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The property was like a half-forgotten dream, hedges overgrown and roses suffocated by unwanted growth. You’d answered the ad on a whim—you did all kinds of odd jobs alongside college: babysitting cranky toddlers, grooming dogs that smelled of wet cloth, scrubbing floors that hadn’t seen a mop in years. Gardening? Sure, add that to the list. Mrs. Way had said to swing by anytime during the day, the gardening shed would be unlocked. She never mentioned her husband.
You let yourself in through the side gate one early morning when windows were still dark and sleepy. Dew hung thick in the air, laced with the sweet smell of late-summer blooms. Birds chirped good-morning tunes while the first soft rays of sunlight kissed your skin. Your tools clinked in the wheelbarrow—shears, shovels, gloves worn soft at the fingertips.
The garden was a mess, raspberries sagged to the ground, the lavender overgrown and woody. You started at the far end, near an old fountain choked with algae. Hours bled away. Sweat plastered your tank top to your spine, jeans stained with green from being on your knees all day. You didn’t hear him approach.
“Hey, who are you?”
The voice was harsh, abruptly snapping you from the flower bed. You straightened too fast, nearly crushing the lilies. He stood at the end of the gravel path, the sun shining behind him, leaving his face in shadow. Early-forties maybe. Dark shoulder-length hair, silvering at the roots. Khaki shirt rolled to the elbows, revealing arms a bit pale for summer.
You tugged your gloves off, shading you eyes with one hand. “Mrs. Way hired me for the garden.”
His mouth did this half twist—not fully extending into a smile. “She did, huh.” He stepped closer, boots crunching. “She didn’t mention it.”
You should’ve apologized, explained the ad, offered to pack up if you’d got it wrong. Instead you just stood there, pulse thudding in your throat, while he studied you like you were another weed to be yanked. His gaze dragged slow: the dirt under your nails, the flush on your cheeks, the way damp cotton stuck to your chest. When his eyes met yours again, something shifted. Curiosity maybe.
“I’m Gerard,” he said. “My house.”
The ring on his left hand caught the light—thick, gold, scratched from years of wear. For some reason that stung like the thorns you’d pulled earlier.
“I can come back another day,” you offered. “If you want.”
He tilted his head. “Nah. Keep going.”
So you did. He lingered, pretending to inspect the lavender while you knelt in the dirt, snipping off dead stems. The silence dragged, thick as syrup. Every snip of your shears sounded louder than it should have. You were about to stand when his hand closed over yours—warm, calloused.
“You missed a part,” he said, voice softer now. He crouched beside you, close enough for you to smell the coffee and cologne clinging to his skin.
He guided the shears, neither of you pulled back, letting the moment stretch longer than necessary. When he finally released you, his fingers trailed along the inside of your forearm before standing up. You stayed in the lavender a while after he walked away, heart hammering against your ribs.
He came out in the garden every morning after that. Not to help, to watch. Leaning against the garden shed with his arms crossed, while you pruned the hydrangeas or scrubbed the fountain. Sometimes he brought you coffee in a speckled mug and left it on the stone bench without a word. You’d find it beside your gloves, steaming like a secret message. You didn’t talk much at first, he asked about weed prevention, you asked what herbs he’d like in his greenhouse—safe things.
But the air between you thickened daily, charged like the humidity before a thunderstorm. You’d caught him staring when you bent to tie your boots, the curve of your ass impossible to ignore. Another time you glanced at him mid-snip, his eyes fixed on your mouth, thumb rubbing absentmindedly over his wedding band.
Mrs. Way never appeared. You started to wonder if she even existed at all.
One afternoon the sky darkened as heavy clouds rolled in, lightning flickering on the horizon as a deep rumble shook the air. You were weeding along the path when the first fat drop hit your shoulder.
Then another.
Then the sky opened. Rain drummed relentlessly on rooftops and puddling on the ground within seconds. Your shirt soaked instantly, clinging translucent to your skin as you scrambled toward the toolshed—only to find Gerard already there, holding the door for you.
“Get in here before you drown!” he shouted over the roar on the tin roof, grinning wide.
The shed smelled of earth and gasoline, a single bulb swung overhead, casting gold light across his cheekbones. Water dripped from your hair, tracing cold paths down your neck. He shut the door, blocking off the storm outside. You wrung out your shirt, water splashing onto the floor.
“You’ll catch a cold,” he said, almost mad about it. Then, softer: “Take it off.”
Your fingers froze, hands still twisting at the hem. “What?”
“You’re shaking.” He stepped closer, rain beading on his forehead. The air felt heavy, thick with unspoken desire. You should’ve bolted back into the rain. Instead you peeled the wet cotton over your head and let it drop to the floor. Goosebumps raced across your skin. Your white cotton bralette turned sheer. He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Jesus,” he muttered. Not a prayer, a surrender.
He didn’t move, just looked—slow, reverent. Appreciating the slope of your collarbone, the droplets racing between your breasts. Then he reached behind you for a canvas jacket on a hook and draped it over you shoulders. The fabric smelled just like him. His knuckles grazed your breasts as he adjusted it, sending sparks straight to your core.
Outside, thunder rolled, yet the sound of your breathing was louder. Eyes locked, saying everything for you—words were insignificant.
“You’re too young for this,” he said.
“I’m not a child.”
“No.” His thumb brushed your bottom lip gently. “You’re not.”
He closed the gap with an utmost softness—testing, barely touching. Then you opened for him and it turned hungry, weeks of watching capitulating in tongues wrestling.
He backed you against the workbench, hands sliding under your jacket to circle your waist. His palms burned against your chilled skin as he hoisted you effortlessly onto the bench. You arched into him, legs locking around his hips, his soft belly pressed flush to yours. A groan tore from his throat when you bit his lip and soothed it with a lick.
Outside, the storm had already passed, clouds swiftly gliding away to reveal a vibrant blue sky beneath. He eased you down from the bench, fingers laced with yours as he led you back outside. You sank onto the grass beneath the shed, hidden by a screen of willow. The ground was damp, cool between your shoulder blades. His shirt hung open, grazing your skin as he settled between your legs, hazel eyes dark as wet soil. His hand slid up your outer thigh, gently groping at the soft flesh.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
You shook your head fervently.
Thick fingers traced the edge of your underwear, then slipped beneath. The first touch was feather-light, a question. You gasped, hips lifting. He watched your face like it was the most sacred thing he'd been allowed to witness.
Cold metal grazed your skin—his ring, against the heat of your groin. The contrast made you whimper. He circled your clit with deliberate patience, reading every hitch of your breath, the way your thighs tensed when the pressure was just right. Birds chirped in the branches above, absurdly cheerful, bleeding in with your whimpers.
Guilt twisted in your gut—sharp, undeniable. His wife’s roses bloomed ten feet away, her jacket had hung next to his in the shed. But the pleasure coiled tighter, drowning everything. When he slid one finger inside you, then two, you pressed a hand to your mouth to muffle the sounds.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “So fucking sweet.”
He didn’t rush. Each stroke measured, building until you were shaking, pleading with wordless sounds. His precision was infinitely different than any of the college guys you were used to. It was only when you were sobbing his name that he freed himself from his jeans. The sight of him—hard, flushed, the gold band glinting—sent a fresh wave of shame and want. Heat pooled low in your stomach, your walls clenching around nothing as you waited for him to enter you.
He did–in one slow thrust, crying out like a man breaking a fast. You wrapped your legs around him, nails digging into his back.
“Good girl…” he whispered into your neck. You moved together, the slap of skin blending with the patter of rain on leaves. His hand grabbed your thigh, ring pressing into the flesh. A sick reminder.
You came first, clenching around him with a moan that sent the birds scattering. He followed moments later, burying his face in your neck, spilling hot inside you. For a long minute you stayed locked together, your breaths catching and hearts steadying.
Eventually he pulled out, gentle, and rolled onto his back beside you. The sun was shining again. A ladybug crawled across your stomach, you watched it, dazed. Guilt twisting like a knife.
He was waiting by the gate the next morning—same speckled mug. You took it.
Days blurred. You pruned the apple tree while he steadied the ladder, thumbs brushing your calves. He fucked you slow against the stone bench at dusk, your palms flat on the surface still warm from the sun. You couldn’t seem to get enough of each other, bodies colliding again and again, yet the ring stayed on.
One evening you found him in his office, shelves crammed with comic books and figures. He was staring at a photo: him and a woman with sharp cheekbones, bright red lips. He didn’t hear you come in.
“I’m sorry,” you said.
He turned. For the first time, he looked old—not in years, but in grief. “She left just before you showed up here,” he began, voice shaking. “Papers are almost signed.”
You swallowed, searching your brain for words. “Need some time?”
He crossed the room and cupped your face. “I want you to stay.”
“As what?”
“As whatever this is.” His thumb traced your cheekbone. “Gardener. Lover. Mine”
The word fluttered your stomach, sweet and terrifying.
Once, in the greenhouse, he knelt and tasted you until you were a shaking mess, fogging the walls with desperate breaths. You were still trembling against the glass, pants barely up, when he pulled out his wallet. Sliding a black credit cart into the waistband of your striped cotton panties, wiped his mouth, and smirked.
“Go buy something pretty. None of that target shit you college kids wear.”
You laughed, thought he was joking—until two days later you found yourself in a lingerie boutique you couldn’t pronounce.
Your cheeks were burning as you scoped the aisles, feeling completely out of place among women with perfect blowouts and expensive handbags. You bought the set he’d picked out online and linked you. Black lace. Sheer. Red embroidery. It was so grown up. Exclusive. You’d never owned anything like it. The sexiest pair you had were from Victoria’s Secret—pink bows, a gift from your ex who thought he’d splurged on you.
That night he was waiting for you in his bedroom, their bedroom, her maroon robe still hanging by the dresser. It was the first time you’d crossed that threshold. Normally you stayed in the guestroom.
You stood in the doorway. That pretty lace set sitting exactly as it should, sheer enough to promise everything, opaque enough to make him yearn. You felt beautiful. And uneasy.
Your feet glided along the hardwood, until you stood between his spread knees. He had been completely still at the end of the bed, gaze dragging up your body, slow and reverent.
“Thank you,” you said plainly.
His hands stroked along your thighs before he leaned in and kissed your stomach, right beneath your breasts. “Good girls don’t pay for their own treats.”
Heat crept up your neck. He spun you, mouth traveling down your spine to the hem of your panties. You shuddered. He bit the price tag off before tossing it aside. Spun you again, pulling you into his lap. He was already hard, cock straining against denim, the seam hitting your clit through thin lace. You moaned, rocking against it on instinct.
He rasped your name, hands guiding the slow roll of your body until the friction wasn’t enough for either of you. He tugged your lace aside, cool air kissing wet heat for only a second before he freed himself and pulled you down.
You sank onto him in a single, greedy glide, both of you groaning at the stretch, the perfect fit. His head fell back with a deep exhale, but his eyes never left yours.
You started to ride him, slow at first, then faster, chasing the heat building low in your belly. Your gaze snapped to the price tag lying on the floor—white cardboard, black ink.
One hundred and seventy-eight dollars for the version of you he was fucking right now. A broke college student gardening for cash, now dressed up like a fantasy in lace she could never afford.
The thoughts should have turned you off, should have made you stop. They didn't.
Worse—ugly, unstoppable:
Would he even be this hard if his wife was the one wearing it?
That one had you wet with jealousy.
You ground down harder, punishing yourself with him. He gripped your ass, ring cold against your skin, urging you faster.
“My sweet girl,” he panted, voice shredded.
You shattered first—clenching around him, crying out into his shoulder. He followed seconds later, hips jerking, spilling deep while he held you hard, like letting go wasn’t an option.
Afterward you stayed locked together, panting, lace still twisted to the side, his hand stroking your back in lazy circles.
Beneath the haze of pleasure and shame you realized:
You didn’t want to be better than her.
You just wanted to be the one he couldn’t bear to lose.
Autumn crept in, the roses dropping their petals like blood. You knelt in the cold earth, planting flower bulbs—tulips, daffodils—for a spring you might not even share with him. He began leaving the ring on the nightstand when you slept beside him, but every morning he slid it back on.
Some habits die harder than marriages.
Late October, you’d been skipping lectures, ghosting your friends. They circled like concerned satellites. Group chat blowing up:
“Hello?? Three study sessions missed. My birthday drinks. Are you dead or in love??”
You read it with his arm tightly locked around your waist, thumb tracing idle circles on your hip.
You typed “sorry, super swamped with this gardening job”
He snorted over your shoulder, pulling you closer. “My little secret,” he muttered, lips brushing your neck.
Pling.
A private text from your best friend:
“That’s the third lie this month. When you’re ready to tell me whose wife you’re fucking, I’m here.”
You stared at the text while he made coffee in the kitchen. The ring clinking against the ceramic mug—sharp, scornful. You felt sick.
One night, frost silvered the grass. You lay tangled in their bed. Moonlight cast streaks across the sheets, his hand resting on your stomach, possessive.
“Stay through winter,” he murmured into your hair. “I’ll pay you double. Triple. Just… Stay.”
You turned to face him. “And after?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Instead he kissed you slow and deep, like his tongue could rewrite history. You let him. You let the thrust of his hips drown out your doubts, every whispered praise. Let the garden grow wild around you.
From that day you never go back to your dorm. Your toothbrush moved into his bathroom, your books stacked on his wife’s old nightstand. You cooked barefoot in her kitchen while he sketched at the counter, eyes flicking up like you were the only character worth inking.
Outside, the first snow began to fall—soft, relentless, covering every footprint you’d left in the dirt.
The house was quiet except for the low crackle of the fireplace and the wet sounds of your mouth. December had swallowed the garden whole, snow falling in relentless silence. You knelt between his spread legs on the thick wool rug, his cock deep in your mouth, the taste of him now as familiar as your own tongue.
You pulled off just long enough to catch his left hand, a string of spit snapping. You guided it to your mouth—slow, deliberate. The wedding band glinting dull gold in the firelight. You slid your lips down his ring finger the same way you take his cock, tongue curling around the metal until it warmed against you. A shudder rolled through him so violently his hips jerked.
“Fuck,” he breathed, voice cracked. “Do that again.”
So you did. You sucked his ring finger like it tethered him to this earth, while your other hand stroked his cock in the same fervent rhythm. His head fell back against the couch, throat raw, the sounds coming out as sobs.
He finally hauled you into his lap, ring slick with your spit. He didn’t bother undressing either of you fully, just shoved your panties aside and sunk into you with one devastating thrust. You were so wet—the slide was obscenely effortless. He gripped your hips hard enough to bruise and moved in deep strokes that made you gasp every time he bottomed out.
You found his hand again, sucking the ring finger back between your lips, humming around it, tasting the faint metallic bite of his gold. His rhythm faltered, groaning your name in between ragged breaths.
“Want you to feel it,” he rasped.
He pulled his hand from your mouth and trailed it down your body—over your nipples, stomach, lower… The ring was cold again from your saliva and the air. He pressed the flat band directly against your clit, hard, not moving. The shock of it ripped a cry from your throat, you clenched around him, hips bucking.
“Stay still,” he growled, and circled the metal slowly, deliberately, while his cock dragged in and out of you. The metal pressing against your sensitive clit and the stretch of him inside you was unbearable. You sobbed into his neck, nails raking down his back, begging in broken little whispers.
He kept the ring pinned there until you came, thighs shaking, vision blurring, his name a prayer and a curse. Only when your trembling eased did he release it, both hands gripping your ass instead as he fucked up into you hard, chasing his own release. You felt him tense, pulse, spill deep with a guttural sound muffled against your neck.
The fire popped. Snow softly gathering against the window pane.
You reached for his left hand where it rested on your waist. Slid the ring off his finger. He didn’t stop you–just watched, curious. You slipped it onto your own thumb. Too big, but it stayed.
You lifted your hand between you, gold catching the flames.
“What if I kept it?” you whisper.
Everything in him froze. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then he surged forward and kissed you hard. Desperate, teeth clacking, tongue claiming every corner of your mouth, lips bruising. When he finally pulled back, forehead pressed to yours, you searched his eyes for answers and found none.
New Years. You used to celebrate it with friends, sipping cheap prosecco for the year that passed and the dreams you had for the next. This year you stayed home, in his home, watching fireworks bloom over the frozen garden. His arm cinched your waist; you fit against him like the last piece of a puzzle he’d never finish. He drank whiskey like water, you didn’t have nearly as much and still felt the room tilt.
Something gnawed at him; you tasted it in every kiss.
The bedroom was almost completely dark, only lit by the snow’s faint blue glow through half-open curtains and the red numbers 03:47 pulsing on the alarm clock. Wind whistled outside, occasional pops from leftover fireworks. The sheets were a wreck, twisted around your legs, damp with sweat and spilled whiskey. The bottle stood empty on her nightstand, the side you’d claimed for months.
He was on top of you, heavy, warm, moving so slowly it barely qualified as fucking anymore; just this endless, drunken rocking. Forehead glued to yours, breath warm and metallic. His left hand gripped your hip hard enough to leave marks; the ring had been digging into your skin for hours now, a dull ache you’d stopped noticing.
You felt it the instant it happened.
His rhythm faltered. A tiny hitch in his breath. Then the name slipped out of him like a wound inflicted.
“Linds…”
Soft. Broken. Loving.
Your whole body locked up beneath him. At that exact second a final firework cracked outside. A single brutal flash of green and gold flooded the room for one brutal heartbeat. Air turned poisinous in your lungs.
He didn’t notice. Kept moving, eyes squeezed shut, lost somewhere you didn’t follow. Another lazy thrust, another breath that might have been her name again, quieter.
Only then did you stop breathing entirely.
When his eyes finally opened, hazy and bloodshot, they took a second to focus on your face. Recognition crashed into him like a car hitting a wall. He pulled out so fast it hurt, scrambled backward off you, knees tangling in the sheets and almost falling off the mattress.
He curled into a ball and starting sobbing like something inside him just broke in half. Ugly, wet sobs, raw as torn metal. Nothing like the velvet moans you knew.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped into the pillow. “I’m sorry, fuck, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me like she did, I can’t—“
He kept saying it, over and over, voice slurred.
You’d never seen him cry before. Not once. Not even when the divorce papers sat unsigned on his desk. You didn’t know a man his age could sound this small.
The mattress quaked with his shaking. You moved without thinking, crawling across the wrecked sheets, pulling him into your arms. He resisted for half a heartbeat then collapsed into your arms like melted wax.
Face buried in your chest, tears hot and endless, snot and spit and whiskey streaking your skin. His left hand clutched at you desperately, fingers digging in like you could disappear right this second, ring ice-cold where it pressed against your ribs.
You held him. Stroked sweat-slick hair. Felt every sob of his tear through you both.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you whispered into his hair.
You meant it.
God help you, you meant it.
And you hated yourself for it.