You snorted. “Not even for me?” Even as a joke it felt demanding, assumptive, that he would do anything for you.
“I’ve got this,” he said, pulling the vibrator from your grip, “if I wanna do summat for you.” He frowned, feeling around, before he twisted it and it hummed to life in his hand. “Ahhhh,” he crowed. “There it is.” He grinned at you and you snorted.
“It’s weak,” you said.
“Sure about that?”
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Up later than intended here -- sorry! April was a very, very busy (but positive, mostly) month. Thank you for reading these unexpected pests -- I hope you enjoy. This is the last of their total twelve hour arc, but if you’re curious about an addendum, feel free to head on over to Patreon (however, it’s not necessary to enjoy this story, not to read at all if that isn’t for you). Happy reading, loves! x
1:11.
The harsh buzz of his phone vibrating on the nightstand made your eyes fly open, startled from your doze. Harry tightened his arm around you while his other hand shot out to grab it.
“What is it?” you asked drowsily, burrowing against his chest.
“Flight reminder,” he murmured, voice gravelly from his own doze.
Dread cemented in a lump in your stomach. Twelve whole hours together, and somehow it wasn’t enough. “You can use the shower, if you want,” you said.
“Probably a good idea.” He sighed heavily and dropped his phone on the bed. “Later.”
“Harry….”
“Later,” he repeated, wrapping his other arm around you and drawing you tighter into his chest. “I’ve got time.”
Not enough, you thought but didn’t say.
Four hours and a little bit to go, and they were going by much, much too fast.
Twelve hours. Twelve precious hours, and you were spending so many of them sleeping, too, with both of you falling in and out of it, curled up together under the thin sheet. Every time you’d opened your eyes and seen the clock, your heart had picked up in a spike of anxiety, but when you’d looked at him and seen him with his eyes closed, brow furrowed, whistling through his nose, you’d groggily laid your head down on his chest until you were pulled back under, only waking again when a panicked thought would remind you of the truth.
Twelve hours and time was running out.
Cheek to his chest, you closed your eyes and listened to his breathing. He was warm and familiar. Despite being a recent occurrence, nothing about being pressed against him, skin-on-skin, felt new, or strange, or indecent.
“Are you tired?” you whispered in a sandy voice.
“M’exhausted,” he said, equally as garbled and worn. “Couldn’t fuckin’ sleep last night.”
“Because of me?”
You were teasing him, but he grunted and didn’t say anything else, and you opened your eyes, this new information settling in and making you hyper aware of the fact that he’d agonized over his decision to come to your room this morning.
“Why?” you asked, soft enough that, if he wanted to, he could ignore it. You wouldn’t hold it against him.
“S’only twelve hours,” he mumbled at last. “Y’know? Not sure if that’s really fair.”
You noted the use of the present tense and burrowed your cheek closer, squeezing him around the middle.
The kit that had been delivered was on the table next to the clock radio. It was an embarrassingly lurid fucsia thing, and the man who’d delivered it had hardly been able to look you in the eye. Wordlessly, you reached across him and picked it up, resettling into his side to pluck at the plastic sealing it. He, to his credit, didn’t say any one of the smarmy lines that would be all too easy to indulge in, and when you popped the top off, the contents jumped out. Two condoms, which you pressed into his chest and he snickered under his breath, catching them. A packet of lube, a miniature bullet vibrator, and….
You held up the rubbery ring to him.
“M’not puttin’ that on,” he said.
You snorted. “Not even for me?” Even as a joke it felt demanding, assumptive, that he would do anything for you.
“I’ve got this,” he said, pulling the vibrator from your grip, “if I wanna do summat for you.” He frowned, feeling around, before he twisted it and it hummed to life in his hand. “Ahhhh,” he crowed. “There it is.” He grinned at you and you snorted.
“It’s weak,” you said.
“Sure about that?”
You didn’t say anything, but your mouth went dry, and you shivered as he drew it up and down your arm and then across your chest and over your nipple lightly. Squirming, you grabbed his wrist, and he snickered, his voice breaking with exhaustion when he repeated, “Sure about that?”
“You’re an idiot,” you declared.
“Sure about that?”
“Yes!”
He laughed, but when you pushed away from him, he went after you and you shrieked, flattened into the bed, and you thumped his back. “Harry,” you said, grinning despite yourself, breathless from his weight.
He pressed scratchy kisses into your neck, and you could feel his chuckles against your skin as he peppered them up and down the column and then over the top of your chest. When he nuzzled your breast, though, your breath hitched, and his next kiss on your skin was more reverent -- a small touch of his tongue before his lips fell tenderly to complete it. Laughter fell away gradually, replaced by sighs and the gentlest moans from both of you -- his deeper and drowned in his throat and yours higher and unrestrained, urged on when he kissed harder, the vibrator abandoned somewhere neither of you cared about.
“Is this ok?” he mumbled without breaking away. He kissed the inside of your elbow and you gasped, fingers sliding into his hair as you nodded breathlessly.
“Please,” you said. “Please, Harry--”
He shuddered, then, and you jerked when he bit down sharply just under your breast. The jolt of adrenaline shot straight through you, and he kissed and nipped his way up your sternum, down over your belly, and then back up until he was at your shoulder, and it was then that you lifted your head and opened your mouth.
“Fuck!” His groan was deep and you could feel him tense under your touch, shuddering in your bite. Seconds later, you made a sharp noise when he returned it on your shoulder before turning your face into his cheek and nipping his jaw. He rewarded you with another groan and caught your lips in a kiss that quickly deepened and you whimpered, pushing your hands up his back to pull him closer. His cock was hard in the crease between your thigh and pelvis, and you moaned when he rutted his hips once, twice, instinctively seeking relief.
“M’gonna….” He swallowed hard and your hands simultaneously reached for the abandoned contents of the kit scattered in the sheets. You got a condom by your fingertips first, and you clapped your hand to the back of his neck to hold him in the kiss before letting go to fumble with the packet. You slid the latex disk out before he lifted up for you to roll it onto his cock in one quick motion, and you smoothed your hand down to finish the job.
“Good?” you whispered. He nodded, eyes barely open and his jaw tight and sharp. He exhaled with rattling force, then, and dropped his forehead to your shoulder. You kissed his at the same spot you’d bitten, and when he shifted, you opened your legs wider and swallowed back your beating heart.
“Ok, I’m…” he mumbled, turning his face into your neck. He peppered kisses up it and your jaw, and you inhaled sharply when he rolled his hips over yours, cock nestled over your clit. You whimpered and dug your left hand into his back while his own laced with your right next to the pillow your head was on. “Ok?” he prompted, voice strained.
You nodded quickly. “Mmhm.”
He kissed you through his first slow, sinking thrust, dipping in and out of you to give you time to adjust and open easily for him, swallowing up each of your noises and taking your deathgrip on his playing hand in stride. You were wet, and it wasn’t difficult or painful, but it was… he was… a lot. You pulsed with each bit more he stretched you, and you could feel him throbbing inside you, too.
“You’re ok,” he mumbled against your mouth. You sighed, parting your lips when his tongue dipped between their seam, and he took the inch you gave him without a moment’s hesitation. You groaned together on his next thrust, and you squeezed your thighs around his hips when he repeated it, finding his angle to glide in and out.
You huffed laughs and sputtered gracelessly against each other’s mouths, in a raw, unskilled and unpracticed way that was analogous to an inability to walk and chew gum at the same time but, somehow, held more primal appeal. You were robbing each other of finesse and patience, each one as guilty as the other, and there was some pride in that, too. If you focused and separated out each sensory experience, you could feel his necklaces dragging against your skin, back and forth in time with each roll of his hips.
His moans were what killed you, though. Soft, lazy rumbles trapped in his throat and smothered into your mouth, his own curved in unspoken pleasure. There was something selfish in the way he grabbed you, held you, kissed you, fucked you, trying to get everything all at once because he wanted it. He broke with one that went straight to your toes and pressed his forehead against yours.
“Look at me,” he pled. “Look at me, look at….”
You cracked your heavy lids open and caught his tremulous smile as he nodded. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glinted under the shadow of his sweaty hair. “That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s it, honey… oh….”
His eyes fell shut with his groan and you had the distinct thought that he should be looking at you, too, if you had to keep your eyes open. Your mouth moved uselessly, though, yielding only whimpers and soft iterations of his name. You kissed his neck, his jaw, his shoulder, and his bicep, feeling borderline hysteria swell in you because nothing was enough. Nothing satisfied you, you wanted your mouth everywhere, your hands, his mouth and hands. Twelve hours wasn’t enough. It was almost over and you’d just gotten him.
“Harry….”
He must’ve heard it in the way you said his name, because he thrust harder, then, each fall of his hips heavier than the last and punctuated by grunts that were beyond man.
“Don’t stop,” you whimpered. “Please… please don’t sto-- oh!” Pleas turned to babbles and you clutched him closer, hands slipping and finding their place on his body again each time. Both of you descended into a language neither of you spoke but somehow understood, following a path made up of instinct and cues. When he rolled over and took you with him, you bore down on his chest and squeezed his hips with your thighs as he guided you by yours, restrained but encouraging, but it didn’t last long before he groaned gutturally through his teeth and his stomach tensed to pull himself up. You locked your arms around his neck as he found your mouth again, but you were just finding your rhythm when he broke with a shuddering breath.
“Over,” he whispered. “Over-- on your-- is that--?”
Between the both of you, you managed to clamber off him, and you melted from your hands and knees onto your stomach, holding the sheets in your fists with your cheek pressed into the mattress. You shouted wordlessly when he thrust in again, his hands on your hip and ass, and your eyes watered with the even, deep rhythm he found. You could see his lips moving and eyes rolling up in the mirror on the wall, and you stared, transfixed and with your abdomen growing tighter and heavier.
“Tight,” he said under his breath in awe. “Tight, tight, fuckin’... fuck….”
You turned your face into the bed and your pitchy moan echoed through the mattress.
“Lemme hear,” he said. “Oh, lemme….”
“I wanna--” You gulped, mouth dry. “Harry, I wanna--”
“I know,” he muttered, his thrusts rough and choppy. “Fuck, I know, I know….”
Whimpering, you lifted your hips slightly, and it was then he pulled out completely again and rolled you onto your back. “C’mere,” he said, pushing your knees apart. “C’mere, good girl.”
He pressed his fingers to your clit and your back bowed away from the bed as you cried out, throat tight. He stroked, and pressed, and teased until the room was spinning from how your head rolled from side to side. You were pretty sure he was inside you when you came, but your orgasm was so deep and powerful all you could do was hold onto him through it and cling to consciousness through endless pulses. You went lax with a wet, ugly sound, and he followed suit in seconds, trapping you against the mattress. You writhed together, seeking grounding relief, and he tucked his head into the crook of your neck as your knee went between his thighs, arms winding around the other and slipping on sweaty skin….
“You’re ok,” he groaned. “You’re o-ok.” He smashed a kiss to your shoulder and you absorbed every rattling breath he took. He sputtered laugh. “G-got you good there.”
You nodded and closed your eyes against the spinning room.
***
3:50.
You didn’t even remember falling asleep. One minute you weren’t and the next you were waking up to the sound of your shower running. You sat up with a start, hand flying out beside you, and you blinked, quickly doing the math. Just over an hour and a half left, and then he’d be gone.
“Fuck,” you whispered, dragging your hand down your face. You didn’t even know when you’d fallen asleep, so you didn’t know how long you’d been out or how much time was wasted just lying there unconscious. Your robe was on the edge of the bed and you eased closer, with sore limbs and joints, until you could grab it to pull over your shoulders. You nuzzled the collar and took a deep breath, catching what he’d smelled like before the sex on it. From the corner of your eye, you saw a tied up condom in the wastebasket, and you snorted, burying into the soft fabric. You didn’t even remember him when he came. Not his face, or what he’d felt like, or any of it. You’d been so far gone yourself, you’d missed it.
Everything that’d happened had been real.
The bathroom door opened and you looked up as he strolled out in a towel. He met your eyes and you blinked, noting the softness in his features. He nodded, a slight bob of his head, and you returned it. When he dropped the towel, your lips quirked in amusement. Just twelve hours ago, the sight would’ve scandalized you in more ways than one. Now, you’d had sex with him and it was like he did this every day.
Clothes on, he moved through your room in organized chaos, gathering up what he needed and double checking this, that, or the other thing in the process. Already, he looked a little less like Harry, and a little more like who he had to be. Who he should be, who people expected him to be. Not even an hour ago, he was in bed with you, naked and unguarded, and now he was sharper and looking from the corners of both eyes.
“Do you have everything?” you asked, finally breaking the silence.
“Hmm?” He looked up. “Yeah,” he said before you could ask again. “Yeah, I think… just feel like m’missing summat….” His brow was furrowed and again he retraced his steps through your room and bathroom and you stayed out of his way, curled up on the edge of the bed. You knew better than to get in the way of Hurricane Harry.
“I’ll keep it for you,” you said. “If you have. Or, you know—“ you went on, faltering when he looked at you— “send it on. Probably not to London, because you won’t be there for… but if you tell me where, or who, then I can.”
Where was he going? Who would he be with? Would he be coming home at all? Twelve hours had already been tight, but suddenly they felt scarce compressed between months of vague wondering and waiting.
“Thanks,” was all he said. “Ok.” He exhaled, smoothing his hands down his t-shirt. “I think that’s….”
You stood when he picked up his bag and followed him towards the door. Should you be? Was this pathetic? Trailing after him like—?
You squeaked when he stopped short and turned. “What’s wrong?” you asked reflexively. His eyes were wide and his jaw was set, sharp, and his face was a little pale even in the shadows.
“I’m gonna be back home soon,” he said. “Ok?”
“I know,” you said.
He licked his lips. “So when I get back….” he took a deep breath. “I’ll see you when I get back?”
You were working rapidly to fit the pieces of what he was saying together, and you nodded, although you weren’t entirely sure what you were agreeing to. How soon was soon? When would he be home? What would you be figuring out, and what did that mean in the meantime? Were you, even tentatively, starting something? What went with that, for him and for you? The idea of him even flirting with someone else made your insides molten. Before, the thought would tickle and prickle uncomfortably, but you’d had twelve hours with him where he was yours and vice versa. You’d slept with him -- knew things about him and what he liked, what made him feel good. He’d made you feel….
He exhaled, lips turning up at one corner, and he pulled his shoulders back. He looked simultaneously relieved and cocky. “Right,” he said, mouth still twitching. “I’ll see you when I’m back.” Before you could wonder, he slipped his hand over your waist and leaned in. The kiss was quick — not like most of the ones you’d shared over the course of the day — but he squeezed your cheek. “I’ll see you,” he repeated.
You smiled slightly and stepped back as he opened the door, and then… he was gone. Until he wouldn’t be again.
Twelve hours and everything had changed completely. Nuzzling the collar of your robe again, you turned and slowly padded back into your room.
“Did you really just ask the front desk for a condom?” you asked.
“Intimacy kit,” he corrected you, still pink. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Comes with all sorts of things.”
“Ordered a few of them before?”
He looked at you, then, and stammered. “I just thought-- we don’t have to-- but I thought if we--”
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8:35am.
You’d fallen asleep just like that -- tangled up, skins stuck together with sweat. Two hours later, you had to peel yourselves apart with whispery snickers and pounding heads. It would’ve been gross -- it was gross, to be honest -- except it was him. You smelled like him, he smelled like you, and it poured satisfaction into a well of need for this specifically that you hadn’t known existed until it was full.
“Stay with me.” Deep, rumbled, and just a little slurred, the words made you smile, and you curled up, eyes closed, when he dragged his warm hands and mouth along your back, shoulder, arm, chest, and stomach. One of his legs was wedged between yours, and he was leaving spongy, scratchy kisses up and down the back of your neck that made you scrunch up. “C’mon, darling,” he sighed hotly against your skin, slipping his arm firmly around your midriff to squeeze you back into his chest. “Stay w’me,” he mumbled with honeyed persuasion that needlessly gilded the spider web of his you’d found yourself in.
“I have work, you know,” you drawled without any real conviction. Hang work -- hang it all. It was partially because of your work that you’d missed every attempt of his to connect like this over the past few days. You weren’t set to fly out that day, not just yet, but he was, and then he’d be gone and you didn’t know when you’d see him next. You’d been gifted with twelve whole hours, and almost three of them were already gone.
“Get sick,” he said, the demand muffled by your neck, and you laughed, turning into your pillow.
Were you really going to leave him there, in your bed, knowing he wouldn’t be there when you got back and that the hours you did have were wasted?
You’d gone to dinner last night, and something hadn’t sat well with you. That was the excuse you used when you made your calls, trying to sound as hoarse as possible, and when the last one was done, he rolled on top of you and you laughed and tried not to focus on how easy it was for him to settle his hips between your thighs as he peppered kisses up and down your jaw and neck, all but gloating in his gratitude.
He ordered breakfast at 8:50am and answered the door in your robe at 9:20am, giving a tip and a smile while you burrowed under the blanket and searched for the television remote somewhere in the sheets.
It was a lazy affair, with both of you reclined against the headboard, captive audiences of the bad local news station you’d turned on to catch up with the day. Every now and then, he’d chuckle or snort or offer his commentary with a sort of bemused delight similar to a wizard discovering a toaster for the first time. “Strange, innit?”
“What is?” you murmured, breaking off a piece of blueberry crumb muffin.
“This!” He waved his fork and the strawberry speared on the end of it at the talking alligator on screen. “Bizarre.” He pulled the fruit off the fork with his teeth and chewed, shaking his head.
“This is not the strangest thing you’ve ever seen.” You brought a piece of your muffin to his mouth and he opened it without breaking focus.
“Didn’t say that, but it doesn’t mean it’s not weird.”
“Weirder than LA? New York? Texas? London? Tokyo?”
“What’s your point?”
You snickered and took his fork from him to steal a grape from the bowl.
“What is this?” He all but wheezed, hand on his belly over the butterfly’s wings as he stared at the screen, eyes crinkled with incredulity.
“Open,” you said, and he did as you asked, tongue darting forward to meet your fingers. “Harry, you licked me!” you cried when you felt the wet slide over the side of your finger.
His jaw stopped midchew, focus broken, and heat burst through you when his puckered mouth twitched and then flattened with suppressed laughter.
“I--”
He swallowed and the bed shook with his silent chuckles. “Didn’t think about that one before y’said it, did you?”
You made a noise in your throat and rolled away from him as he laughed behind you. “Go away,” you said into the mattress. He was still laughing when you heard the clink of dishes being set aside and when he slid up behind you to get close.
“Have to wait a few hours for that,” he mumbled, kissing the back of your shoulder. “Couple more hours at least. Wouldn’t throw me out in the cold, would you?”
“It’s Miami,” you said, voice muffled. “You’ll be fine.”
He turned you on to your back and slunk his way under your arm and you held your breath when he came all but nose to nose with you. You could see everything, good and less good -- every pore, every hair, every slight scar, every mole, every beginning of a pimple, all of it. “Not gonna throw me out, are you?” he repeated, huskier and warmer in a delicious way you didn’t think you were supposed to know could be this good.
“No,” you whispered.
He hummed, mouth curved in triumph, and you could see his mind working very fast behind his clear, green eyes. Where you’d been howling your outrage seconds ago, you were pretty sure you were both painfully aware of how close you were right then. Wordlessly, he nuzzled the warm point of his nose against yours and your eyes closed as your breath hitched. Your lips parted just as his tongue touched you lower one, and you sighed, hands slipping up his warm, strong back when the kiss deepened. He tasted sweet -- a little like the strawberry, and a little more like the blueberry and sugar from the muffin. He lowered onto his elbows and you absorbed his weight and warmth without complaint and opened your mouth wider. His groan made you shiver and when you broke, you were both panting. Gulping, he licked his lips.
“M’gonna make a call,” he said. “Downstairs, t’get us some….” He trailed off. “Where’s the….” He grabbed the phone off the bedside table and dropped off to the side of you, jamming his thumb into a button before lifting it to his ear, and you kissed his chest and shoulder, nuzzling the warm skin.
“Hi, yes,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I’m calling for-- I’m wondering if there’s an intimacy kit on hand?”
You looked up at him but he kept his eyes on the ceiling, though his cheeks were flushed and he was breathing heavily.
“Right, yes, thank you, if we could-- have that sent up, that would be… but bill it to room 2201… thank you.” He hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed.
“Did you really just ask the front desk for a condom?” you asked.
“Intimacy kit,” he corrected you, still pink. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Comes with all sorts of things.”
“Ordered a few of them before?”
He looked at you, then, and stammered. “I just thought-- we don’t have to-- but I thought if we--”
You kissed him, then, cutting him off, and his hands slid over your bare back as you clambered onto his lap over the sheet. Belatedly, his hands fell into the small of your back, and you were very aware of where you’d be if there was no sheet between you then. “I like this,” you confessed. Maybe you shouldn’t have, maybe it was too much to feel or vocalize, but you did, as quietly as possible so he could miss it if he wanted to.
“Yeah,” he rasped, hand slipping down to the curve of your ass. He swallowed and you kissed his throat, inhaling the smell of his shower and the sex he’d almost had since. He was warm, and where hair didn’t tickle your mouth, he was also shockingly soft. You had no reason to think he wouldn’t be, you’d just… never thought about it, you guessed. You’d thought mostly about how his muscles would feel -- his arms, his chest, his stomach, all of which were moving heavily as he gulped and breathed deeply. It must’ve been taking his every effort to stay perfectly still underneath you.
You tapped one of his nipples lightly with your index finger before circling it in a featherlight stroke. He huffed a laugh and you glanced up at him, smiling mischievously as his own lips quirked. Without looking at him, you kissed his nipple pertly and he tensed his stomach with a muted, “Oh, fuck.” Giggling in a whisper, you followed the kiss with a playful bite, and his hand slid down to your bare ass.
“I’ll be good,” you said, moving to kiss down his chest and down his stomach, each one slow and lingering, tongue touching his skin. “I’ll be good,” you promised again over his navel, chin once again on a thin line of dark, soft hair, and you pressed kisses to the leaves of the ferns fanning over his hips. Under the sheet, you could see -- feel -- his cock hardening again, and above you, he struggled to keep his eyes open and on you, with his hands curling into fists alternately at his sides and on his head. “Is this ok?” you whispered.
Harry nodded with a strangled sound in his throat. He inhaled sharply, nostrils flared and lips smashed together, but he kept his eyes on you as best he could as you eased the sheet down with shaking fingers. For a moment, your mind went blank, and your lip twitched with an almost laugh when you realized. No dick was that good that it should rob anyone of coherent thought, but his was, apparently, and all yours had gone out the window -- laughable in and of itself.
“I’m sorry,” you wheezed, pressing your forehead to his hip. “I just had a moment.”
“Think that’s a first,” he admitted in a strained drawl above you, but he was chuckling, too.
“I’m sorry,” you repeated. “You’re great, you’re--”
“Y’not helpin’, y’know,” he said, laughing more regularly. “Gonna make a man self-conscious.”
“No.” You kissed his abdomen. “No, I’m sorry, I’m fine now, I just… forgot for a minute.”
“Forgot what?”
Everything was too much to admit to, and instead you wrapped your hand around his cock and he groaned quietly, shifting. Hard, but getting harder still, you pumped with a touch that was much more confident than you felt. Every throb pulsed into your palm, and above you, his throat bobbed as he cleared it, jaw clenching and releasing as he shifted his legs. He was the perfect grip -- big enough to fill your whole hand, but not so much that you felt ineffectual. He was smooth, and he looked so--
His groan when you sucked his head gently echoed through the room, and you felt him twitch on your tongue as you ran it around and around his head. Slowly, your eyes rolled up and closed. He felt good even in your mouth -- smooth and silky -- and he tasted like…. You lowered down, thumb touching your lower lip as a guide down his shaft, and you moaned softly, bobbing your head slowly.
“That’s nice,” he said thickly. You heard his breath rattle in his chest and you cracked your eyes open. His own were in barely open slits, and his lips were parted, left arm thrown over his head, stretching his tattoos out ever so slightly as his muscles flexed every time he opened and closed his hand in a fist. “Shit, that’s so nice,” he intoned in disbelief, smiling with a breathless little laugh. “So soft… bein’ careful w’me, aren’t you?”
You blinked and pushed him into your cheek with your tongue, sucking a little more, and he groaned loudly, eyes closing completely for a moment. “Jesus, that’s it,” he praised, and a knot tightened in your stomach. You ran your tongue up and down in short sweeps along the vein you could feel and his whole face crumpled as his stomach rose and fell. He dropped his hand and linked it with his other one over his chest in a basketweave, and his knuckles went white as he took slow, deep breaths.
The rush from looking at him so powerless and vulnerable and open and trusting and absolutely in awe of every little thing you did? Intoxicating. You were shaking from it and you could feel how wet you were between your thighs -- you were dripping, like he hadn’t just licked up every bit of you he could as if his own life had depended on it.
For a moment, with your eyes on him, you allowed yourself to imagine what it would be like to just pull your mouth off him and straddle him to sink down on him. You let yourself think of the feeling -- the full stretch, judging by the way your jaw was just about popping -- and the look on his face. You let yourself revel in the groans he’d make as his face crumpled, and how his chest would heave, and what his skin would look like with the tracks of his fingers over it as you struggled to find your proverbial footing. You’d both be sweating, and grabbing the other, and the thought of his teeth finding your sensitive skin made your hair stand on end and you whimpered.
“Like it?” he whispered. “S’it good?”
You nodded, and pulled off him with a wet gasp before licking a stripe along the underside of his cock, from base to tip and back again.
“That’s good,” he said. “Get all over, s’ok… shit.” His throat bobbed and he unclasped his fingers to grip the bedsheets. “Get all over me, get everywhere, it’s ok, it’s f-fine--” He made an almost pained noise and lifted his hand, and brushed it over the back of your head before dropping it to the bed as he squirmed. “Get my balls,” he mumbled, head rolling against the headboard. “Oh, fuck, please….”
His breath stuttered and he gulped, eyes opening wide and unfocused on the ceiling. Cock wet from your tongue, you pumped your hand up and down while sucking one ball and then the other into your mouth, ears prickling from the soft, pathetic noises he was making. “Holy shit, s’incredible!” he gasped. “Shit, I’m….” Harry trailed off, choking on his words, and his hand came to rest on the back of your head when you wrapped your mouth around the tip of his cock again. You suckled, with alternating pressure, and bobbed up and down, eyes closed and head swimming from his guttural grunts.
“M’gonna cum,” he said, his mumble punctuated with a wordless shout when you twisted your hand around his wet cock and squeezed. He throbbed against your palm and you heard him take a sharp breath as his fingers tightened on the back of your head, but without pressure to push you down. “Don’t stop,” he breathed, heaving by then. “Don’t stop, m’gonna cum so… gonna cum so hard, I’m--”
You whimpered around him and your other hand pressed against his stomach. He clapped his free hand over it and held it there, wheezing, and you opened your eyes briefly, catching a glimpse of his face contorted in the most erotic agony -- cheeks and chest pink and sweaty, hair mussed, teeth bared with his shout, and the vein in his neck popping -- before you tasted the first salty, tangy string. You stilled, tightening your lips, absorbing every groan as his thighs tensed and released under you in his effort to not squirm and buck you off. He let go of your head to clutch your hand against his stomach with both of his, and your palm slipped against his slick skin. With some effort, you gulped, mouth still holding him, before you relaxed and pulled off him. You ran your tongue over his head and released him with a soft pop before sitting up slightly, neck and jaw both aching and throat just a little inexplicably sore.
He, beyond a shadow of a doubt, looked spent. His eyes were closed and there was a slump to his shoulders, and his chest rose quickly with each shallow breath he took, and he still hadn’t let go of your hand. “Think….” He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “Think y’really did summat to me,” he rasped. When he looked at you at last, he was dazed, and a dumbfounded smile pulled at the corners of his mouth before his eyes slid shut again. “Fuck,” he sighed.
“Are you going to nap now?” you asked, voice thick and husky. He laughed.
“Don’t,” he said. You crawled up his body, unsteady knees guiding you on either side of him. “Don’t tease me, m’only… I’m trying my best, aren’t I?”
You grinned, and you’d just gotten to perch on his thighs when a knock at the door startled you both. Your head whipped around just after his eyes flew open and he gripped your hand tighter.
“That’ll be the kit,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Oh.” You’d almost forgotten he’d called down for it. “Right. I can….” You pulled your hand free from his. “I can get it.”
“If you--”
“I can,” you repeated, nearly toppling over as you swung your leg off him. “Stay.” You flung the sheet haphazardly over his waist and he chuckled as you stood and pulled your robe on, glancing at the clock on the bedside table as you did.
You looked at the alarm clock next to your bed. “It’s 6:15.”
He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but… it’s my last day here. And I haven’t seen you once.”
“You were busy,” you said automatically, a familiar excuse that had become rote at some point. “We were--”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Busy, busy, always busy. “But my flight’s not until this afternoon, so I thought… my morning’s free, and if you want to….”
“What time is your flight?”
Eleven, twelve, one…?
“Five.”
“Five!?”
“Thirty,” he confirmed. “That’s when I leave for the airport, anyway.”
He was not serious. He couldn’t be.
“You’re seriously--”
“Going to spend the next twelve or so hours with you, yeah,” he said in one quick breath. “If you’ll let me.”
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This took a minute (yes, I hate italicizing from Google and making a Wattpad cover that much. Yes, I will avoid it like the plague. Yes, there was a lot else going on, as well). Thank you to all of you who were patient! I hope you enjoy xx
The knock on your door was too loud, insistent, and rhythmic for it to be an accident, but it was too early for it to be anybody you’d want in your room.
Whatever it was in the Miami air, it’d absolutely drained you of all energy. Every night since you’d landed, you’d passed out at 11:00pm, sharp, and slept until around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, and the only reason you got out of bed then was the only reason you were even in the city to begin with.
“Work trip? To Miami?”
Harry had brightened considerably when you mentioned when and where you’d be going for a quick turnaround, and you hadn’t understood why until he told you what wasn’t quite public yet. He’d be working, too, and his calendar was full (he’d absolutely deserved the ribbing you gave him when he told you that), but, “‘S’nice sometimes, y’know? To have a friend around?”
Friend. You hadn’t seen your friend in the three days it’d been since you landed. Even despite being in the same hotel. Even despite having pockets of time in both your schedules that worked, and while part of it might be your fault and your inability to stay awake, part of it was just… timing.
So much of what was between you could be boiled down to timing and lack thereof. Why would a weekend be any different? Why, on this weekend, would you be able to make it work when he had meetings and events jammed in and you had obligations of your own? Why would now work any better than the other opportunities that had fizzled despite every hope, effort, and intention?
The knocking continued and you groaned, throwing the blankets you’d been huddled under down the bed as you twisted to look at the hotel alarm clock.
Six in the morning. Six! And they were still going! They’d better be telling you something extremely good or extremely awful to be trying to break down your door this early, but when you glanced through the peephole, your annoyance was tempered with shock and a shot of elation. He was looking up and down the hall, suitcase on the ground next to him and already dressed for the day, and it was then you became aware of how little you were dressed.
“Hang--” You cleared your throat and tapped the door. “Hang on, I’ll be right….” You scrambled back to the armchair you’d thrown your robe on last night to have something on over the camisole and underwear you’d crawled into bed with before twisting the locks and opening the door. “Is everything-- what are you doing here?”
His shoulders rose and fell with his deep breath and you swore you thought his eyes took a quick trip up and down your body. “Morning,” he said, his own voice miles smoother than yours. How long had he been awake? “D’you mind if I…?”
You shook your head and stepped back and he and his baggage disappeared into your room as you closed up. When you rejoined him, he’d deposited his suitcase next to the luggage rack that held yours, and he’d taken off the tinted sunglasses that he had no business wearing so early in the morning, anyway. “Did they kick you out?” you asked, still struggling to grasp for real words that meant anything.
He smiled halfway and shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” Now that he was in your room, you could pay attention to him. His hair looked like it still had a little bit of leftover product in it, but not in a dirty, greasy way. His loose-fitting trousers were fastened snugly right above his hips, but it was the t-shirt that made your mouth go dry and your mind wander. Tight and tucked into his trousers, gloves wished they could fit hands like this fit his torso. It was close, and you could see practically every line and indentation of his stomach and chest.
“Hmm?”
He laughed once. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh.” You took a deep breath. “Why are you here?” you asked.
“Figured I’d come hang out.”
You looked at the alarm clock next to your bed. “It’s 6:15.”
He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but… it’s my last day here. And I haven’t seen you once.”
“You were busy,” you said automatically, a familiar excuse that had become rote at some point. “We were--”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Busy, busy, always busy. “But my flight’s not until this afternoon, so I thought… my morning’s free, and if you want to….”
“What time is your flight?”
Eleven, twelve, one…?
“Five.”
“Five!?”
“Thirty,” he confirmed. “That’s when I leave for the airport, anyway.”
He was not serious. He couldn’t be.
“You’re seriously--”
“Going to spend the next twelve or so hours with you, yeah,” he said in one quick breath. “If you’ll let me.”
His eyes were wide and hopeful but guarded, you realized, anticipating the possibility that you might say no.
“I’ve been trying for days.” The quiet confession almost drowned in the deafening silence of the room, and in that moment, you remembered every missed call, every text, every visit to your door that he’d stolen just to see you before he had to run off to an event and you had to crawl into bed. You remembered every fleeting embrace, every missed kiss to the corner of your mouth, every look that had lasted a second too long to be normal and lacked the ability to make him stay. “But we just never… s’never a good time, so I’m making the time for you now. If that’s something you want.”
“Do I want time with you?” You clutched the neckline of your robe like an old woman clutched pearls, and your throat felt tight, full of words you’d swallowed again, and again, and again. Did you want time with him? Of course you wanted time with him. Five minutes, five hours, five days, five years, you wanted anything he could give, but you’d given up on that a little bit. Not on him, but on you.
“Can y’make time?” His throat bobbed and the smile he gave you was crushingly vulnerable even with its self-assured charm. “For me?”
Yes or no. In or out. Carpe diem.
You nodded and it was like a pin had pricked the bubble around both of you, tension easing out in a whistle. Harry shuffled closer and you stood, glued to the carpet in your bare feet, as he lifted his hands. He hesitated for a moment and you saw a glimpse of his tongue held between his lips in thought before he cupped your cheeks. Together, you exhaled, and your eyes closed, heart racing uncontrollably. His hands were warm, sturdy, and soft in their own way, and your lips parted when he drew his thumbs along the apples of your cheeks.
Days after weeks after months after who knew how long, and now he was standing in front of you in a hotel room of all places with less than twelve hours before he had to leave for the airport, but if it was all the time in the world you had….
He kissed you, then, and what little time you had left stood still. A distinct sensation of relief flooded through you, like a geyser that had been waiting to gush, and you sighed through your nose, leaning into his mouth. He’d shaved, but you could still feel the sandpaper of his chin against yours, and it was a sharp contrast to the soft sweep of his tongue into your mouth. For all of five seconds, you couldn’t think, or move, but when he groaned -- deep, throaty, and in a way only he could -- it snapped something in you.
His chest and stomach were firm under your roaming hands, although you liked the softness around his hips best because of the way he sucked in a quick breath. You curled your fingers into the cotton and swayed when he stepped forward and tipped your head back to deepen the kiss further, showing both his hand and his greed, and it was your turn to whimper when he slipped one of his hands down your neck and over your shoulder underneath the robe you’d thrown on. Not anything like the friendly pats and lingering squeezes he’d given you in the past and that you’d returned in kind. There was intent for skin, skin, and more skin in this, and you’d no sooner put your hand on the knot around your waist than he’d joined your fingers with his to pull what you hadn’t realized you’d tied so well.
You shivered when it dropped to the floor, but stretched yourself out against his body when he wrapped his arms ever so carefully around your back. It was like despite having his tongue down your throat (don’t think about it, or you’ll laugh and ruin the moment, you reminded yourself), he still wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch you or where he could put his hands. It was sweet -- funny, but sweet, and respectful in a way you hadn’t anticipated but could have, maybe, expected? He was only a man, and common decency was a low bar, but if the situation were reversed, you didn’t know if you’d think or be able to do the same. His arms were crossed over your back at his forearms, but you could sense his palms hovering out to the side even as kisses grew increasingly frantic with nicking teeth and off center meetings of your mouths. Focusing very hard on not losing those, you clumsily squeezed his bicep until he relinquished his hold a bit, but before he could finish his mumbled question, you grabbed his wrist and, without preamble, placed his hand on one of your breasts.
Despite not wanting to lose the kisses -- they were good kisses, needed kisses, kisses you’d waited a long time for -- you both broke and stood there, nose to nose, chests heaving with his hand cupped over your breast. This was….
“S’different,” he rasped and you nodded. Not just friends, not just kissing. You ran your thumb along the back of his hand, over tendons that were struggling not to flex and to squeeze and feel. He must’ve taken the pause as hesitation, because he started to pull his hand away, but you shook your head and held his hand in place before bearing down on it with gentle pressure.
“Ok,” you whispered breathlessly, nodding slightly, and when he kissed you again, he caught your chin, then your jaw, your neck -- all the way down -- and then across your shoulder. You were glad he was holding onto you when your head tipped back as he pulled the strap of your camisole to the side to sponge eager kisses any and everywhere you’d let him, because honestly? If he didn’t have his arm slanted between your shoulder blades, your legs would’ve crumpled from underneath you.
As it was, you both nearly tripped on your robe when you moved backwards towards the bed, and you landed harder than he did. Your laughs were welcome in the moment, though, and did nothing to alter the mood, and you were still giggling when he resumed his kisses. They only quieted when he reached your chest, and for some inexplicable reason, you tried very hard not to breathe as his own and his lips and the tip of his nose dragged and tickled your skin, but when he slipped his fingers under your neckline to tug it down, there was no need to try at all.
“Holy shit,” he uttered under his breath in faint disbelief. You didn’t even have time to process the fact that he was in awe of you, before his lips were on your breasts, moving between them in a very careful, very attentive, almost laughably even way, like he didn’t want to miss anything. Your back arched slightly when he settled against you, body warm and mouth hot between your breasts as he nuzzled, kissed, licked, and sucked, taking his time to learn how they felt and what made you moan. As he explored, you did, too, if less so, but your hands found his hair, and petted his face, and ran up and down his shoulders, arms, and back. It was when his own reached between your legs that you clamped your thighs down over his wrist and he lifted up.
“Ok?” His eyes were dark and his hair mussed -- partially thanks to you -- and the pink flush in his cheeks had nothing on the color of his mouth. His forehead was damp and you belatedly realized your chest was, too, and you could feel yourself quivering with the heat of his hand pressed so intimately against you.
“Yes.” You pressed your hand to his cheek and he turned into your wrist, breathing deeply and kissing your pulse point.
“Is this…?” He swallowed. “I don’t-- we don’t have to do anything more, I only--”
“No,” you rushed to say. “No, I just… wasn’t expecting--”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve--”
“It’s ok,” you said. “I’m ok. I want to, it just felt--” New, different, good, so fucking good, and it’d surprised you.
“Sure?”
Wordlessly, you nodded, and forced your legs to open despite how tense with anticipation they were. You nodded again and let out a slow breath, but he watched you until your eyes closed and your body melted into the mattress. When he finally ran his thumb down your slit through your underwear, you clenched and bit your lip to muffle a sound, lips twitching. This felt… nice. Better than nice, this care and intention stoked something in you that you didn’t remember feeling since you were a frustrated and hormonal teenager raging out of control. He was going to fit the minutes and hours from days and months that had been squandered into every second of the twelve hours you had left, wasn’t he?
Harry pressed his thumb into your clit and rubbed smooth, warm circles over it, and you touched the back of your hand to your mouth. “That’s good,” you mumbled, heartbeat quickening, face crumpling when he increased the pressure slightly. It was when he kissed your abdomen that you whimpered and pushed your hand into his hair, but he kept kissing along the waistband of your underwear, and your belly tensed when he took a deep breath. You weren’t quite aware of when or how he got them off you -- let alone how he’d managed to do so seamlessly and without awkward wriggles or kicks or knees to his face -- but you were very aware of when he finally had you spread open and he was on his stomach between your legs. You were very aware of how hot his breath was on your cunt, and you were very aware of the sound of that first delicate, velvety lick in dead silence. He got through three, maybe four, careful, languid strokes of his tongue in, with his eyes closed in steadfast concentration and his hair falling over his brow before he licked up your slit and finished it with your clit firmly suctioned into his mouth.
Your jaw dropped in awe. “Oh my--!” His lips fluttered and your whole chest opened with your breath. “Ah…!”
He groaned and your eyes watered, and you watched, unable to tear yourself away. He was ravenous -- eating you out like his life depended on it while simultaneously holding back and never giving or taking as much as either of you wanted. Each glide of his tongue was deep and smooth, and each suck hollowed his cheeks for only a moment. You whimpered and pulled your fingers through his hair uselessly to quell the jitters and need to do something. Every time you thought he was going to suckle for a little longer, a little harder, he’d break off abruptly and the inch you’d gained climbing would be erased by your backslide. You were sweating from the effort and duration it was taking -- your breasts and stomach had a sheen on them, and your thighs slipped against the side of his head. His roots were damp and hot, too, to the point where the air conditioner may as well have stopped working, but for all the world he looked like he’d never been happier or more content than he was to be eating your pussy.
“H-Harry….” Your breath hitched, a muted cry caught in your throat when again he released the toe-curling suction too soon for it to matter. “Please, please,” you begged, fingers combing through his hair as your pelvis rolled under his mouth. “I can’t… I wanna cum.” Straight to the point, unable to wheedle or dance around the subject -- it wasn’t like he didn’t have his face pressed into your cunt right then or anything. “I wanna cum, I really--”
His eyes, which had been closed up until that point, slowly opened and locked on you, darker than you thought you’d ever seen them. One of his hands unstuck itself from your thigh and he reached up your stomach and you clasped it in yours, fingers laced tightly with an almost crushing intensity between his as you nodded encouragingly, desperately, mouthing please, please to him. He shifted against the mattress, then, and, still holding your gaze and your hand, he puckered his lips.
The ugliest sound ripped from your chest, but you laughed in almost hysterical relief because he wasn’t stopping -- at long last, he wasn’t stopping, and the pressure and tension tickling your abdomen grew tighter, promising to live to its full potential. “Holy shit!” you breathed, smiling despite yourself. “Oh, God, I’m gonna cum… you’re gonna make me cum, I’m-- oh!”
You cried out when he pressed his mouth closer, rutting his face against you in a steady rhythm. The last thing you saw before you closed your eyes were his, and you wheezed and whimpered your way through convulsions with their hunger burned into your eyes as you called out for him. You’d never felt an orgasm like this -- so thorough, deep, and full bodied, and entirely draining.
“Fuck!”
It wasn’t the guttural swear that made your eyes fly open even as the room spun, but the sensation of his teeth against your thigh. Not hard, but sharp, and when you looked at him you found his face screwed up against your leg, rutting against the mattress. Belatedly, your brain put the pieces together -- it wasn’t just his face in your cunt, it’d been his whole body, the whole time, driving himself against the bed in search of his own relief with his mouth full of you and your thigh when he wasn’t whimpering breathless apologies and confessions of how hard he was (“M’sorry-- oh, shit, m’so-- m’hard, m’sorry, love, m’so-- hurts, I just need--!”). He squeezed your thigh with bruising force, letting out keening moans as his shakes turned to shudders, and you knew he was finished when he let out a noise so deep your hair stood on end and he came to a sudden stop with his face still burrowed against your leg.
“Fuck,” he rasped. “F-fuck, s’so… sorry, that’s….” He pressed his forehead into your skin. “That was incredible,” he said, voice thick and unevenly pitched. “You were….”
He picked his head up and wiped his mouth and the tip of his nose with his thumb before slipping it past his lips and sucking lightly, forehead lined in agony. With weak fingers, you tugged the back of his t-shirt, and he crawled on even weaker hands and knees up your body. It was a struggle to get it untucked from his trousers and even worse to get it off his torso from how damp it was, but eventually you did, and you threw it away with a whoosh and a thud. He kicked his worn in white Vans off his feet and they landed with a thunk off the side of the bed, and his trousers were next, and when they were gone, you flattened yourself against him, mouth on his shoulder and leg between his, desperately seeking skin on skin.
“Alright?” He cupped the back of your head. “Ok?” You nodded and he kissed your forehead. “You’re ok,” he mumbled. “You’re good, honey.”
“Are you?” you asked against him. Because he couldn’t stop trembling -- his muscles kept jumping under your touch and his heart was giving its own big band performance in his chest.
“L’be fine,” he said. “Be ok, just need… need a minute.”
Gradually, his heart and yours both slowed and heavy breathing evened out. And the last thing you saw before you closed your eyes for good and slipped under was the time.
You looked at the alarm clock next to your bed. “It’s 6:15.”
He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but… it’s my last day here. And I haven’t seen you once.”
“You were busy,” you said automatically, a familiar excuse that had become rote at some point. “We were--”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Busy, busy, always busy. “But my flight’s not until this afternoon, so I thought… my morning’s free, and if you want to….”
“What time is your flight?”
Eleven, twelve, one…?
“Five.”
“Five!?”
“Thirty,” he confirmed. “That’s when I leave for the airport, anyway.”
He was not serious. He couldn’t be.
“You’re seriously--”
“Going to spend the next twelve or so hours with you, yeah,” he said in one quick breath. “If you’ll let me.”
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How do we write Christmas fics in a really weird year? I’m still not sure, but I tried to string together a bit of relief for the end of December. I’m shutting myself up now, even though there’s lots I want to say. This is for anyone who wants it, anyone who needs it, anyone who enjoys it (or hates it!) silently and vocally alike. My Christmas gift is the happy and unexpected bonus of anyone reading what I have so much selfish fun thinking of and spinning out. Happy and Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a happy and merry end of December if you don’t and are just doing you! x
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It was the big Christmas tree you’d dragged back home by yourself on top of a rickety shopping cart all the way from a place on Second Avenue that had been your breaking point. Picking it had its own bittersweet undertones, but the smell of fresh pine tickling your nose even through a mask had kept you afloat as you struggled to get it off and onto curbs before traffic pancaked you in the middle of the road. It wasn’t until you were back inside, still wrapped in your coat and struggling to get it upright in the stand the correct way that you burst into a torrent of hot, selfish tears and bowed your head, kneeling next to the mass of needles and branches.
He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree – something real in a year that had felt anything but – was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?
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“You coming home with me this year?”
Again. He asked the same question you’ve been dodging for weeks since plans had started to look uncertain again, not because he was pestering you, but because somehow, some way, you were both hoping for an answer with a loophole.
“I can’t,” you said softly, regretfully, holding your phone close to your face with one arm as you curled up under the duvet of a bed in an apartment that had somehow become yours together instead of his alone throughout the course of a very new, very different, very unsettling year. “For a few reasons.”
And he knew that.
Harry’s deep breath crackled and he dragged his hand down his face, holding it there as he shook his head, the thought processes you’d learned to read so well hidden from view.
You’d liked going home with him last year -- loved it, even. You’d hardly had time to look forward to a repeat when the world had flipped in the first quarter or sooner, and the sand had just kept slipping through the hourglass until all time for hope of a new and normal Christmas was gone and sucked away into the void of the year.
So many plans. So many memories that lived only as memories of daydreams now. So much else, so much more important, devastating, and tragic you couldn’t even put it into words and, frankly, didn’t want to. Not now -- you spent too much time thinking about it to think about it now, too.
“Filming’s done soon,” he said from behind his hand. “I can book my flight to New York--”
“Harry--”
“And then go to Manchester after Christmas -- after the New Year, we always take a bit of a longer break. Mum won’t mind--”
“Your mother’s barely seen you since last Christmas,” you said. “Your sister, too, and there’s not enough time to--”
“Course there is!”
“Two weeks quarantine in each?” you asked. “That’s a month of staying put, let alone--”
A split second glance at his face was all you saw before the screen went black and you bit your tongue. He hadn’t hung up, because you’d heard the soft thud when his phone collided with his chest, and you could hear him breathing now, so you waited, suppressing your own urge to snap as he had his. Despite having spent the better part of the year together, it was frustrating to think about not being together for the season. All you wanted was him, though you knew better than to voice it out loud. He’d do it -- for you, he’d do it if you asked him to -- and you’d have to live with the guilt of taking him away from his family at the time of year where family should be together most, if it mattered to them. And you’d been weirdly lucky enough to have him most of the year between carefully navigated business trips. He was only one man with one body. It didn’t -- couldn’t -- matter that you wanted him, too.
That you wanted to be with the man you loved.
When he picked up the phone again, his face was drawn, tired, and not just from filming, you suspected.
“Go home,” you urged, swallowing the break in your voice. “You miss home, and home misses you. I’ll have fun decorating and send you all the pictures you won’t be able to do anything about.”
His throat bobbed hard, audibly, and his eyes looked dangerously shiny.
“Next year I’ll go home with you,” you said, burrowing half your face into your pillow. “London and Holmes Chapel both.”
“Next year,” he said eventually, voice raspy. “We’ll have Christmas at home next year.”
You nodded, forcing the lump rising up, up, and up back down. “You should go to sleep,” you said. “It’s late and you have to be up early.”
“Later for you,” he said and you sighed, noting the 3:08 timestamp at the top of your screen.
“Let’s go,” you said. “Call me when you can.”
“I will.” Sad, but resigned. You wanted to reach through the screen and touch the downturned corners of his mouth to push them back upright again. “Sleep well, and I love you.”
Taking a deep breath, you murmured, “I love you, too,” before hanging up the call and the room descended into darkness and you into a fitful sleep.
***
At first, you were determined to make the most of it. Your studio had always been small, cozy, and Christmasy to the best of your abilities, but his -- your -- apartment had so many more possibilities. Candles were the first to be set out, with strategic clusters of red, green, and gold-colored wax placed all about and nestled in fake holly wreaths. String lights that cast a pretty glow lined windows even in the bedroom for some last minute holiday cheer, and despite the urge to drive him up a wall, you did your best to only pick out other decorations that you’d both like and want to use in the future. Because as much as you might avoid talking about it in many certain terms the longer the relationship went on (it still felt so funny to think that a one night stand had turned into a relationship), there was a future. He was your future. It wasn’t your first Christmas together, but it might be your last one apart.
It was the big Christmas tree you’d dragged back home by yourself on top of a rickety shopping cart all the way from a place on Second Avenue that had been your breaking point. Picking it had its own bittersweet undertones, but the smell of fresh pine tickling your nose even through a mask had kept you afloat as you struggled to get it off and onto curbs before traffic pancaked you in the middle of the road. It wasn’t until you were back inside, still wrapped in your coat and struggling to get it upright in the stand the correct way that you burst into a torrent of hot, selfish tears and bowed your head, kneeling next to the mass of needles and branches.
He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree -- something real in a year that had felt anything but -- was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?
Wiping your nose, you stood, eyes heavy, swollen, and itchy. With your coat gone, you heaved the tree up until it was sitting securely in its stand, needles scattered in its wake but branches full and outstretched, enveloping you in the warm smell of Christmas in a way the cedar- and balsam-scented candles couldn’t. Stepping back with your hands on your hips, you looked up at it, the swell of your anxiety simmering, thanks partly to your crying fit and partly to succeeding at the task. You’d decorate it bit by bit to draw the season out, and then on Christmas Eve, you’d call him and you’d both sit by your own trees and talk until it was Christmas Day for him. It was just for now -- this wasn’t the way of all ways for all time.
Click.
You nearly passed out cold from the rush of fearful adrenaline shooting through you when the lock on the door clicked. In three seconds, you ran through whether or not you’d locked the door, determined that you had but then had forgotten, and figured out that somehow, someone had gotten in and they weren’t supposed to. You spun, frozen, brain zooming to determine if you dove behind a sofa or if you charged, but you didn’t get the chance before the door opened.
A duffle bag, a foot, a body, in that order, and then a pair of wide, green eyes rimmed with circles just above a cloth mask.
“You do not get to be mad at me,” he said, voice muffled. He grunted and pushed the door open wider to bring in the rest of his luggage as you stood there, as equally speechless as you were breathless. “I tested before I came here,” he said, speaking with a loud if exhausted sort of authority, like he was trying to get the words out before you could protest. “But I’ll take the guest room, and I’ll get my own food, and we’ll keep out of each other’s space until the two weeks are up.”
He brought his bags in the rest of the way, and it was only when he was halfway by you that he stopped in his tracks. “Y’haven’t moved,” he said, eyebrows furrowing as he narrowed his eyes on you. “Are you all right?”
Lightheaded, you nodded.
“O… kay,” he said, stilted, still eyeing you. “M’just gonna go get settled and showered, then.”
“What are you doing here?” you asked, the words finally forcing themselves from you.
“S’Christmas.”
“You’re supposed to--”
“Mum knows,” he interrupted. “M’taking Christmas here this year. Gem’ll have Christmas with her and I’ll go along after. She’s excited about having two. ‘Scuse me….”
Nodding, you waved him away to hurry, shoo, because you could feel the emotions rising in you again and your confusion wasn’t enough to quell them. Fifteen minutes ago, you’d been kneeling on the floor with aching knees, crying, and now here he was.
You’d wrestle with the confliction of doing what was right and doing what you wanted… later. Later, when you could wrap your head around it and the choice he’d made.
Two weeks. That would put you just on Christmas Day, basically. Just two weeks.
***
Dodging him around the apartment was a lot more difficult than you would’ve guessed for how big it was. More than once you nearly slammed into him in the kitchen, and someone was always in the favored bathroom. For his part, he’d taken to wearing a mask when he roamed, and even though you told him he didn’t have to do that, all he did was hum behind it. You got it -- the positive result from the crewperson on set had spooked everyone, and he was being safe. You both were being safe, but for as mindful as you’d been throughout, all you wanted to do was hold him, hug him, kiss him. Video calls were ridiculous when you were in the same house and you could hear his laugh through the walls. But you got it, and if you kicked too much he’d book a hotel to quarantine away from you, so you’d rather have him here, as selfish and risky as it was.
It was three days into your little bubble that he finally dared to get within arm’s reach of you. You were mulling over where to put the chimney sweep ornament when he shuffled over to the foot of the ladder you were leaning on, and you raised an eyebrow, arm outstretched.
“Can I help you?” you asked.
He shook his head, the lights from the tree reflected in his eyes. “Just watching,” he said from behind his mask.
“You’re standing a little close, aren’t you?” you teased. Jokes were all you had -- all anyone had this year, if they were lucky.
Immediately, he scowled -- how funny you could tell what his face looked like so clearly even with the cloth stretched firmly across it -- and you giggled. “Watch what you’re doing,” he said, taking his hands from his sweatshirt pocket to grab the ladder legs, and with his support, you held on tightly and leaned over to place it on the prime branch.
“Thank you,” you said. “Do you want to pass me that box?”
He did so and you murmured your thanks, resting it on the top step as you pulled ornaments out to hang them.
“Not there,” he said before you could drop a hook over a branch with a snowflake. “Give it… thank you.” He took it carefully from you and placed it on a different one closer to him, lower than where you were placing it but slightly higher than you could reach without a ladder.
“Thank you.”
Together, slowly, ornaments were hooked and rehooked (and rehooked yet again when one of you noticed the other had moved them from a spot you each thought was perfect) until the tree was trimmed, each branch heavily laden, bearing the weight of ornaments and of providing joy after the year behind.
“How’d you get this home?” he asked, looking up at it with you once you were off the ladder.
“Carefully,” you said dryly. “Oh! The top.” You turned, but he cut across your path.
“I’ve got it,” he said, grabbing the box from the precarious stack next to the coffee table.
“I want to,” you whined and he snorted.
“You’ve done the whole bloody thing,” he said without venom. “Let me do just the one.” With it in hand, he climbed the ladder as you held it steady, and he set it on the topmost branch, prodding it until it was tall and straight up, all five points outstretched and shining.
“That’s perfect,” you said under your breath, resting your head on his leg, and he patted the top of your head gently. You stayed like that for a minute, two, three, and more, with your arm curling around his calf, embracing as much physical contact as he’d allowed since he came home. “How many more days?”
“Eleven.” He sounded thoughtful, resentful, and exhausted all in one go. You squeezed his leg and kissed his knee through his joggers.
“Then it’s Christmas,” you said.
He exhaled slowly, still patting your head. “Christmas morning.”
***
Eleven. Whole. Days.
Eleven days of more of the same. He’d eased up, thankfully, and dared to venture a little closer with a mask on, because, as you’d reminded him, he had tested negative. You sat on opposite ends of the couch, enjoying the Christmas tree and decorations together, laughing, talking, planning, and exchanging stories about everything that had happened while you were apart. His, of course, were wildly more interesting, but he somehow managed to hang onto every word of even your most droll and mundane ones, and always with the right questions and supportive murmurs of agreement as necessary.
Eleven days of saying goodnight and crawling into a bed that was too big for one when two was next door.
Eleven days of not being able to share meals properly or touch each other -- sex aside -- and eleven days of Hell.
“It’s your fault,” you said one night from your end of the couch, scowling with your arms crossed. The tree twinkled happily despite your sour mood, and music that was too merry and bright played from the television.
“Me?” he asked indignantly.
“Yes! You had to do that stupid film.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“You’re wearing a mask in our home,” you said, burrowing into the cushions. “If I want to call it stupid, I will.”
He groaned, dropping his head forward. “Baby….”
You grunted.
“It’s only a couple more days. A couple more days, and then it’s Christmas. Think of it like a present you’re waiting for.”
Despite yourself, you snorted.
“I’m all you want for Christmas, aren’t--?”
“Shut up,” you said, kicking his thigh with your extended leg. He snickered, eyes crinkled and full of light all their own.
“Couple more days,” he said, patting your ankle. “Couple more days, and then you won’t even be able to get rid of me. We’ll be in bed all weekend.”
“I’m not calling your mother from bed.”
He waggled his brows with some exaggeration and you rolled your eyes.
That had been around day five, maybe six. Suffice it to say, by Christmas Eve, you were done.
“It’s one day!” you said over breakfast in the kitchen. “One day, Harry!”
“We made it this long,” he said, pouring hot coffee into a mug that had his face printed onto the head of dancing elf -- a gift from his mother shipped along with a matching one for you that she insisted you both open ahead of time to enjoy for as long as possible. “We can make it a couple more hours.”
“If I stripped naked, what would you do? Stand there and watch me?”
He froze and looked at you over his mask, the heated warning pinning you in place. Huffing, you pushed the stool away from the counter and hopped off it.
“Where are you--?”
“Out,” you said. “I’m going to get--” You floundered. “Coffee.”
A beat passed and his eyes dropped to the mug in his hand.
“We literally have--”
“I’m going out!” you said, wrapping your neck and half your face up in a scarf to keep warm. You were going out, because you were mad, and the tantrum was burgeoning. That poor man had seen more unreasonable tantrums from you this year than he had in the entire two and a half you’d reciprocally acknowledged each other’s presence, and you hated it. But he’d hate it, too, if you’d gone on a trip for work and come back and things were off.
Could be worse, you reminded yourself. It could be so very, very much worse.
“I love you,” you said, calmly, firmly. “I’ll be back. I’m only going around the block. Take that--” You waved at his mask, “--off. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way in..”
When you returned, he was in the guest room, but a fresh cup of coffee in your own dancing elf mug rested on a mug warming plate. The last of your frustrations that hadn’t melted with the walk deflated and you picked it up, enjoying the aroma before taking a deep sip.
He always made it better. And the coffee was nice, too.
His mother called in the afternoon and you hardly noticed he was at your side until the phone was in front of your face and you gave a startled hello.
“Has he been wearing that the whole time he’s been home with you?” she asked, her gleaming eyes and wide, genuine smile matching her son’s own warmth.
Home. With you.
“He has,” you said.
“S’posed to be proud of me,” Harry said and Anne laughed.
“Of course, sweetheart. We’re still calling tomorrow?” she asked you.
“Yeah,” you said. “We’ll be here.”
“Next year will be different, won’t it?” she all but clucked. “Did you like your mugs? I got one for me, Gemma, and Michal, too.”
“Used them just this morning,” he said, squeezing your hip and wandering away. “Won’t be posting them anywhere for people to see, though….”
Eventually -- finally -- the day drew to a close, and you crawled into bed with the knowledge that it was just one more night. One more night, and then in the morning you could say hello like you wanted to. One more night and you wouldn’t want to bite his head off. One more night and you wouldn’t feel so mental, as he would put it.
And yet, lying there, the minutes dragged. Ten? No, just one. Fifteen? Five.
It felt like Christmas, though. As much as this was pure torture, this was what Christmas was supposed to feel like -- like it used to feel when you were a kid and you’d wait for weeks tingling anticipation, counting down, hoping that you’d find what you wanted under the tree, bursting with more energy than any amount of sugar could give you. Except instead of presents, or money, or sweets, you were waiting for the man who’d been under your nose for two weeks by this point. You got to kiss your boyfriend tomorrow. You got to see your boyfriend, hold your boyfriend, and celebrate Christmas with your boyfriend.
Twenty minutes? Two.
12:02.
Two minutes after midnight.
Christmas.
Fourteen days.
Oh!
You sprang from the bed before you could think about the matter and darted to the door over the cold wooden floor, but when you rounded the corner in the hallway, out of nowhere, something all but slammed into you. Sucking in a sharp breath with a screwed up face, you squeaked when you collided with a very warm, very sturdy frame. Belatedly, two arms shot out to grab you by yours to steady you. “Oh my God, I--”
Hair, forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth, too. No mask.
“Are you o--?”
He didn’t get to finish his question. You clapped your hands over his cheeks and kissed him soundly before he could kiss you first. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d laugh -- you both would -- but rather than that, he locked both his arms around you tightly and spun you, teetering precariously with you in tow until you got to the guest bed. Tackle was an apt word for how he delivered you to it, but you were the farthest thing from upset at finally having not even an inch of space between you. The bed smelled like him and it was warm, he was warm, and you were kissing again, and again, and again, cold noses smushing together as you found new angles.
“Christmas,” he mumbled between them.
“Mmhm,” you returned against his mouth, legs interlocking with his. “I missed you,” you whispered.
“Missed you, too.”
Shivering, you both pulled the duvet up over your shoulders, and you curled up against him. Cologne, skin, and laundry detergent, with a bit of his minty toothpaste. There was no scented candle for that. You pressed your fingers against his chest and scratched lightly through the smattering of hair there. “We could go to our bed,” you reminded him, but he shook his head.
“Y’here now,” he rasped, leaning in to press his lips comfortably to your hairline, one arm draped over your back. “Let’s stay here tonight and we can change things later.”
“Were you coming to get me?” you asked, voice shaking as the last of the shivers left your bones.
“Yeah,” he admitted. You laughed, teeth chattering, and he pulled you closer. “Don’t laugh!” he said, rubbing your back and warming you. “S’been two weeks for me, hasn’t it?”
“For you!”
“You try bein’ home with you for that long,” he mumbled.
Shaking again, but less than before, you kissed the underside of his chin. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, darling.”
***
When you woke up, his back was to you, and his one shoulder was rising and falling with the rhythm of his sputtery, wheezy snores. You smiled, closing your eyes, and snuggled into the pillow. Better -- much better. You dozed on for an unknown amount of time, and you were walking the line between sleep and consciousness when featherlight kisses across your brow startled you and you jerked awake.
“Sorry,” Harry mumbled, only sounding slightly truthful. You made a noise and stretched, shaking from head to toe before curling up into a tight little ball next to him and opening your eyes fully. His own were puffy with sleep, but he grinned radiantly as if he’d been awake for a while.
“What?” you asked in a croak.
“Nothing,” he said. “Mum’s gonna call soon.”
Groaning, you halfheartedly turned your head to look over your shoulder. “What time is it?” you asked, straining to see the window and get a gauge.
“S’ten,” he said. “So about three for them. Sure you don’t want to call from bed?”
You glowered at him and his lip twitched. “I’ll put the coffee on.”
When you finally managed to leave the warm nest of the bed, the living room had been transformed. The tree was on, twinkling under the streams of light pouring in through the windows, and he’d lit the fireplace, too, flames licking up and up behind the glass. Soft, melodic Christmas music floated from the far corners of the room, and the smell of coffee tickled your nose.
“So,” he said from his spot at the island as he unwrapped cheeses and opened jars of olives, and jams, and honeys, and other goodies. “What time do we pop the bubbly?”
Laughing softly, you shuffled over. “It’s ten.”
“Little after ten now,” he said, lips pressed tightly together and arms flexed until the lid popped. “And somewhere in the world it’s five o’clock.”
You pulled a grape off the bunch lying on the counter and popped it into your mouth, chewing not so delicately but enjoying the sweet burst of freshness. You’d no sooner swallowed than his phone started buzzing and you grabbed it, sliding your finger to answer the call from the incoming Mum and pointing it at him.
“Happy Christmas, honey.” Anne’s voice was warm even through the phone, and Harry’s head whipped up.
“Wh-- Happy Christmas-- didn’t know you were-- ‘scuse the mess,” he said as you giggled behind the phone.
“Having a good morning so far?”
“Goin’ ok, yeah,” he said. “Just getting started, heating up the coffee.”
“Where’s your better half gotten off to?”
Trying not to melt, you waved your hand in front of the camera.
“Hello, love,” she said. “Happy Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas, Anne.”
“Are we going to get to see you today?”
“Fair’s fair,” Harry chimed in. “Turn that thing around, why don’t you?”
Rolling your eyes, you flipped the phone and waved, sliding around the counter to stand next to him.
“That’s better,” Anne said with a firm nod. She had a red top on with a festive, sparkly necklace, and looked a good deal more put together than either one of you.
“Where’s Gem?” Harry asked, taking the phone from you so you could unbox the crackers.
“Upstairs napping off the morning,” she said. “She’ll want to call again later.”
And that was how the morning went, with each of you passing his mother back and forth while you carried plates and trays full of snacks to the coffee table and couch in front of the tree to nibble while tearing into gifts on camera, including a box full of chocolates for you, Branston pickle for him, and Christmas crackers for both of you to have, “A little bit of home this year.”
“Thank you,” you said, clutching your sweets close. “And thank you for--” Unbidden, you choked up, and Harry glanced at you sharply, his inquisition vanishing with his understanding. For sharing him -- allowing you to steal him away during the holidays in a year where everyone needed family, either by blood or choice. He squeezed your shoulders and his mother, as adept as he was at redirecting a conversation, piped up.
“Promise you’ll come see us again next year,” Anne said. “It’s been too long.”
“It has been,” you agreed, resting your cheek on his shoulder.
“Maybe sooner.” Harry looked down at you. “If things ease up?”
You nodded. “Summer in London,” you mused. “That would be nice.”
“And then a bit of time back home. We could go before things pick up in August.”
Summer in London. A beacon of hope you couldn’t erect just yet, but a beacon nevertheless. A bit of time with him before he, hopefully, went back to work and you got to revisit adjusted and postponed plans.
The rest of your Christmas Day was quiet -- different from the year before when you’d been overwhelmed with names, faces, screeches of Uncle Harry, and not being sure how to break your way in. You kept trays of cheese, crackers, and other snacks within an arm’s reach, and by the early afternoon both of you had a comfortably steady buzz from the bubbly he was good at topping off both your glasses with -- never sloppily drunk, but enough to be warm in your fingers and toes and to seek out cuddles from him under the blanket you were snuggled in on the sofa with paper crowns on both your heads.
“Can I tell you something?” you asked, ribs crunched from how far you’d slid down on the sofa to nestle into his side, all but eye-level with his chest. “And have it not be as awful as it sounds?”
You felt his laugh before you heard it. “Sure,” he drawled. “What is it?”
Squeezing his wrist, you turned your mouth into his forearm, eyes on the television as a snowman leapt and bounded over a wide, snowy plain before jumping into the air. “I like this Christmas,” you admitted into his skin.
Harry snorted. “S’not awful, s’the point -- Christmas is supposed to be likeable.”
“You know what I mean,” you said, sighing. “I know it’s just us and there’s no family or anyone around, but… I dunno… it’s not all bad, is it?”
“Like having me to yourself?”
You groaned and rolled your eyes, shaking your head. “Shut up,” you mumbled.
He kissed the top of your head, crown crunching under it, and you grunted. “S’not so bad,” he said into your hair. “Like having you all to myself, too, y’know.”
“You’re just saying that because you have to because you’re stuck with me,” you said and he laughed with another smacking kiss.
“Not stuck with me yet,” he crooned. “Can leave any time you want.”
“Maybe I will….”
“Oi!”
Giggling, you untangled yourself from him and squirmed out from underneath the blanket. “More bubbly?”
***
Boxing Day was a Christmas redux, with more cheese, sparkling wine, music, and calls with family and friends. Long distance versions of old favorite games were adapted and adopted, and you snickered quietly from the corner of the couch, staying out of his way when he shouted about how he had hit the button, it was his trackpad that hadn’t worked.
The late afternoon and on, though, was yours together and alone with the time difference breaking up the party earlier than it normally would be. The bittersweet cloud vanished, though, when you at some point you separated even further into your own activities -- him with his stack of new books and you with a film you played quietly on your laptop. Able to be near each other without having to be wrapped up and begging with your bodies for sorely missed attention, it finally, really, felt like home again.
“It’s so pretty out,” you murmured, nose pressed to the windowpane to see as much of the light-lined streets as you could. It got dark earlier and earlier these days, and yet later than it had even a few days ago. “I love Christmas in New York. I wish--” You caught yourself ahead of finishing the sentence, thinking better.
You wished it was a normal year -- for many reasons -- so you two could go out and see the city. So you could show him your favorite places, so you could make memories together like you had with him last year. It wasn’t anything life altering or new, but it was different when you were with someone you loved. You wanted him to know you -- all of you, even the unknowable parts.
“Y’know,” he said next to your ear, hand on the back of your neck as he slunk up behind you, “it’s getting pretty late.”
You turned your head slightly, looking at him in the reflection of the glass. “Do you want to go to bed?”
Too early for sleep. Was he asking for sex?
Harry hummed and shook his head. “How ‘bout you get your coat on?” he murmured. “Let’s have that Boxing Day walk we didn’t get last year.”
“Now?”
“When else?” he said. “Haven’t been out yet, and it’s late. Streets’ll be empty. We can go wherever, do whatever, see whatever.”
“You’re serious?”
Nodding, he pulled you by the arm and you stumbled with him, still processing it even as you pulled beanies on with masks and (winter) gloves.
“Where are we going?” you asked.
He shrugged, calling the elevator. “Dunno,” he said. “Figured you’d lead the way. Show me your favorite bits. Seem t’remember summat about Bryant Park last year.”
There were sobering realities at the street level, too. Gates were down on storefronts that hadn’t been pulled up since March, awnings above them tattered from months of neglect and ‘For Rent’ signs flapping against them in the wind. The usual post-holiday influx of tourists was thinned, with hardly a white sneaker in sight, and everything was just a little quieter than it should be and would be in a usual year.
But there were lights. Broadway’s may have dimmed for the time being, but endless, endless displays of lights, brighter without the ambient light pouring from storefronts diminishing their power, offered beacons of hope -- literal lighthouses in a storm of a year -- and led you uptown like a trail of breadcrumbs.
You pulled him this way and that way, weaving through side streets to look at any display that looked bright enough from a distance, fingers locked tightly with his in a way they never were outside of the house. As bittersweet as it was no one was out, it afforded you a level of privacy you never had, anywhere. Not even Holmes Chapel. You couldn’t remember a time where you’d ever held his hand for this long at one time, if you were honest, and while you didn’t need it, you enjoyed the option.
In between zigs and zags, he mumbled stories to you about this time, and another time, and a time after that, pointing at buildings, venues, restaurants, and hotels, and you listened half in awe and half in earnest. It was a whole other life he’d lived without you before, and you’d only been aware of the surface of it. Nobody knew what he was telling you except the people he’d lived it with, and you didn’t think you’d ever get over or be able to thank him for trusting you to be someone he chose to share it with.
“I love Sixth,” you said, sighing as you walked past giant red Christmas ornaments three times the size of you both, the reflection of the string lights wrapped around tree branches bouncing off their shiny surfaces. Radio City’s electric red script beamed at you both from a distance, and traffic lights winked and waved in the wind up and down the avenue. “They do a lot with it.”
“It’s pretty,” he said, squeezing your hand. “Tree’s this way, isn’t it?” he asked.
You raised your eyebrows. “Yeah,” you said.
He jerked his head and you blinked.
“You want to?” you asked.
“Just a bit,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“There’s people!” you warned him, because even from here you could see the trickle of people with the same thought. “And I saw online they have a schedule--”
“We don’t have to get close,” he said, pulling you firmly. “S’big enough we don’t need to, just wanna take a peek.”
He was so certain, but you were less so, because all you needed was someone to see him to break the serene bubble you’d blown around yourselves. Despite that, you shuffled with him until the tree was visible, a bright, glowing ball of multi-colored lights stretching towards the sky. “Wow,” you whispered under your breath.
“S’nice,” he said and you nodded your agreement. It was nice -- despite the sad press it had gotten, the tree had turned out very nice at the end of it all, tall and impossibly beating all odds. What a metaphor for the year.
“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, squeezing him around the middle.
“Come here,” Harry said next to your ear.
“Hmm?” Reluctantly tearing your eyes from the tree, you gasped when he pulled your mask down first and then his own in two swift tugs, revealing a cheeky grin with a face cradled by the fabric. “What are you doing?” you asked, eyes darting around.
“Getting a kiss by the tree with my girlfriend,” he said. “Now, come here,” he repeated. This time, you obliged and allowed him to steal one, two, three kisses, each one of them smashed against your lips with a palpable sort of eagerness that made you think he would drink you if he could. This felt… normal. Normal, safe, and free.
You couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt like that.
When you broke and burrowed against his neck, he covered the back of your head and wrapped his other arm around your back, cocooning you in the shell of the most protective embrace he could give. Just a man -- any man, a regular man -- holding the person he loved, and, after his decision to stay with you through Christmas and New Years, he arguably loved you most.
Through the thick knit of your beanie, you felt him kissing your head, and you nuzzled into his scarf. “Thank you,” you said, face safely out of sight. “For coming here.”
“Not mad a’me for it?” he mumbled and you shook your head. “‘Kay, good.”
Shivering, you huddled closer and he tightened his arms, shielding you from the brisk wind.
“People will see,” you said, but despite that you held him closer.
“Who cares?”
He did, despite his quiet rasp. He did, and you knew why he did, but right then, you could pretend that it didn’t matter at all.
***
It was simultaneously the longest and shortest week of your life.
The longest, because time didn’t exist, much like it hadn’t for most of the year. Days, afternoons, evenings, and nights blended together, blurred by a happy holiday haze onset by too much of everything good -- sleep, sustenance, and spirits. The weird, if nice, part of all the extra time was having the chance to do things you’d enjoyed over the course of the year all over again. Nine times out of ten, when the two of you were together, it was rushed even on the long layovers. You’d watch one series or a film the whole way through, and next time you’d have to be on to the next one you’d agreed to hold off on until the other was there, but after having spent most of the year under the same roof, the typical race to the next one was paused. Instead, you settled in for old Christmas films and other ones you hadn’t seen since you first started properly dating, lending a timeless sort of quality to the week.
The shortest, because he’d only just gotten there. How had it been three weeks since he’d walked in the front door with a mask on and a warning? Three weeks, two of them masked, and now it was over and done. The whole year was over and done, with 2020 coming to a slow close after feeling simultaneously like it never would and like it was moving much, much too fast. Who would’ve known this would be how it would turn out after kicking it off in the back of his car with a paper plate full of snacks and the countdown on his phone? You’d made it through another year, together.
“Do you know what I just realized?” you asked as you unpacked the bag from El Diablito at the kitchen counter. In the background, the low hum of commentators on the TV remarking about how different this year was provided a steady buzz amidst familiar scenery of lights in different cities. Berlin had gone first, then London, and now, gradually, the new year on the east coast was gliding ever closer.
“What?” he asked over the noise of him unfurling the bag of tortilla chips.
“This was our first year together,” you said. “Full--” you drew an arc through the air-- “year, I mean. Saying it and all that.”
He didn’t say anything, but when you looked at him the corner of his mouth was lifted up slightly. “S’pose it is, yeah. Feels like longer.” He fished a chip out with his index and middle fingers before crunching into it noisily.
“Almost three years of everything else,” you murmured, unwrapping a taco to inspect it. “This one’s yours.”
“‘Everything else’?” he teased, snickering when you slid the taco across the counter to him. “Watch it, it’ll fall apart….”
“Shut up and eat,” you said and he barked a laugh, grin permanent and eyes sparkling as he unwrapped it to peek.
“In a minute,” he said, setting down his food, satisfied it looked right. “Come here,” he said.
“Why?” you asked, smiling slightly though you eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?”
He motioned with his hand. “C’mere a minute,” he repeated, voice light but eyes tight, and he swallowed hard. A cold wave washed down you from head to toe. You didn’t know why you were suddenly so nervous, but the nerves themselves spiked your anxiety and made your scalp prickly and your palms sweaty, and they got worse when he grabbed one of your hands -- your left hand -- to hold between his. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about summat.”
Oh, God.
“Harry,” you said, but he shook his head.
“Lemme do this.”
Five seconds. Five seconds was all it took to imagine the words coming out of his mouth, quietly, with soft, trusting eyes waiting patiently, hopefully for an answer. Five seconds was all it took for you to imagine mucking it all up with a twisted tongue, not because you weren’t sure what to say, but how to say it. No, no, no -- you didn’t want to hurt him, not even temporarily, not even by accident.
Clearing his throat, he squeezed your hand. “I dunno how to do this,” he said, and for the first time ever, you were pretty sure he laughed without his eyes. You made a noise in your throat and curled your fingertips into his palm. “I love you,” he continued, Adam’s apple bobbing, lips trying and failing to form a smile. He was terrified, but determined, and you held his hand tighter while pressing your opposite one into his cheek.
I love you, too. You couldn’t say it, but you felt them swelling in your chest, growing your heart not two, not even three, but six times over.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, “M’going to spend the rest of my life with you,” with a thoughtful quality in his rasp. “I think, if-- if that’s somethin’ you….”
You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t, you were trying, but it was like sucking in helium.
“So, m’kind of wondering if--”
“Harry--”
“I’m not,” he shook his head. “I’m not asking you anything right now, because we’re not ready.” He rubbed the back of your hand assuringly. “We’re not ready, you have… and I’m….” He exhaled sharply, dropping his head, and your hand moved from his cheek to his hair and you rubbed the back of his neck. “I just want to know,” he said, breathing heavily, with his voice muffled into his chest, talking very fast, barreling through and tripping over words, “if I’m totally off base here. Cause m’not gonna now when there’s so much shit happening, but like… I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth when-- if I do, so if I could just get an idea of what you think, because we had a talk once but now every time you cut me off at the knees and--”
He sputtered, stopping short, and you pressed your face into his short hair.
“I want it,” you said, sounding braver than you felt admitting wants out loud. “I do. I will.”
His shoulders fell with his slow, deep breaths, and you rubbed your fingertips into his scalp gently.
“I will,” you say. “Promise,” you added, voice cracking. “You’re not off base.”
Neither of you said anything for a while. You couldn’t -- you quite literally, physically couldn’t -- and he was gulping for air as quietly as he could.
“Okay,” he said into his chest finally, sounding inexplicably embarrassed. “S’good to know.”
Silly, silly man. Did he really think… did he doubt…? “I love you,” you murmured.
“I know,” he said. “I know y’do.”
“No, you don’t.” You kissed his head. “I love you, I-- you’ll never know.”
Harry took a deep breath before straightening up, head high and curls falling over his forehead above the weariest, most agonized eyes you’d ever seen. His cheeks were bright red, and he might as well have just run a marathon for how spent and miserable he looked.
“I promise,” you repeated. “I promise, honey.”
He nodded slightly, mouth still set in a thin, grim line, and, instinctively, you stepped in to kiss him, because no. No, that wouldn’t do. Stiff and unmoving at first under your lips, gradually he warmed and softened, releasing your hand to grab your hips and you moaned softly, hands running across his shoulders over his hoodie. You promised -- when it was right, when you both could, if he asked and it was what you both wanted? There was only one answer you’d ever give.
The stool scraped against the floor when he stood, but he never broke the kiss, and you squeaked when you stumbled back against the counter. You opened your mouth wider when he coaxed you to, dizzy behind your closed eyes, and you let your hands wander freely, pulling him into you as the intensity behind the kiss escalated from comfort to need.
Two weeks. Two weeks -- three -- of pent up energy. Of hardly being able to touch each other, of being close but not close enough.
“Come here,” he demanded in a mumble, the firm hold he had on your jaw to hold you in place as he kissed you the way he wanted leaving you breathless. Rarely did he ever do that; usually, he guided you into what you both wanted to build it until the bubble of tension popped. There was something thrilling about being told though -- something that reminded you of when you were new, three months instead of almost three years in. Something that was like when time was limited and you had to be efficient to learn each other and what would feel good and do good for the other and yourselves, and telling was sometimes all you had.
Harry broke away with a wounded little noise and you blinked, dazed. “M’just….” He grabbed two tacos with one hand and threw them back into the paper bag. “M’moving these.” Tacos, nachos, and burritos all went back in, topped off with the chips, and he shoved them aside with some impatience. You laughed breathily and lifted yourself up onto the counter with his help, but it faded when he stepped between your legs and cupped your cheek and jaw and you caught a glimpse of the blown pupils and flushed cheeks that gave him a wild, primal look before your own eyes shut.
Each and every tender sponging of his lips across your jaw and down your neck made you ache, and it was all you could do to stay upright and not collapse back, limp from how weak you were. His needy, mesmerized groans made your belly tighten, and when he tugged the hem of your shirt you nodded.
Shirt, sweatshirt, bra, and undershirt were the first to go, and the straps had no sooner fallen down your shoulders than you let out a wordless, guttural shout from deep in your chest when Harry latched on and sucked your nipple with greedy enthusiasm, moving with you when you squirmed, his stubble scraping the soft skin of your breast.
“Oh my God,” you gasped, eyes watering and elbow nearly buckling underneath you in your effort to hold yourself up. “Yes, please,” you said when he pulled the strings on your sweats.
“That’s my girl,” he said, releasing with a pop and latching on again. “That’s my girl… gonna make it better for you.” He stood tall again when he pulled by the waistline, and you wriggled until they were at your knees and you could kick them off the rest of the way with your underwear as he dropped his own to his ankles.
With nothing left between you, you shivered, shrinking into him when he stepped closer and drew his hands around your body in a circuit. Legs first, stomach, back, breasts, shoulders, arms, and repeat, each squeeze and dig of his hands and fingers just a little restrained and not as zealous as his groans and heavy breathing made him out to be -- like he was trying to be good, or patient, or….
“It’s ok,” you murmured between kisses. “You don’t have to wait.” They’d done the waiting -- more than enough of it. You just wanted him now.
“Sure?” Harry rasped and you nodded, eyes rolling up when he slipped his fingers between you both and they slipped up and down your folds. “Sure,” he confirmed under his breath. “Open a little more for me, love-- there we are, thank you.”
You folded your arms around his neck and over his back and locked your ankles loosely just under his ass, heart racing in your chest.
“Breathe in--” Harry murmured and you squeezed your eyes shut when he fit his head against your entrance. It slid and you laughed, kissing his jaw when he kissed your brow through his grin. “Deep breath for me.”
Every time. He did that almost every time with you, first asking for a deep breath and then, invariably, pulling a long exhale from you when he thrust into your warm, wet cunt. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered in awe, holding still. You could feel the tremors pulling each fiber in his muscles, and when he throbbed inside you, you bit your lip. “Holy shit, you’ve got me good,” he groaned.
You laughed once. “Yeah.” Yeah, something like that. Wincing, you rolled your hips forward and gasped softly from the stretch before tightening your arms and pressing your face against his hot skin. You nuzzled in between your own slow, lingering kisses, taking deep, grounding breaths. He was soft, and smooth, but firm, and hard, and he smelled amazing. Clean -- all soap and cologne with some detergent that smelled even more from the warmth of his skin.
“Oh, God,” you whispered. “Oh, God, I--” You sucked in a harsh breath, abdomen tightening as you pulsed around him, feeling wetter, and you moved your face higher, nose pressed into the base of his sheared hair as you moaned quietly. “Oh my God, I love you.” Pitchy, bordering on hysteria, but you’d be hard pressed to remember a time you felt it as much as you meant it like you did right then. “I love you, I love-- I-- you feel--” Good. Better than good. No one had ever fit like he had -- too much, but just enough, physically, mentally, emotionally.
“I love….” Harry gulped. “Shit, ok, m’gonna….” He made to pull his shoulders back, but you shook your head.
“No, no, stay,” you begged, wrapping your arms and legs tighter. “Stay, please,” you murmured.
“I can’t-- ok,” he panted. “Lemme….” He gripped your ass and pulled you closer and your back arched as you opened your thighs just a little more. “There we go,” he grunted, hips snapping forward as he finally moved. “That’s… fuck, that’s better now.”
You could hear the effort you could feel between your legs -- each sharp pull of breath between his teeth, each muted grunt between his driving thrusts, and the pants he let out when he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. “M’ok,” he said every time between labored gulps for air. “M’good, I just need to--” and he grit his teeth before he began again, and again, you gasped and whimpered, shrinking closer to him.
You didn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, now or ever. You didn’t want to be this close to anyone else again ever. This was never supposed to happen. He was never supposed to meet you, know you, fall in love with you, nor you with him, but now he had, and you were, and you couldn’t imagine it any other way. You couldn’t imagine a world in which he didn’t come home to you, for you, and where you weren’t there. Not waiting -- never waiting on a man, any man, but ready for him when he returned and ready to move forward together.
He was yours. He was yours, and you were his, and the mere thought pulled something behind your belly button, making you groan.
“What?” he asked, kissing the side of your head. “What, darling, what?”
“I’m gonna cum,” you whispered and then whimpered, tightening your hold around his neck and in his hair. “Harry--” you choked, shuddering with your deep breaths.
“I know.” He grunted, thrusting with slightly more power. “Fuck! Tight little--”
“Don’t stop,” you begged. “Don’t stop, I’m close, I’m so-- I just need--” Faster and faster you rolled your hips against his, crying out against him when he wedged his thumb between you both to catch your clit, a stream of mumbled, “I’m gonna cum, you’re making me cum,” confessions hidden in his neck. Deep breaths. Long, slow, and deep, with your toes curling behind him until you were barely breathing in your efforts to concentrate, because you were right there. And then, you did cum, hard, convulsing and sucking in harshly as you trembled your way through whimpers of his name, immediately and thoroughly exhausted.
Both his arms locked around you, then, all but crushing you to his torso in his efforts to hold you up, and he thrust hard, fast, deep, getting the right rhythm and stroke he needed. Barely able to keep your eyes open, your mouth moved soundlessly around the demand -- request -- to cum. Cum, Harry, cum, baby, please. Wordlessly, he sputtered through a sharp exhale, and it was the only indication before you felt the hot, wet release accompanying his groans.
“Fuck,” he choked, one of his hands landing hard on the counter to prop both of you up. You laughed, eyes rolling up, and you held on tightly through his turn to shake.
“Happy New Year,” you said, still feeling a little punch-drunk from your orgasm.
He nodded. “H-Happy--” he gulped. “Happy New Year, darling.” His shoulders slumped. “Reckon this was the problem,” he said. “Should’ve fuckin’ rung the year in right last time, y’know?”
“Right,” you breathed even as you shook your head, not quite caught up with what he was saying.
“M’only sayin’,” he said. “We had sex the one time last Christmas. Should’ve had… a bit more,” he said indeterminately.
“We haven’t had sex since you’ve been home.”
Sighing heavily, he kissed your shoulder. “S’pose we’d better start,” he slurred. “S’not the new year yet.”
Sneak Peek - Blurred Lines: A Different Christmas // h.s.
How do we write Christmas fics in a really weird year? I’m still not sure, but I tried to string together a bit of relief for the end of December. I’m shutting myself up now, even though there’s lots I want to say. x
It was the big Christmas tree you’d dragged back home by yourself on top of a rickety shopping cart all the way from a place on Second Avenue that had been your breaking point. Picking it had its own bittersweet undertones, but the smell of fresh pine tickling your nose even through a mask had kept you afloat as you struggled to get it off and onto curbs before traffic pancaked you in the middle of the road. It wasn’t until you were back inside, still wrapped in your coat and struggling to get it upright in the stand the correct way that you burst into a torrent of hot, selfish tears and bowed your head, kneeling next to the mass of needles and branches.
He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree -- something real in a year that had felt anything but -- was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?
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Italics sorted (someone tell me why Google Docs doesn’t love me like Microsoft Word did by letting me copy italics?)! Happy reading, all. See you next time x
“So, m’going to be back in New York soon.” Again, you said nothing, and after a beat he continued. “Just for a night or so — I’ll be flying into Philadelphia and then out to LA for some work stuff.”
“Philadelphia to New York to LA?” you asked.
“London to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to LA.”
“So—” Bless whatever and whoever it was that’d sicked the cat on you to catch your tongue before you could ask him why he was coming to New York if he was flying into and out of Philadelphia. “That’ll be nice.”
He cleared his throat again and you dropped your phone from your ear to take a deep breath, suddenly hot.
“Yeah, so,” he began, “I was thinkin’, y’know. If you’re free or you’d like to….”
You’d like to laugh, because this whole thing was wildly fucking funny. Harry Styles was dialing you for a booty call after a one night stand from months ago. Harry Styles was going to detour into the city for one night just for you, and it wasn’t because you’d had such riveting conversation last time.
“When?” Your fingers twitched at your side.
“When’s good for you?”
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So, the truth was: you’d had sex with Harry Styles and forgotten all about him.
No — seriously. You’d had sex with Harry Styles and forgotten all about him.
Honestly, it was all more like a fever dream than anything. It’d happened to you — with you — and even you didn’t buy it. Because why would Harry Styles go to a hole in the wall burger place in the middle of New York City? Didn’t he have people to see at much nicer places with way better food? Especially after one of his own concerts, with people wanting to celebrate him?
And the sex…. It wasn’t even the night of that made your toes curl the most. The morning after, in the forty or so minutes it took room service to get to your hotel room? He’d fucked like his life depended on it. You’d been on your belly, and he’d been in it, skin slapping and both of you wheezing and sputtering your ways to the end because in the morning hours, they might care. In the morning, there might be someone who could recognize his voice or who would wonder if you cried out his name — you weren’t the only one who’d grabbed a hotel for the show, after all. Remembering the low, rumbling groan that’d echoed in his throat as he pulsed inside you and pushed his hips just so against you made you clench if you thought about thinking about it.
He’d left, you’d left, and you hadn’t told a single soul — not your friends, not your Instagram, and definitely not your mother. Not because he’d asked you not to, or because you couldn’t, but because it was the right thing to do. Only the worst of people had busy fingers and thumbs to take fishing selfies and post stories that created more talk than their mouths ever could. And honestly? It was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened, because that was absurd. The whole of it from top to bottom was the most hysterical insanity, and if you’d read it in a blind item column, you’d laugh your way around the world and fall off if it was flat.
(But it wasn’t flat, and as it was, you’d go round and round in circles, and where you’d stop, nobody would know.)
So, you had to forget all about him. And it’d worked, too. The end of June bled almost indiscernibly with the beginning of July, the blazing sun of which made all but the most touristy of tourists want to crawl underground. August brought enough relief to make you throw your windows open and lie naked on your bed, hoping a breeze would blow through, but it wasn’t until September you knew peace.
And then you’d picked up the phone.
It was an unknown number, and you were a 21st century person who routinely ignored any call from any number they didn’t know (and, sometimes, the ones they did). Maybe you knew — maybe that was why, despite your hiss of annoyance, you slid your thumb on the screen. “Hello?” Clipped in anticipation of either a robotic voice or a sales pitch, you barely held the phone to your ear, poised and at the ready to hang up as quickly as you’d picked up. You leaned across your sofa to grab the remote you’d thrown onto the cushions at the opposite end at the start of the film you’d put on.
“Hey, it’s uh—” The owner of the voice on the other end cleared its throat, but you were already frozen, tense and in shock, prickles erupting on your scalp and up your arms. You didn’t need him to say who he was. Even as quietly as he was speaking, the cadence and lilt were familiar to you anywhere. As was the smile you could hear in his voice. “It’s Harry.”
You jammed your thumb on the pause button several times until it finally took.
“Hi.” Flat, dull, and totally uninterested, which was not true or accurate. “Hi,” you repeated breathlessly, hoping he could hear the difference. “Hi, I didn’t— sorry. I thought it might be a spam….” You took a deep breath. He didn’t care. Hell, you didn’t care. “How are you?”
Harry’s cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “M’good,” he said. “Y’know, m’doin’ well, just… keeping busy. Working.”
You hummed but otherwise stayed silent, waiting. This wasn’t exactly a phone call you got any day and every day, and you doubted he was calling to check in with you.
“So, m’going to be back in New York soon.” Again, you said nothing, and after a beat he continued. “Just for a night or so — I’ll be flying into Philadelphia and then out to LA for some work stuff.”
“Philadelphia to New York to LA?” you asked.
“London to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to LA.”
“So—” Bless whatever and whoever it was that’d sicked the cat on you to catch your tongue before you could ask him why he was coming to New York if he was flying into and out of Philadelphia. “That’ll be nice.”
He cleared his throat again and you dropped your phone from your ear to take a deep breath, suddenly hot.
“Yeah, so,” he began, “I was thinkin’, y’know. If you’re free or you’d like to….”
You’d like to laugh, because this whole thing was wildly fucking funny. Harry Styles was dialing you for a booty call after a one night stand from months ago. Harry Styles was going to detour into the city for one night just for you, and it wasn’t because you’d had such riveting conversation last time.
“When?” Your fingers twitched at your side.
“When’s good for you?”
For a moment, everything went white with the headrush from the overwhelming power flooding you. He was waiting on you — fares and change fees probably didn’t matter to him, if he paid much for anything at all with how many airline miles he’d probably racked up in his life.
“Next Friday?” you asked. You’d need a full two days to recover from the shock alone. “If that’s good for you.”
“Should be,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
You smirked slightly. Trying to regain a little control? “Sounds good,” you murmured, fingernails digging into your knee. “If not this time then another time, maybe.”
Needless to say when he texted you ten minutes after hanging up, Friday worked perfectly.
You didn’t hear from him again until closer to the date. Part of you was wondering if he’d forgotten, but when he asked you on Thursday if you were still on, you stared at his very formal message for a good fifteen seconds just… absorbing the fact that he was coming into town just to see you.
To have sex with you.
He wanted to meet for dinner first — God, did you have to? It made the whole thing so much more… you both knew you were winding up naked at the end of the night, anyway. When you looked up the restaurant, you just about died right there on your sofa. It was, in a word, expensive. The type of expensive that didn’t have the prices listed online but that Yelp was all too happy to spill. Stress mounted in you and you blinked in the dim blue light of your computer, shellshocked, scrolling through the reviews with your hand pressed tightly to your cheek.
It was a drop in the bucket, maybe, but he didn’t have to do this. He knew that, didn’t he?
More than once you wrote out a message to cancel — you didn’t feel well, a work thing came up that you couldn’t get out of, someone from somewhere was flying into town and you had to see them. Every time, though, you deleted it all. For months, you hadn’t thought about him, but now… you wanted to see him. Badly. You wanted to see if it was as good and normal as the first time. If it crashed and burned, fine, but at least you’d know and wouldn’t wonder what would happen if you got to see him again.
Dinner was late that Friday night. He’d asked if you were ok with that, and while part of you wanted to rip the bandaid off, the other part knew — or imagined to know — he had his reasons, especially when the name he told you to give when you got there wasn’t his. Suddenly, it clicked — people could see you and him, together, and he was trying to take precautions to avoid that as much as possible. Maybe for your sake as much as his.
The inside of the restaurant was dark, and you gave the name as discreetly as you could, trying not to fall right over from how your nervous knees were knocking together. Each step through the maze of tables full of diners clinking wine glasses, sharing pizzas, and cutting into massive steaks that were bigger than the plates they were on made you a little more nauseous, and you were seconds away from turning around and bolting on jellied legs when there he was. Alone, huddled behind a plant in a dark corner that was more secluded than the rest, with a basket of bread in front of him along with a bowl of butter and a bottle of olive oil. He was typing on his phone when he looked up and did a double take with your wave and feeble smile.
“Hi.”
Harry stood slightly and only sat down after you’d done the same in the chair that was pulled out for you next to his — albeit too clumsily and too soon.
“It’s good t’see you,” Harry said, quietly and warmly but still audible over the clang of the dining room.
“You too.” You took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. You didn’t remember eye contact being this intimidating with him — you’d had sex with him and managed it better, not to mention the conversation and shameless way you’d flirted with him during the show in a way that would show up any seventies groupie. “Good trip?”
You should take your coat off. You should put your purse somewhere, and you should maybe try not to look like you had a stick up your ass, but all the common sense, human nature things that you’d usually do without thinking suddenly took a great deal of effort to remember.
“It was ok, yeah,” he said with a shrug as you gingerly set your bag down and tried to get out of your jacket without hitting him in the arm. “Here, let me….”
Harry stood and hooked his fingers into your jacket and pulled it down your arms to drape it over the back of your chair.
“Thank you,” you said, still hot despite shedding a layer. “How’ve you been since…?”
Since we last had sex?
“Good!” he said. “Good, y’know… busy, but good. Getting some different things done.”
“Anything I can know about?” you asked, managing a smirk at last.
A mistake, because he returned it, and his looked better. “Not yet,” he said. “Couple of things might come out soon.”
You held his gaze a fraction of a second too long, and you felt its impact. Clearing his throat, Harry picked up the menu card in front of him. He looked like he was fighting a smile, and there was a very faint flush in his cheeks. “So, the ah, linguine in vodka sauce is very good and there’s a vegan version if that’s somethin’ you’re interested in.” He flipped it over. “And the affogato—” You bit your lip to contain a smile of your own, the flare of an attempted Italian accent over his Manchester accent cutting through influences from London and America alike comical in a way it shouldn’t be— “is nice if you don’t have to be up in the morning.”
Before you could think about it, you said, “Sounds great.” Harry looked at you from the corner of his eye, mouth twitching, and coughed into his fist to hide it. Jesus — could you say or do anything that didn’t make you seem a sort of way? “Is there wine?”
No, apparently, you couldn’t.
He nodded, lips still quivering annoyingly. “Ordered us a bottle — hope that’s ok, it’s….” He gestured just as a waiter approached with it.
“That’s good,” you said.
“Sure?”
You nodded and he gave his own to the waiter who busied himself with uncorking the bottle and pouring you each a glass. Harry held his, hovering in midair when you picked yours up.
“Oh—” Belatedly, you clinked yours with his before taking two deep sips. He didn’t even try to hide his laughter, then, and his eyes crinkled over the rim of his glass.
“So,” he said. “How’ve you been?”
Since you last had sex.
“Well,” you said, running your finger over your glass. “Working, mostly.”
“What is it you do?”
You stared, but his green eyes were wide and endless waiting for your answer. Nowhere on his face was a trace of irony or disinterest — he’d asked because he genuinely wanted to know. “I—” You stammered a bit before getting it out and he nodded, a flicker of recognition passing over his features.
“Tell me about it.” Just as authentic and sincere.
“It’s… I mean….”
With some coaxing from him, he dragged the details out of you — for how long, how did you get into it, was it what you’d always wanted to do, did you like it, what were the hard parts, did you think he could do that if he put his mind to it. And, eventually, you stopped feeling like your teeth were being pulled, whether in thanks to the wine, the pasta, or his charm — charm you’d known about but that was lightyears worse when it was directed right at you in the corner of a restaurant with your knees touching under the table — you couldn’t tell. He spoke about himself, too, and every now and then while listening to his slow drawl, it was hard to connect the fact that the voice speaking owned these stories. It was like you were eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation with him and being told things you shouldn’t know and had no right to know, but it was he, himself, and he was telling you of his own accord.
“Would you like dessert?” he asked when your plates were cleared.
“We could,” you said. “If you’d like — the affogato?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Not planning to get any sleep tonight?”
The bottle of wine had been described as bold, and apparently you’d absorbed some of that along with the alcohol. “You tell me.”
Harry pressed his lips together, rolling them thoughtfully as you smiled at him as the waiter approached, ignoring your racing heart to hold his gaze.
“Will there be anything else tonight?”
His ball, his call.
With only a quick glance to the waiter, he said, “One affogato to share, please.” He turned to you again. “And the check,” he added without breaking eye contact.
***
The hotel was intimidating — not somewhere you could ever stay on your own, and, for that reason, not a name you recognized, but you knew by the name emblazoned on the carpet outside the doors that it was the sort of hotel you should know. Hand on your elbow, Harry nodded and greeted the doorman with warmth and enthusiasm acting as the smoke and mirrors to allow you to slip into the lobby ahead of him. You paused, watching him through the glass, and seconds later he was through the door after you.
“This way,” he said, eyes darting to the elevator bank.
“Nice place,” you said as he waved the back of his wallet over a black magnetic pad attached to a column before pushing the call button.
“You like it?” he asked, watching the floor numbers above the elevators. He gently took your elbow again and pulled you towards one descending faster than the others. When the doors opened, it was empty, and you both got on with him mashing the close button until the doors rattled shut and locked you both in with an almost eerie silence.
“Thank you,” you said. “Again. For dinner — and dessert. You really didn’t have to.”
Harry pressed his floor, but his smirk was warmer and his eyes softer than they had been since you’d both left the restaurant and gotten into his car. The jittery, tingling sensation in your hands and belly had nothing to do with the espresso from dessert.
“Thank you for coming….” Flames surged in you, up through your torso and over your chest and neck, and you held your breath as his cheek dimpled, the pointed phrase lingering between you. “To dinner,” he added, grinning wider as if he’d displayed some revolutionary wit instead of the most basic— “You don’t have to either, you know.”
He was still smiling, but it was impossible to miss his pointed message acknowledging the power imbalance between you. You didn’t have to do this, dinner or no dinner, and as much as you knew that, it seemed he needed you to know he knew that, too.
“I know,” you said, voice catching in your throat. “You’re welcome,” you added with a quirk of your mouth, holding eye contact with him as if your knees weren’t quaking.
The doors opened and you followed him into the hallway, but he came to an almost immediate stop in front of a door he again waved his wallet over. “After you,” he said, holding it open. On purpose, you were sure, because he looked smug when you squeezed by him, chest-to-chest.
Oh, wow.
It was a suite — you were pretty sure that was the only way something this huge could be classified. There was a king-sized bed off to one side, with an overstuffed armchair and a luggage rack with his suitcase on it, and to the other there was a sitting area with a sofa, more chairs, and a coffee table. Beyond it, a chandelier hung over full dining table surrounded with chairs, and a closed laptop with a couple of books sat on top of it with the cord stretched to an outlet. Combined, all of it was bigger than your entire apartment. “Hotel room’s better than mine,” you mumbled, looking around from corner to corner, floor to ceiling.
Harry laughed and strolled past you, gesturing towards the sofa. “Can make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I’m just going to pop in there for a bit,” he said, pointing to a door. “I’ll be right out.”
“Sure!” you said. “Sure, take your time.”
He disappeared through the doorway and you only just caught a flash of tile and mirror when he turned the light on before shutting the door. Seconds later, the sound of water running reached your ears, and, exhaling, you dropped your bag on the coffee table and unbuttoned your coat to drape it over the arm of the sofa before taking your boots off. You crept over to the window and pulled the gauzy curtain back. Below, cars zipped through the city streets, looking like festive ants from this height. You couldn’t hear anything except for the air conditioner — a bit chilly, but you stopped yourself from changing the temperature. You didn’t know how he liked it, and it might turn out to be… necessary.
The running water from the bathroom cut off abruptly and when you turned around, Harry emerged. His cardigan was gone, and his face looked scrubbed clean with his hair damp and pushed back like he’d raked his hands through it. “Sorry about that,” he said, quietly, grinning as he got closer, and you caught a waft of peppermint toothpaste. “Coffee and all.”
“It’s ok,” you said.
Harry stopped in front of you and your throat tightened when he slid his hands up your neck, palms soft and warm. Tilting your head back, you stayed very still as he rubbed the apples of your cheeks with his thumbs with an almost intimate tenderness, and your lips parted with anticipation. You could smell his cologne and you could feel how warm he was, but when he leaned in, you inhaled sharply and turned your face. “I should probably do the same,” you murmured almost regretfully. You wanted almost nothing more than to kiss him right then — you’d been waiting all night for that and more — but you could taste the espresso on your tongue, and you wanted to be able to kiss him right.
Harry looked like he was going to say no, and if he had you might’ve gone through with it, but finally, licking his lips, he nodded and let go of you. “Sure,” he said. “You can— go ahead, I’ll….”
“Thank you.” You smiled softly and slipped away, shutting the door behind you. Once you were in, you let out a breath and your shoulders slumped. The bathroom, like the suite, was massive, with a bathtub and a shower with a rainshower head stuck to the ceiling. Only one of the double sinks looked like it was in use, with his deodorant, a bottle of cologne, a comb, and a razor half out of a kit lying next to it along with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.
You gulped, staring at it, before patting underneath the counter and looking around the room. There had to be a complimentary…. Aha! The toiletry bag from the hotel was perched on a shelf over the toilet and you opened it, sighing with relief when you found a toothbrush and a microscopic tube of toothpaste.
“Can use my toothpaste, f’you want.”
You nearly dropped the whole thing into the sink when you jumped, holding your chest and looking at the closed door.
“I—” Swallowing your nerves, you nodded. “Thank you,” you called back. You unscrewed the gap from his tube with shaky hands and spread a bit on the bristles, and as you scrubbed, mouth foaming, you stared deep into your eyes in the mirror under the soft vanity lighting. Just sex — it was just sex. And yet, there weren’t enough words to say how surreal this was.
Teeth, tongue, and gums done, you splashed cool water around your neck and forehead before patting dry and evaluating yourself. Legs? Fine. Stomach? Full, but not uncomfortably so. Teeth? Fresh. That was it, then. Tapping the light off, you opened the door and stepped out.
Harry was on the edge of the bed, head hanging and hands on his knees, but he looked up when you came closer, a sharp snap of his neck, his glinting eyes reminiscent of a starving man.
“I’m sorry!” you rushed. “I’m sorry.”
“S’ok,” he said, standing. “Don’t worry about it, c’mere.”
No more pretense. No more waiting.
Cupping your face again, Harry slanted his mouth over yours and you moaned softly, circling your arms around his shoulders. For all the anticipation, it was slow — he was taking his time kissing and coaxing your lips open, groaning his appreciation between quiet smacks while you languidly pulled your hands across his back. He was warm through his shirt and every muscle seemed to tense and release under your wandering fingers. He really was broad, too — he didn’t look it sometimes, but he was, and strong. Minty kisses matched yours, and every now and then you caught a whiff of the same rich and delicious smell you’d determined earlier was his cologne. Breaking, you pressed your lips to his jaw and then his neck, moaning when you got a concentrated dose of the scent. Harry moaned and you felt the vibrations in your mouth through his skin, and he squeezed your hips as you kissed up and down his neck.
“That’s nice,” you murmured between kisses.
“Thanks,” he said, voice strained. You grinned. “Just be—” Harry swallowed. “Just be careful, please. Sorry if that makes me a dick, but….”
Be careful with—? Oh. Marks. “Don’t worry,” you whispered with another one. “I get it.” You were on his throat when you added, “No one will know I was here.”
He laughed, full and deep, and you grinned wider. “Come back here,” he said, tilting your head back so he could kiss you again, and you stilled to return it, though every now and then one of you smiled and broke the rhythm. Drawing your hands down his torso, you stopped at his waistline and felt along until you found the button for his trousers. “Tryin’ t’get into my pants?” he crowed under his breath.
“Made sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” you said. “Might as well do something.”
The whole world turned when Harry spun you suddenly. You gasped, nearly shrieking with startled laughter when he dropped you on the bed, and you were still giggling when he unbuttoned your jeans and pulled your zipper down.
“Gonna hurt m’feelings if you keep laughin’ at me,” he said, the warning softened by his grin.
“No, I won’t,” you said, eyes rolling up with a sigh when he slid his hands underneath your shirt. You sat up a bit until he brought it up over your head and tossed it away before he bent over your chest.
You’d had sex with Harry Styles and forgotten all about it, but he was doing his damndest to make sure you remembered.
Oh. Right. He was good at this — ridiculously, absurdly, eye rollingly amazing. Each kiss down your over your breasts was simple but carefully placed. He suckled every patch of skin into his mouth with a thoughtful hum and a grunt of conclusion, and when he reached your sternum, he sighed hotly.
“God, y’smell good.” You laughed breathlessly and nodded your thanks as he made his way down your belly. “Smell so—” He pressed his nose to your hip and inhaled deeply— “good.”
He said it so deeply, so slowly, so deliberately, that if you didn’t know better you’d think he’d never meant anything more.
“I’m gonna take these off,” you said, voice sticking in your throat. You sat up and he did, too, pulling his shirt off while you stood on wobbly legs to shed your jeans. He stared, unabashedly, and it was again one of those moments that was so surreal you couldn’t believe you were living it. “Do you have condoms?” you asked, nearly toppling sideways as you kicked your ankles free.
“In the drawer,” he said.
He’d really detoured to New York out of Philadelphia just to sleep with you and he wasn’t even pretending he hadn’t had this in mind.
You took a step towards it but he grabbed your wrist. “Hang on,” he said. “Know you can hardly wait—”
You gasped. “Me?” You almost wanted to smack that smarmy grin off his face, and when he nodded, you reminded him, “‘When’s good for you?’”
“Flexible schedule,” he murmured, pulling you down onto his lap. Straddling him, you held his shoulders to keep from teetering backwards, mouth hovering over his. “We’ve got all night,” he said, kneading your hips with a cocked head. “Don’t we? Not getting any sleep?”
An electric thrill shot through you. His lips were twisted at the corner in an almost coy smirk, and his eyes were endless, full of a level of confidence that made you tingle. You gasped, soft and sharp, and his smirk widened into a grin when you grasped his chin and kissed him, hard, as he dropped back onto the bed and brought you crashing with him.
Again the world spun when he turned you over, and your eyes rolled as he trailed kisses down your cheek and neck — greedy ones with chins colliding and teeth scraping skin as he held you by the jaw to keep you still. You only barely managed to shift on your back when you felt his hand sliding underneath you, and seconds later the pressure of the band around your ribs released and your bra straps loosened on your shoulders. Harry pushed the flimsy material up over the swell of your breasts, and your mouth fell open when his closed firmly on your nipple. He released it with a soft noise before pulling it again with slightly more pressure, and one of your hands fell into his hair.
“Leg up,” he rasped against your breast, pushing one of your knees gently but firmly. You did as he asked and bit back a moan when he fit his palm over you through your underwear, its radiating heat making you throb. Up and down he stroked, tentatively at first and then with more certainty, thumb dipping into your slit over the fabric. “Ok?” he asked. Barely able to hear him through your ringing ears, you nodded, and, with the permission, he hooked his fingers under the thin scrap of fabric with a quiet groan. “That’s nice,” he said as he explored with such a careful, barely there touch, you almost couldn’t breathe waiting to just feel something. Swallowing hard, you let out a slow, deep breath, eyes falling shut as you turned your head to the side, knuckles brushing over your mouth as your heart raced out of control.
“Don’t have t’be quiet,” Harry said almost lazily as he descended lower and lower on your stomach with spongy, stubbly kisses and carefully opened you with his fingers. “Don’t have to—” He laughed when your legs jerked as the pads of his fingers slid over your clit. “S’ok,” he continued. “Relax for me… s’it feel good?”
You nodded, gulping.
“Is this ok?”
He pressed his finger onto your clit and you took a deep breath. “Yes,” you said, voice sticking in your throat.
“That’s good, then,” he said. “Anything y’don’t want me to do you just tell me, right?”
You moaned, then, low and long, and you lifted your hips from the bed as you squirmed. “Yes,” you repeated, slightly louder and pitchier. “Yes… oh,” you sighed, toes curling when he laved his tongue over your nipple while stroking your clit, each breath deep and full, your belly warm. “Fuck!” you whispered, sucking in sharply. The last time you’d felt yourself get wet like this — slippery, soaked — had been… well, with him.
You laughed under your breath. It’d been with him. Of course it had. “Oh!” you gasped sharply when he circled faster, gripping the back of his head with one hand while the other slapped down on his shoulder.
“Can hear it, can’t you?” he asked. “Can hear how wet— oop—” His finger slipped out of his rhythm. “There we go,” he muttered. “Easy…. Gotta make sure your pussy’s open for me, don’t we?”
“I am,” you said, back arching. “I am, I’m….” You clenched your teeth together and your head tossed against momentarily as you dug your toes into the sheets. “Mmm….”
“Sure?” he asked tightly. “Gonna be able to get inside?”
“I am,” you whispered. “Please, I want you inside me.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked.
“Yes!” You were hot, everywhere, almost feverishly, and you couldn’t stop moving, fidgeting, trying to do anything to just…. Sucking in sharply, your lips barely moved when you uttered, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna cum,” in one soft breath, digging your fingers into his shoulder more. Your whole body was tense and your stomach muscles kept clenching and releasing, the warmth in your belly spreading through your legs and up your chest. You were going to cum, you were— so close, almost laughably so. Whimpering, you pressed your trembling lips together to stifle a louder moan bordering on agony, and you were just starting to feel the relief of those first flutters when, suddenly… he stopped.
He stopped?
“No!” you said. “No, please, no, why?” you asked breathlessly, bordering on a cry, hand clapping to his face and forehead bumping his when he popped off your breast. “Why?”
He laughed, but it was a strained sound. “Sounds too pretty to let it end just yet,” he said. “Got… got all night, don’t we?” he asked. “Got all….” He grimaced and rocked backwards. “Shit.”
You stared at him, sluggish mind slowly catching up. He was still in his trousers — they’d never made it off somehow — and he was very obviously hard. “Come here,” you breathed. “Come….”
Harry grunted when you pushed them down his hips. Awkwardly, limbs tangled, you climbed over and around each other until he was on his back and you were on your shaky knees, tugging them down and off him completely. A pair of red boxer briefs fit him perfectly, hugging his thighs, hips, and the cock straining in them. His chest rose and fell with each heavy breath and you felt his eyes on you when you lowered down, pressing kisses to his knees and up his thighs, his leg hair tickling your nose. You were at the edge of his briefs by the time you were feeling blindly along his waistline, and you sat up when your fingers slipped inside to pull them down. Locking eyes with him only briefly when they were tugged past his thighs, you grinned impishly before lowering down and he touched the back of your head with a barely there graze when you licked a stripe up the underside of his cock.
“Oh, shit,” he breathed blissfully above you. From under your lashes you could see him grinning with his arm over his eyes, and you licked again and again before ducking lower and pulling one of his balls into your mouth with a delicate suck. His answering groan made your hair stand on end and you wrapped your hand around his cock, running your thumb up and down near the head.
You had all night. Last time had been frantic, rushed, with an invisible timer that wouldn’t stop tick-tick-ticking, and you hadn’t known what you wanted, or were allowed, or how much of it you could have. Now, though, you were enjoying touching him, holding him, experimenting with what you knew and what you were figuring out from every moan and sharp breath above you.
“Is this good?” you asked between sucks.
“Yeah,” Harry grunted, nodding his head belatedly. “Shit… s’real good.” Gently, then, he grabbed your hand to move it higher up his shaft while you licked one of his balls. “Y’can… f’you want to—”
Hand in his, he moved your hold slowly up and down, and the throbbing sensation that’d been lingering between your legs grew. Holding your breath, you watched him jerking himself with your hand, each downward tug pulling his head out a little more. His nostrils flared and he gulped, throat bobbing visibly, and you licked your lips, head spinning. Unthinking, you lifted up and wrapped your mouth around the tip, sucking firmly with a breathy moan, and you felt his thighs trembling beneath you for a moment as his hands faltered. Up and down you bobbed, stretching your jaw slightly more each time to try to get more, but when you felt a click, you pulled off abruptly.
“Sorry—” You slurped wetly and laughed, horrified. “Sorry!”
His loud laugh joined yours, warmer and more delighted than yours. On fire, you dug the heels of your hands into your eyes until he pulled your wrists.
“Come here,” he said, still wheezing. “Come….”
You whined, stretching out next to him, and he chuckled, cupping your face and pulling you in for a kiss. “S’ok,” he said, body shaking with suppressed laughter. “Got me a little wet is all,” he teased.
You grunted when he rolled you onto your back and you melted underneath him as he kissed you — first on your mouth, then your neck, your shoulder, and inside your elbow, before he pushed up and opened the bedside table. The box of condoms wasn’t the hotel’s, but what had to be his own preferred brand, and you must’ve made a noise, because he glanced at you sharply, then.
“What?” he asked.
Smiling slightly, you shook your head. “Nothing,” you assured him.
He chortled, tearing one open and pulling out the flimsy, wet rubber. Biting your lip, you watched him pinch the end and smooth it down before he cleared his throat.
“D’you wanna get on your…?”
You stared, waiting for him to complete his question. Harry licked his lips and jerked his head.
“C’mere,” he said. “Turn over, like….” He coaxed you onto your hands and knees before pressing down on your back between your shoulder blades. “Little lower… there y’go,” he said when you bowed, arms outstretched ahead of you and ass high. “That good?” he asked and you nodded.
“Yes, please,” you mumbled. He laughed quietly behind you but gripped your hips and you closed your eyes.
“Deep breath in,” he said, smooth and warm. “In and out, in and—”
Face contorting, you grunted under your breath when he thrust, shallowly at first but gradually deeper until his pelvis was flush with you. “Oh, fuck,” you wheezed, back arching. It was good, but a bit of a pinch and stretch — had it been this way last time? Maybe you hadn’t noticed as much from the adrenaline rushing through you.
“Ok?” he asked.
Still grimacing, you nodded, hands fisted in the sheets. “Good,” you managed. “Good, good… oh!” you cried out when he thrust with heavier weight, hands bruisingly tight on your hips. That right there — that was good, the angle and the depth, and if you brought your legs together just a bit—
“Fuck!” he groaned behind you. “Fucking….”
Faster, steadier, you muffled your noises in the sheets as you rocked back against him. Pathetic — you were pathetic whining and pushing into him, but he’d left you hanging and you were trying to get it back because you’d been so close.
“That’s it,” Harry grunted, laughing breathlessly. “Fuck my cock.” He took a rattling breath. “Fuck yourself on my cock…. Shit, y’got no idea how wet it looks right now.” He stilled suddenly and you paused, heaving.
“Harry!” you whimpered, twisting, arms too weak to lift up.
“What?” he asked, and you could hear the smug smirk in his voice. “S’wrong?”
You let out a keening moan, face flat on the bed, before you tightened and pushed back on him. His answering groan was guttural, and he held you fast when he went silent, only the slapping noise of your ass meeting his pelvis and the sound of the bed thunking filling the air. Good— not bad— not enough, though, either. Stopping short, wheezing, you reached behind you to tap one of his hands. “Let go,” you said, tapping it again. “Both….”
Immediately, the pressure released and he backed up without a question, slipping out of you with a wet drop. Gulping, you forced yourself up and sat back on your knees to steady yourself before turning. “You ok?” he asked. “You good?” His cheeks were red and his chest and arms were sweaty and shining, lips swollen and bitten up, eyes dark but sharp and attentive on you.
“Mmhm.” You pushed him by the shoulders and he teetered in his surprise before he fell on his back with a muted grunt. Hands on his chest, you swung one leg over him and lowered down to rest on the underside of his cock. His nostrils flared and his eyes bounced from your face to where you were sliding back and forth on top of him.
“What—” Harry cleared his throat. “What’re you doing?”
“Told me to fuck myself on your cock,” you reminded him, inhaling sharply when your clit bumped his head through the condom. “Didn’t you?”
Again he cleared his throat and ran his hands up and down your thighs. “C’mon, love,” he muttered. “Please. Don’t leave me hanging?”
“Why?” you said, laughing as his head fell back. “Have all night, don’t we? That’s what you told me.”
“M’fucking balls are gonna explode,” he said, groaning. “Seriously, I’m like….”
Still laughing, you lowered your chest while lifting your hips, and with your mouth on his, you guided his cock back in. One of his hands clapped down immediately on your ass and held you there when you began to rock again, finding a steady rhythm. Sloppier, rougher, but your clit was against him and the pressure was perfect.
“Oh my God, you feel so good,” you said between kisses. “You’re making me feel so— oh!” you exclaimed breathily.
“Yeah?” he asked. “Making y’feel good? You feel good? You feel….” Harry swallowed conclusively. “Fuck me, look at y’riding me like this!”
The hazy part of your brain hoped it was as good for him as it was for you, because this was amazing for you.
“Jesus, y’so….” Harry groaned, a deep, helpless sound. “Lis— listen to me,” he said. “Can y’do that? Can y’let me make it good for us?”
You didn’t answer at first, caught off guard.
“Trust me, darling,” he mumbled. “I can make it so good for you, I promise.”
“What? What, what—?”
“When I say stop,” Harry said. “Y’gonna stop.”
You whimpered.
“Just for a bit,” he rushed on. “Just for a bit, love, only for a moment.” He kissed you hard and quick. “S’gonna feel so good when y’cum,” he said. “I promise you, you’re gonna feel so good when you cum. Right?”
Rolling your hips, you huffed against his mouth. You were exhausted — your muscles were sore, used, and felt like they’d been stretched taught to the point of snapping more than once from the tremors rippling through you.
“Stop,” he whispered. Eyes squeezed shut, his cock pulsed inside you. “Stop, please—”
Whining, you came to a still, panting and dropping your head onto his shoulder, heart beating in your throat.
“That’s good!” he said, hand slipping up your sweaty back. “Good girl, just… just for a moment.”
“I wanna cum,” you admitted, more broken and needy than you liked.
“Promise,” he said, patting your shoulder, “y’gonna cum. Gonna take good fucking care of you.”
Again and again, you stopped and started, each stop happening sooner and sooner with both of you so close. You could feel how swollen you were from the repeated almosts, but even without finishing you knew he was right and that when you did finish it would be indescribably intense. He’d rolled you onto your back at one point and pulled out, trembling from head to toe with a glazed over look in his eyes as he fought to pull himself back, but by the time you were asking him to please, let you cum — you were tired, you wanted it, you just wanted to cum — you were back on top.
“Please, don’t stop,” you breathed. “Oh, please, oh—”
“So cum, then,” he groaned between his teeth. “Fucking cum.”
A cramp shot through your foot right when every muscle in you tightened, and you were pretty sure this was the ugliest you’d ever sounded when you came since the time you had your first orgasm and hadn’t had the ability to process the new sensations, but it felt… incredible. Hot, like everything in you had snapped and crackled and was shooting through you in fizzling tingles, and seconds later, he thrust up with a strangled sound in his throat and you felt his cock throbbing in you with each stream of cum. Shaking, his head dropped back off the side of the bed and he wheezed through each breath. Dropping your forehead to his shoulder, you gulped for air, trembling, ears ringing. The whole world might as well have been spinning for how steady you felt.
“Holy shit,” he breathed at last. “That was—”
“Yeah,” you said, relief flooding you. Him too — not just you. “Gimme a minute and I’ll….”
“S’ok,” he said, patting your ass. “Can take your time.”
***
You didn’t remember falling asleep. You didn’t remember much at all after the sex, honestly — how you’d gotten off him, or when he’d gotten rid of the condom, or if you’d even peed — although you did have a fuzzy memory of him calling down for room service and getting it despite it being after hours.
Waking up now, though, every bone in your body felt like they’d been fused together and then cracked. You rolled over, stretching and shaking, and your arm dropped to the side and swiped through the empty sheets — warm — as you listened to the shower running. When you finally opened your eyes, it was pitch black save for the crack of light coming from the bathroom. The blackout curtains had been pulled — he must’ve done that — and you twisted to look at the alarm clock next to the bed.
“Morning.”
Harry approached the bed, already wearing his trousers and t-shirt, hands full of the items from the bathroom countertop. His hair was damp at the ends but not washed, only his clothes evidencing his walk of shame.
“Morning,” you said.
He grinned crookedly. “How d’you feel?” he asked. “Y’know — with all that… wine and caffeine.” He smirked as if in on a private joke and you pressed your lips together. Pointed, and not at all about the wine and caffeine.
“Fine.” Amazing. “You’re up early.”
Still smirking, he said, “Have to leave for the airport in a bit.”
Already? That was… fast. Surprising, but not at all. The opposite of last night that’d felt like it’d gone on forever, but that was ending in a blink.
“It’s early,” you said, repeating your earlier sentiment.
“Headed to Philadelphia.”
You deflated. Right. “I’ll get dressed,” you said. You sat up, sheet tucked under your arms and across your chest.
“Don’t.” Harry dropped his items in his open suitcase on the overstuffed chair in the corner and a quick glance at the table revealed the laptop as well as the rest of his personal items had been swept from the suite. “Room’s mine until noon. I can call for a late check out, too, if you’d like. But you should stay — get some rest, order some breakfast.”
You shook your head. “I can’t, I—”
“Please?” he asked. “Paid for it, it should go to good use. ‘Less you got somewhere to be.”
You didn’t — you’d purposefully picked Friday to be able to take as long as you needed to the next day, but you’d thought you’d need the time to pick up where things had left off, not to lounge in a suite without him. Sighing, you smiled softly, and he nodded his satisfaction.
“Good,” he said as you leaned back against the headboard. “Take your time — sounds like you had a busy week.” His hands were hidden in his bag as he shuffled around inside. “This was fun,” he added quietly, the sound of his suitcase closing explosive in the silence.
“Mmm.” A vague sound, but you weren’t brave enough to say anything of substance.
“When I fly back to London, I’m going to be stopping in Philly again,” he said. “If you’re around— maybe I can call you and see?”
Not a dream — he was really standing in front of you asking if he could come up to see you sometime. When you didn’t respond, he looked at you from the corner of his eye, and you took a deep breath, snapping yourself out of your reverie.
“Sure,” you said as nonchalantly as you could. “If I’m around.”
“If you’re around.”
Jacket and cap on, Harry picked up his bag in one hand and held what looked like his passport and a boarding pass in the other. “Just gotta do one thing,” he muttered, and as he got closer, your lips parted. When he bent, though, he picked up the phone with one hooked finger and jabbed 0 with his knuckle. His necklaces dangled from his neck and he was so close his breath tickled your nose, eyes twinkling with mischief even as he mumbled a sorry.
You were just about to playfully whisper that he did know it was a cordless phone, right, when you heard a pleasant, clipped voice on the other end. “Good morning,” he said. “M’calling because I’d like to see if it’s possible to get a late check out?” You shook your head but he ignored you. “Yeah— great, thanks. 2:00pm?” You rolled your eyes. “That’s perfect. Thank you so much, have a great day.”
“I won’t stay that long,” you said when he hung up.
“But now y’can if you want to.”
Harry grinned even as you shook your head.
“You have a plane to catch.”
“Kickin’ me out?”
You shrugged and he chuckled. “Had a good time,” he said with the same quiet sincerity from before.
“Me too,” you whispered.
“Thank you. I’ll call—”
“Ok—”
You saw it, then — the faintest glimmer of hesitation and uncertainty, and honestly? You didn’t blame him. He’d flown in for a trip that, as far as you could tell, was for work, and he’d made a detour into the city for sex. The sex was done, and so was any physical intimacy, but it would feel… off to end the night with a handshake.
Before you could think to say it was ok and he didn’t have to, though, he mumbled, “I’ll see you,” just as he leaned in. Short but not quick, you leaned into it, and then, just like that, it was over.
***
You genuinely thought he’d forgotten about what he’d said. He was busy, and getting some wasn’t a priority, but when your phone rang with an unknown number some few weeks later, you paused and had half a second of questioning before picking up.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” he returned it, sounding amused. “Y’not sure it’s me?”
“I don’t have your number,” you reminded him.
“Is now a good time to talk?”
“Sure?” More of a question than an answer, but he went on before you could correct yourself.
“M’gonna be flying out tomorrow,” he said. In the background, you could hear noises like zippers and snaps, and he had a distant echo in his voice that made you wonder if you were on speaker.
“Already?” you asked.
Harry laughed, loud but very far away. “Been a month or so,” he said.
“Really?”
“S’almost the holidays, love,” he said.
He was right — they were closer now than they were farther away, but it felt like only yesterday you’d been sweating and sharing a meal in a hole in the wall restaurant.
“Are you free tomorrow night?” he asked. You bit your lip and your prolonged silence must’ve made him falter. “If you’re not, it’s ok,” he said. “Just wanted to ask, cause I know I said maybe… if—”
“You’re flying to Philly from LA and then driving to the city?”
Harry cleared his throat. “Actually… s’more like I’m flying into the city and then I’ll head on out to Philly… after….”
After seeing you.
It was out of your mouth before you could think better. “You could stop by mine.” Silence greeted you and you kept talking to fill its void. “If the airport— I guess it depends— but even if you flew into Jersey you’d still have to go— except— I mean—”
He laughed on the other end and you groaned.
“I owe you dinner,” you said, face warm but a sheepish, unseen smile pulling at your mouth. “You’ve treated me twice.”
“Ok,” he drawled. “F’you wanna get me dinner, I can come by yours.”
“I’ll text you the address — I have the thread.”
“And I’ll text you my number,” he added. “You should have it.”
Twenty-four hours later, you were rushing around your studio trying to make it feel like less of a shoebox. Stupid — you should’ve just asked for his hotel. He had to have one! This was sex, it wasn’t a you get this tab and I’ll get the next one sort of arrangement. The sheets on your bed were freshly changed, pillows fluffed (fluffed — who knew you’d ever fluff pillows), and you’d swept and wiped the floors down in the living-bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom alike, but everything still felt small and not enough. You’d lit some candles to try to compensate, but you’d gone on and off with them, blowing them and relighting them a handful of times as you went back and forth on whether or not they lent a feeling that didn’t belong in this sort of situation. Now, though, they burned and flickered on your coffee table, and you were just connecting your phone to the speaker when a knock on your door made you jump and spin.
“Coming!”
You spared a cursory glance through the peephole before twisting locks and unhooking chains, his hulking figure filling your doorway.
“Texted,” he said apologetically. “But—”
“I was just cleaning up,” you said, opening the door wider. “Sorry— come in.”
He shuffled past you with his printed luggage in hand, and your heart sank, ensnared in nerves, as he walked into the apartment that looked even smaller with him in it. Ears ringing, you could barely hear the notes of whatever album your phone had selected to autoplay. It was small, but it was yours — all yours — and if it didn’t meet his standards, then he didn’t have to stay.
“It’s—”
“Nice place,” he said slowly, and the upbeat lilt told you he wasn’t being facetious. Your shoulders fell with relief and the tension relaxed out of your neck. “That’s a nice candle,” he added, sniffing the air.
“It’s a little smaller than your hotel room,” you said.
“Been on tour buses, love,” he said, setting his luggage down. “There’s not really much smaller than a bunk racing across the country.”
Smiling, you squeezed your arms as he unzipped his coat and took his cap off. “How was your flight?” you asked.
“Dunno, really,” he said, running a hand through his mostly flattened curls. Unlike last time, he didn’t have his rings on, and his fingers looked longer and more slender without them. “Slept through most of it — had a bit of turbulence over Colorado or Utah or wherever, but it wasn’t tha’ bad.”
“Good,” you said. “If you wanna… um….” You jerked your thumb towards a door. “Bathroom’s there, if you need to clean up or anything.”
He nodded. “That’d be great, thanks. In there?”
You stepped aside to let him by, catching the distinct waft of plane and warmth and the spicy vanilla smell you’d come to associate with him. When he closed the door behind him, you exhaled and again spun through the apartment, shoving shoes under your bed to finish your tidying before carefully pulling the coffee table away from the sofa — his legs were longer, he’d need the room. You’d just smoothed out the rug when your phone buzzed and you grabbed it, seeing both the texts he’d sent you before that you’d missed in your focus as well as the one from your delivery man letting you know the food was outside. Perfect.
“S’a good album,” Harry said from the bathroom doorway after you locked up again. You jumped, gripping the bag with a knuckle-popping hold. You didn’t think it was possible to be quiet and sneaky in a place like this. “Sorry,” he said, snickering.
“I like it,” you breathed. “Dinner’s….” You lifted the bag on your way past him and heard him trailing after you. You set it on the coffee table and sat on the sofa as you popped the staples on the paper bag. “It’s nothing amazing.”
“That’s a review,” he teased, sitting next to you. “Now I can’t wait.”
“Shut up,” you said and he laughed loudly. “It’s just this place that’s nearish — El Diablito — they’ve got really good nachos and burritos.”
“Mexican, then?”
“Yeah.” Fuck. “Probably should’ve thought of that since you’ve just come back from LA,” you muttered.
“S’fine,” he said. “Didn’t really have much Mexican.”
You arched a brow and he coughed into his hand.
“So, d’I get a burrito?”
You nodded and pulled a hot, foil-wrapped item out of the bag. “Careful,” you warned, purposefully busying yourself with pulling the rest of the food out of the bag as he unfolded it.
“Looks good,” he said. From the corner of your eye, you watched him adjust his grip and angle his head before stretching his jaw wide to take a bite. You looked away quickly, almost overwhelmed by how comical it’d been, but when you looked back you found him chewing thoughtfully.
“You can have some of my quesadilla if you don’t like it,” you said quickly. “And the nachos are for both of us to pick at.”
Still, he didn’t say anything, until at last he swallowed and his lips smacked several times. “S’good,” he said thickly. “Like, that’s….” He peered at the corner he’d bitten into almost in disbelief. “That’s really good.” Again he stretched his mouth almost comically wide, tongue out, and this time you did laugh. Mouth full, he glanced up at you with unblinking eyes and mumbled a muffled, “What?” through his bite.
“Nothing,” you said, grinning and unwrapping your own food. “Go on, eat.”
“All right, calm down,” he said. “Have the whole night ahead of us.”
Sneak Peek - Blurred Lines: Until They Met Again // h.s.
“So, m’going to be back in New York soon.” Again, you said nothing, and after a beat he continued. “Just for a night or so — I’ll be flying into Philadelphia and then out to LA for some work stuff.”
“Philadelphia to New York to LA?” you asked.
“London to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to LA.”
“So—” Bless whatever and whoever it was that’d sicked the cat on you to catch your tongue before you could ask him why he was coming to New York if he was flying into and out of Philadelphia. “That’ll be nice.”
He cleared his throat again and you dropped your phone from your ear to take a deep breath, suddenly hot.
“Yeah, so,” he began, “I was thinkin’, y’know. If you’re free or you’d like to….”
You’d like to laugh, because this whole thing was wildly fucking funny. Harry Styles was dialing you for a booty call after a one night stand from months ago. Harry Styles was going to detour into the city for one night just for you, and it wasn’t because you’d had such riveting conversation last time.
“When?” Your fingers twitched at your side.
“When’s good for you?”
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Gently, you hooked your fingers into the thin gold chains dangling around his neck. They were dim under the shadow of his chin and his eyes flickered down briefly as you slowly pulled the crosses out from underneath his t-shirt. You ran your fingers back and forth, moving the pendants along the chains as if they were on a zipline.
“Still looking, love?” he asked, voice slightly more strained. You nodded, extending your index finger to play with the chest hairs peeking out from his neckline.
Then, you stopped. Almost in tandem with your fist closing around the chains, Harry tipped his cap back before ducking down to kiss you. You swayed, senses overwhelmed -- his skin was under your nose, his mouth was over yours, his groan was in your ears, and his hands were slinking behind you, shielding your back as he pressed you into the shelving. Right then, he was the world. Everything and everyone outside of this aisle was muted and shunned into total darkness. Tentatively, you wrapped your hand tighter in his necklaces and tugged, and all but immediately he dug his fingers into your back without so much as taking a breath. You whimpered and, hand still tangled, you slid it up his neck. You’d just gotten your forearm around his neck when he pulled away.
“I--” He cleared his throat, eyes closed, and pulled his cap down by the brim before pushing it back up again. “Don’t think they really have what m’lookin’ for today,” he said.
Your heart sank, blood still pounding through your veins and head dizzy.
“I think-- f’we can maybe-- d’you wanna go home? Maybe?”
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Transitions were… tricky.
Before you and Harry had joined hands and taken the leap, you were convinced there was nothing worse than the agonizing tickle of did he or didn’t he, would you or wouldn’t you. There was nothing worse than your racing heart when he let his hand linger in more than friendly ways -- in the dip of your lower back, across your shoulder, anywhere he could get that wasn’t copping a feel. Nothing worse than resting your face in the crook of his neck, nose brushing his skin, and listening to him talk through his chest, voice somehow deeper that way. Nothing worse than watching his face fall when you said no, you couldn’t get dinner with him. Why? You had a dinner date with someone else.
Even now you remembered the pang of his confusion and how his easy smile had slipped from his face.
Not long after that he’d cornered you in his visibly nervous resolve. It ended with you perched on top of your kitchen counter, legs spread and him between them as you made out in sweet relief.
How’d you not known? How’d you not have any idea? You’d teased that you were blinded by your pining, but it was bad for him, too, he’d insisted. Awful wondering how to go about it without fucking up a friendship if friendship was all you wanted. All those times of trying to initiate a shift -- first with a slow drawl of, “Is this ok?” while dragging his thumb across the backs of your knuckles in more than the quick passes he’d done in the past. Then, the “All right?” he’d rumbled in your ear when he’d kept you in a hug longer than either of you usually did had you arching into him at the time. To his credit, he hadn’t laughed. If anything, he’d pulled you closer so all of you was stretched across all of him and he’d held on tight. He never let go if he could help it.
That was weeks ago -- three by now, give or take. Three weeks and the bliss of not dancing around suspicions or purposefully sidestepping signs was like a weight had been lifted from both your shoulders. Three weeks of staying in and coffees out and walking through the park after dark and in the rain because that was how privacy could be next to guaranteed. Three weeks, but no date.
“What’ve we been doing?” you’d asked when he’d made the observation over curry takeaway.
“Hanging out.” He shrugged. “Y’know? We haven’t--” sighing, shoulders slumping, he said, “I haven’t taken you anywhere, or….”
So, a date. A real date -- a first, devoid of the jitters and uncertainties that came with meeting someone new, but full of different ones. A date set with the intent of being a real date, not like anything else you’d do.
Just Harry. Just your friend, just your buddy, just someone who was no longer just anyone anymore. Harry, but your fingers shook and nearly spilled the contents of your purse when he rapped on your door.
“Coming!” you called, voice strained. Two twists of your lock later and your door was open. “Hey,” you said. Those off-white loafers he’d more than worn in, grey trousers, the cap stuffed over his hair, and the scooped neck of his tank top underneath his long wool coat assured you that you’d made the right choice with your outfit. His onceover of you was almost imperceptible -- another habit he’d sworn to you he was sure you’d noticed more than once despite himself, and one he’d thought secured him in your mind.
“Ready?” he asked and you nodded, stepping out and pulling the door closed behind you.
“Where--?”
Could you ask that? As friends you’d have badgered him, but as friends he’d have told you beforehand instead of omitting the plan.
He grinned, key fob in hand. “Thought we’d go somewhere we both like….”
“Which is?”
His eyes slid to you and his cheek dimpled deeper. “Maybe go listen to some music.”
***
The record shop was an institution. For all intents and purposes, it was a hole in the wall -- decades of cigarette smoke permeated the walls by at least three inches, and the thick floorboards were warped and creaked with even the slightest step. What the aisles lacked in width they made up for in height, with row after row of albums loaded onto shelving units that nearly touched the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Some were wrapped in cellophane, but most were opened with handwritten pricemarks affixed to the front of them, colors distorted and worn from fingers and care throughout the years.
“This isn’t ‘hanging out’?” you asked quietly, scanning the shelves as you moved along them slowly.
“No,” came his answer from several steps behind you. “It’s something we like doing together.”
“Friends look at records,” you said. “Can you hand me that one?” you asked, pointing at a shelf that was just out of reach.
“Hmm?” Harry looked up from the back of a sleeve he was examining. “Oh, sure.”
“Thanks.” You took it from him and flipped it over. “Do you have this one?”
“I do,” he said. “It’s nice.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard you play it?”
Harry shrugged and you huffed. “You have everything, don’t you?” you said, putting it back. He smirked, but otherwise didn’t react, and you bit your lip, deflating, and averted your eyes. When he’d parked the car out front, you had felt a certain level of ease with the familiarity. Now, though, you felt like… Jesus, you hated admitting it because it made you sound needy, but you felt like you had to vye for his attention. You were his date, but music was his wife, his children, his wife’s children from her first marriage, and more wrapped up into one. At least before, you would sometimes catch each other’s eye in a way that felt forbidden or you’d trade stories and ideas -- anything to have an excuse to talk or get close.
You’d never had this problem as friends.
Your shoes thudded along the floor as you walked through the narrow aisles, the rounding corners and twisting through crates that were stacked one on top of the other -- rescued vinyls, CDs, 8-tracks, and cassette tapes that would’ve met some other end if they hadn’t been sheltered here. It was like stepping through the wardrobe into a musical Narnia where time was lost and you could move seamlessly across it -- decade to decade, month to month, day to day. Twisting your purse so it was behind you and out of your way, you started thumbing through albums, stopping suddenly and pulling one out when it caught your eye.
“What’ve y’got there?”
You jumped, throat closing, and nearly dropped the album on your foot. “Oh my God, Harry!” you whispered. He grinned widely, obnoxiously and obviously pleased he’d startled you, and if it wouldn’t break, you’d hit him with the record. “You absolute--”
“Dunno how you didn’t hear me,” he said. “Floors are--” He leaned back and forth, the squeaking almost musical.
“Stop that,” you said, turning away from him. You were reading the back when he slipped his hand around your waist, palm splayed over your hip.
“What’s that?” he repeated his previous question close to your ear. Wordlessly, you flipped it around and he hummed. “That’s a good one. Don’t have that, actually.”
“No?”
He shook his head and the ends of his hair brushed your ear. Your pulse quickened. Having him this close and letting him so casually step into your bubble of personal space and linger was still so new and unfamiliar. Even now, questions about whether it meant anything cropped up, tickling your brain -- surely this had to be an accident, not anything intentional. Surely he had to not even realize what he was doing. Surely none of this could mean anything.
Surely.
“D’you think you’re gonna get it?”
You inhaled quickly and cleared your throat, slipping it back onto the shelf. “I-- don’t know.” Your mouth was dry and you coughed delicately, but when you made to spin to slip by him, he got his hand on your other hip and held you in place.
“Where’re you going?”
Straightening up, something pulled behind your navel. Electric -- the word made you roll your eyes, but it was the only one you could describe the intensity of the charge you felt. Almost nose to nose, you could see every detail on his face. You’d seen them countless times before without a thought, but they were somehow more now. Every crease of his eyelids, every slight variation in the shade of his eyes, the patches of his facial hair that were thicker and darker than others, the freckle on his lip and the other on his chin and the way his throat bobbed, and--
“Just looking,” you whispered.
“Yeah?” Harry asked. “M’lookin’, too.”
The bell above the door clanged at the front of the shop. It was muted, distant, and voices were muffled. Next to no one ever came back here -- that’s why he liked this place. It was so deep, no one would ever find him. He could duck in, disappear, find a gem or three, and quietly leave without anyone being the wiser.
It was Narnia. Safe, surrounded by mentors of times gone by, with no one to interrupt.
Gently, you hooked your fingers into the thin gold chains dangling around his neck. They were dim under the shadow of his chin and his eyes flickered down briefly as you slowly pulled the crosses out from underneath his t-shirt. You ran your fingers back and forth, moving the pendants along the chains as if they were on a zipline.
“Still looking, love?” he asked, voice slightly more strained. You nodded, extending your index finger to play with the chest hairs peeking out from his neckline.
Then, you stopped. Almost in tandem with your fist closing around the chains, Harry tipped his cap back before ducking down to kiss you. You swayed, senses overwhelmed -- his skin was under your nose, his mouth was over yours, his groan was in your ears, and his hands were slinking behind you, shielding your back as he pressed you into the shelving. Right then, he was the world. Everything and everyone outside of this aisle was muted and shunned into total darkness. Tentatively, you wrapped your hand tighter in his necklaces and tugged, and all but immediately he dug his fingers into your back without so much as taking a breath. You whimpered and, hand still tangled, you slid it up his neck. You’d just gotten your forearm around his neck when he pulled away.
“I--” He cleared his throat, eyes closed, and pulled his cap down by the brim before pushing it back up again. “Don’t think they really have what m’lookin’ for today,” he said.
Your heart sank, blood still pounding through your veins and head dizzy.
“I think-- f’we can maybe-- d’you wanna go home? Maybe?”
Already? You’d only just gotten there, and you thought maybe for all his talk of a date, he’d….
Harry tilted his head, green eyes unblinking and imploring you to understand something. His cheeks were pink and he opened his mouth before closing it quickly with a mumble of, “M’mean… we don’t have to-- if you’re not, then I don’t….”
Oh.
Oh.
“Sure,” you gasped. “Yeah.”
You’d no sooner gotten the words out than he’d unwound your hand from around his necklace to hold it in his and pull you with him back from Narnia to the front of the shop and into the real world.
***
The car ride was hell. Whatever tension had settled and relaxed on the way over had grown tenfold on the way back. You were pretty sure he broke at least three rules on the way that included saying, “No one ever comes down this road, anyway,” under his breath and flooring the gas in a way that had you gripping the door and seriously debating your answer when he asked if you were ok. But the click of his turn signal before he rolled into his driveway was like a ticking time bomb.
You were home. Your friend who was a bit more than friendly had invited you home with the clear and unmistakeable intention to have sex.
With him.
That was a little more different.
Harry turned the car off and twin pops of seatbelts unfastening followed in quick succession. Abandoning chivalry, he left you to your door in favor of racing to his front one to open it up and usher you both inside out of the light drizzle that’d started halfway there.
You were walking into his house to have sex with him.
It was warm and cozy inside. Decorated in all its eccentric ways, his home felt like it was still getting used to having him home more often. Your shoes scuffed and squeaked the hardwood and his loafers padded with purpose as he went around flicking lights on to brighten the rooms. His cap was gone, having carelessly tossed it somewhere on his way in, and he was shaking his coat off when you fumbled with your bag before dropping it on the sofa and kicking off your shoes.
Ready.
Set….
“I’m--”
Gonna go upstairs.
The rest of it, though, was lost when Harry spun you by the waist and you only just caught sight of his curls — disheveled from the hat he’d stuffed them under — before he reeled you in with a smashing kiss. Unrestrained, unrelenting, and unforgiving, he was off, and it was all you could do to cling to his shoulders for dear life as he backed you up in the practiced way someone who lived there and knew every quirk and oddity of his own house might. He was free to touch, and you were, too, and you did. You touched his back, his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, the zipper on his trousers, and his thighs with greedy hands that were learning as fast as they could. As in the shop, again he pulled away and grabbed your hand to lead you up the steps, and your knees quaked so badly you nearly fell down more than once on the way up.
You felt naughty. The same frantic energy of two teenagers trying to beat the clock after school before Mum came home to make dinner pricked you, and judging by the permanent smile pulling his mouth and carving smile lines deeper, he felt it, too. Hurry up, quick, before anyone caught on that you were going to have sex with your friend Harry.
“Everyone probably thinks we’ve already--”
His barking laugh cut you off -- a little wheezy, but it was deep from his belly, and infectious -- and you followed him, giggling, into his bedroom.
It smelled like him. It was the whiff you got when you hugged him, or, more recently, kissed him, but even more, and it was so concentrated it made you woozy. The bed was made, if haphazardly -- like he’d decided on it while getting dressed because he thought he should, but he hadn’t wanted to spend the time on doing it right -- and clothes were visible through half-open drawers and draped onto the stuffed armchair in the corner of his room.
“Did you clean?” you teased. He exhaled sharply and shook his head, but his mouth quirked at the corners and his cheeks were pink. Biting your lip, you squeezed his hand and he stepped closer.
“Is this ok?” he asked. Nodding, you tilted your head up slightly to meet his mouth. Less hurried and violent than the one downstairs, this kiss reached deep, stirring up nerves and butterflies. Each time he broke it, you chased him for more, and he smiled into it, pressing his warm hand on your cheek. “Gonna take your clothes off now,” he mumbled between several smacking kisses.
“Ok….”
Your clothes and his were gradually removed -- button by button, snap after snap, and zippers, too, slowly and with careful intent despite the rush you were both in. Discovering him and having him discover you was nothing short of exhilarating. Harry drew his hand over your bare shoulder with almost curious possessiveness before ducking down and sponging kisses up and down it that had your eyes fluttering shut and your head rolling back. He groaned in the back of his throat and his teeth scraped your skin when he bit you gently, pulling a gasp from you and you yourself back to consciousness.
Dazed and lips parted with each gulping breath, you stared at him. His hair was dark and twisted, pulled this way and that by your hands and his, and his chest rose and fell rapidly, the same crosses you’d tugged earlier glinting in the streaks of soft grey light peeking through his curtains. Even the most faded ink on his torso and arms seemed to pop bright and black on his skin, and without thinking, you pressed your palms to it, absorbing the warmth as you skated over him before doing as he had and leaning in to press a kiss to his shoulder.
How many times had you suppressed thoughts of kissing his skin? How many times more had you indulged in them feeling guilty and unsure, because he was your friend and things weren’t like that for either of you? How many times had you wondered when you’d get to do this since things had shifted? You kissed and pulled at the skin along his shoulders, chest, and arms, relishing his stuttered breaths, and you only paused when, glancing up, you caught the look on his face. With hooded eyes and a parted, bright red mouth, he looked like a man -- not a man who was your friend, but a man you wanted to rip into and who you wanted to rip into you. A man who could, and was perfectly capable of it, and who would without even having to be asked if you only said yes, please. It was feral, it was instinctual, and you clapped your hand behind his neck before smashing your mouth to his with a desperate whimper.
Harry turned you smoothly onto his bed and you squeaked when your back hit the mattress with a bounce and he went with you. You were covered by him from head to toe, and you ran your foot up his calf, hooking it around the back of his knee. “Ha--” muffled against his mouth, he groaned immediately.
“I know,” he said. “I know, I know….”
One bra strap and then the other snapped when he slipped them down your arms, but the sting barely made an impression when he let out a slow, hot breath against your chest and peppered kisses over the tops of your breast. Nose pressed to your skin, he took a deep breath, and the anxiety that had wound itself into tight little balls in you of unchecked energy gradually loosened and dissolved. He was nervous -- not enough to inhibit him, but enough to roll off him and onto you. You almost laughed. You’d been so focused on your own perspective, you’d lost sight of the fact that this was different for him, too.
His best friend was in his bed, nearly naked, and he was about to have sex with them.
“Is this ok?” you whispered over his head. Harry stopped and looked up at you.
“Is…?” He grinned, laughing, and shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s great.”
Simple and silly, that one word sent you soaring. Great -- you were great. This was great. Pushing his chest, you sat up when he rolled off you as you wordlessly reached behind to unhook your bra. You didn’t miss the way his eyes dropped automatically when you shimmied it down your arms, and you smirked in a way you hoped was half as coy as you’d tried to make it.
“Go,” you murmured, pushing his chest again.
“Ah,” Harry said, doing as you asked and falling back onto his elbows. “They like to be in charge, then?”
Heat crept up through you when you straddled his thighs. “Sometimes.” You slipped your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, noticing very briefly how soft his skin was against your knuckles before you pulled the elastic firmly. Harry lifted his hips so you could get them down, and just as his had, your eyes dropped despite yourself. Mostly hard, he rested against the crease of his thigh. Any number of adjectives ran through your head, and you only realized you were still looking, lost in thought, when you caught the cocky twist of his mouth.
“Go on, then,” he said quietly. Snorting, you rolled your eyes and fell forward, chest-to-chest with him, and he drew you up into a kiss. Smashed together, you stayed just like that, hands stroking, dipping, and exploring bare skin. You shivered when he slipped his hand into your underwear to knead your ass, and your wriggling made him grunt in a tortured way. “Condom’s in the drawer,” he mumbled. “Gonna… have to… wait… wait here.”
Harry gently eased you away by the waist before rolling across his bed and stood to open his bedside table. You dropped your head onto his pillow and watched him with a small smile. “Were you planning this?”
He tore a condom off the strip. “No. I mean….” Harry shrugged. “Had hope that… maybe eventually… y’know…” he said sheepishly. He looked at you as if gauging your reaction. “Is that…?”
Your smile widened and you held your arm out, inviting him back, and he let out a deep breath, taking it.
“Know how t’keep me on my toes,” he mumbled.
“Good,” you said just before kissing him, arm tight around his neck. He inhaled deeply and sheets rustled as you rolled in them, turning him onto his back and sending you with him. With your weight settled on top of him, you lay there comfortably, languidly kissing through soft, breathless moans. He, for his part, seemed content to let his hands wander the sides of your breasts, your back, your hips, over your ass, the crease along your thighs, and finally….
You stilled with a gasp when he slid the pads of his fingers over you -- up and down, up and down -- before he carefully parted you with just the tips. Gulping, you broke from his mouth and rested your forehead on his shoulder with a rattling breath, gripping his bicep and shifting to bring one of your knees up. Harry grunted and adjusted himself beneath you before pressing a kiss to your ear and sliding his fingers deeper. He curled them and your mouth fell open. Beneath you, he chuckled, but didn’t say a word as he pumped them in and out of you, each wet, slick stroke somehow louder than the last. God, could he hear that? Of course he could.
“Come on,” he whispered, gradually slowing his fingers. He pulled them out and drew them up your skin, leaving a sticky trail behind. “Come….” The wrapper crinkled when you tore into it, and he pinched the top while you smoothed the condom down to his base. Hands braced on his chest, you held your breath as you settled over him.
“Breathe,” he warned, jaw tight and eyes flickering between your face and where you were above him. “Breathe, yeah? Just--”
“I’m ok,” you assured him, drawing his head between your legs, sliding it until you found your entrance. “I’m….” You trailed off into a sigh when you opened around his head, and, swallowing hard, you eased down, down, down onto him until you were nearly seated on his thighs. “Oh my God,” you moaned under your breath.
“Breathe,” Harry said again. Eyes closed, you did as he said, taking slow, deep breaths in and out. He was… this was a stretch. Not painfully so, but one regardless. You pulsed, grimacing immediately, before rocking on top of him. There -- that wasn’t so bad. Not at all, even, that was good. Hands still on his chest, you braced yourself and pushed back and forth, slowly at first and then with more certainty. Beneath you, Harry grunted and clapped his hands over your hips as if caught off guard. “Shit,” he breathed.
Eyes stamped shut, he tilted his head back, drilling it into his pillow, and you marveled at the long column of his neck. You watched his throat bob several times and you followed the path up to his sharp jawline, his tight mouth, to where his nose was flaring harshly. He laughed breathlessly and opened his eyes, but there was an unfocused gleam to them. “Y-y’killin’... killin’ me,” he stuttered. “You….”
He trailed off when you hooked your fingertips into his chains again and tugged. His chin doubled when he lifted his head and when he locked eyes with you, you grinned impishly before easing down onto him. Clapping a firm hold on your ass, he brought you down hard and you groaned abruptly. That was deep -- that was in your belly -- and your face screwed up when he did it again and again, thrusting his hips sharply against yours.
“Oh my-- Harry-- fuck!”
The bands of his rings, warm from his body heat, pinched your skin when he tightened his hold. He practically shook beneath you with the effort he was using, every breath labored, but suddenly, he stopped. Before you could so much as whisper, the world spun around you and you were on your back, empty.
“Shit!” Harry spluttered, pushing his fingers through his now damp hair. It fell right back in front of his forehead and you let out a wheezy stream of giggles. “That-- that was not supposed to be that….”
You laughed louder and he kissed your jaw, grinning against it while kneading one of your breasts, thumb rolling back and forth over your nipple. Eyes closing, you sighed breathily when he ducked down and sucked with a low, reverent groan and incomprehensible mumbles. When he stretched out above you again to push in, you wrapped both your arms around his back as yours arched with a quiet moan.
“God, this feels good,” you said, candid and unprompted, sinking into the feeling as he sank into you.
“Feels amazing,” he said. “Feels so fucking….” Grunting, he shuddered and dropped nearly all his weight on top of you. “Bring your legs up,” he said. “Bring your legs--” You complied, locking your ankles just above his ass, thighs spread wide. “Good, good girl.”
“You like to… to be the boss?” you teased, echoing his earlier jab.
He thrust sharply, punching a shout from you.
“Yes.”
Again and again he drove into you, and it was all you could do to grab onto him. He’d been holding back! He’d been holding way back! You hiccuped a breath and pressed your mouth to his shoulder, face twisted as you grappled his back with shaking fingers. This was good sex -- this was the type of sex that elevated you and made your toes shake and curl while you gasped for breath. The type of sex where you were going and going until you lost your breath right on the edge and you had to pause and feel the tickles of an orgasm slip away because it was that or pass out cold. This was sex you kissed and bit your way through and would leave you sore from your scalp down through the balls of your feet. It was roll over, lift like this, deeper, there? There sex. This sex was….
You weren’t sure at first because it felt fast, but it was confirmed with the first contraction deep in your abdomen. “Oh my God,” you moaned in disbelief. One of your hands slipped against his back and he hissed, faltering for just a moment as you uttered a pitchy, “Sorry… sorry!” while finding your hold both in his firm upper back and the softer muscle close to his hips.
“Close?” he ground out, voice muffled, and you nodded against his shoulder, turning your face into his sweaty neck. The smell of cologne and sweat was strong, almost dizzyingly so, and each new contraction brought on by his pelvis grinding against yours made it worse.
Swallowing, mouth dry, you whispered, “I’m think I’m gonna cum,” in an almost confessional tone. “I think--”
“Ok!” he said under his breath. “Ok-- oh, shit….” He moaned, a long, loud, drawn out sound and his hips faltered. ‘Wait! Wait, fuck!” Breathless and keening he thrust roughly, like he was trying to beat a clock only he could hear, breathing raggedly under your ear. Panting, you locked your arms and legs around him. You’d never been particularly loud -- years of necessity had built a habit -- but you could hear yourself now, calling out things that didn’t even make sense, writhing underneath him like you were out of your mind. It was almost pornographic, and you almost laughed, but it got caught in your throat when your cunt pulsed and your whole body tightened.
“Oh, Harry, oh, God!”
Harry smashed a stubbly kiss to the corner of your mouth, and his chin hit yours so hard it hurt. Your eye watered, whether from pain or the intensity of him still grinding, but seconds later through sputtered pleases and increasingly frantic thrust, he groaned so deeply you felt it in you. You went entirely still as he trembled, cock throbbing, and in the next minute he’d collapsed full weight on top of you. You sucked soft, wheezy breaths in as best you could, but your lungs were crushed in your chest with the pressure he was putting on them. Just as you were about to ask him to… maybe… please, Harry… move… he pushed up and off you to the side just enough to relieve you.
“Shit!” he rasped, face planted against your shoulder. “Shit.”
Yeah. Shit. Did you say it out loud? You couldn’t tell -- you couldn’t tell much of anything anymore. Everything was somehow pleasantly hot and numb at the same time, and you were thirsty. Your head was ringing, too, and you couldn’t remember the last time sex had left you this finished. Totally and thoroughly finished.
You’d done it. You’d had sex with him, with intent, and it was incredible.
Harry slipped his hand around your bicep and squeezed, pressing kisses to your skin in silence. Your lips quirked, but any quip was half-formed, and each one died on your tongue. Gradually, your breathing settled and the roaring silence did, too. Outside, the clouds had passed, and raindrops clinging to the window panes were slowly drying up in the sun that’d deemed it safe enough to peek again. It was still early -- after the nerves, the jitters, the trip to the shop, dancing around each other, and flooring it back to his place, and the sex, there was still most of a day ahead of you.
With a final squeeze, Harry kissed the top of your breast before rolling away, bed creaking beneath him. Shaking his head, he stood, and picked his trousers off the floor before patting them down and taking out his phone.
“S’get summat t’eat,” he mumbled, voice thick, as he passed it over to you. “Lemme buy.” He gestured to himself vaguely. “Gonna go… and maybe pick up that record you didn’t know I had.”
He stumbled, waving you off when you giggled. Just the same as before -- lunch in the afternoon with albums spinning until you couldn’t stand to get up to change them again -- but with a few crucial differences that made it so much better.
Something I had fun with and I hope you do, too. x
P.S. Sorry it’s late!
Harry closed his book and you fell silent. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He sighed, lips in a straight line and eyes unreadable. Three strikes and you were out — if you dragged it on any longer with this two steps forward, one steps back business, it didn’t matter what you wanted or if he trusted you, his patience would be stretched so thin he wouldn’t want to even if he wanted to.
“If I wanted to watch you—“ you bobbed your loose fist mid-air and Harry laughed, one loud, single bark that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Would you let me?”
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“Do you trust me?”
Harry closed his book partway and peered at you from behind the back cover, chin squished on his chest, and he pushed his glasses up so they were perched on top of his head just in front of the hair clip gathering the worst offenders of the unstyled hair together.
It was Friday — too soon to be the weekend, but the week was too far gone to do anything that required more effort than laze on the sofa, his feet on the ottoman and yours curled on the cushion next to where he was slouched.
“Why do you want to know?”
You huffed, adjusting the pillow underneath your head. “So, no?”
Immediately, he grinned, a dimple burrowed in his cheek underneath the beard you’d hinted you wouldn’t mind if he kept. He shut his book and groaned, elbowing his way into a proper sitting position.
“Someone asks you if you trust them,” he began, “you get a little suspicious.”
“Well, do you?”
“Sure,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”
You bit your lip and squirmed when he squeezed your calf through your leggings.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“I was just asking!”
Shaking his head, he opened his book and held it in front of his face.
One.
Two.
Two and a half.
Three.
“If I—“
Harry closed his book and you fell silent. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He sighed, lips in a straight line and eyes unreadable. Three strikes and you were out — if you dragged it on any longer with this two steps forward, one steps back business, it didn’t matter what you wanted or if he trusted you, his patience would be stretched so thin he wouldn’t want to even if he wanted to.
“If I wanted to watch you—“ you bobbed your loose fist mid-air and Harry laughed, one loud, single bark that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Would you let me?”
“Is that the question?”
“Yes.”
“Then yeah.” He shrugged. “Not like it’s really all that scandalous or new. We’ve been on the phone and video calls….”
Your throat closed up and you swallowed hard. “What if… I wanted to tell you how?”
Nothing. Harry didn’t say a word -- he hardly so much as blinked, and he didn’t look even remotely nonplussed.
“Would that… is that, I mean....” You floundered for a choice of words. “Too much?”
He snorted. “‘Too much’?” he asked. “D’you really think much of anything surprises me with you?”
Heat crept up your chest and neck with its itchy insistence. You scowled and he grinned, lifting his chin.
“So, you wanna watch me?” He was still grinning and this mischief in his eyes outdanced any sugarplum. “You wanna be the boss and tell me what to do?”
“Not--” You groaned, sliding down on the sofa and hiding your face behind hands, legs, and feet. “Not like that, you ass.”
He grabbed your foot and laughed when you nearly kicked him.
“Stop it!” you whined.
“What’re you hiding for?” he asked. “It’s not really that deviant, is it?”
You made a noise.
“Tell you what to do plenty.” His thumb stroked the arch of your foot and you curled your toes. “How’s this any different?”
“It just is.”
“F’you wanna tell me what to do,” Harry said, “you can. Whenever you’re next feeling like it.”
You peered at him through the window between your thighs. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” he asked.
“Feeling like it?”
Harry mouthed words soundlessly before stuttering, “Like… now?”
You shrugged and he sat up a little straighter.
“I could,” he said. “I can-- am. Are you?”
You smothered a giggle behind your sleeve and he blinked.
“So…?”
Slowly, you untangled you unfolded your legs and curled up slightly closer to him.
“Do I just…?” He motioned down his legs and you nodded, biting your lip, watching as he untied his joggers. He shifted to shimmy them and his briefs down his thighs and you leaned forward, carefully pulling his glasses from the tangle of curls and setting them on the coffee table. “Am I allowed to…?”
“Yes, please,” you whispered. Swallowing hard, Harry cleared his throat before setting both his hands on his bare legs. Slowly, he exhaled and tipped his head back, eyes closed as blunt, unpolished fingers raked up and down leaving faint pink streaks behind. Your lips parted, watching every detail -- from the flutter of his eyes behind his lids to the bob of his throat to the way his thighs tensed and relaxed and the way he shifted in his seat. He cleared his throat you started, goosebumps pricking your skin that puckered tighter when his hands crept higher up his legs to their creases, until at last he cupped himself with one of his hands and gently pulsed his palm.
A guttural groan echoed in his throat and his brow furrowed in concentration. He circled his soft cock, holding the weight you knew well very carefully, and ran his thumb up and down with what looked to be the most featherlight touch. You let out a sharp breath and curled up more tightly, eyes so wide and focused you didn’t even blink until they started to sting. You didn’t want to miss a moment.
“Aren’t you gonna tell me what to do?”
Eyes still closed, a small smile was playing around his mouth, his gruff question scraping the bottom of your soul. “Not yet,” you said lightly. “I just wanna watch for a minute.” Half a beat passed. “Are you going to look at me?”
Harry laughed under his breath and swallowed like a parched man, licking lips that suddenly looked very dry. “Tryin’ t’focus here, darling,” he said. Impulsively, you rolled onto your knees and rested one hand on his shoulder and the other on his forehead before covering his mouth with yours. Slow, deep, he was immediately receptive, lifting his head to press closer to you and licking along your bottom lip before suckling. You broke with a rattling breath and he opened his eyes. Clear, green, and a little dazed, you gradually lowered back onto your heels with a glance between his legs.
He was proper hard now, cock firm and head popping out with every downward pump of his hand, and your throat tightened staring at the increasingly pink skin where a drop of precum was gathering. He grunted and you returned your attention to him to find him watching you with parted lips and glassy eyes.
“You have to do it right,” you whispered.
Harry sputtered. “Y’asked t’see how I do it, how’s it--?”
“You’ll never cum like this,” you said. “It’s going to take forever.”
“Slow and steady.” He lifted his hips and his nostrils flared.
“It’s boring,” you said.
“Why’d you wanna see then?” he asked. “Does me just fine.”
“Here,” you murmured. “You have to move your hand like… no, not that way, like….”
Repeatedly, Harry tried adjusting his hold, his angle, his stroke, but whatever he did, it wasn’t right -- too loose, too awkward, not fast enough and then too fast.
“You’re a bit rubbish at trying t’tell me what you want,” Harry huffed.
“I’m sorry,” you said, moaning your anguish. “I just… I know how to do it, just….” Hands over his, Harry’s back arched when you drew his hand up and down his cock in a rhythm that was familiar to both of you, fingers locked to keep your hold secure.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, covering his eyes with one hand before letting it drop off over the side. He gulped, head rolling on the back of the sofa.
“Like this,” you said under your breath. “Like this….” You took his hand and placed them under his balls, curling your fingers. “Like this,” you repeated again as he stroked the sensitive skin. “Like—“
You swiped your thumb over his head before pressing the pad to the wet slit. It throbbed, either from your pulse or his, and he bucked his hips.
“Fuck!”
“Keep going,” you said when his hand faltered. “Keep….” You sucked your cheeks in for a few passes of your hand before a string of spit fell from your mouth and rolled down the side of his cock. He made a wounded noise when you pumped your hand to pick it up with each stroke and said, “Has to be wet, too, it has to—“
“Don’t fuckin’ tease if you’re not gonna….” He mimed pushing down on something and you debated with yourself for a moment before lowering. Just his head at first — hot, hard, the salty tang spreading over your tongue with each pass of it — and then a little more.
You inhaled through your nose when he rested his hand on the back of your neck, but there was no pressure or insistence. Instead, he massaged the base of it and you moaned under your breath, jaw aching when you opened it wider and slid down farther. He was endless — a mouthful and then some — and you bobbed up and down with sometimes smooth sometimes erratic movements, eyes closed in concentration. You held him at his base, twisting and squeezing lightly to try to match your mouth. His head was your favorite because of how sensitive he was, but if you could take more of him, you would, and you tried to make up for what you couldn’t get.
It was sloppy at best, and he liked that best when you had the time to take to make it messy and wet. Head pressed against the inside of your cheek, you sucked hard, lips puckered as you pulled all the way up until you were nearly popping off him. The fluttering of your mouth around the very end of him had him tightening his hand around your neck and you smiled despite yourself, the release of the suction wet, and you laughed over his groan before descending again.
Your other hand cupped his balls, and when a trail of saliva rivered down under your thumb, you rubbed soft circles through it with the slightest pressure.
“Holy shit—“ He forced his hand open and let go entirely, and you knew without looking he was pulling his own hair in tortured agony. His thighs tensed and released, lifting slightly, and when you pulled off entirely to press wet, open-mouthed kisses along the underside until you’d joined your hand. You licked broad strokes and suckled the mess you’d made clean. He was so swollen even edging him now would be cruel, and you jerked your hand loosely on his cock until one of his covered yours.
“Tighter,” he ground out. “Have to… need….” Your hand in his, he pulled and twisted up and down while you licked and pulled one ball and then the other into your mouth, alternating back and forth as best you could. The bottom of your spine was aching by now and one of your feet was starting to fall asleep, but just a little more — you were positive by his heavy breathing and the way he was trying so hard not to buck his hips and how he was practically crushing your knuckles with his increasingly frenzied pace.
His sharp gasp and sudden stilling in combination with a guttural, garbled, indecipherable stream of groans proved you right. Seconds later, a hot, thick, wet gush dripped down the back of your hand and the pressure of his around yours released. You pulled off the ball you’d been favoring to lick along fingers, up his cock, and his abdomen, stopping only when you were breathless and you couldn’t physically contort your body any longer. Aching, you sat up, gulping. He was wheezing softly, eyes closed and cheeks red, a light shine all over his forehead, face, and down his neck. You wiped your mouth and sucked the corner of your thumb.
“Can’t do th-that… myself,” he managed to get out.
He cracked a smile when you giggled breathlessly and collapsed, curled up on the cushion with your head on his lap.
Gently, you hooked your fingers into the thin gold chains dangling around his neck. They were dim under the shadow of his chin and his eyes flickered down briefly as you slowly pulled the crosses out from underneath his t-shirt. You ran your fingers back and forth, moving the pendants along the chains as if they were on a zipline.
“Still looking, love?” he asked, voice slightly more strained. You nodded, extending your index finger to play with the chest hairs peeking out from his neckline.
Then, you stopped. Almost in tandem with your fist closing around the chains, Harry tipped his cap back before ducking down to kiss you. You swayed, senses overwhelmed -- his skin was under your nose, his mouth was over yours, his groan was in your ears, and his hands were slinking behind you, shielding your back as he pressed you into the shelving. Right then, he was the world. Everything and everyone outside of this aisle was muted and shunned into total darkness. Tentatively, you wrapped your hand tighter in his necklaces and tugged, and all but immediately he dug his fingers into your back without so much as taking a breath. You whimpered and, hand still tangled, you slid it up his neck. You’d just gotten your forearm around his neck when he pulled away.
“I--” He cleared his throat, eyes closed, and pulled his cap down by the brim before pushing it back up again. “Don’t think they really have what m’lookin’ for today,” he said.
Your heart sank, blood still pounding through your veins and head dizzy.
“I think-- f’we can maybe-- d’you wanna go home? Maybe?”
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Something I had fun with and I hope you do, too. x
Harry closed his book and you fell silent. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He sighed, lips in a straight line and eyes unreadable. Three strikes and you were out — if you dragged it on any longer with this two steps forward, one steps back business, it didn’t matter what you wanted or if he trusted you, his patience would be stretched so thin he wouldn’t want to even if he wanted to.
“If I wanted to watch you—“ you bobbed your loose fist mid-air and Harry laughed, one loud, single bark that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Would you let me?”
Read NOW on Patreon // Coming SOON to Tumblr and Wattpad
“I love—” Heart in your throat from his first two raspy words, you stopped breathing, “—how you smell,” he groaned, tickling your neck with his deep inhale. “It’s so….”
Your lips twitched and you flexed your trembling fingertips. “Yeah?” you asked in a bit of a snorting huff, adding, before you could think better, “Is that all?”
The pang of regret hit you immediately and heat spread over your chest and up your neck when he laughed against it. You were prepared to scoff, tut, tsk, and roll your eyes — to shove him by the shoulder and turn him on his back to ride him until he forgot about it and was gone across an ocean before he remembered. Instead, though, Harry shook his head.
“Nope.”
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The shower was running and, standing in your tiny studio kitchen, you listened to Harry cheerfully whistling an unfamiliar tune through the splashes, occasionally interrupting the melody with excited, indecipherable words. You squeezed your arms around yourself, suppressing a chill, and you took a deep, rattling breath as you stared at your bed. Sheets and the duvet were still twisted and tangled, abandoned and untouched since you’d both finally managed to drag yourselves out of bed. You gnawed your thumbnail, the whole of last night replying itself in your mind….
***
“Get your feet away from my food!” you cried, flicking Harry’s ankle bone.
“Ouch, fuck!” he yelped, pulling both of them off the coffee table as quick as lightning and covering them with his hands, shooting a reproachful look. “Stop that, you….”
“You earned it,” you said without remorse. Grabbing your container of Chinese, you balanced it on your knees while splitting a pair of chopsticks. “How would you like it if my feet were in your mouth?”
He snorted and you growled, opening your dinner and sinking back into the sofa. “Eat,” you demanded, but his mouth was permanently quirked, eyebrows high on his forehead with the multiple jokes spinning in the factory of his mind, packaged and destroyed without delivery. Your initial companionable silence as you dug in, starved, gradually gave way to satisfied slurps, sucks, questions with full mouths, and the occasional choking cough that was quickly doused with water when you weren’t careful enough.
“When are you coming back?” you asked, twirling noodles around. Don’t look, don’t look at him, because then he’d guess or assume — it didn’t matter if it was true or not, he didn’t get to just—
Harry was silent, and a quick glance against your better judgment found him intently digging through his container for his favorites. He was frowning, jaw sharp, and by now it didn’t seem he was digging so much as… avoiding.
Your heart sank and you knew even before he said it, but it didn’t make it any less of a blow. “Dunno,” he said, lofty, cool, and still without looking at you. “Nothing planned yet.”
Nothing? Like, at all?
You nodded, but internally you were stomping your feet and kicking up dirt.
Pop. It was like the bubble your apartment had always been — the happy, sheltered, rosy bubble — had been pricked and was caving in around you in a slowly wilting fashion.
“That’ll be nice, though,” you said. “Staying home for once?” It was nice — it was — and you should be happy for him. Part of you was, but the other part — a larger, nastier part, maybe — was hating London, hating his job, hating that nothing demanded he return, and hating yourself for wishing for him to be forced to run himself ragged between work obligations and a night in with you.
“Bit of a reset,” he nodded. “Time to think and work on some other stuff.”
It was good for him, you reminded yourself again over your sinking disappointment. It was good for him to pause and to have the time to write — he scribbled from time to time, and you knew he never stopped, but being able to sit in one place to hear his own thoughts without interruption…. This was good for him. It was good.
But it didn’t feel good.
The noodles you’d nagged him for over his shoulder, arms around his waist and voice muffled in his neck as he placed the order, suddenly tasted greasy, cold, and unappealing, and you couldn’t possibly fit any more of them in you if you tried. You stuck your chopsticks deep in the pile before setting the carton on the coffee table.
Harry swallowed a large mouthful. “You’re done?” he asked.
“I’m full,” you said. “Here, you can have some if you want. I’m going to brush my teeth.”
He sat up a little straighter and you felt his eyes trained on you as you slipped away to the bathroom. You flicked the light on and grabbed your toothbrush, and as you brushed, you heard him hastily closing containers and ferrying them to the fridge, nearly snorting and inhaling peppermint foam down your windpipe when he tripped and swore.
“Whoa,” you gasped, face screwing up and braced for impact when you nearly ran into him chest to chest leaving the bathroom, and Harry just grasped your upper arms to keep you from toppling backwards.
“Sorry,” he said. “Are you done?”
“Yes.” You patted his cheek. “Don’t use my toothbrush.”
“What? I wouldn’t do that!”
Smirking, you side-stepped him and slipped by to return to the sofa, and you stepped up onto it before curling up in the corner. The sounds of running water and of him gargling and spitting in the sink echoed so loudly you almost laughed, but when he reappeared, you blinked owlishly, watching him approach.
“So.” Harry gulped and cleared his throat. “D’you…?” He gestured toward the television, all too casual, and you smirked slightly, rolling your head to the side.
“Come here.”
When he sat down, he was practically on top of you, and you giggled despite yourself, looping your arms around his neck and reeling him closer as his hand fit to your body under your breast. Breath hitching, you both exchanged shy smiles before he leaned in and kissed you. Gentle, tender even, but he groaned when you slid your hand into his soft hair and cradled his head at the base of his skull, rubbing small circles. The strands tickled your palm, and you ran your fingers through them in a trance, only stopping when you realized he was gradually lowering you on the sofa.
“Wait,” you whispered between kisses. “Mmm… wait….”
“What’s up?” He kissed your jaw and you shivered, squirming.
“Get up.” You pushed his chest. “Get up, let’s go.”
He groaned under his breath, struggling to move off you as quickly as possible, and you pulled him with you from the sofa to your bed. You’d just reached it when he wrapped his arms around you from behind, one slung across your waist and the other over your chest, and he gripped your jaw while he peppered kisses up and down your cheek and neck. Eyes fluttering shut, you stood there, sighing and melting into his chest and smiling slightly from how eager he was. A stream of giggles erupted when he pulled one drawstring and then the second on your joggers with a low whistle.
“You’re a teenager,” you murmured and he squeezed you tightly.
“Young at heart,” he rumbled. You grinned wider despite yourself, nerves tingling inexplicably when he slowly turned you and lowered you to the bed. “Lie back,” he murmured. You squeaked when you fell back onto your elbows, giggling breathlessly when he tugged your joggers over your hips and down your legs, and you bit your lip when he locked eyes with you. His hair, unruly and in want of a haircut (or at least some styling), was falling in his eyes, which were sparkling brilliantly with mischief and joy that made your stomach flutter. You hadn’t even known eyes actually sparkled until you met him and knew him. Maybe it was something just for him — another exclusive trick the universe had tucked away in his arsenal because he was worth it.
When, exactly, you’d started having these flowery thoughts you weren’t sure, but as he hooked his hands around the backs of your knees and swung you onto your mattress before clambering on top of you, your head pounded, full of them. Hand perched on your ribs underneath your shirt, he stretched out beside you and immediately leaned in for a kiss. Eyes closed with your own hands clasped loosely over his cheeks, for as long as that kiss lasted, you were submerged — submerged and surrounded by him, where he was everything you tasted, touched, smelled, and heard with your remaining senses.
Slowly, he pushed his hand up higher and you sighed, back arching before you sank into the mattress. He ran his fingers over the lace edge of your bra delicately and, despite the countless times he’d done it before, you moaned and suppressed a soft shudder when he slipped his fingers under your strap and tugged. With almost excruciating care, he traced his fingertips over your goosebumps before wedging his hand underneath your back and unhooking the clasps after a few false starts.
Sighing, he broke the kiss, and you opened your eyes just as he bit down lightly on the swell of your breast through your shirt. You held your breath as he nuzzled and pulled on your bra strap before sliding his hand over your bare breast under the cup. His name lingered on the tip of your tongue, but it felt wrong to break the silence, and you bit your lip against it when he pinched your nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“I love—” Heart in your throat from his first two raspy words, you stopped breathing, “—how you smell,” he groaned, tickling your neck with his deep inhale. “It’s so….”
Your lips twitched and you flexed your trembling fingertips. “Yeah?” you asked in a bit of a snorting huff, adding, before you could think better, “Is that all?”
The pang of regret hit you immediately and heat spread over your chest and up your neck when he laughed against it. You were prepared to scoff, tut, tsk, and roll your eyes — to shove him by the shoulder and turn him on his back to ride him until he forgot about it and was gone across an ocean before he remembered. Instead, though, Harry shook his head.
“Nope.” Sharp, clear, and a little bit cheeky when he kissed your neck. “Love how you smell,” he said. “Love how you feel—” He spread his hand wide and pulled it down your torso again, and your stomach muscles jumped when he pressed his wide, flat palm into your belly. “Love that y’get a little twitchy,” he chuckled, kissing your sternum before turning and laying his head on your chest, ear pressed tight to you. His curls tickled the tip of your nose and you could smell the faint scent of his shampoo. He was perfectly silent and you gulped as quietly as you could, feeling the glug-glug-glug of your heart pounding in your chest. “Love that, too,” he said at last, nearly shocking you out of your skin. “Y’know what I mean?”
Did you? Yes — maybe, you might. You wouldn’t have thought it if he hadn’t asked, but now that he had, I love rang in your head.
Harry pushed up, then, and you followed him into a sitting position so he could lift your shirt over your head. With it gone, you shimmied your bra off the rest of the way while he tugged his own shirt off, and when he threw it to the ground, he leaned in for another kiss. Together, you reclined, caught again in that moment where you were both the only thing the other could taste, touch, smell, and feel. His chest was hot against yours, but you shivered almost endlessly with each pass of his hand up and down your body.
“I love… love when you do this,” you whispered between kisses.
“What’s that?”
“This.”
He gripped your hip, just above your thigh.
“That,” you moaned. “I love when you….” You covered his hand with yours and he tightened his hold, groaning.
“What else?” Faint but deep, it pulled something in your belly. Swallowing, you exhaled long and slow.
“I love when… when you tell me I’m good.” Your lips parted when he burrowed into your neck and nodded.
“Y’good,” he mumbled his agreement. “You’re so fucking good f’me, s’like….” His breath rattled and you ran your fingertips up and down the side of his body with a featherlight touch.
“I love how you feel,” you echoed his earlier sentiment. “You’re strong, and w-warm.” Harry made a wounded noise in his throat that somehow intensified the prickling in your eyes before he reached between you to unbutton his jeans. You pressed your hand against his cheek and scratched lightly through the beginnings of a patchy beard. “I love when you don’t shave,” you whispered. “I love feeling it when you’re gone.”
Everything — you were telling him everything uncontrolled as it bubbled out of you. It was too much — he wasn’t supposed to know this as much as you weren’t supposed to feel it, let alone acknowledge you felt it. You clamped your mouth shut, then, and willed yourself to keep quiet, because if you kept talking, you didn’t know what would come out.
When he sat up to get his jeans off the rest of the way, you hooked your thumbs into your underwear and lifted your ass to shimmy them down your thighs and kick them away. Knees parted, you lifted them high when he guided himself between your legs and lowered down, welcoming him with open arms that you wound underneath his arms to hold onto him by his back.
“I wanna—” He cut your whine off with a kiss and you deflated, satisfied. Yes, please, yes…. His cock was in the crease of your thigh and he rutted slowly as he kissed you, hips following the motions they’d take if he was in you. You wrapped your legs tighter and he slowed in place before twisting and shifting so he slid between your folds. A shock went through you with the skin-on-skin contact that you weren’t quite used to yet, and, as if sensing your engrained trepidation, he stilled, breaking the kiss and nuzzling your cheek. “No,” you breathed. “No, please….”
“You’re good?” he asked. “You’re still good with—?”
“Yes….”
He kissed you again and you made a pinched noise when his head pushed inside, spreading you open, and you panted, face crumpling when he thrust the rest of the way in one long stroke until he was all the way in. “Oh God,” you croaked against his mouth, sucking in sharply when he shifted back and forth until his hips were flush with yours.
“There we are,” he sputtered. “That’s it, we’re all… all in, s’okay.”
You whimpered and he pressed soft kisses to your mouth repeatedly, allowing you to adjust, and, gradually, your fingers released their grip on his back. Harry sighed and dropped his forehead against your neck, growing heavier for a moment before shifting his support to his forearms and starting to thrust properly.
It wasn’t the most physically demanding sex you’d ever had in the course of your back and forth — there’d been times his leg cramped with even the simplest of movements and when you’d positively screamed because, “Something popped, Harry!” and he shouldn’t have listened to you when you said you were that flexible. But with each grunt, heave, gasp, creak of the bed, and slap of skin, you were positive it was the most intense sex you’d ever had with him. It wasn’t rough, or frantic, except for a few moments where he lost control of his rhythm, but every thrust reached up deep within your belly. He was hot, heavy, and slick with sweat, mumbling under his breath and sometimes stalling to shake like a leaf before he managed to steady himself again with a disbelieving. He pressed kisses to your neck, jaw, shoulder, and upper arm, leaving an itchy feeling behind that you quickly forgot with each following one.
“I love this,” he groaned quietly. “I love this so—”
“Oh, my God, baby, please,” you whispered in a rush. Belatedly, you realized you’d never called him that out loud and to his face before, but he fucked that thought from you on the next thrust.
“Baby what?” he asked between his teeth, hips falling more heavily against. “Baby what? Hmm?”
You’ve been loud in your apartment many times before — much louder than this — but somehow your wheezes and whispery pants reach new decibels, and Harry shushed you needlessly, rubbing his cheek against yours and scratching it raw. “Fuck, darling, please, please,” he mumbled, words thicker. “Y’have… have to be good, have to be quiet. Aren’t you good for me?” He kissed your cheek. “Aren’t you my good girl?”
“I do,” you babbled. “I am… oh, my God….” Your back arched with a sucking breath and you dug your fingers into his shoulders again, focusing on the feeling of his cock driving in and out of you. Smooth, slick, easy, only a bit of a pinch when he got particularly deep, and the pressure winding in your abdomen formed a tight coil. “Cum inside me.” Hardly louder than his harsh breathing, but he gulped, and you turned your mouth into his ear. “Cum inside me, cum in… I wanna….”
He practically crushed the breath out of you when he dropped down with faster, rougher, rolls of his hips, sputtering between his lips against your cheek. “Shh…” he whispered between the most primal sounds he’d ever made. “Shh… sh-shit! Oh, shit!”
Hot, wet, and a lot, he came through his jerking thrusts with a long, guttural groan, pelvis grinding yours. Trembling, he slammed to a stop, panting heavily and going entirely slack. Seconds later, he attempted to push himself up, but his elbows gave way underneath him.
“Ow!” you wheezed.
“M’sorry!” he said. “I’m so… so….” Hands slipping on your legs, he pushed them from around his waist. “Stop!” he pled when you tried to dig your heels in. “Stop, I can’t… I have to….” You whimpered when he moved down your body, cool air hitting your sweaty skin, and you shivered just before he latched onto your clit.
“Harry!” Sharp and loud, the loudest yet, and your arm flew behind you, nails dragging along your wall before you covered your mouth with one hand and gripped one of your breasts with the other, lifting and twisting your hips. “Harry— oh!”
Quick, powerful pulses of his lips with his tongue pressed to the nerves was all it took. He pulled your wrist and you let go of yourself to grip his hand instead as you bit the heel of yours, the world around you going pitch black when your whole body tightened. You’d never cum like this before — with hard contractions that made you want to curl up into a tight ball and shake — and that was saying something considering he was responsible for most (all) of your best orgasms.
“Oh my God,” you breathed, hand falling from your mouth. Your lips were sore and your throat and tongue were dry. Even staying perfectly still, the room spun and your head rang with a headrush as you took deeper breaths. Harry kissed his way up and down the creases of your thighs before moving up your stomach, between your breasts, and into your neck. You wrapped both arms around his neck and held him close as he dragged his face up and down against it with labored breathing. Where he would’ve normally rolled away, dozey and slurring remarks about how good that was, he stayed close. It wasn’t exactly comfortable — sweat cooled and dried, making you stick together and your skins pull with even the slightest shift, and it was worst between your legs, but you didn’t make a sound that might give him the idea to move. He was going to be gone for a long time, now. It was worth some discomfort to hold on a little longer.
***
The shower had turned off at some point, but you didn’t notice until his shuffling footsteps were practically right on top of you.
“Ok, so what’s—?”
Harry stopped in his tracks when you looked at him, the smile dropping first from his face and slower from his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked. A thin drop of water trickled down his neck and you gulped.
Eyes stinging, you opened your mouth, but the, “Nothing!” that came out was cracked and dry and you put a hand to your throat in shock.
“I’m sorry!” you sputtered. “I’m sorry, I can’t, I don’t know why… I… oh my God, I can’t stop,” you laughed, swiping your eyes.
You waited for the gentle shushes and murmurs of silly girl, but they never came. He held you, swaying, mouth pressed to the top of your head, and every time your body shook with a larger swelling sob, he squeezed tight as if bracing you for the impact, only loosening when the shaking cry subsided.
“S’okay,” he rasped, smoothing a hand over the back of your head. “S’okay, everything’s okay.”
He was being so unbearably kind about your breakdown that it made it worse — so much worse. And he was also a liar, because no, it wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay — you’d gone and fallen in love with him when he was supposed to just be that perfect prancing pop star on a stage whose music you listened to, and he was leaving and you had no idea when he’d be back, and it didn’t even affect him. He’d be fine, because you were a booty call of convenience — a guarantee when he was in town and not even a thought to when he was gone.
“S’too much pressure,” he murmured. Eyes still sopping wet, you turned them up to look at him. He was frowning slightly, searching your face, and he nodded. “Right? Too much pressure at work?”
He was fishing but for what you couldn’t quite tell. You nodded slowly and he closed his eyes for a moment before tilting his head. “You’re gonna be ok.”
You nodded and kissed him quickly before the tears threatening again could make themselves known. “I have to get ready for work.” You scratched his cheek just as you had last night. “Have a safe flight, and—” you cleared your throat— “let me know when you’re back, okay?”
Harry gripped your wrist but you twisted gently from his hold.
“Love….”
He was looking at you too closely, but you broke it when you shuffled past, wiping your nose discreetly. “Lock up behind you when you leave?”
“Sure.” Faint and defeated, but only in your imagination. You shut the bathroom door behind you and leaned against it. The air was still thick with the steam from his shower, and he’d wiped a window in the mirror that had since been covered up again. His damp towel was hanging half in the hamper, and you could smell…. You took a deep breath and held the scent of his shampoo in your lungs.
“I love—” Heart in your throat from his first two raspy words, you stopped breathing, “—how you smell,” he groaned, tickling your neck with his deep inhale. “It’s so….”
Your lips twitched and you flexed your trembling fingertips. “Yeah?” you asked in a bit of a snorting huff, adding, before you could think better, “Is that all?”
The pang of regret hit you immediately and heat spread over your chest and up your neck when he laughed against it. You were prepared to scoff, tut, tsk, and roll your eyes — to shove him by the shoulder and turn him on his back to ride him until he forgot about it and was gone across an ocean before he remembered. Instead, though, Harry shook his head.
“Nope.”
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“The carpet one,” he asked. “How come? What’s special about it?”
Lips ticking up, you squeezed his midsection. “It was sexy.” You twisted and found him staring at you with unwavering intensity. “You looked sexy.” A simple declaration, buttoned with a kiss just underneath his nipple, that he already knew — you knew he knew, because it wasn’t like you’d be naked in bed with him otherwise — but it crackled in the air between you. “You looked… like a man,” you breathed, “who knew what he wanted and that he didn’t have to try, you….”
Harry blinked quickly, gulping, and you giggled mischievously before biting your lip and curling up against him again. “Kind of wish I’d been there. Could’ve taken full advantage.”
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“Can you believe…?”
You rolled over, propping yourself on your elbows, and Harry peered at you, one eye open and one eye shut, squinting into the sun streaming through the window behind you. The arm of his that hadn’t just slipped from your shoulders was thrown over his head and his fingers played through his own hair, combing and pulling the curls that were too long by now. Too long because it’d been seven weeks since you’d been holed away together. Seven weeks? Eight? It was hard to count anymore.
“Can you believe you were here for the Met Gala a year ago?”
He shook his head. “No quite a year.”
“Not yet,” you said. “Next week, though? Right?”
One corner of his mouth lifted with a chuckle and he nodded. “Feels like….” It felt like forever ago — all that’s happened in a year, all that’d changed. You stretched out beside him, landing a warm kiss to warmer skin before curling up, and his arm returned to your shoulders to pin you to his side. Smirking, you wriggled against him to relieve the ache in your breasts from where they were pressed into his ribs.
“Which outfit was your favorite?”
“Of mine?”
You nodded. He was silent above you and you traced soft circles and figure eights on his belly until his hand slapped down on yours.
“They’re both… I mean, I don’t really know if I thought about it like that. They were different — different purposes, different… d’you know what I mean?”
You nodded again but didn’t say anything until he asked, “What about you? Did you have a favorite?”
“The one on the carpet.”
Harry barked a laugh but it sounded incomplete. You’d seen the photos — many of them, most despite your efforts to not look, because he’d been news. He’d never set foot at a Met Gala before, and when he did, he was a co-chair. “Yeah?” he asked.
“Mmm.”
“How come?”
“How come what?”
“The carpet one,” he asked. “How come? What’s special about it?”
Lips ticking up, you squeezed his midsection. “It was sexy.” You twisted and found him staring at you with unwavering intensity. “You looked sexy.” A simple declaration, buttoned with a kiss just underneath his nipple, that he already knew — you knew he knew, because it wasn’t like you’d be naked in bed with him otherwise — but it crackled in the air between you. “You looked… like a man,” you breathed, “who knew what he wanted and that he didn’t have to try, you….”
Harry blinked quickly, gulping, and you giggled mischievously before biting your lip and curling up against him again. “Kind of wish I’d been there. Could’ve taken full advantage.”
“Y’didn’t tell me,” he rasped. “If I’d known—“
You snorted. “Anna Wintour wasn’t going to let me in. Besides, we weren’t there yet.”
“I’d have asked,” he insisted. “Figured out some explanation, gotten you in… Alessandro would’ve loved t’dress you….” He trailed off and you could hear the daydreams of the different hints he’d have tried to drop for his friend about what he’d like to see you in spinning through his head.
He wouldn’t have — couldn’t have — and you didn’t hold it against him. “We should watch all the highlights,” you teased. “To celebrate next week. Maybe see if the liquor store will deliver?”
They did, in fact, deliver, and it was the first package you were able to get from the door that week. A few different boxes had arrived over the course of the last seven days, and Harry had shooed you away each time, gloves on and wipes in hand to whisk them away to his office. You were just unpacking the delivery of champagne in the kitchen and scrolling through your phone, debating between tacos and pizza, when you heard him calling you.
“Darling?” Muffled, far, but unmistakable. “Would you come help me for… just for a moment?”
“Just a second,” you called back. “I need to….” You pumped soap onto your hands and turned the water on.
“Love?”
“Gimme a minute!” you called back, annoyance flaring up in you. When you’d finished rinsing and drying your hands, you left the kitchen, but once you found his office empty, you stopped. “Harry?”
“Bedroom, darling.”
Darling. Twice, and loftily. He must want something, and you were still smirking when you opened the door, but what you found made you stop short.
Different — he looked different. His hair was shaggier, though you could tell he’d made efforts to tame it, and his beard, for what it was, had grown in. No earring, because he’d given up on that ages ago after the start of a few infections (you’d warned him, but had he listened?), and his nails were clean because he didn’t have any colors, much less the right colors from that night. The rings were the same, as they mostly always were, and he twisted them, shifting from foot to foot with an almost nervous smile.
You almost laughed in shock. “Where did you— where did you get that?” you gasped in a rush.
He tilted his head. “Had it sent,” he said. “Thought y’might like to see it since you couldn’t be there an’ all…” Frozen, you gripped the doorknob, and he laughed quietly. “C’mon.” His rings clinked when his knuckles tapped together. “Cat got your tongue?” Harry lifted his chin. “Get a little closer, lover.”
Dangerous bait by any measure, but you held your breath as you approached. He was taller, and you realized belatedly that he was wearing shoes that lifted him a good few inches. That would be the smaller of the packages that had arrived, then. Up close, you saw what the photographs had shown and more. Every goosebump, every freckle, every tattoo was visible, and you swallowed the lump in your throat.
You remembered that night — that weekend and the week that followed were burned into your brain, vividly, if for different reasons. He hadn’t told you he’d landed, which he nearly always did. It was up to you, googling the flight information he’d sent, and the paparazzi photos that had exploded the night of Anna Wintour’s dinner to let you know he’d arrived safely in one piece and was working. To say you’d been annoyed was putting it lightly — work was work and you couldn’t imagine how busy he was and the pressure that went with it, but when you were wringing your hands over whether he’d made it or not and he hadn’t texted you first for the first time in… ever, it stung. You’d been determined to hold out and hold firm until he came crawling and realized what he’d done, and you’d refused to be like the rest of the world and wait with bated breath for what he was going to wear.
It’d taken one photo — just one — for you to crack. You’d never have expected that, but it suited him and the event, and to top it all off the aura of smug cockiness that he’d all but radiated…. The better part of your night had been spent pacing your studio, trying not to look, failing, opening your chat with him, and closing out. Smolder seemed an appropriate word, and you could’ve slapped him for making you think of something so ridiculously harlequin.
“Does it look like the pictures?”
You inhaled sharply and glanced up at him. “What are you doing?” you asked, barely above a whisper.
“Y’weren’t there.” Hands clasped, he squeezed them, knuckles whitening with each pulse. “Figured I’d bring it to you.”
“Mmm.” Tentatively, you trailed your fingers over his arm, watching the fabric ripple under your touch. It was soft — slippery when you pinched it, not at all like a cheap costume — and you followed the lines of his muscles and the trail of tattoos up his arm, over his collarbones, and down over his chest. He closed his eyes and went very still for a fraction of a second when you grazed his nipple before clearing his throat and shifting in place.
“Tryin’ t’make sure I’m real?” he rasped.
“Sorry,” you whispered, voice catching, and you dropped your hand. Opening his eyes, he tilted his head to catch yours. “What do you think?”
“About?”
Harry lifted your chin with his thumb and forefinger and you inhaled sharply.
“Am I still sexy?”
Your laugh was whispery, almost tremulous, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Didn’t have a problem saying it the other day,” he teased. “Not so quick now that m’standing in front of you, are you?” His smirk widened. “C’mon, love. D’I have to take you over my knee t’get it outta you?”
Oh.
You clamped your mouth shut, pulling your lips between your teeth, and the humorous glint in his eyes dimmed as he blinked.
“Did you… is that why y’like this one so much?” he asked. “Did you think about—?”
Maybe. Yes. You’d thought about a lot that night until the early hours of the morning when it became clear he wasn’t showing. His bow? Perfect for your wrists. The ruffles on his sleeves? Better than any feather, and the confidence to an almost arrogant degree… you’d never wanted to slap him more, and the worst part is he’d probably have loved for you to try. And the demeanor he seemed to take on wearing this….
Breath hitching, you gulped, and he licked his lips.
“You look good,” you whispered.
Harry jerked his head towards the bed and you bit your lip, stumbling when he pulled you by the wrist. He sat on the edge, fingers slipping into the waist of your shorts, and you gripped his shoulders over the soft, slippery fabric to steady yourself when he popped the button on your shorts open. Holding your gaze, he tugged your zipper, and he was still looking at you when he pulled them past your hips. “C’mon,” he murmured. “Y’know what to do.”
Kicking your shorts away, you turned and bent your wobbly knees to lean over his spread ones. His trousers felt expensive — you almost didn’t want to touch them, but when his full hand circled over your ass, you fisted the material in yours to brace yourself. His first slap made you jump, but you bit your lip and swallowed back the instinctual yelp. His palm had no sooner smoothed the sting than he’d landed his second, and the third had you pushing yourself up on his thigh before your elbow buckled.
“What’s wrong?” he rasped.
“N-nothing,” you shook your head. “Nothing, I promise….”
“Y’sure?”
You squeezed your eyes shut. “Yes, don’t stop.”
His next one was heavy and landed with a crack that made you shout wordlessly. “That’s m’girl.” The fourth took your breath from you and you dug your toes into the floor. “That’s my—” Five. You pressed your thighs together in an attempt to quell the ache, but all it did was make it worse. Already, you could feel how wet and sticky you were, and after the sixth with a whimper from you, Harry slid his hand between your thighs, thumb over your ass and fingers pushing against—
“Your cunt,” he groaned, pulsing and rubbing with a quiet, wonderous laugh. “Fuck, feel tha’... already soaked.” Mouth stretched wide, you gripped his knee with a choked noise when his finger caught your clit through the fabric. “Oh, s’this what I missed out on?”
As heavy as your breathing was, you could barely hear it over his, and you wriggled when he pulled your underwear down — just enough for him to tug it aside so two of his fingers could slide in. “Shit!” he laughed under his breath, curling his fingers and pushing so deep your vision blurred and you closed your eyes. “Oh, shit, look at—”
You squirmed and the hand that wasn’t inside you landed on your cheek with a quick, punishing sting.
“Oh, my God!” you wheezed, crying out sharply when he did it again while curling his fingers.
“Stay still!” he said, teeth rattling. “Stay—” eight— “still f’me, like a good….”
He was hard — you could feel him digging into you, and you knew by the slight shift in his feet and knees it was starting to drive him insane, but you knew he wouldn’t let you help even if you tried. Draped over him, all you could do was hold on, tears stinging your eyes as he pumped his fingers and spanked. Stop and go, stop and go — the longer it went on, you lost count, lost in the frustration that every time you thought you were about to reach bliss, he stopped short, fingers stilling and hand tapping your ass gently.
No!
“H-Harry,” you gulped under your breath. “Harry, Harry… please….”
“M’a man—” Your toes curled when he spanked again. “Who knows what he wants. Don’t have to try, do I, darling?”
You whined and he laughed breathlessly. You were sore — you were so sore, and so open that even his fingers didn’t feel like enough, and you just wanted—
“I wanna cum,” you whimpered. “I wanna cum, baby, please? Please, I—” You shouted when he pulsed just inside you, nearly tipping off him and nosediving to the floor. Bucking back on him, you matched his rhythm, begging him, “Please don’t stop… please don’t stop, I wanna cum, I wanna…!”
Crying out, everything in you tensed and you shook, a momentary smile of sheer relief pulling your lips as you mouthed silent thanks. When you slumped, tension lax, he bent over you and kissed your ass repeatedly.
“Can you get on the bed?” he asked between kisses. “Please?” His voice was tight and strained and the hardon digging into your ribs explained why. You’d no sooner nodded than he’d circled his arms around your midsection and lifted you up so you could scramble onto the bed. Behind you, he fumbled with zippers and fastenings, cursing in words you’d never heard before, but when he pulled your underwear down your thighs and the bed dipped behind you under the weight of his knees, you knew he’d done it.
No reverence, no ceremony. One moment, he was bracing himself with one hand on your ass, and the next he was inside you. He groaned deeply, each thrust shallow and quick, pelvis tight against your ass, balls heavy and skin smacking. “C’mon!” he begged reedily. “Oh, shit, come… come on, I—“
His cuffs tickled your skin and your face crumpled when you buried it in the duvet, sliding forward minutely each time he rolled his hips forward, mumbles and mutters incomprehensible until he spluttered and you felt the hot, wet rush of cum spurting in you. Your toes curled and you sucked in a breath, the force he was bearing down on you with just a shade painful, but he let go and pulled out in the next second, landing on the mattress with a heavy thud.
Your knees buckled and your body caved slowly until it was all but melted with the bed. “Kinda thought you’d never… never let me near any of your clothes,” you laughed, tongue thick and heavy. “Thought you’d always say they’re too p-priceless.”
Silence met you, and it was only when you lifted your head that you found him flat on his back with bow undone and hands on his chest, eyes closed and lips parted. “Harry?”
He grunted weakly and you dropped your head again. “Just checking.”
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“How come?”
“How come what?”
“The carpet one,” he asked. “How come? What’s special about it?”
Lips ticking up, you squeezed his midsection. “It was sexy.” You twisted and found him staring at you with unwavering intensity. “You looked sexy.” A simple declaration, buttoned with a kiss just underneath his nipple, that he already knew — you knew he knew, because it wasn’t like you’d be naked in bed with him otherwise — but it crackled in the air between you. “You looked… like a man,” you breathed, “who knew what he wanted and that he didn’t have to try, you….”
Harry blinked quickly, gulping, and you giggled mischievously before biting your lip and curling up against him again. “Kind of wish I’d been there. Could’ve taken full advantage.”
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