[Trigger warning-18+]
Martina Hoffmann had many talents.
Beautiful chaos. Emotional whiplash. The ability to make River Fisher, a man with a PhD and a published monograph, question every life decision he'd ever made.
"Honey! you know your 'wife' got a compliment from Kai and Jonna?!"
At the moment, her talent was bragging.
"Oh is that so?" He asked, eyes on the road.
"Kai and Jonna think your wife is classy," she announced proudly from the passenger seat. "Deadly figure. Pearls. Elegance."
River choked on absolutely nothing.
"Classy?" he repeated, staring at the road like the concept personally offended him. "As in… pearls classy? Tea-at-4pm classy?"
Martina folded her arms.
"Yes. Why? Who are you imagining? Some other pearl-wearing woman? Are you cheating on me?"
River stared at her. Then at the road. Then back at her.
"Sweetheart," he said in the tone of a man whose sanity was hanging by a single academic citation, "I don't even talk to the women in my department. I hide behind doors when they try."
He squeezed her thigh, just so she'd know she was being ridiculous but he loved her anyway.
"And for the record? You in pearls would be dangerously hot."
Her stomach growled. Violently.
River blinked.
"…did your internal organs just threaten us again?"
"My stomach is demanding offering!" she said proudly.
"A monster or not, but"
River snorted. "Baby, you're like a vending machine. Constantly making weird little noises."
The world paused.
Martina slowly turned to him like a villain in a Disney movie.
"Did you just call me a *freaking vending machine*?"
River panicked. Academically panicked.
He slammed the brakes and pulled to the side of the road like he was initiating an emergency lecture.
"Look at me," he said, deadly serious.
She looked.
"I would never call you anything except something I absolutely love," he said intensely. "You're not metal. You're not cold. You're not a machine. You're my wife. My entire cardiovascular system. If that hurt you—"
She blinked, softened.
"Aww… my professional overthinker."
River groaned like this was a personal attack on his degree.
"I don't overthink. I evaluate every potential outcome. There's a difference."
His hand slid to her thigh again.
"And you under-plan and overindulge."
"Move fast," she said. "My hunger is erupting like Pompeii 2. it will consume everything!"
"Why is there a sequel—never mind." He started driving again. "Okay, fine. I'll feed you. But once you're done eating, I swear to God—"
A phone buzzed.
River looked personally victimized.
"No," he whispered. "The universe can't hate me this much."
"It's Mom," she said.
River slumped. Instantly defeated.
"Of course it is."
she answered the call after rolling her eyes on him, "Hola mami--"
He leans back, watching with a mix of amusement and impatience as he drums on the steering wheel, fingers tapping out a rhythm as he watches her chat with your mother in such a child like demure.
His gaze remains fixed on her, that possessive edge starting to seep back into his expression. He's not angry, but he's clearly having a hard time sharing his wife with even his mother in law, the woman without whom this beautiful mess which had dumped right from the heaven over his life like fate had never existed.
The thought twisted in him.
What if she wasn't here?
The question came unbidden, sharp as a blade.
What if she'd never walked into his life with her impossible eyes and her stubborn mouth and the way she made everything feel like it mattered too much? What if he'd never known what it was to ache like this—for her voice, her skin, her attention? What if he'd stayed the man he was before her—untethered, unbothered, untouched?
He could almost see it: a quieter life, simpler, cleaner. No late-night arguments. No sleepless nights wondering if he was enough.
But as he think...deeper, and louder...without her, without her hurricane moods and her impossible grace. No mornings with her hair in his face, her scent filling his lungs and her fingers curled in his shirt. No chaos. No color. No reason to feel anything at all.
He closed his eyes, jaw tight.
He hated that he needed her this much. But more than anything, he hated the idea of her absence felt like a hole punched through his chest.
abruptly out of nowhere her finger's curled into his- the warmth he's addicted to seeped into his body.
"No Mami...yes I know we were planning to come today but river had some stuff to handle that's why we will be setting out tomorrow."
Finally car stop right outside river's apartment
He kills the engine and exhales—some of the tension leaving him as he glances at the building but a smile tugged to the corner of his lips as she finally hung up the call.
"Finally. Thought that call would never end. Atleast not in this life"
He glances over at her, eyes darkening, accusing-
"And don't think I didn't notice you telling your mom I had 'stuff to handle' rather than admitting I wanted you to myself for the night."
Martina scoffed.
"Am I supposed to tell my mother about my sex life?"
River raised both hands. "Fair. Fully fair."
"But she has two people to annoy her and take care of her," Martina added softly. "And me? I only have you."
River froze. Error message in real time.
"…why would you say that right before I have to be normal?"
He hauled himself out of the car.
She stepped out after him. "Get me something to eat first."
He grabbed her wrist and pushed her lightly against the car.
"Demanding now? After being chaos incarnate all day?"
His voice dropped to a gravelly rumble.
"I'll feed you. On one condition."
"I'm listening..." she said breathing against his chest,
"You stop teasing me like you haven't been doing it all day on purpose."
she took a deep breath, and said, "I won't"
a satisfying grin spread over his lips as he lean over her temple, brushing his lips hungrily-
"good girl"
Martina blinked innocently. "Oh my god, did you déjà vu me? Also this was sitting in the backseat like for the entire time and you didn't even let me have it!"
"Sweetheart." He caged her against the car. "The only déjà vu I'm having is remembering every bad decision that led me to loving you. And, now focus on eating...before I begin with my feast."
He kissed her neck. She shivered.
"Sucker!" she snatched the large bucket of chicken nuggets from his hand and instantly with her drowling mouth, she took a bite of a nugget
he giggled as he couldnt help but imagine her as a monkey.
a little cut adorable monkey.
yes, He would've been fine if she never walked into his life. He always was the person who was alright through everything.
his life was in melancholy. monotonous in more sense like a monk.
But fine wasn't the same as full.
And she—she was the chaos that made him whole. The storm that made the silence unbearable. The reason he now feared peace, because peace meant absence, and absence meant her gone.
"It's good," she announced.
River stared at her like she was conducting a personal attack.
"You like it when I take what I—"
She shoved the nugget to his lips.
River froze.
Then bit it.
Slowly. Meaningfully. Like he was in a romance drama and the chicken nugget was symbolism.
"Careful," he rasped. "You're playing with fire."
"Stop flirting. Eat it so we can go upstairs."
He inhaled like he needed a separate oxygen tank.
"You're testing my moral integrity."
His hand slid up her thigh again.
She ate quickly while, River watched her like a man witnessing a theological miracle. Or maybe a disaster. Hard to tell with him.
when, Martina finished her last nugget like a queen completing a sacred ritual.
"You're done?" he asked, voice rough.
She nodded.
River: processing
River: short-circuits
River: reboots
River: "Okay. Cool. Great. Now it's my turn."
Then he immediately scooped her up.
Not gently.
Not romantically.
More like how a smut reader snatches the last copy of an illegal dark romance book to know it's spice level.
"RIVER!" she squeaked, clutching her bag. "Let me at least—"
"No," he growled. "You had your nuggets. Now I get my wife. Balance must be restored."
He marched toward the elevator like he was delivering an offering to a pagan god.
Martina flailed.
"Can you slow down? People will see!"
"Good," River muttered. "Maybe they'll stop fantasizing about my fictional pearl-wearing wife and realize I already have one. A real one. Who eats my food and ruins my life."
Martina gasped.
"I enrich your life."
"You add… flavor," he allowed.
"Like spice?"
"Like unexpected explosions."
The elevator doors opened. An elderly couple stood inside.
River froze mid-step. Their eyes widened at the sight of him holding a grown woman like she weighed nothing.
Martina did what any student-in-a-secret-marriage would do:
She waved.
The old lady smiled slowly.
The old man whispered something of "Kids these days…"
River walked in anyway, very stiff, very polite.
"Evening," he said with the voice of a man pretending everything is fine.
The elevator started moving.
Martina whispered with a cutthroat voice, "Put me down."
River whispered back, "No."
"People are staring!"
"They're old. They've seen worse."
The old lady nodded in agreement.
"Let the boy hold his woman," she advised sagely.
Martina turned red enough to power a solar farm.
River smirked.
"You heard her."
The elevator dinged.
The elderly couple stepped out. The old lady winked.
"Have fun, dears."
Martina nearly combusted.
The doors closed.
And River finally lost his mind.
"As I was rudely saying before the senior-citizen intervention—"
He pressed her back against the elevator wall, caging her in.
"—you are coming upstairs, and you are not escaping."
Martina huffed.
"I wasn't escaping! I was digesting!"
"Same thing," he muttered, brushing his lips near her jaw. "You avoid me when you digest."
"Because you do things!"
"Good things."
"*Distracting* things!"
River grinned, dangerous and pleased.
"That's the goal, sweetheart."
The elevator dinged again.
River practically dragged her out.
"Stop manhandling me!"
"You love when I manhandle you."
"River!"
"What? I can't help it. You get dramatic when you're hungry and adorable when you're fed."
"I am not a toddler!"
"Debatable."
She smacked his arm.
River made a wounded sound—male, dramatic, extremely overacted.
"Ow. Physical assault. Again."
"You're impossible!"
"And you're beautiful," he muttered. "Which is worse."
They reached the apartment door.
Martina opened her mouth—probably to argue, bite him, or recite the constitution.
River interrupted.
"Inside. Now."
"Oh my god, why are you being so—AH!"
Because he'd already lifted her again, bridal-style, and pushed the door open with his foot like some unhinged professor-turned-action-hero.
"River!" she shrieked.
He dumped her on the couch.
She bounced.
He stared.
She stared back.
Silence.
Then he pointed at her dramatically.
"Stay."
She blinked.
"I'm not a dog."
"You need commands or you wander off!"
"I do not wander off!"
River listed on his fingers:
"Shopping aisle. Dressing room. My office. The quad. The parking lot. Italy—"
"That was ONE time!"
River sighed, crouching in front of her with the seriousness of a man explaining gravitational collapse.
"Sweetheart… you're my chaos. My walking disaster. My end-of-career grenade."
She softened.
"I love you too."
River squinted.
"You didn't hear anything I said, did you?"
"Nope."
He groaned, dropping his forehead to her knee.
"You're going to kill me."
She patted his hair.
"At least you'll die loved."
He looked up at her with pure, feral devotion.
"Oh, I'm not dying tonight," he murmured, voice dropping low.
"You are."
"RIVER!" she cried but he giggled as he walked to the opened door to the apartment by this moment he wasn't even pretend to be civilized anymore.
The second the apartment door shut, he pointed at Martina like she was a misbehaving grad student.
"Bedroom. Now."
She blinked, scandalized.
"You can't command me like I'm Siri!"
River stalked closer.
"Oh, sweetheart. Siri listens the *first* time."
She gasped, offended on behalf of all women and also all iPhones.
"River Thomas Fisher!"
"That's me," he said, grabbing her wrist and tugging her toward the bedroom. "The husband you married. The husband you tease. The husband who had to watch you eat nuggets for ten minutes like it was foreplay."
"I WAS HUNGRY—"
He stopped, turned, and pinned her to the hallway wall with one arm braced above her head.
Martina's brain: system crash
River: "I'm starving too."
Her knees nearly gave up their lease on existence.
"R—River— just—"
She swallowed.
"—slow down."
River inhaled sharply, like her voice was physically affecting his neurons, sanity, and tenure file.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, lips brushing her temple,
"I have *not* slowed down since the moment you said 'hold me, my love.'"
Martina nearly melted into the flooring.
He didn't give her time to reboot.
His hands slid under her thighs.
She squeaked as he lifted her like nothing.
"RIVER!"
"Shh," he murmured. "You'll wake the neighbors."
"We're the only people on this floor!"
"Exactly. Let me enjoy the silence."
He pushed open the bedroom door with his foot, carried her inside, and practically dropped her on the mattress — except it wasn't a drop; it was one of those careful, reverent, I-worship-the-ground-you-walk-on placements disguised under feral male energy.
Martina bounced once.
River watched her land like it was a religious event.
Then he exhaled, hands on hips, like he had to restrain himself from leaping onto her like an overcaffeinated puma.
"Okay," he said. "Ground rules."
"Oh my god," she groaned. "Are we doing a TED Talk? NOW?"
"Yes," he said, climbing onto the bed and caging her in with his arms on either side of her head.
"Rule one: don't look at me like that."
"I'm just LOOKING."
"You're looking like you want to be kissed and I—"
He broke off, pressing his forehead against hers. His voice dropped dangerously soft.
"—I can't handle that politely."
She grinned.
"And rule two?"
His eyes darkened.
"Rule two: you do not say the word hungry for the next thirty minutes."
"I wasn't going to—"
"You always are."
"I'm NOT—"
River cut her off by kissing her — firm, hot, completely unfair.
She squirmed.
He pulled back one inch, panting.
"Don't move like that."
"I'm not doing anything!"
"You blinked aggressively."
"I DID NOT—"
He kissed her again, deeper, like he was proving a point.
The point being: River Fisher was in love and absolutely unhinged.
Martina's hands fisted in his shirt.
He groaned into her mouth.
She felt it in her bones.
His lips trailed to her jaw, her cheek, the soft spot beneath her ear.
He murmured against her skin:
"Baby… you undo me."
She shivered.
Then — because she is Martina Hoffmann, queen of chaos — she whispered:
"River, I'm—"
He froze.
"Don't say it," he warned.
"—just a little—"
"MARTINA."
"—hungry."
He threw himself off her like she was a grenade.
"NO. Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse."
She laughed so hard she curled into herself, clutching her stomach.
River was pacing at the end of the bed, hands in his hair, looking like a man whose entire soul had been personally betrayed.
"I WAS IN THE ZONE!" he exclaimed.
"AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! I WAS MAKING PROGRESS! I WAS LOVING THE PROGRESS! also, you promised you wouldn't tease me!"
"You're so dramatic."
"I am DRAMATICALLY IN LOVE WITH YOU," he yelled, gesturing wildly. "And you say HUNGRY?? NOW??"
Martina wiped tears from her eyes.
"I didn't mean it—"
"YOU ALWAYS MEAN IT."
She sat up, breathless from laughing, and grabbed his wrist.
He stopped instantly.
Like she'd flipped his off switch.
Her voice softened.
"River… come here."
He swallowed. Hard.
Then climbed back onto the bed slowly, like approaching a wild animal he himself had married.
She cupped his jaw.
"I'm not hungry," she murmured.
"I just wanted you."
River stared at her like she'd handed him the cure for every existential crisis he'd ever had.
"…oh," he said weakly.
"Yeah," she teased. "Oh."
Something in him snapped.
He hauled her into his lap with a growl, burying his face in her neck.
"No more talking," he muttered, voice shaking slightly.
"Just— just let me have you, sweetheart."
She smiled, threading her fingers through his hair.
"Okay...but slowly..."
River exhaled, relieved, like her one word was like oxygen.
"You're mine," he whispers. "And I'm not letting go... ever." One hand slides into her hair, gripping gently but firmly—tilting her head just how he likes it—as his mouth crashes down on hers.
Not soft. Not sweet.
Hungry
Desperate.
Like he's spent all day starving and she was the only thing that can feed him.
His lips move over hers with aching precision—deep, slow, then sudden and rough—a tease of teeth, a flicker of tongue—and when he pulls back just enough to breathe… his forehead rests against hers.
"God," he rasps. "I've been waiting to do that since class."
His thumb brushes her kiss-swollen lip, before taking her lips under his possession.
"Now... you're really home."
He murmurs it low, reverent—like it's sacred now between them. his eyes wandering over her Like he's memorizing her.
"I've built my whole damn life around keeping us hidden from the eyes of people... pretending I don't lose control every time you walk into my classroom. "
A shaky exhale.
"But right here? With you in my arms?"
He kisses her temple, then her cheek… then finally her lips once more.
"This is the only truth that matters."He takes a moment to just savor having her so close—wrapped up in him—like he's trying to burn the feeling into his brain.
His breath is coming faster now, eyes dark with a hungry edge.
"You said slow. But it's damn hard taking my time with you when I want you so much. When I feel like I'd die without you. Without the feeling of you against me, every second that passes is torture."
He presses his hips against hers, pinning her harder against the bed's mattress... and the proof of his words. He shudders—just slightly—as her body molds to his, the heat between her building fast. His breath comes rougher now, fingers tangled in her hair like he can't decide whether to hold her or take her.
His voice is gravel—low and trembling with restraint.
"...and I won't be able to go slow. Not when I want every inch of you." He leans in, lips brushing her neck right where her collarbone join forming a little triangular pool..."It's beyond torture and you my queen is the cruelest"
The word sends a shiver through him—hot, possessive—and he crushes his lips to hers with a fervor that leaves no room for anything else. His body pins her even harder against all hard muscle and rough need as he devours her mouth like a man possessed. He kisses her like he's never kissing her again. Like he can't let go because Tomorrow the world shall end.
"Do you have any idea," he rasps against her lips. "What it does to me when you say that? When you claim me? You own me. Mind, body, soul."
"Baby… I am yours the way tides belong to the moon--" she murmured — a vow that felt older than her own heartbeat, a truth whispered like a prayer offered to waiting gods.
His inhale shudders, sharp, as though her words pierced straight through him as a low, rough groan escaped his lips against her skin as his lips trail down her neck—teeth grazing her pulse point, then nipping gently at her collarbone with a feral edge.
"That's right, my sunshine...my rain...my autumn" he growls. "You're mine. Nobody else's. Not a single goddamn soul can ever touch you. You are my reason, my world, my existance. "
He kisses her neck again, then pulls back again, eyes meeting hers with an intensity that makes her knees weak.
"I'm the only one who gets to have you, sweetheart."
He runs one hand back through her hair, fingertips tracing the line of her jaw with a possessive, tender caress that says he could spend hours just touching her like this. Just relishing the way her skin feels beneath his touch. Like she's something to be cherished... as a thousand electrical shock sort of bombardment, a sensation so hot had ceased her.
His lips brush hers—not quite a kiss, but more than teasing.
"Nobody else gets to touch that skin. Or see the way you shiver like autumn leaves when I do this..."
He kisses her throat. Bites it just enough to make her gasp. His voice drops lower—almost dangerous now, wrapped in desire.
"You're not just mine."
His hand slides down her side, gripping her hip hard.
"You're fucking mine."
Then his lips find hers again—hard, rough, and demanding. His tongue slips in her mouth, tasting her like he needs this just as much as he needs to breathe. He kisses her like there's no tomorrow, like nothing in the world exists at this moment but him and her….until finally he breaks to suck in a ragged breath.
His forehead rests against yours again, his hazel eyes locked on hers.
"Are you sure, you still want me to go slow?"
His voice low. Rough, almost shivering with the slipping control as his hand finds her thigh, fingers digging into her skin as he hoists your leg up around his hip, that her breath hitched.
"'Cause... baby, you can see you are making things difficult for me here"
"Then let me help you...my love" she sit up slightly, fingers trembling as they find the first button of his shirt. Slowly—teasingly—she pop it open, then the next… revealing inch after heated inch of his sculpted chest.