This is another Bethyl Smut Week deal. Began as writing to one prompt, and then I realized another prompt I got worked perfectly as a second chapter. So that's what this is.

First prompt: Daryl and Beth are at the funeral home, starting to settle in. They have separate rooms upstairs for some privacy if need be. They also have urges. So Beth masturbates, while Daryl is hunting - or so she thinks. And Daryl masturbates, watching her - secretly, or so HE thinks. But Beth finds out. Also finds out she quite likes it. So she puts on a little bit of a show for him, maybe using props she finds at the funeral home. Who knew candles were good for more than burning?

Enjoy. ❤️


1.

Honest to Christ wild turkey.

They've gotten lucky with game before. He's gotten grouse, deer aren't that hard to come by and mourning doves are tasty when cooked up right. And with an actual kitchen to work with, what they've eaten over the last couple of weeks has come to resemble a series of recognizable meals. He finds edible greens in the forest, and there's a small garden around the side of the house - not as well tended as the rest of the place, but it's by no means dead, and he's living with a farm girl.

They're doing much better than surviving. He lies in his bed at night - his bed in his room, because they figured once they established a certain level of safety that making camp in the parlor by the fireplace didn't make a lot of sense and they moved upstairs - and for the first time in longer than he can remember he dares to think about the future. The future beyond the next day, or the day after that.

He falls asleep in a narrow bed that smells pleasantly of dust and old lace and candle wax, and he thinks strangely of her hair in the firelight. And he sleeps well and he doesn't wake up hungry and afraid.

He wakes up and he eats breakfast with her and they just… live.

They're all right.

And now he has a goddamn wild turkey, which he hasn't seen in months. Fat one. Only half an hour out in the woods and he got superbly lucky, and he's actually almost grinning when he steps over the sound trap and pushes the door open, carries the thing to the kitchen slung over his shoulder and - because he can't think of anywhere else to put it - leaves it lying in state on the table.

She'll pluck it, clean it. He'll help her. They'll make a fire outside, spit the thing and roast it. They'll have themselves a real fucking turkey dinner, even if there's no mashed potatoes and gravy.

He shouldn't be proud of himself, not really. It was nine tenths luck. He just happened to be in the exact right place at the exact right time, seeing it bumble out of the undergrowth directly into his sights. But he is, he is proud of himself, and he wants to bring her down here and show her.

Wants to surprise her, or he would have been calling her name the second he came in.

When he left she said something about a headache, about napping, and the lack of her obvious presence indicates that she's still up there.

There were three bedrooms to choose from when it came time to make a choice: One master bedroom with a brass queen bedstead, two smaller ones with singles - all full of creaking antiques and thin, soft fabric and portraits of dead people on the walls. He made her take the bigger one while he grabbed the more comfortable of the two remaining, and he never explained himself, and when she protested he wore her down. Now he's listening for her as he climbs the groaning steps - fuck, don't even need a sound trap inside - and for any indication of consciousness. There's none; her room is the one at the end of the long, dim hallway, and as he crests the top step and heads toward it he sees a crack of brightness between the door and the frame.

She didn't close it completely.

He stops, is raising a hand to knock - not loudly, if she's deeper than drowsing he doesn't want to wake her with something that can wait - when he just happens turn his head at an angle that allows him to see the bed through the crack in the door, and at the same moment he hears a quiet little sigh.

Every cell in him crystallizes. His knuckle freezes in mid-tap centimeters from the door. Exact wrong place. Exact wrong time.

Fuck.

Mid-morning sunlight is spilling across the bed. Pouring across it, making the brass shine and soaking the old sheets - washed and aged well beyond whiteness. It's one of the reasons why he wanted her to have this room, though he never told her even that much: In the morning it gets all the light. He thought - in the most innocent possible way - about her sleeping bathed in sunrise, and he needed her to be there. He couldn't exist in a world where it wasn't so.

It wouldn't be right.

Now she's bathed in it, sprawled on her back across the bed with the rumpled sheets pushed down toward the foot, her skin glowing and its warmth palpable from across the fucking room. He can feel her under his hands - hanging loose and otherwise numb at his sides - and he stares at her, jaw slack, as she hums softly and trails her fingers down over her bare little breasts, fingertips toying with her flushed pink nipples.

She's naked. Completely. Naked and arching under her own touch and luxuriating in it, fuck, he's never seen anything like it. Naked with her legs slightly spread, knees bent, and the bed faces the door at such an angle that he can just catch a glimpse of tight curls, see the sheen of wet on her…

All the blood surges out of his legs and he almost falls, clutches the doorframe for support, bites down hard on his lip to keep back a sound. He doesn't know what sound it would be if he let it out. Doesn't want to. Oh my God.

Oh my God.

He needs to turn around right now. He needs to get out of here right fucking now. This is exactly where he needs to not be, not ever. He needs to go downstairs and find some way to distract himself while he attempts to totally purge this from his memory for all time.

He needs to and he's not.

What he's doing is looking at her. Not moving, not breathing, not even fucking blinking. He's looking at her and he's looking at all of her, that small body he knows very well by now, small but strong, powerful. Slender arms and graceful legs nevertheless tight with muscle beneath her skin. Long waist, flat belly, and a swell at her hips falling into a full curve at her thighs. Her breasts - he's never really looked at them before, why would he, but now he sees them and it's hard to see anything else. Small, very, but so perfect, fitting her so well, and his spine coils itself into a spring as she takes her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers and pinches.

She sucks in a breathy little gasp and he almost falls again.

This is so horrible. He's so horrible.

He leans closer.

He's never looked at anyone like this. Anyone. He can't remember ever wanting to. And it's Beth, and that's just… Yet here she is, thighs rubbing against each other as she teases herself and rolls her head slightly, her hair a gold sunflare over the pillow, her eyes closed and her lips parted and wet.

She cups herself, kneads and moans, and that's when he truly understands that he's fucked.

That moan. Because it breaks something in him and he's abruptly aware of where all that blood in his legs went, where it is now and what it's doing. He's so hard, doesn't know when this last happened either, hot and aching and straining against his zipper. It's instinct and only after it's far too late does it hit him what he's doing, but he drops his free hand between his thighs and palms himself, squeezes, forces back a groan when all that heat pulses up through his arteries and just about sets his fucking hair on fire.

She moans again, rolls her back and then her hips in a smooth sine wave, and as she does her legs fall open and he sees her fully through the brass bars: Her inner lips glistening in the nest of her curls, dark and plump and so wet.

It's not like he's never seen a cunt before. But he might as well not have.

He leans the side of his head against the doorframe and doesn't stop moving. He kneads himself like she's kneading her tits, gnawing at the insides of his cheeks, and he doesn't stop when she releases herself and her hands begin to roam downward. Over her ribs, stroking her own skin like she has nowhere to go in any hurry, her breath coming in those heady sighs punctuated by rougher edges of sound.

He knows where she's going, how the fuck could he not, but somehow every second of this is shocking. Every second of it is a revelation. His blood is a storm in his veins, crashing thunder and lightning, and when he starts to undo his belt and fly with thick, stupid fingers, it feels like it was inevitable.

It's a force beyond him.

Her breath is coming faster and rougher as she reaches her lower belly and spreads her legs wide, and his shameless fingers are slipping into his jeans and curving around his shaft as her own reach her bush and pet it, her hips canting hungrily upward as if she's denying herself something.

He can't, some remaining sane fragment of his mind is screaming at him. This is appalling. He can't do this. How the fuck is he ever going to look her in the eye afterward? He might be able to save himself if he zips up and evacuates the premises now, but his fingers are tracing the cramped length of his cock, the blood thrumming under stretched skin.

No, it's too late. He's fucked.

He doesn't draw himself out until her fingertips finally settle over her clit, as if her sharper gasp gives him permission. He takes his cock in his hand, vaguely aware of his own rough palm as he grips and squeezes, and it hurts when she starts to circle her fingers, starts to moan in earnest. Her other hand has returned to her breast, her nipple, and she's tweaking it, twisting in a way that looks like it might be painful. The expression on her face is almost like pain, but not, not at all; she plays with her little clit and torments herself and the sounds pushing out of her are tense and ragged, and the one mercy here is that when he gives himself a hard stroke his broken groan is lost under them.

Fuck, please let it be.

He's never seen a woman do this. Not in person. Never watched, never seen someone enjoying themselves like this. That alone is stunning, that she clearly loves her own body this way, that she's making herself feel so good. It's all for her. It's not maintenance. She's laid out in the sun in a soft bed and she's taking her time.

It's beautiful.

Her cunt squelches wet when she pushes a finger in, a low cry bursting out of her, and part of him wants to weep at it as his hand falls into a steady rhythm, precome smeared at the edges of his forefinger and thumb. It's been such a long time since he did this too, such a long time since he wanted to, and it's never felt like this, like her pleasure is contagious. She's clutching at her tit as she fucks herself in firm slides of her hand that almost match his, her fingers shining and that squelch ringing off the walls, and when she adds a second finger he presses his mouth against the back of his knuckles and bites down hard.

But he's not in time. And this groan was louder than all the others.

All at once it's a nightmare.

She freezes. Stops dead with her fingers deep in her cunt, panting at the ceiling, her eyes gone wide. His brain is blasting panic, terror and arousal so hopelessly confused that none of his body has any idea what to do. He's fucked, he's fucked, and if he jams his dick back into his jeans and runs he might be able to at least prevent this from becoming totally unbearable. He might not have to wander off into the woods to die of sheer mortification.

He might not have destroyed the best thing that ever happened to him. Because he literally can't keep his dick in his pants.

Honestly not a problem he ever saw himself having.

There's no way to apologize for this. None. Yet he's standing there, cock in his hand, still hard and throbbing and seething just under his skin. And she hasn't moved either - she's taking slow, deep breaths, her eyes falling closed.

Maybe she's giving him an out. Maybe she's that kind. Maybe she'll stay there until he withdraws, and later… God, maybe she'll even pretend it didn't happen.

That would be so sweet, and so like her. Even if it wouldn't remotely work.

And she moves.

His whole body twitches. It's fear, the snapping release of wound tension, but he still isn't leaving. Because she's not getting up. She's not fumbling for the covers or her clothes, or coming toward the door to demand to know what the fuck he thinks he's doing.

She's raising her sticky fingers to her lips and sucking them clean.

She takes her time with this too. She relishes it. Seems to love it. She sucks them together and then each individually, licking all the way down to the gap between them, humming as she does. Like it's delicious. Like it's dessert. And fuck, what the fuck, his mouth is watering and all he can think about is being there, being there, her fingers on his tongue and what it would be like to clean them for her, lick up every drop and kiss her fingertips when he's done.

His hand is motionless on his cock but for the moment he doesn't even notice.

Then she rolls to the side and he does.

There's a candleholder by the bed - one of those old fashioned ones with a well to catch the wax and a loop to slide a finger through. Beside it are some spares, clean and unused, and she picks one of these up and returns to her back. For a few seconds he's actually confused - and then she's slipping it between her thighs and using the fingers of her other hand to spread her lips open, revealing lighter glistening pink. His mouth has gone dry, everything is dry, he's a cracked desert but for the thunderstorm under his hand, but his eyes and mouth literally flood wet all over again when she pushes the candle slowly into her cunt with a long, trembling moan.

She keeps that slowness at first. Draws it out and presses it back in, whimpering as her head falls back again, but in less than a minute she rises to speed and is fucking herself in quick, deep thrusts, matching the rhythm with soft little moans. He isn't moving at all, gripping himself and half lost in heated, needy misery, but it breaks like a stormcloud when she hauls in a breath and groans a single word.

"Daryl."

Panic again. Utter panic. In his head he's reeling back and in his body his paralysis is, if anything, solidified. But she can't mean him. Not- Not him, not as he's standing here; that's ridiculous. If she knew he was here she sure as fuck wouldn't be doing this.

It's something else.

"Just-just like that. Oh." Faster, her face almost pained, her tight whispers nearly drowned out by the slurping of the candle pumping in and out of her. "Oh my God, Daryl…" Her other hand glides down her body and joins the first, fingers finding her clit and rubbing in rapid circles as she fucks herself even harder. "Daryl, that's so good…"

His hand has taken over for his brain. Fuck it, this is an invitation. It's not and that's horrible too but he's so hard it hurts, so hard he can't stand it anymore, and he jerks himself in rough, smacking strokes as her moans rise to a crescendo.

"Daryl, I'm… I'm… God, I'm gonna come, Daryl, I-I'm gonna- Oh Christ-"

She snaps her whole body back and up with a cry that seems to begin in her cunt and rocket up through her throat, her hips bucking as both hands work herself frantically through it, and he sees her slick thighs and slick lips and slick fingers, her whole body an explosion of brazen pleasure, and he's biting his hand again to muffle what feels like a shout as he comes so hard he spatters the fucking door, his hand, dripping onto the floor below.

Then silence. Except for her heavy, panting breaths. Except for his.

What he's done.

Numbly, he releases his softening dick and raises his hand, staring at the milky fluid streaked over it, stretching in cobweb strands between his fingers when he spreads them. As if he doesn't understand. Because he doesn't.

He came. Because of her.

And she was moaning his name.

Doesn't matter. His brain is stuttering like a bad motor, tires spinning. Doesn't matter what happened. What happens now. God, he needs to… He needs to put his fucking dick back in his pants and he needs to find a way to clean this up before she gets up and sees it, sees him, knows what he did. It might still be okay.

He might yet be saved.

He puts his dick back in his pants - still sticky but whatever - and he's considering the merits of just using his goddamn shirt to take care of the rest when her voice comes to him, low and still rough, and the world stops on its axis.

"Daryl?"

Exact wrong place. Exact wrong time.

She's sitting up. She's sitting up and facing the door. And she's looking right at him.

He should fall to his knees. He should collapse and crawl to her and confess everything, beg her forgiveness, promise her it'll never happen again. Beg her to stay with him even if he's a piece of shit because the truth is that he literally doesn't know how to live without her now.

That was true before he ever climbed those fucking stairs.

He's clamping his eyes shut, biting back a groan of a very different kind, but she says his name again and it's so soft.

No anger. None.

Somehow he manages a breath, and with the same jagged fragment of strength he opens his eyes and looks at her. She's raising a hand and she's beckoning him, and her face… She looks scared, maybe, a little.

But that's not even close to all of it.

"C'mere," she murmurs, and gives him the tiniest, sweetest smile he's ever seen in his life. "Maybe we should talk."