiff misery of someone who already knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

The shorts were… smaller than she’d expected. A lot smaller. On her brother, they counted as casual. On Jessy’s frame, they were closer to a dare. The thin gray cotton was pulled so tight over his thighs it had stopped pretending to drape, riding high and clinging like it was desperately trying to remember what shape it was supposed to be.

And the front of them.

Oh.

Trist’s brain made a noise somewhere between a dice clatter and a system crash. This was not subtle. This was not polite. This was the sort of situation where the fabric had clearly lost the argument and was now just hanging on out of spite. Whatever modesty the shorts had once promised had been reduced to a suggestion and a prayer.

Every time he shifted his weight, the cotton tugged and tightened, riding higher, pulling forward, making it painfully obvious that he was very aware of his body and very much trying not to be. One wrong move and those shorts were going to reroll their stats straight into problematic.

The sleeveless shirt did nothing to help. It stretched over his chest and the soft, solid curve of his belly, riding up whenever he moved, exposing more thigh, more heat, more evidence that her imagination had severely underestimated the situation.

She absolutely was not staring.

(She was absolutely staring.)

Trist’s gaze darted frantically around the room, searching for anything, literally anything, to distract from the sight of her brother’s best friend looking like that in her living room. She just needed to hold out long enough for his laundry to dry. An hour, maybe two. She could survive an hour.

Green eyes landed on the game table in the corner, cluttered with boxes and cards and the accumulated detritus of a hundred Thursday nights.

Bingo.

Jessy,” she said, quieter now. “You don’t have to hover by the door like you’re plotting an escape route. Your clothes are in the dryer. The trains are down. You’re stuck here.”

The last part slipped out softer than she meant it to, and she hated how much it gave her away.

“We could just… do what we came here to do,” she added, jerking her chin toward the game table in the corner. “Play a couple rounds. Kill some time. Whatever.”

Jessy’s ears twitched, and then that familiar spark flickered to life in his eyes, tentative but real. “Game night?” he asked. “Just the two of us?”

She nodded, her own tail twitching, then stilling as she forced composure. “Same rules as with the guys. Two out of three. Loser picks the next game.” The words stumbled out, rapid and awkward, like she had to launch them across a chasm or risk them tumbling back inside. “And the loser also buys dinner.”

His mouth softened into a smile, shoulders loosening as if some unspoken pressure simply let go. “Okay. I’m in.”

Heat pressed up along her neck as she met his eyes, almost shy. “Korean Barbecue.”

Jessy’s tail wagged, unguarded and happy, and even now, something warm and unfamiliar kindled in her chest. “Deal.”

The first game was Magic: The Gathering, and Trist showed absolutely no mercy.

She’d been playing since middle school, had spent countless hours perfecting her deck while Derek and Jessy fumbled through tutorials. This was her domain. Her territory. And watching Jessy’s face fall as she systematically dismantled his defenses was almost enough to distract her from the way his borrowed shirt refused to stay put, clinging to his chest and belly before inching upward every time he moved.

Almost.

“That’s not fair,” Jessy protested, watching his last creature fall to her combo. “You’ve been playing this for like a decade.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you challenged the tabletop queen.” Trist gathered her cards with a smug little smile, confidence slowly returning. “Your choice, big guy.”

He surveyed the game table with narrowed eyes, clearly searching for something, anything, that might level the playing field. His gaze landed on a battered box near the bottom of the pile.

"Rack-O."

Trist's smile faltered. "Rack-O? Really? That's like... a grandma game."

"My grandma taught me," Jessy said, already pulling the box free. "And she was ruthless."

(He wasn't kidding).

The first round, she lost by a landslide. The second round, she lost worse. By the third, Trist was hunched over her rack of cards with her ears pinned back, growling under her breath as Jessy calmly, methodically, absolutely destroyed her.

"Rack-O," he announced, laying down his final card with infuriating gentleness.

"How?" Trist threw her hands up, scattering cards across the table. "It's literally just putting numbers in order! There's no strategy!"

"There's definitely strategy." His tail was wagging again, and there was something almost smug in the tilt of his ears. "You're just bad at it."

"I am not…" She sputtered, heat rising to her cheeks that had nothing to do with her cycle. "You're cheating. Somehow. I don't know how, but you're definitely cheating."

"Can't cheat at Rack-O, Kiddo." He leaned back, stretching his arms above his head, and the motion pulled his shirt up just enough to reveal a strip of creamy belly fur. "Some of us are just naturally gifted."

Her mouth went dry.

"Naturally gifted at grandma games," she managed, dragging her eyes back to the scattered cards. "Very impressive. I'm sure that'll look great on your resume."

"Hey, I'll have you know…"

"One-one," she interrupted, pushing back from the table. The ember in her belly had flared back to life, stoked by competition and proximity and the infuriating confidence in his voice. "Tiebreaker. My pick."

She needed an advantage. Something he couldn't match, couldn't counter with hidden grandma-taught skills. Her eyes scanned the game shelf with predatory focus, cataloging and dismissing options in rapid succession.

Scrabble? No, he'd probably memorized the dictionary. Jenga? His paws were too big, but so was his patience. Monopoly? They'd be here for six hours and she'd probably murder him.

And then she saw it.

The Twister box sat wedged between Candy Land and an ancient copy of Clue, its colorful dots faded but still visible through the cellophane window. Trist's lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile.

Oh yes.

He was massive. Muscular. Built like a small fortress with limbs that went on forever. And she was small. Flexible. The kind of petite that meant she could fold herself into impossible positions while he struggled to fit his bulk onto a mat designed for normal-sized people.

He'd never stand a chance.

“Twister,” she announced, reaching for the box with triumph already singing in her veins. “Hope you stretched today, big guy.”

(Her fingers closed around the cardboard, confidence buoyed by the certainty that she’d found an unbeatable choice. She didn’t think about the rules beyond winning, or about how much space the game demanded, or about what close quarters and tangled limbs might do to someone insisting their heat was basically over.)

She'd figure that out soon enough….

The mat unfurled across the living room floor like a battlefield, its cheerful colored dots mocking her with their innocent arrangement. Trist kicked the coffee table aside, probably too aggressively, judging by the way it skidded into the wall, and smoothed out the plastic with her foot.

"Rules," she announced, snatching up the spinner. "Standard gameplay. No knees, no elbows touching the mat. First one to fall loses."

Jessy was already stretching, rolling those massive shoulders in a way that made the borrowed shirt ride up again. "You sure about this? I've got a pretty low center of gravity."

“You’ve got a center of gravity the size of a small car.” She flicked the spinner with more force than necessary. “Right hand red.”

They started easy enough. Right hand here, left foot there, the usual awkward shuffle of limbs finding purchase on slippery plastic. Trist’s confidence held steady through the first few spins. She was flexible, damn it. Years of yoga videos and general smallness working in her favor as she contorted around Jessy’s bulk.

But then the spinner landed on left hand yellow, and suddenly she was reaching beneath his arm, her shoulder pressing into his ribs, and oh. Oh no.

The scent hit her like a wall.

Whatever neutral soap had clung to him after the shower was already fading, stripped away by heat and time, leaving only what had been there all along. The smell of him, clean now, unburied. Warm fur, body heat, that heavy, lived-in musk that seemed to radiate from his skin in slow, unavoidable waves. It filled her nose, coated the back of her throat, and she realized with a jolt that she could taste him with every breath.

Her hand trembled on the yellow dot. Heat pooled low in her belly, no longer a manageable ember but something slick and urgent that made her thighs press together, her balance wavering for reasons that had nothing to do with the mat beneath her feet.

"You okay?" Jessy's voice came from somewhere above her, and she could feel it rumble through his chest where they touched.

"Fine," she squeaked. "Totally fine. Spin."

Right foot green.

She had to twist, had to rotate her hips in a way that brought her backside directly against his thigh. The contact sent electricity sparking up her spine, and she felt herself clench involuntarily, felt the slick heat between her legs that meant…

Oh god. She was leaking.

The realization crashed over her in a wave of mortification and arousal so tangled she couldn't separate them. Her heat wasn't over. Her heat was very much not over, and she was pressed against Jessy's leg, and he could probably smell it, could probably feel the warmth radiating from her through the thin fabric of her shorts…

"Left hand blue."

Jessy shifted, and his arm came around her, bracketing her body as he reached for the blue dot. His chest pressed against her back, solid and warm, and she could feel his breath ruffling the fur of her ear. Her tail had gone completely still, pressed flat against her spine in a desperate attempt at control that was failing spectacularly.

And then she felt it.

Something hard. Something very hard, pressing against her hip through the straining fabric of those too-small shorts.

Her brain short-circuited.

“Right hand green,” she heard herself say, but her voice sounded distant, underwater. She reached, and her arm brushed against his stomach, and she felt him shudder, actually shudder, at the contact.

The game devolved from there.

Every spin seemed designed to tangle them further, to press bodies together in ways that left no room for pretense. Trist's hoodie had ridden up, exposing the small of her back, and she could feel Jessy's paw brush against bare skin as he struggled to maintain position. The touch sent fire racing through her veins, and she bit her lip hard enough to taste copper.

She was soaked now. She could feel it, the slick heat coating her inner thighs, her scent filling the room until there was no way, absolutely no way, he couldn’t notice. The ember had become an inferno, her heat roaring back to life with a vengeance that left her dizzy.

And Jessy…

Jessy wasn't doing any better.

She could see it now, couldn’t avoid seeing it. The thin gray shorts had lost their battle with his erection, the fabric stretched obscenely tight over a bulge that looked almost painful. A darkened stain marked the tip, bleeding through the cotton, and the scent coming off him was strong enough to make her vision blur. Every time he shifted, the material pulled tighter, seams straining, threatening to give. His breathing had gone ragged, pupils blown wide, a flush creeping through even the dark fur of his muzzle.

"Trist," he said, and his voice was wrecked. "Maybe we should…"

"Left foot red."

She moved on instinct alone, the surge of need making her knees weak and unsteady. When she shifted her weight, her legs betrayed her and she went down hard.

Time seemed to slow.

She felt herself falling, felt her balance give way, and then she was tumbling, not away from him, but toward him, her body colliding with his in a tangle of limbs and fur and desperate, ragged breathing.

They went down together.

When the world stopped spinning, Trist found herself straddling his hips.

Her thighs bracketed his waist, the slick press of her sex tight against that straining bulge, and she could feel all of him through the thin barriers of their borrowed clothes. The heat of him seared through the fabric, and her hips rolled involuntarily, grinding down until a groan tore from both their throats.

Silence.

The kind of silence that felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the wind to push.

His paws hovered at her hips, not quite touching, trembling with restraint. Those warm brown eyes stared up at her, wide and desperate and wanting, and she could see the war playing out across his features, duty and desire, friendship and something far more dangerous.

“Trist…” His voice cracked on her name. “We should, I mean, this isn’t…”

She kissed him.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. It was years of stolen glances and careful distance and pretending she didn’t notice the way her heart raced when he laughed, all of it crashing together into a single point of contact. Her paws fisted in the fur of his chest, and she poured everything into that kiss, every fantasy she’d never admitted to, every moment she’d looked at him and wanted and told herself she couldn’t have.

He froze beneath her for one terrible, endless second.

And then he kissed her back.

His paws found her hips, huge and warm, pulling her tighter against him as his tongue swept across her lower lip. She opened for him with a whimper, and the kiss deepened into something desperate and hungry, teeth clashing, breath mingling, years of denial burning away like paper in a flame.

When she finally broke away, they were both gasping.

Trist pressed both paws against his shoulders and pushed, pinning him flat against the Twister mat. His chest heaved beneath her palms, and she could feel his heart hammering against her touch, wild and rapid.

“Trist.” Jessy’s voice was little more than a ragged whisper, tone smoke-rough and trembling. She watched his adam’s apple bob, the motion hypnotic as he swallowed, every muscle in his jaw tight enough to pop. “I’ve never… I mean, we can’t. It’s not… safe.” Even then, he was trying to be good, to say the right thing, but his hips betrayed him, arching up helplessly into the cradle of her thighs, where the shape of his cock pressed against her, thick and hot and utterly unignorable.

She smirked. It was small, but it was there, a glint of mischief in the way she rolled her hips right back down, grinding harder against the rigid length of him. The sound Jessy made was almost a whimper, a soft, desperate thing that vibrated through her bones. Underneath her, the tension of his body was so total she half-expected him to break the Twister mat itself, to tear a hole in the universe that would swallow them both.

But it was something else that broke first: a dry, ragged sound, fabric surrendering under impossible strain. His shorts gave way with a sharp snap, splitting down the side. His cock sprang free, thick and flushed and already drooling slick along the tip. The sight made her dizzy. Made her claw at his chest, digging into the span of his belly as though she could anchor herself to him, to this moment. Her own shorts felt suffocating, suddenly, the heat between her legs gathering with an urgency that had her seeing stars.

She was so wet. She could feel it every single place their bodies touched, could feel the way her panties were already ruined, the way her scent must be rolling off her in waves. Trist reached down with shaking hands and shoved the waistband of her shorts aside, her clit throbbing as cool air hit swollen, slick fur. “I’ts my First time too,” she managed, her voice just as wrecked as his. She ground her palm against his stomach, steadying herself. “It’s okay. You just… just pull out at the end. We’ll be fine.”

Jessy’s mouth worked soundlessly. He looked like he wanted to protest, to be noble and responsible and all the things she secretly adored about him. But this time, she didn’t let him. She leaned in and kissed him, slow and deep, pouring every ounce of permission, of need, of desperate want into the slick press of their lips. It devoured his words, turning them into nothing but shared heat and the fine-tuned shudder of bodies locked in a circuit.

When she pulled away, her lungs ached for air and her body buzzed with something not unlike terror. She sat up, straddling him, and grabbed the hem of her hoodie. With a single motion, she dragged it off, hair tumbling wild around her face, and tossed the thing somewhere behind her. Her battered tank top beneath, so thin her nipples were two points of high-def against the fabric, and then that, too, was gone, peeled off and tossed aside. Her chest rose and fell, bare, the light catching on every curve and hollow she’d once hated, now offered up to him without shame.

The shorts were a battle. She had to rock her hips forward, plant her paws on his shoulders for leverage, and wriggle herself free. The effort left her bare above him, legs trembling, tail lashing behind her uncontrollably. For all her bravado a minute ago, she felt suddenly, terribly exposed, like she’d been flayed open along some old seam, every nerve sparking on display. The air was cool against her breasts, but the look in Jessy’s eyes scorched her hotter than any fever.

He stared at her like she was something holy. Like he’d never seen anything so beautiful in all his life, and couldn’t believe his luck that she’d let him look. His paws hovered at either side of her hips, trembling just a little, as if torn between reverence and a need to touch her so badly it hurt.

The moment stretched. Her pulse galloped in her throat.

Then Jessy lost the fight with himself and cupped her breasts in both hands, gentle as sunlight. His thumbs dragged over the sensitive peaks, each touch a bolt of pleasure that had Trist arching into him, her mouth falling open in a moan that vibrated through the room. The sound was wild and unselfconscious, as if she’d forgotten they were in a living room, naked on a child’s game mat.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. The words sounded like a secret, a prayer, and Trist’s heart cracked open so wide she thought it might never close again.

She reached down, paw trembling, and grabbed the base of his cock. It was hot, thick, impossibly hard, and the shiver that ran through Jessy at her touch told her he was just as close to the edge as she was. She guided him to her entrance, and the first brush of his tip against her folds made her entire body seize, tight, electric, ready to detonate.

She paused, heart in her throat. Then, slowly, she sank down.

It was a stretch like nothing she’d ever imagined. The tip of his cock caught at her opening and for a moment she didn’t think it would fit. But her body was made for this, biology in overdrive and every part of her screaming for more, and she forced herself down, inch by impossible inch. The pressure made her gasp, her claws digging into his shoulders, and she could feel her cunt fluttering around him, fighting to adjust to the fullness, to the invasion.

Jessy’s paws shot to her hips, holding her steady, but he didn’t help. He just…waited, shaking, letting her move at her own pace. His knuckles were white with the effort of restraint.

She took a shaky breath and kept going, letting herself stretch, letting the pain and pleasure blur together until it was just sensation, raw and bright and overwhelming. She bottomed out at the top of his knot with a sob, clutching at his chest as her body finally molded around the thickness of him, her pussy spasming uncontrollably.

For a second, there was nothing but breathing, hers, high and ragged, his, low and shaking. Then she started to move, slowly at first, rising up just a little and sliding back down, getting used to the way he filled her.

Each thrust was easier than the last, her body accommodating more and more, her mind turning to static as the pleasure began to take over. Jessy met her with shallow, helpless rocks of his hips, and each time she took him a little deeper, the angle changing, the pressure different, until she was making sounds she’d never made before, open, hungry, desperate.

The knot. She felt it growing at the base of his cock, that thickening swell that caught at her rim with every stroke, stretching her further each time they bottomed out. It was too big. It shouldn’t have fit. But her cunt wanted it, her whole body wanted it, wanted to milk him, to tie with him, to be filled so completely the world went white around the edges.

She ground down harder, riding the pressure, fucking herself on his cock with a rhythm that grew more frantic, more reckless. She felt the knot batter at her entrance, again and again, the stretch going from impossible to sublime, and she wanted it inside, wanted to be kept, to be claimed, even though she knew it was dangerous and stupid and that she wasn’t even in the safe phase of her cycle.

“Trist,” Jessy groaned, his voice shredded at the edges. “We have to…oh fuck, we have to stop…”

He tried to pull back, but she locked her ankles behind his waist, keeping him flush against her. Her tail whipped behind her, flagging with every thrust. She could smell her own heat, thick and floral and dizzying even to her, rising off her in waves that mingled with the musk of Jessy’s arousal.

Each collision of their hips made electricity arc through her, her clit grinding hard against the ridge of his knot. She knew she was losing herself, that her thoughts were dissolving into pure sensation, but she didn’t care. She wanted to disappear into him, wanted Jessy’s arms around her and his cock inside her and his breath filling her lungs.

She could see it in his eyes, the war, the split-second calculations, the way he was barely holding himself back from flipping her over and pinning her, fucking her until they both blacked out. She could see it, and she wanted it. She wanted to push him past that last inch of restraint, to find out what happened when the gentle giant finally snapped.

The next thrust was deeper, harder, the knot catching at her entrance so hard it made her whimper.

She wanted more.

He wanted more.

Their eyes locked, and something unspoken passed between them, a permission, a dare, a plea all tangled together. Jessy’s paws tightened on her hips, and Trist felt her body go loose and liquid, ready to be shaped into whatever he wanted, as long as it was him, as long as it was now.

Then she felt it. The subtle change. The shift in the way his body moved beneath hers. The tension snapped, and Jessy’s expression changed, softening and hardening all at once, focus sharpening into something intent and dangerous. For one wild, breathless moment, Trist thought he was going to give in completely, thought he was about to let her have her way.

The shy dog was gone, the world tipped.

She hit the Twister mat back-first, air whooshing from her lungs as her ribs met the slick plastic. Her tail flew straight up, a furry white flag of surrender. Jessy’s weight came down over her, pinning her like a prize, his chest broad and warm, his scent thick enough to taste. He wasn’t the bashful, awkward nerd she’d always known from band practice or late-night Discord calls. This was something older, more primal, a beast that had been waiting under all that softness and all those dorky jokes. She felt it in the way his breath ghosted hot over the back of her neck, in how his hips notched perfectly against her ass, in the way his paws covered her hands and pressed them gently to the mat, as if to say: stay. She stayed, of course. She would have let him do anything.

He mounted her.

The difference was immediate and overwhelming. Instead of her cautious, shaky attempts at control, Jessy set the rhythm: thrusting into her from behind, his cock stretching her wide and deep, the angle perfect for slamming into some secret spot that made every nerve ending in her body light up like a dying star. Her claws scrabbled for purchase on the plastic, leaving faint scratches as she tried to hold on. Her vision blurred at the edges, flashes of white and red, punctuated by the thunderous pounding of her own pulse in her ears. She could hear him too, behind and above, his breathing gone ragged, little whines and grunts escaping his throat each time he bottomed out inside her.

He fucked her like he meant it.

His paws found her hips, fingers digging in, not enough to hurt but enough to make her gasp, and he used the grip to yank her back onto him, meeting each thrust with a force that bordered on feral. She whimpered, the sound muffled by the mat, and felt her body spasm in anticipation of what was coming. Every time he pulled nearly all the way out, her walls fluttered desperately around the void, hungry for him, for more, for everything, and then he'd slam back home, the wet slap of flesh on flesh loud in the otherwise silent apartment.

She was drooling now, she realized distantly, her mouth open and panting, a string of it pooling onto the mat beneath her face. She wanted to be embarrassed, but the only thing her body could process was the need, the ache, the way every thrust drove her higher and higher toward some unfamiliar peak.

She could feel his knot starting to swell.

It ground against her entrance on every pass, bigger than anything she'd ever let herself imagine during those lonely, late-night fantasies, a thick bulb of flesh that promised to stretch her even further, to lock them together in a way that was more than physical, more than animal. The thought of it, him, knotted inside her, trapped and helpless and hers, made her hips jerk back unconsciously, trying to force the connection before her brain could even catch up.

He stopped just short of sinking the knot inside, holding at that exquisite edge.

She whined, actually whined, tail wagging a frantic, pleading rhythm behind her. He was so close, the tip of him already leaking, the smell of it hot and sharp in the air. She could feel the shudder in his thighs as he struggled to hold back, to wait for her, even now, even when he could have taken what he wanted.

And then he leaned down, the full weight of his body pressing her to the mat, and his teeth grazed the scruff of her neck. Not hard enough to break the skin, but with a dominance that sent a shock straight to her core.

He growled, low and possessive, the sound rumbling through her bones. "Mine?"

Her mind short-circuited. She could only nod, cheek mashed to the mat, ears pinned flat, the only word left in her shattered vocabulary a hoarse, broken "Yes." The second she gave permission, he let go. A single, brutal thrust, and his knot forced past her entrance, stretching her wide enough that the pain and pleasure blended into something holy. She screamed, or tried to, but it came out a strangled, desperate wail.

She could feel herself lock down around him, muscles clenching and rippling, a velvet vise that milked him for all he was worth. He kept thrusting, little frantic jerks that forced the knot deeper, and then he went rigid, every muscle in his body seizing as he emptied himself inside her. The heat of it was unreal, a flood that left her shaking, sobbing, her own orgasm building and breaking over her in a series of aftershocks.

They stayed that way for what felt like hours: Jessy draped over her, his cock twitching and pulsing, her own body clutching and releasing in time with his heartbeat, both of them reduced to animals by the force of their need.

She didn't even try to move, except to reach back blindly, paw searching and then finally finding his. Their fingers intertwined, claws pricking gently at the softness his digits. He squeezed, and she squeezed back, and the world narrowed to that single point of contact.

When the worst of the trembling subsided, he rolled them gently onto their sides, still knotted, spooning her from behind. His arms wrapped around her, massive and secure, and she felt his nose nuzzle into the fur behind her ear. The tenderness of it nearly undid her all over again.

They lay like that, knotted and panting, until her mind came back online.

"Oh my god," she managed, voice wrecked and wobbly. "We actually…"

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her back. "Yeah. We did." He sounded so proud and so sheepish at the same time that she had to giggle, even though it hurt a little. She could feel his heart thundering, not slowing down at all, and she wondered if anyone in the building could hear them.

She tried to shift position, and the knot gave a warning tug, sending a fresh wave of sensation through her. "I, uh… I don't think I can get up for a while."

Jessy pressed a kiss to her shoulder, breath soft and warm. "same. I can stay like this, If you want."

She wanted. More than anything.

Something about the feeling of him, locked inside her, made Trist feel safer than she ever had in her life. She never wanted it to end. Never wanted him to leave. She squeezed his paw again, as if to prove that she was still real, that this was still happening.

After a few more minutes, he shifted carefully, propping himself up on one elbow and peering down at her. His brown eyes were shining, and for a moment all the primal, animal intensity faded, replaced by something fragile and sweet.

"You good?" he asked, and the concern in his voice made her heart do a weird little flip.

She nodded, unable to stop herself from grinning like an idiot. "I'm… yeah. I think I'm really good."

He beamed, tail thumping against the floor, and she realized with a start that he was just as new to this as she was. Just as scared.

They stayed like that, tangled together, until the knot softened enough for him to slip free. The loss was sharp and immediate, and she couldn't help the tiny whimper that escaped her as he pulled out, leaving her stretched and leaking, her core empty and wanting.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

With infinite care, Jessy helped her sit up, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her. She let her head fall against his chest, breathing in the musky, post-coital scent of him, and tried to memorize the feeling before it could slip away.

"Was it okay?" he asked, voice small and hopeful.

She looked up at him, at the handsome, earnest face she'd stared at so many times across crowded lunchrooms and cluttered band rooms, and smiled. "It was perfect."

He blushed, ears flattening, but didn't let go. She felt the steady beat of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest, the way his paws instinctively stroked her back, as if to reassure himself she was still there.

They lay there in the quiet for a long while, just breathing, his and hers slowly falling back into sync as the world crept in around them. The refrigerator hummed from the kitchen, distant thunder rolled somewhere beyond the windows, and the building settled with the soft, familiar sounds of night. The storm still raged outside, but inside Trist’s heartbeat gradually slowed, the last tremors easing out of her limbs.

She twisted in his arms, just enough to see his face, and he met her halfway, their lips finding each other in a kiss that was nothing like before. Soft. Sweet. The kind of kiss that said things words couldn’t quite manage.

When they broke apart, his nose bumped against hers.

“I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he admitted, barely above a whisper.

“The sex or the kissing?”

“Both.” Another kiss, pressed to the corner of her mouth. “Mostly the kissing. The sex was a bonus.”

She snorted, burying her face in his chest fur to hide the flush spreading across her cheeks. His scent surrounded her, that deep, masculine musk that had started this whole mess, but now it felt different. Comforting. Right.

The minutes continued to pass. Thirty. Forty-five. An hour, maybe more, time had gone soft and hazy around the edges. They talked in quiet murmurs about nothing and everything, punctuated by kisses that grew increasingly lazy. His knot slowly, gradually began to deflate inside her, and when he finally slipped free, the rush of warmth that followed made her shiver.

Jessy pulled her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“So does this mean we’re going to…” His voice stopped just short of finishing the thought, the question hanging in the air between them.

Trist knew what he was asking. Could feel the weight of it in the sudden tension of his arms around her.

“Not always,” she said, nuzzling into the thick fur of his neck. “There’s only like a fifty percent chance.”

“So a coin flip?” he asked.

“Pretty much.”

She felt him exhale, relief or acceptance, she couldn’t quite tell. His arms tightened around her anyway, holding her like something precious.

They stayed like that for a minor eternity, twined together in a knot of bodies and breath, until the storm outside faded from a roaring white-noise wall to the soft, sleepy hush of post-midnight rain. The Twister mat beneath them was an unholy disaster, a patchwork of wrinkled plastic and slippery fluids that would haunt the next tenant or, more likely, Marcus’s next game night. Trist, for her part, could not muster a single ounce of guilt. If the mat had to die for their sins, then so be it. She was too busy reacquainting herself with her own body, which hummed with the aftershocks of their collision and pulsed with a raw, almost joyous ache.

Jessy was curled around her like a safety blanket, arms and legs wrapped tight, and Trist found herself running her paw pad in lazy circles over the back of his hand. Beneath the soft fur and thick muscle, she could feel the slow, steady thump of his pulse. The gentle giant was still knotted inside her. She could feel every inch, every twitch. But his breathing had gone heavy and sated, the deep-belly inhalation of someone who had just, quite literally, given it his all.

That should have been the end of it. In movies, this was the point where the camera panned out, the credits rolled, and the lovers drifted off into post-coital sleep. But real life, Trist was rapidly discovering, came with sequels.

Jessy woke her up with his tongue.

At first she thought it was an accident, a heavy, sleep-sloppy lick at the base of her ear as he rolled her over. But then he did it again, slowly and deliberately, tracing the line of her jaw, her throat, the soft hollow where her shoulder met her neck. Each spot earned a gentle nip, a little warning growl, and then a kiss that made her toes curl. By the time he dragged his tongue down the curve of her spine, she was wide awake and panting, every nerve ending alight.

She gave as good as she got. Trist was smaller, weaker, hilariously outmatched in basically every metric, but she was nothing if not stubborn. She pushed back, bit his lip, raked her claws down his chest, and delighted in the way he shivered beneath her. They battled back and forth, trading control, until he had her pinned again, this time with her knees hooked over his broad shoulders. He pressed inside her slowly, reverently, filling her until she thought she might cry, and then he just stopped.

“Is this okay?” he whispered, muzzle buried in the crook of her neck.

She made an incoherent sound that was meant to be yes but came out somewhere closer to a sob. Jessy laughed, breath hot against her fur, and started to move. It was nothing like the first time. No frantic, rutting urgency, just a steady, deep rhythm that built and built until she was shaking apart in his arms.

The second time left her dazed and limp, barely able to remember her own name. The third time, she rode him again, this time at her own pace, milking every gasp and whimper from his lips. She watched his face as he came, eyes wide and shining, and something in her chest fluttered with pride. When he knotted her again, it hurt a little, but she loved it. Loved the way he held her afterward, trembling with the effort of not crushing her, nuzzling her face as if she might vanish if he let go.

By the time they made it to round four, they had migrated to the couch. The springs squealed in protest, the battered upholstery soaked up a fresh round of stains, and Trist nearly fell off twice. Jessy caught her every time, laughing so hard he could barely thrust. When they finally collapsed in a heap, they were both breathless and delirious, tears streaming down their faces from laughter.

They tried to clean up in the shower, but that just made it worse. Something about the slippery tile and the hot water turned them feral. Hands everywhere, mouths desperate, fur dripping wet and tangling in clumps. Jessy lifted her with one arm, braced her against the wall, and filled her again, the slap of their bodies echoing in the cramped space. The knot hit harder this time, locking them together and forcing them to stand there panting until it finally subsided.

She lost count after that. Was it five times? Six? Did the hallway quickie on the way back to her bedroom even count, since he didn’t finish inside her, though he nearly did, judging by the mess on his fur? Trist surrendered to the numbers, let them become meaningless, and devoted her attention to memorizing every new sensation. Jessy’s hands on her hips. His breath in her ear. The way he whispered her name when he thought she was asleep.

Seven flips of a coin for her womb.

Each time was different. Wild or sweet, desperate or silly, sometimes both tangled together in the same minute. And with each round, a little slower and a little more tender, they slipped from old familiarity into something deeper, something warmer than either of them had ever dared name before. By morning, Jessy was curled around her in the tangle of her twin bed, his massive frame swallowing nearly all of it, one arm draped over her like a mountain-sized security blanket as if the mattress itself had simply given up and accepted its fate. Trist lay there tucked safely against him, wrapped in fur and warmth, feeling a deep, bone-deep contentment she had never known before.

She woke to the sound of rain still tapping the window and Jessy’s breath on her cheek. He was already awake, just watching her, his massive head propped on one arm.

“Hey,” he said, voice soft as a secret.

“Hey yourself,” she mumbled, then immediately regretted it. Was she supposed to say something cooler? Was there a morning-after script for this kind of thing? Trist panicked for exactly two seconds before Jessy solved the problem with a kiss.

He tasted like her. For some reason, that made her heart stutter.

They didn’t talk much, just exchanged little smiles and dozy touches as the morning bled into afternoon. At some point Jessy got up and made coffee, his naked body looking almost comically out of place in her tiny kitchenette. He returned to bed carrying two mismatched mugs like a hero in a fairy tale. When she tried to take hers, he grinned and held it out of reach, demanding a kiss as toll. Trist rolled her eyes, kissed him anyway, and he melted like butter.

By midday, the storm had passed and the apartment was washed in pale winter sunlight. Trist sat cross-legged on the rumpled mattress, sipping coffee and gazing out at the sparkling city, her fur still damp from the shower and her insides still tingling. Jessy sprawled beside her, hair sticking up in a million directions, the happiest and most disheveled she had ever seen him. He traced lazy circles on her thigh, humming under his breath, lost in some thought that made his tail thump against the floor.

It was then, as she watched him, with his silly puppy smile, his giant gentle hands, and the faint remains of her own teeth marks on his shoulder, that a realization struck her so hard she nearly choked.

“Oh no.”

Jessy shifted behind her, a thick arm tightening slightly. “Hmm?”

She jerked upright, nearly elbowing him in the snout. “The dryer. I never turned on the dryer.”

Silence, for a heartbeat.

Then Jessy burst into laughter, deep and rolling, shaking the bed beneath them and setting her ears on fire with embarrassment. She smacked his chest, mortified, but he just pulled her closer, locking her in place with a rumbling delight no protest could dislodge.

“Guess I’m staying a bit longer,” he said at last, still laughing, his voice muffled against her fur.

She grumbled and rolled her eyes, but the grin wouldn’t leave her face. “Guess you are.”

Outside, the storm finally loosened its grip. Rain softened to a gentle patter against the window. Somewhere in the quiet dark of the laundry room, Jessy’s clothes sat forgotten in the cold mouth of the dryer, soaked and abandoned.

Neither of them minded. Wrapped in warmth and tangled limbs, everything else faded into a gentle hush.