Witters Note:
This is a slow story (also my first ,59 chapters have been written editing is going on for them),non-erotic in the beginning though there is teasing up to chapter 15 where the full on on erotica starts. Uploads for the story would be weekly ranging from 3K to 5k words each. The story is centred on romance and soon moves to soft dom territory the romance part stays. Mainly this is based on the female MC's POV all though it is written in 3rd person because I like to jump to different POV's. also I am a little sorry about the cliffhangers. I dont give permission to repost this. Hopefully you enjoy the story and i am looking forward to the criticism and feedback
(written and edited by)
MocoFF
Characters:
Vanessa : A white 18 year old petite 5ft 7"brunette female, with c cup tits, waist length brown hair, nice shapely bubble butt, longer legs than upper body, brown eyes, state level karate champion
Ethan : A white 18 year old 6ft white haired male, usually in a black hoodie and a non sleeve jacket. Also having the hood up at all time. Emerald green eyes.
Hannah : A white slightly tanned 5ft 5" blonde popular girl. Vanessa's Best friend
Timeline:
Story starts(Aug)
3 months later second dinner and confession(Nov)
***
Nothing about the weeks that followed felt normal.
They felt unreal. Like she'd wandered into an alternate version of her life and everyone forgot to tell her the rules had changed.
But it wasn't a dream, not exactly.
Not the soft-focus, rose-tinted, background-music kind.
This was something quieter. Deeper. Rough around the edges.
It was real.
Which meant it was messy.
Unpredictable.
Beautiful in a way she didn't quite have words for.
And it started every time she caught herself saying it in her head: My boyfriend.
Ethan.
My boyfriend.
She could barely say it out loud. Not because she was ashamed. Hell no. But because the words didn't sit right on her tongue yet. Like trying on a dress that hadn't been tailored for her—stunning, surreal, but a little off-kilter. Still settling into place.
And Ethan?
He wasn't the boyfriend type.
He didn't walk her to class with an arm around her shoulders or send emoji-riddled "good morning" texts. He didn't carve initials into desks or write cheesy notes to hide in her locker. His idea of affection was sarcasm, side-eyes, and letting her borrow his hoodie when he thought she wasn't looking cold.
No performances. No acts.
But somehow, everyone still knew.
It started small. Barely-there glances across the cafeteria. That smirk he reserved for her—the one that curled slow and dangerous at the corner of his mouth. The way he'd pause when she passed him in the hallway, not touching, not saying a word, but looking at her like she was a private joke only he understood.
And then Chloe happened.
Chloe, with her oversized lashes and artificially sweet smile, who'd once called Ethan a "weirdo rich kid" during a sleepover while applying lip gloss like it was a weapon. Chloe, who hadn't spoken to Vanessa in months but always noticed everything.
She'd seen it.
Him dropping Vanessa off. Again.
His bike idling at the curb.
That small, easy exchange between them—the glance, the nod, the way Vanessa had smiled without thinking.
And from there... it spread like wildfire.
Rumors ignited, twisting through the school hallways, mutating into strange, ridiculous things.
"He must have blackmailed her."
"She lost a bet."
"She's just going through a phase. Like when she cut her bangs with kitchen scissors."
It was laughable.
Except it wasn't.
It got under her skin.
She tried ignoring it. Really, she did. Vanessa had never cared what the plastic crowd thought of her. Not in any deep, personal way. But this—this felt different. Because this wasn't just about her.
They were talking about him.
Them.
Ethan never even blinked.
"They need something to talk about," he said one afternoon, tightening the strap on his helmet with his usual practiced calm. "And right now, we're shiny and new. Give it a month."
Vanessa folded her arms. "But they're saying stupid things."
"Yep," he agreed, unbothered.
"And you're just okay with that?"
He looked at her then, slow and steady, the way he always did when he was about to cut through all her noise.
"I'm okay with it if you are," he said. "The rest doesn't matter."
And somehow, with just that—four quiet words—he defused the storm inside her chest.
She didn't say anything after that. Just reached for his hand, only for a second. A small anchor in the chaos.
He squeezed back. Once.
And they moved on.
But life didn't exactly pause for new relationships. Exams loomed like predators in the dark. Math had returned to mock her soul. And Vanessa, who had always been half decent at winging it, found herself spiraling under the sheer boredom and torment of numbers.
Except now... she had Ethan.
Which sounded great in theory—until she actually had to ask him for help.
He made it impossible.
"You're asking me to tutor you?" he said, eyes glittering with amusement.
"Yes," she groaned, already regretting it. "God help me."
He leaned back against her headboard, legs stretched out like he was king of the damn world. "Oh, I'm absolutely going to make you regret it."
And he did.
Their study sessions were an absurd mix of laughter, eye rolls, and actual productivity buried beneath layers of snark. He was patient, infuriatingly so, which only made her more flustered when she messed up basic equations.
"Vanessa," he drawled once, blinking slowly, "you just said the square root of a sandwich."
She threw a pencil at him.
But between the sarcastic comments and the occasional near-violent sighs, something shifted.
The way he leaned in when she got stuck. The quiet focus in his voice when he explained a step for the third time, slower, softer. The way his fingers would brush hers—not always on purpose, but never pulled away too fast.
It wasn't grand.
But it meant something.
The first time she got an entire problem set right, he didn't say much. Just looked at her for a long second before nodding and saying, "You're getting better."
Vanessa pretended it was nothing.
But the way her heart lifted?
Yeah. She wasn't fooling anyone—not even herself.
They weren't romantic in the traditional sense.
No candlelit dinners, no handwritten love notes tucked into lockers, no artsy Polaroids littering bedroom walls. There were no curated Instagram-worthy moments, nothing glossy or polished about what was slowly forming between them. But sometimes—sometimes—reality cracked wide enough to let something else through. Raw. Unguarded. Impossible to define.
Like the night Vanessa had fallen asleep on the couch beside Ethan, a tangled mess of frustration and formulas. He'd been trying to explain integrals—some cruel joke the universe had deemed necessary for her final exams—and her brain had finally short-circuited mid-equation. Her head had dropped against his shoulder, the softest sigh escaping her lips, and she'd slipped into sleep right there, against him.
He hadn't moved.
Not for a full hour.
Just sat there, body tense but still, one hand resting lightly on her thigh—bare skin under a pair of too-short sleep shorts—and pretended he wasn't aware of every rise and fall of her breath. Pretended he wasn't memorizing the warmth of her against him, the curve of her body, the way her scent—clean shampoo and something a little sweeter—wrapped around his senses like a rope he didn't mind being bound with.
Vanessa hadn't meant to fall asleep. But when she woke up and realized he hadn't shifted away, hadn't made a joke or teased her or shoved her off with some flippant remark... something lodged itself deep in her chest. A quiet kind of ache.
It scared her. God, it scared her more than she wanted to admit.
But it also made her want.
She didn't even know what, exactly. Just... more.
She never had quiet like that with anyone else. Not with her mother, whose love came buried beneath expectations. Not with her friends, who lived in a world of curated filters and competitive chaos. But Ethan didn't try to fix her. Didn't try to label her or diagnose her moods. He just was. A steady, maddening, necessary presence. And that night had been the first crack in her armor.
The second came weeks later, after a brutal fight with her mom. Words had flown like daggers, sharp and aimless, and by the time Vanessa stormed into Ethan's house, her hands were trembling and her breath stuttered in uneven, desperate gasps. She couldn't even speak. Couldn't find the words to explain the storm clawing at her insides.
But Ethan didn't ask for a single explanation.
He just opened his arms.
And she fell into them like she belonged there.
There was no conversation, no platitudes or advice. He simply held her, fingers gentle at the small of her back, breath warm against her temple, letting her exist in that pocket of stillness he created just for her.
She never said thank you.
But she thought about it later, curled up in bed, his scent still clinging to her hoodie.
And that's when it hit her—this was hers. As messy and chaotic and undefined as it was, it was something real. Something she wasn't sure she deserved, but needed all the same.
That night, math notes were spread across her bed like confetti, half-smeared with highlighter and frustration. Her phone buzzed—"Survived another Chloe comment today. Do I get a prize?"
She snorted. Her fingers flew over the screen. "No. You get mocked relentlessly during the next study session."
A pause. Then: "Knew I was dating a sadist."
Her smile lingered long after the conversation faded, a soft glow in her chest, burning slow and steady.
And then there were the other moments. The ones that clung to her like shadows, unshakable.
Like the night of their first kiss.
They'd been sparring at the gym. Playful at first, but always toeing that electric line between competition and something else. Something neither of them dared to name. Her body was slick with sweat, hair sticking to her neck, sports bra damp and clinging to curves he tried not to stare at—but did. She could feel his gaze like heat on skin, even when his eyes were elsewhere.
He flipped her, the bastard, with a move she hadn't expected. One second she was on her feet, the next she was flat on her back, chest heaving, breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a growl.
"That was dirty," she panted.
Ethan smirked, wicked and devastating. "That's called strategy."
"You cheated."
"You got distracted."
She pushed sweaty strands from her face, glaring. "I'm going to kill you."
"You'll have to try harder than that."
And then... he looked at her.
Really looked.
No teasing. No smirk. Just a beat of silence that wrapped around them like a held breath.
Something cracked. Or maybe it snapped.
Their mouths collided—not desperate, but deliberate. A slow, testing kiss. Soft lips meeting hers with the kind of restraint that made her want to scream. It wasn't enough. It was everything. Her heart tripped over itself, and even as it ended, the burn lingered on her lips, her skin, deep in her gut.
He pulled back with an infuriatingly casual, "Huh."
She blinked, dazed. "That's it? Just huh?"
"Do you want me to rate it?"
"No—oh my God, shut up."
He laughed, helping her to her feet like nothing had changed.
But it had.
Because now, every time he smirked at her, every time he stood just a little too close, she remembered the way his mouth had felt on hers. And she hated how much she didn't hate it.
Exams came and went in a blur of caffeine and sleepless nights, and somehow—against all odds—Vanessa didn't just pass. She excelled. Even in the subjects she used to ignore, she managed to do better than expected. Her hands shook as she held the report, staring in disbelief.
It wasn't just her. It was him.
He'd gotten under her skin, into her bones, made her care in a way she hadn't before. And now, holding the proof of that quiet transformation, she felt something dangerously close to pride.
But even that warmth had a shadow.
Because the state karate championship was coming.
Less than two weeks away.
And for once, there were no countdowns, no vision boards, no frenzied team huddles strategizing over matchups and routines.
She hadn't even told Ethan what division she was entering.
Not because she didn't want to share it—she did.
But a week before the championship fell on the anniversary of Ethan's worst day. And she couldn't bring herself to chase glory in the middle of a wound he never spoke of.
She didn't know what he needed.
But she knew she wanted to be that for him—whatever that meant.
She had looked it up.
Alone. In the dark. The glow of her phone casting a pale light over her face as she sat cross-legged on her bed, heart thudding with something she couldn't quite name.
She hadn't told him.
Hadn't even meant to, at first. But curiosity had a way of turning into something else when it came to Ethan—something heavier, something rooted in the pit of her stomach, where worry lived and love was beginning to grow.
The date was so ordinary. Just another box on the calendar. Unremarkable. Quiet. But when she saw it—when she really saw it—her stomach twisted hard and sharp, like her body had understood before her mind had caught up.
That was the day.
The one he never talked about.
The one that hung around the edges of their conversations like a shadow no one acknowledged.
He wasn't the kind of guy who wore grief on his sleeve. No dramatics. No long silences or sudden changes in mood. He didn't flinch when someone mentioned parents. Didn't look away, didn't go stiff. He just... never offered anything.
And she'd never asked.
Not because she didn't want to know—but because some part of her was afraid of what knowing would make real.
Still, it lingered between them.
Like the fading notes of a song neither of them wanted to admit had ended. Faint, echoing, a presence in the quiet. Unseen, but never absent.
The closer the date came, the more it weighed on her.
She hated how powerless she felt. How useless.
She wanted to do something. To say something. To show up for him the way he'd done for her a hundred times—without fanfare, without pressure, just there.
But how do you comfort someone for something they won't even admit still hurts?
What was she supposed to say?
Hey, sorry your parents died. Want to come spar?
God. She was so bad at this.
It made her want to crawl out of her skin sometimes—this desperation to help, to hold, to offer something real, and the simultaneous fear of getting it wrong.
One evening, they ended up at the park again.
Same spot as always, tucked beside the bike racks near the walking trail. The wind was light, the sky bleeding with another bruised sunset. Familiar. Still.
She brought him ice cream.
Something dumb and simple. Vanilla with sprinkles. It was an olive branch, a peace offering, a lifeline—all rolled into a cheap plastic cup with a little wooden spoon.
He didn't smile when he saw her, but his shoulders eased just slightly.
Just enough.
"Hey. Want some?" she asked, holding it out to him.
Ethan glanced at her, then past her—toward the sky, the trees, anything but her face. "You're quiet."
She shrugged, toeing a pebble with her shoe. "You say that a lot lately."
"Maybe you're always thinking too loud."
A small laugh escaped her, bitter at the edges. "Maybe."
They stood in silence after that. Not awkward. Not tense. Just... still.
Like the world had pressed pause on them, giving them this one pocket of time to exist in together.
Finally, Vanessa broke it.
"The championship's coming up."
"I know."
She hesitated. Her voice softened, cracked a little. "And before that..."
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't have to.
Ethan's jaw tightened—just a fraction, a flicker of something beneath the surface. Barely noticeable, but there.
"I know," he said again, this time quieter. Almost like an echo.
Vanessa turned to look at him, really look—the way he always seemed to look at her. Like he saw through every layer, every defense, every mask she wore. She tried to read him the same way, but he was harder. More practiced at hiding.
Still, something shifted in him.
Small. Subtle.
Like a door creaked open just enough for light to spill through.
"Do you..." Her throat tightened. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
A beat.
Then, "No."
Just that. Plain. Final.
She nodded, even though her chest ached at the answer. "I figured."
Another pause.
Then he turned toward her again, gaze gentler now, a softness in the sharp lines of his face that she almost never saw.
"You're worried about me?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes, instinctive, deflecting. "Obviously."
He stepped closer. She felt the heat of him, the weight of his attention. Her pulse quickened.
"That's sweet," he said.
"Don't ruin it."
He smirked and flicked her forehead lightly. "I'll be fine."
She didn't believe him.
Not for a second.
But she didn't argue. Didn't press. Because sometimes, love didn't sound like declarations or grand gestures.
Sometimes it looked like restraint.
So instead she muttered, "You better show up for the championship."
"Was I invited?"
"Obviously. You kind of did train me didn't you"
A small smile on his face he said, "Then I'll be there."
Simple. Casual. Like he'd just promised to stop by after school.
But she heard the weight behind it.
Knew that showing up would cost him something.
Knew that it would mean pushing through a day that made breathing feel like work.
She wanted to say more. To ask. To know.
But she didn't.
Instead, she stood in the fading light and watched as the last rays of the sun lit up the silver strands threading through his hair.
And she said nothing.
Then the day came.
The anniversary.
Vanessa spent the whole morning clutching her phone like it was going to bite her. Ethan's name sat at the top of her message list. Untouched. Waiting.
She didn't text. Didn't call.
Not because she didn't care. But because she cared too much to risk saying the wrong thing.
She didn't want to intrude on something sacred. Didn't want to poke around in grief just to make herself feel helpful.
But doing nothing felt worse.
So she left something.
A small box in his locker.
No note. No explanation.
Just a tiny, matte-black keychain shaped like a chess piece—knight, of course—sleek and sharp and solid. It made her think of him.
How he moved through life like strategy wrapped in sarcasm, always calculating, always composed.
It wasn't much.
But it was hers. A gesture. A message between the lines.
I see you. I remember. I care.
He never said a word about it.
Didn't bring it up. Didn't thank her. Didn't even mention it.
But two days later, she saw it clipped to the zipper of his backpack.
Just... there.
Plain. Quiet. Present.
She didn't say anything, either.
But her chest ached in a different way then.
A warm flutter beneath her ribs. Soft. Sharp. Full of all the things she still didn't have words for.
And the state karate championship was still coming.
Fast. Loud. Looming like a wave just offshore.
Something was growing between them.
Slow. Unsteady.
But real.
And she knew—this wasn't the end of it.
~~~~~