Slowly, careful not to jostle anything on the counter, Samira takes two steps across the tiled bathroom floor until she can see Trinity and Parker again. Just to keep an eye on them, so I know when they’re leaving, Samira tells herself, deliberately ignoring the shiver that washes over her as she peers through the crack in the door. Samira can just make out the edge of a bed behind Parker, and the thought — the possibility — makes her lower belly clench with sudden, traitorous heat.

They look incredible together, the lamplight by the bed casting them both in a deep, bronze glow, shadows slip-sliding down to the space between their bodies. Trinity’s hair is loose around her shoulders, Parker cupping the back of Trinity’s head as they kiss, and Parker’s shoulder flexes slightly as she pulls Trinity closer.

They…this is not my fault, they shouldn’t be doing this…Parker’s her attending, this is so…so…

So hot, Samira squashes the thought before it can fully form, refusing to acknowledge the pu

Jack just laughed and shoved him a little harder into the door, a visceral, physical reminder: he was in control now. He expected Robby to bitch him out, sharp like he got when cornered—

Except instead Robby slumped, his breath out almost relief, like all the fight had drained from him. He didn’t say anything, just took a few shaky breaths, body shivering under Jack’s—

…oh.

“What would happen if I said we actually did that? We didn’t shoot [Daniel’s turning], but me and Eric decided to play the scene…” —Assad Zaman

Roy, searching for role models as he trains Jamie, finds himself thinking of Keeley…

His fucking traitor of a brain summons an image of her there on the pitch, between them. Giving Roy that look, the one that used to make him want to drop to his terrible aching knees. Fuck the pain.

Roy wonders, suddenly, if she ever used that look on Jamie. If she ever told him what good boy he was...

(Or: Keeley gently doms Jamie, via Roy.)

“Do you think I could help in some way?” he asks.

Ed glances at him. “Like how?”

“I don’t know. You seemed to enjoy our little gag of trading places that one time.” Stede shrugs a shoulder. He’s wearing his pink satin waistcoat and matching breeches, no overcoat—too fucking humid tonight. Ed can see the shape of his arm through the thin linen of his shirt. “What if you pretend you’re the one who isn’t in charge, and I can pretend I’m the one who is. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

Sometimes some co-captains invent soft domming to cope.

Edward Teach considers himself a connoisseur of captors. Without a doubt, Stede Bonnet is his favorite.

“Let us take care of you, yeah?”

Daniel’s deep inside him, taking him roughly from behind, when he leans over and murmurs politely in Johnny’s ear: “Can I come on your tits?”

He doesn’t recognize the number, but no one else would, after two years of silence, lead with, I’ll be there Thursday. You know what to buy.

“Oh my God,” David says, throwing his hands in the air, and almost sending the entire box of lube sailing across the store. Luckily Patrick has an MBA in Flailing David, and snatches the box before they have to replace one of the front window panes again. “This is a travesty of a situation. You deserve to have beautiful, slick, slippery sex, to enjoy the full spectrum of sex accessories out there.”

Patrick makes a face. “I don’t like sex accessories.”

“Have you ever tried sex accessories?”

“No!” she said immediately.

“You want to fuck me!” he said gleefully.

“No, and also we’re not even having this conversation,” she said in desperation, while her treacherous brain went right on vividly imagining every single minute of banging that smirk off his face so hard—

Instead of talking Marta through evading investigators, Ransom goes for the path of least resistance. It leads straight to the courthouse.

Shane tires of doing the same bits over and over. He tires of telling the same stories until they all, him and Ryan and the fans, have every beat memorized. Whenever Ryan pulls out his Ricky Goldsworth impression, ah yes, that old chestnut, Shane plays along only begrudgingly. He’s bored.

That’s his official position: he’s over Ricky Goldsworth.

Shane’s unofficial position, regrettably, is that he’d rather be under Ricky Goldsworth.

“I don’t have a fetish for nipples.” —Ryan Bergara, a liar.

“Look,” Shane says over the phone. “Mistakes were made.”

“Mistakes,” Ryan repeats.

“I’ve got myself in a pickle.”

“What have you handcuffed yourself to?” Ryan asks, cutting to the chase and there’s a pointed pause from Shane on the other end. Ryan actually has to check to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.

“That’s not important,” Shane eventually says.

Shane has a thing for virgins, which Ryan just so happens to be.

Han was a couple of seconds away from walking when a familiar, amused voice drawled, “Well, if it isn’t the captain of the Millenium Falcon himself,” and he turned around to find Lando Calrissian smirking at him.

In which Han asks for a few things he hadn't expected.

Ryan’s not precious about sex, and they’ve already done it once. It should be the easiest thing in the world for Ryan to be like, “Hey, remember that time I penetrated you with a variety of sex toys? Let’s do that again some time.”

But every time he thinks about saying it something twinges inside him, deep, that stops him in his tracks. He feels—on the hook. Like he has something to lose.

Ryan’s living in his worst nightmare: a PG-rated romantic comedy, the kind that airs on the Hallmark Channel in December. The kind where all the characters learn the true meaning of Christmas but nobody comes.

Finn moves ever so slightly, and Poe’s mouth goes slack, his eyes dipping shut. He moans Finn’s name in a way he’s never moaned Finn’s name before, quiet and pleading. He’s clenching down around Finn, head thrown back into the pillow, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and Finn realizes, with sudden clarity, He wants me to fucking wreck him.

It’s a bewildering thought.

Ryan stops short in the doorway of his bedroom, banging his shoulder against the doorframe in his haste, because he’s too late. Shane’s kneeling in front of the bottom drawer of his bedside table, peering down at the contents, hand frozen in a hover like he’d been about to reach in. His face is a blank mask.

“Ah. I keep the batteries in the top drawer. Not. Not the bottom one.”

“Yes,” Shane says, cocking his head to the left in puzzlement, and then he pauses for a fraction of a second too long as he considers his words. “I can see that the batteries are not in the bottom drawer.”