Something about the forbidden has always held a strange allure — not quite danger, not quite desire, but that charged place where the pulse stumbles and something inside you leans closer. Temptation never dragged you; it simply waited, quiet and patient, offering the faint glow of a flame.

Smoking lived in that shadowed category. The scrape of a lighter wheel, the brief flare of fire catching tobacco — that second where light gilds a face before slipping back into darkness — always felt like a ritual you weren’t meant to witness. Others saw ash and ruin. You saw precision. Ember. Exhale. A whispered confession leaving the chest.

Your parents had tried to keep you far from every vice. They raised you on rules stitched from worry and love. You followed them for years — right up until the day you enlisted. Joining the army had been your first true rebellion, the first moment you stepped outside the lines they drew.

Military life thrived on quiet contradictions: rigid order wrapped around small acts of defiance. Cigarettes tucked behind ears. Beer after bad days. Little habits that softened the edges of the world.

That was how you ended up spending nights like this with the 141 — and how Simon Riley became something you gravitated toward without fully meaning to. Beneath the mask, beneath the bone-deep stillness, there was a dry wit, a steady intelligence, and a way of watching you that felt almost protective.

Tonight the pub was warm, humming with low voices. Makarov was finally contained. For once, the world exhaled.

Riley sat beside you, balaclava pushed to the bridge of his nose, tattooed forearms bare where his sleeves were rolled. Ink curled across his hands and knuckles, black against scarred skin. With the mask half lifted, you could see the strong line of his jaw and the full shape of his mouth as he breathed — lips slightly chapped, faintly parted in concentration.

He pulled a dented metal tin from his pocket and set it on the table. Inside: papers, filters, loose tobacco. Pieces of a ritual that clearly soothed him.

You watched as he rolled a cigarette with careful, almost graceful movements. His hands — inked, strong, familiar with violence — treated the delicate paper with surprising gentleness.

He flicked open an old army lighter. The flame painted the sharp line of his jaw, flared amber across his eyes. He brought the cigarette to his lips, and for a moment you couldn’t look away — the way his full mouth closed around the paper, the steady pull of his inhale, the ember glowing as if answering him alone.

He caught you staring. “Don’t tell me you’ve never smoked,” he said, voice low, amused.

“My parents would haunt me,” you replied.

A soft huff. “Joining the army probably did that already.”

You snorted. “Fair.”

He nodded toward the cigarette. “Want to try?”

“I wouldn’t even know how.”

He offered it to you, holding it between tattooed fingers. “Deep inhale. Hold it a second. Then let it go.”

Your fingers brushed his as you took it. You tried your first drag — too sharp, too deep. The burn hit your lungs like fire, and you coughed hard, eyes watering.

Riley’s laugh was warm, rough. “Easy,” he murmured. “Didn’t say breathe like you’re drowning.”

“You weren’t very specific,” you rasped.

He plucked the cigarette from your hand, thumb brushing your wrist. “First time always hits wrong.” He took another slow drag — those full lips shaping around the filter — exhaling in a ribbon of smoke that curled like something lazy and deliberate. “Like that. You let it settle.”

He leaned closer, heat radiating from him. His tattooed hand cupped your jaw, thumb tracing lightly. “Here,” he said, voice dropping to something softer, darker. “Easier way to learn.”

Then he kissed you — warm at first, then deeper, smoke slipping between you, shared breath and heat and something molten. You tasted tobacco and him, your pulse kicking hard in your chest.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead brushed yours.

“That,” he whispered, breath warm against your mouth, “is how you take it in.”