after harry and his gf break up, there’s only one person who he’d call. who he’d been waiting to call.
based on -> this request
CW: emotionally disloyal harry, AGE GAP, oral sex (fem), p in v penetration (unprotected), heavy dirty talk, praise kink, daddy kink, and all things sexy! little plot mostly smut CURRENT 2026 HARRY
likes and reblogs sooo appreciated!
WC: 5k
You can’t say you were too surprised reading the headlines that morning.
It was a warm Saturday morning when you saw them. You were perched on the thick rim of your window, body melded into the corner as you looked out to the city that surrounded you. A glass of lemon water in one hand and your phone in the other—content.
Harry Styles Splits With Girlfriend After Year Long Relationship.
A Messy Break Between Two Global Superstars—Who is at Fault?
You couldn’t have been more unphased. It’s not like the two had a groundbreakingly amazing relationship. You knew they couldn’t. Not after you and him.
This was a matter of time, in your eyes. Before her, there was you. And you? You were all Harry had been looking for. And you knew it. So much so that at the start of his new relationship, you didn’t feel threatened in the slightest.
You went through your day as normal that Saturday, running some errands, grabbing a bite for lunch. Ignoring the string of texts from some friends asking if you’ve seen the news. Even a text from your own mother, only causing a large eye roll and a swipe left to dismiss it.
So when your phone rang at 10 at night with an endearingly familiar name, you decided it’d be the first notification you responded to that day.
“Hey,” you answer calmly and levelheaded, now resting on your mattress with a wide smile. Your stomach was pressed into your comforter as your feet swung back and forth behind you, rubbing into one another in smooth passing. You were adorned in sleep shorts a little too short for your own good and a matching cotton tank top that fell loose on your skin.
“Hi,” his voice rasped on the other line, “how are you?”
You have to hide your chuckle at his attempt at kind conversation. You’d rather he skip to the good part.
“I’m good, just in bed,” you sigh, “are you holding up okay? Saw the news.”
An empty ask that was fully forced out of you.
“I’d like to see you,” he says, and now you’re intrigued.
“Yeah?”
“I miss you, y/n,” and it wasn’t winsome, it was desperate.
“I know you do,” you nod, keeping your voice to a sensual whisper as you continue the quiet sway of your feet above you.
“Let me see you,” he pleads, “I need to see you.”
It was a naughty thing, him begging over the phone for you like this. He was wise beyond your years, big and strong and tall. You were his perfect little thing, young and perky and small enough to melt into his hold. You shuddered at the thought.
“You can come see me,” you nod slow, “if that’s what you really want.”
You knew it was. He knew that you knew it was.
“Yes, please,” the answer is quick, hopeless.
You honestly felt sorry for him. Listening to him pry for you like he needed you to breathe. You wondered how long he’d missed you, thought about you while fucking his girlfriend. Based on what you’ve heard, you can only assume it’s been a depressing amount of times.
“Ok, baby,” you bite back your smile, “come in when you get here. It’s unlocked.”
And with that, he hung up, pulling his shit together as quickly as possible to come see you. You just smiled to yourself on the bed, scrolling mindlessly as you waited for him. You were clean and freshly showered, slathered in a sweet smelling lotion and smooth all over.
You felt yourself wettening at the thought of him, of seeing him again after all this time. He was older now, chest littered in straggled hairs and pecs full and wide.
You thought of the photos you’d seen of him for Runner’s World Magazine—his stubbled beard and the ghosted bush of his happy trail. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss him just as much as he missed you, you were crying to taste this new version of him. Thick and stocky and strong enough to lift you with a hand.
And when he pushed through your door, disheveled as ever, it was everything you ever wanted and more. A thick black hoodie and a loose pair of pink cotton shorts, fabric ripped and torn at the bottom and hugging his quads perfectly.
Even through your distance—your stomach on the bed and him tall in the doorway—you were drowned in his scent. The heavenly mix of deep vanilla musk and all things manly. His phone was held loose in his left hand, looking interestingly small wrapped between his large fingers.
For a moment, there was silence. His eyes drifting to places they shouldn’t and your eyes watching him do so. He peered to the tight crevice that laid between your two legs as you laid against the mattress, ass up and feet gently kicking. You looked so innocently girlish in your pretty cotton pj’s that he nearly folded right there, watching your round ass move just the slightest with every shift of your feet.
“Hi,” You called to grab his attention. His eyes darted away from your body and up to your pretty face, round and doe eyed and clean.
“Hi,” breathless.
You roll to your back, sitting up straight now and throwing your shiny legs over the edge of the mattress. You pressed the palms of your hands against the bed on either side of you, staring up at him with a small smile.
“You look good,” you say.
“So do you,” he nods, taking slow steps closer to you now. Your heart pounded with every new inch he moved, and now you’ve truly realized how much you miss him. Missed this.
You just watch as he walks closer to you, keeping your eyes wide and locked on his. You suddenly felt small as he towered down at you, taking slow strides until he landed between your legs hung off the bed.
You were close now. Your knees grazing the hairs on his legs as his face drew all the way down to meet you gaze. Your neck was tilted back so far that it ached to hold the contact, but you didn’t mind. Not when he was looking at you the way he was.
“I’ve missed this sweet face of yours,” he whispers so low that you nearly miss it, bringing a finger to drag softly along the frame of your jaw.
Your eyes flutter at the hint of contact, basking in the smooth pass of his finger tip grazing against your face. His voice was low, deeper than it had been when you were together and a twang of something different in his accent.
“You did?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him with those big eyes that had him aching.
“I did,” he nods, bringing his finger to your lips now. He dragged against them, soft and swollen, watching as the pink skin pulled along with his touch and bounced back into place in recoil.
“Such a pretty, pretty little thing. So soft,” he seems to be talking to himself, grazing over new places on your face and neck with just the delicate touch of his finger. You were soaked. So soaked that you knew he’d taunt you once he got a feel.
He hooked his finger under your chin to tilt your head further back, bringing his face down until his lips were hovered against yours. You stayed like that for a moment, breathing hot breaths into one another with stuttering eyes.
“Y/n,” he breathed into you, as if he was setting himself up for his next line. But nothing came after, just desperate exhales and shifts of his finger.
“Hm?” You hum, lips grazing over his in a frustrating tease.
He pulled closer, rubbing his mouth against yours before pulling back with a breath. You leaned up to catch his lips again, failing as he pulled back and parted his lips further apart. He pushed forward again, breathing hot air into you as you waited to follow his lead. It was a wreck, the two of you sorting out how to start something so erotic. And then, through wide mouths and heavy breaths, he closed his lips around yours with a deep, long inhale. His finger released itself from your face and replaced it with the firm grasp of his palm, holding your face upright in a strong handle.
You flutter into the kiss that absorbs you, reeling in the taste of his tongue lapping up and down and around your mouth. You felt electric, trapped into the hold of his strong hands and the aggressive push of his tongue. He tasted delicious, minty fresh with a subtle hint of expensive whiskey that had your head spinning and thighs tightening.
“Need to fuck you,” he groaned into you, “missed this so much. Missed you.”
“Mm,” you hum in agreement, allowing your hands to find their place on his chest in front of you. You tug at the thick cotton of his hoodie and yearn for what’s below it, trying your hardest to take your time and follow his lead. You wanted him satisfied, to get everything he wanted from you and use you how he pleased. That would be pleasurable enough for you.
“You can take it off, baby girl,” he whispered into you, immediately pressing his lips back onto the moment he finished his sentence.
Your chest tightened and twisted into itself at his words and the familiar pet name that he’d used so tastefully when the two of you were together. You pulled the black sweatshirt up and over his head, allowing the fabric to pass through your kiss for just a moment before tossing it on the floor of your bedroom.
You were more than pleased to find that he hadn’t worn anything under, now exposed to his bare chest and chiseled muscles. It was even better than what you’d imagined; strong and buff and so so hard. Your nails trickled over the hills and valleys of his abs, feeling them squirm and tense beneath your touch. It was heavenly, the smooth surface that coated the swelling muscles.
He slowly pushed the two of you back through your disgustingly sloppy kiss, letting you fall to your back softly against your pretty pink comforter. You peaked an eye open through the kiss to glance at his shoulders as he did so, watching his traps swell and his shoulders round out in a gorgeously fit shine.
You let your legs wrap around his waist as he hovered over you, pushing his hips down into your center greedily. You both shuddered at the covered contact, the feeling so distant yet so familiar all the same.
He breaks his wet suction to your lips and shifts lower to your jaw, kissing down the sweet sensation of your perfume and down to your collarbone.
He was ridiculously needy, slopping his tongue around your smooth skin desperately as he failed to stabilize his breathing. He kissed every inch he could find, slowing his pace the lower he reached. Your skin was slick with his saliva by the time he reached the waist of your shorts, slowing down to nothing as he pressed slow deep kisses onto the skin.
You quivered as you watched him beneath you, green eyes staring up at you in challenge. His lips were soft and wet, kissing sweetly onto your sharp hip bones as his wide hands grasped your sides.
You started to wonder how you got here, Harry inches away from your pussy as your hand tangled through his hair. Yesterday, he was taken by a beautiful woman known worldwide by millions. Today, he’s falling undone for a woman a bit too young for his own good.
His fingers hook into the cotton of your tiny sleep shorts, tugging them down to reveal your wet slit. You hadn’t worn any underwear—having not expected him—and he growled low at the sight in front of him.
He laid a hot breath on the center of your tight, dripping wet pussy, sending goosebumps up and down your legs and tensing the muscles surrounding it. You were buzzing, high on the feeling of his lips back down where they belonged. You knew he missed your pussy, the way it gushed for him and swelled a pretty bright pink.
The second his tongue pressed flat against your slit, he moaned, loud and shameless at the sweet taste of you. He’d missed you dearly, dreaming of sugary sensation of your arousal coating his tongue for months on end. You were a honeyed petal for his lips to suckle on, framed by the precious scent of your cashmere lotioned thighs. He was on a cloud, lapping you up as your back arched in the beautiful way he remembered.
“Fuck, Harry,” you moaned, light and airy as your fingers twirled his curls harshly. His tongue worked miracles on your hot core, painting you up and down masterfully and you felt like you could cry at how much you missed him. No man has ever pleased you in the way he could, he knew your body like it was his own and was more generous than any man could dream of being.
“My baby tastes so sweet,” he groaned, pressing his tongue in and out of you and nudging his nose against your wet clit.
“Yeah?” You rasp out, “Daddy missed my pussy?”
His hands gripped your hips tighter at the line, shoving his mouth so deep into you that he had to be suffocating. Your back was arched up so high that it ached, your mind distracted in the pleasure that coursing through your blood on fire.
You quivered and gushed on his tongue, gentle moans rolling through you as his mouth moved to work your clit. He sucked hard and flicked your bud simultaneously, sending an aggressive vibration through your legs that locked Harry’s head in place. He was humming slow and steady against you, the mix of feelings comparing to nothing you’ve had before.
Your stomach felt hot and swarmed within itself, your head spinning against the mattress as your hair sprawled up and out. You were drunk on the man between your legs, opening your eyes every couple moments to watch the sensual sight of his face lodged between your thighs.
“You’re gonna cum,” he says, “cum on my tongue, baby, please.”
You clenched and tensed and squirmed, groaning at his words as he brought you up the latter and to your peak. You came fast and hard, soaking his tongue with your arousal as you clamped your legs around his head.
He nuzzled his head back and forth between your legs, blubbering against you as sopped you up and swallowed you down. His eyes stared up at you as he watched you collapse into your orgasm, the scene so provocative that he felt himself drip through his pants. Embarrassing, yes. But not between you two.
Your breaths slowed and your heart pounded as you came down from your high, pussy swollen and even wetter than before. He rose from his place at the edge of the bed with a wipe of his mouth, hovering back over you and taking in your red face.
“On your stomach,” he muttered stern, a demand rather than an ask that you will so happily oblige too.
You rolled to your stomach and shimmied to let your cheek lay against your pillow, wiggling your ass on the bed just barely.
He came to sit behind you, pressing his hands up the sides of your back and over the curve of your ass. He was taking you in, a sharp exhale slipping through his throat as he watched you shimmy around on the bed. Your ass was up and your slit was held tight together, dripping with the remains of your orgasm and puffy waiting for him.
You stretched your arm back behind you as you looked at him over your shoulder, slipping your fingers down past your ass until they landed on your center. You tapped the wet area twice, staring at him suggestively as you lifted your ass higher and used your fingers to split your hole open. You were putting on a show for him, displaying your little hole as he watched you intently.
“You wanna use your words?” He spits, rearranging his cock in his shorts at the sight of you teasing him.
“I can use my words,” you nod, continuing to touch yourself from behind. “You just tell me what you wanna hear.”
His jaw clenched at your response and his eyes shut for a moment too long, desperately trying to keep himself together.
“I want you to tell me what you want, and stop parading yourself in front of me like a slut,” he says low, running his hand up the back of your thigh.
“But I am a slut for you, daddy,” you whine, pressing a finger between your folds, “aren’t I?”
You watch as his lips part and his brows furrow, lost in watching you touch yourself so grossly as you spoke. You were an animal for him, stripping all of your self respect for the man behind you.
You press a second finger into yourself now, slowly stroking in and out as he watched closely. Your eyes shut in bliss and your pink lips fell apart at the pleasure you were providing for yourself, getting off to watching the man stare at you.
“Mmm,” you hum, “feels so good. Wish it was daddy’s cock instead, so big and hard.”
You watch him wince at the words, taking a thick swallow down his throat as he continues to eye you down. Your fingers plunged deep inside of you with every press, pulling out and soaking your skin with your filthy arousal.
“Stop.”
And you did. Hand out of yourself immediately, peering back at him with big eyes and waiting for the next instruction.
So you watched. Watched as he shrugged his shorts down and onto the floor, boxers following next and his cock springing to his lower stomach. Your thighs clenched and your jaw fell open, desperate for the throbbing length in front of you.
He was heavy and thick, so wide for you. His tip was red and swollen, soaked in the subtle drips that had been spilling out of him since he’d arrived. He looked glorious, like the most beautiful thing you had ever laid your eyes on.
When he shifted over top of you and lifted your hips up harshly, you could barely hold in your excitement as you bit back a smile. You’ve been thinking of this, this moment, his cock lined up behind you, for what felt like ages.
He pressed the head into your creamy slit so slow, so punishing. He stretched your tight pussy wide, pulling at the skin in a perfect mix of pain and pleasure. Your mouth fell open as you melted into the mattress beneath you, soothed by sweet sounds of Harry’s long groan behind you.
“Fuck, y/n,” his tone was low and his grip on your hips tensed, tugging at the skin until it reddened.
“Ohh, Harry,” your knuckles whitened as you tugged at your comforter, “fill me up, keep going.”
He slammed the whole of himself into you in one quick movement, bottoming out as his dense balls slapped against your throbbing clit. It sent a jolt of bliss through you as his tip pecked in deep, rubbing into your spongy insides rough and relentless.
He fucked you this way for a while, pounding in and out of you and watching as your ass jiggled and shook with every thrust. You were moaning loud, feeling too good to keep anything in as your skin slapped together. The noise was wet and sloppy as his hips melded to your ass, skin slapping and pussy gushing in a disgustingly pornographic manner.
“Shit, baby,” he groaned through gritted teeth, pressing a hand onto your back to press you further down into the mattress.
“My pussy feel good?” You whine, “tell me who feels better, daddy. Me or her. Tell me.”
“You, fuck— you!,” he struggles, “You.”
“Yeah? You missed this? Tell me how good it is,” you clenched around him tight, building to your orgasm as you taunt him.
“So good,” he breathes, “feel so good around me, baby girl. Best pussy I’ve ever had. So tight, shit.”
“Mmm,” you hum at his praise, legs trembling he thrusts into you even harder. You were jelly in front of him, being treated as nothing but a fuck toy for him and that’s how you liked it.
His tip slams into you relentlessly, over and over and over again until your stomach is boiling for the second time and your head is fuzzy. You were close, so close and he could feel it.
“M’gonna cum,” you murmur into the mattress, ass arching up as rams into the same sweet spot.
“I know, baby,” he rasps, “wanna feel this pussy cum on my cock. Give me what I’ve missed so much, cmon.”
You shook as your second orgasm rippled through you, hard and aggressive this time. Your moans were strangled and your face was red, gripping your walls around his dense shaft as you fell undone. You felt light and floaty as you came down from this one, falling limp beneath him as he rode you through it.
He pulled out, popping out of you as your stomach fell flat to the mattress. You were wiped, completely exhausted yet craving more all the same. A feeling only he’s given you.
“Y/n,” he rubbed up your back, “I know you’re tired…but I’ve been waiting to watch my baby ride me again for too long. Can you do that for me?”
He was insane to even act like you would say no.
“Yes, please,” you nod quick and flip to your back, catching your breath as he peers over you.
After a quick shift and some rearranging, you were perched on top of his thighs as he laid back into your pretty headboard relaxed as ever. You loved to see him like this, laid back and sprawled out for you to play with. To climb on top of and treat it as your little playground.
He tugged your top off in one quick motion, gawking at your perky breasts that fell in front of him. They bounced out of your top and displayed themselves beautifully for him, so hard and just what he needed to take him over the edge.
You smirk at his intense stare never leaving your chest, and lift your body up and over his swelling tip. It was pretty, so red and aching for you to sit yourself down where you belonged.
And when you finally pressed yourself down and let him pierce through you, your legs tensed harder than they ever had before. His hands guided your hips as they made their journey down, taking him in slow and steady as he stretched you for a second time. He curved straight up into your stomach, pressing a tent into the skin with every sudden movement.
“Oh, baby,” his neck reels back, “You feel that? We feel so good together, fuck.”
And you did. You were spinning, lost in the feeling that you brought upon yourself as you rolled your hips back and forth ever so sensually. It was tender but rough, slightly personal with a tinge of animalistic chemistry. Broken moans and heavy breaths littered the space around you as you rode him with your perfect mix of bounces and slides, soaking the hairs that surrounded his base with your slushy arousal.
“Did she fuck you like this, baby? Hm?” You spur on, quickening your pace as you find your rhythm back and forth.
“No, no, only you,” he spits out with no hesitation.
You grin, satisfied with his admission before lifting yourself all the way up, sliding him completely out of you as you kept him in place between your folds. You teased around the tip that slid between them for just a moment before swallowing him whole once more, sitting yourself down completely in one smooth drop.
At the sound of his deep, drawn out moan you shuddered, bouncing up and down and all around him as you watched his lips fall further apart. He looked heavenly, stubble shifting as his prominent Adams apple bobbed up and down with every groan. His body was strong beneath you and his big grown hands held you tight, gently guiding your movements but letting you keep control all the same.
“Shit,” you curse, “I fuck daddy so good, make him cum better than she did, I know I do.”
You’re rambling now, but you don't care. Neither does he. It’s all true, and right now it’s all so right. Just what he needs to hear falling from your pretty soft lips. He wanted to be reminded of his emotional disloyalty to his ex-girlfriend. He wanted you to know how often he thought of you while he fucked her.
“She was nothing. We were nothing. This is it, baby, you’re it, fuck!” he’s breathless, dick twitching inside of you and so close to his release.
“Please, miss your cum in me so much daddy, wanna be full,” you pick up your pace, bouncing so harsh that your tits were slapping against themselves with every drop. He was in a trance as he watched you, struggling to keep his eyes open but determined to not miss a second of the angelic sight in front of him. His girl, his little baby fucking him again just how he liked. Rough and desperate and one big mess for him.
With a loud and girthy groan, his hot liquid spurts inside of you in a warm blanket of comfort. His head tossed back and his mouth fell agape in total and complete ecstasy, legs trembling beneath you as he came long and hard.
Your hips rolled him through it until his cum was pouring through the crevices where you connected, mixing with your own as you came with him. It was ridiculously wet and weirdly therapeutic to hear, like a sound you forgot existed.
You both tensed and squirmed and vibrated within each other until your head fell forward and into the crook of his neck, laying there in heavy breaths as his hands instinctively wrapped to your back. He rubbed softly into your sweaty skin, catching his breath in sync with your own.
His cock stayed in you for quite a bit before you two parted, your pussy dripping with the two of you as it landed onto his lower stomach. You both giggled a bit at the burden, knowing now that you have to go run to grab him something to clean himself up with.
“Oops, stay here,” you couldn't contain your little laugh, meshing with his own muffled chuckles throughout the dimly lit room.
You ran quickly to your bathroom to grab him a fresh towel, returning fast so as to not leave him coated in his own cum for too long. You know how it feels, there’s definitely a lot of pressure to stay perfectly still until the towel appears.
You leaned over to wipe him up, leaving him dry and only slightly sticky. You were sure you two would shower soon anyway. You had to, you were both coated in sweat.
“Thank you,” he whispers to you as you toss the towel to the side, climbing back into bed next to him.
“Harry,” you push some hair out of his face, “I really miss you.”
“I dont,” he shakes his head, pushing his lips together as he turns to face you.
You freeze, lips parted and cheeks red. And all you can think to do is put a bit of distance between the two of you and bring one of your fuzzy pillows to cover your naked body.
“Hey, I’m joking!” he nudges you with the back of his hand and erupts into a fit of laughter, the sound so sweet but so annoying in the moment.
“Harry, that’s not funny!” you scold, tossing the fuzzy pillow at his head harshly.
“It was kind of funny, until you got all sad,” he mocks, “that was quite the pout, little miss.”
“I don't miss you anymore. You can go,” you cross your arms and swat him away, tummy fluttered and chest full.
“Y/n,” he pulls closer to you, “I miss you very, very much.”
“You do?” you ask, softer this time. You know it was silly, but for some reason you had always been under the impression that you were more into him than he was you. Maybe it was the age, the power dynamic, that had you feeling like he had much more important things to attend to than a cute little twenty something. But when you were reminded otherwise, it was more rewarding than anything.
“Very much,” he nods, “Bath?”
And of course you nod, as smitten as ever, before he kisses your cheek and hops up from the bed to run the water. You just sat there, fucked out of your mind and heart swelling, waiting for him to come back and swoop you up and into the bubbles.
if you enjoyed, pls like/reblog!
more importantly, please read my recent work on wattpad! Liminal- a smutty friends w benefits plot where harry and oc live across the hall from eachother
link to Liminal -> here.
masterlist
ask/request - ask anything! i usually only reply to specific requests once i’ve fully completed it so i can keep all unfinished requests in my inbox!! :)
After a brutal breakup, your influencer best friend hands you a Raya invite code as a distraction, and somehow you end up matching with the one person you never expected to see on a dating app.
word count: 8.5k
You are sitting on Camille’s kitchen counter while she rearranges a cluster of candles on her dining table, muttering to herself about lighting.
“Don’t move,” she says, angling her phone toward the window. “You’re accidentally in frame and it looks candid.”
“I refuse to be background texture in your oat milk sponsorship.”
“It’s not sponsored. It’s aspirational.”
You swing your legs idly and watch her fuss with the tripod. Camille has always been like this. Confident in a way that looks effortless but is actually engineered. She calls her job lifestyle content, but it’s really just her life filtered through better angles and cleaner fonts. A few years ago a video of her ranking iced coffees in the city blew up, and she never quite stepped out of the spotlight after that. Now brands send her candles and oversized blazers and she goes to events she claims she hates and somehow leaves with three new contacts and a story.
She stops recording and glances at you. “You look sad.”
“I am not sad.”
“You are aggressively neutral. Which is worse.”
You pull at the sleeve of your sweater. “It’s been three weeks.”
“Three weeks since the breakup,” she says, hopping onto the counter across from you. “And you are still defending a man who thought oat milk was a personality.”
You huff out a small laugh despite yourself. “He was not that bad.”
“He was that boring.”
The thing about Camille is that she could have said I told you so months ago. She saw the cracks before you did. Instead she let you figure it out, and now she is careful with you, even when she’s teasing.
“You need a distraction,” she says, softer now.
“I have work.”
“You write about city council meetings.”
“I like writing about city council meetings.”
“I know you do,” she says quickly. “I’m not diminishing your civic passion. I’m saying you deserve something that makes your stomach flip in a good way.”
You give her a look. “That sounds dangerous.”
She grins and reaches for her phone. “It is.”
You already know that expression. It’s the one she gets right before she convinces you to do something you swore you wouldn’t.
“Camille.”
“Raya.”
You laugh immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because that is for models and DJs and men who own boats. I am a writer for an online newspaper. I am painfully normal.”
She slides off the counter and comes to stand in front of you, arms crossed. “First of all, you are not painfully normal. You are emotionally literate and hot. That’s a rare combination. Second, I have an invite code.”
“How do you just have an invite code?”
She shrugs. “It circulates.”
“That is not an answer.”
“One of the stylists I worked with last month had extras. Influencer privilege. It resets every so often.”
You stare at her. “Your life sounds fake.”
“And yet here I am, using it for good.”
She types something quickly and your phone buzzes in your hand.
“Camille.”
“Just download it. You don’t have to use it. Think of it as exposure therapy.”
“I do not need exposure therapy. I need to stop wanting to text my ex.”
“Exactly,” she says, like you just proved her point. “This is you moving forward without actually moving forward. Low stakes. No expectations.”
You look down at the string of letters and numbers on your screen. A code. A tiny door you did not ask for.
“You’re going to make fun of every man on there with me, aren’t you.”
“Respectfully,” she says. “Yes.”
You slide off the counter and open the app store before you can overthink it. Camille watches like she’s overseeing a soft launch.
When the app opens and asks for photos, you hesitate.
“Use the one from Emma’s birthday,” she says immediately.
“I look shiny.”
“You look dewy. Big difference.”
You scroll anyway, choosing three that feel honest. You laughing mid sentence. You walking down a street. You at your desk with coffee and a stack of papers.
It asks for your job.
You type: Writer, online newspaper. You pause, then add: Painfully normal.
Camille leans over your shoulder and smiles. “That’s charming.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s self aware. People love self aware.”
“I do not want people loving anything. I want them mildly intrigued at best.”
She nudges you. “You say that now.”
You finish setting it up. The profile exists. A version of you sitting in a digital room full of strangers.
“Now what,” you ask.
“Now nothing,” she says. “Close it. Let it breathe. You don’t have to dive in tonight.”
You study her for a second. “You’re being surprisingly chill about this.”
She softens. “I’m not trying to throw you into chaos. I just don’t want you shrinking.”
The words land heavier than the joke did.
You swallow and nod once. “Okay.”
That night, the app sits on your home screen. Small. Unassuming. You open it once, just to look. Profiles slide past. People with glossy photos and inside jokes in their bios. It feels like a room where everyone already knows each other.
You close it. You are not ready. The next day you don’t open it at all. Or the day after that. But you don’t delete it either. You don’t open the app again.
Not when you’re bored on the train. Not when you’re half tempted to text your ex and need a distraction. It just sits there, tucked between your news app and your notes, quietly existing.
A week passes.
Then Camille texts: Girls night. Emergency vibes. Bring pajamas.
You show up at her apartment with a tote bag and low expectations. She’s already in matching satin shorts she claims were gifted but absolutely bought herself. There’s a charcuterie board that looks suspiciously sponsored but isn’t, and a bottle of wine breathing on the counter.
“You look alive,” she says approvingly as you kick off your shoes.
“I showered.”
“Growth.”
You roll your eyes and accept the glass she hands you. The apartment smells like whatever expensive candle she’s currently pretending not to be emotionally attached to. Music plays softly in the background. It feels easy.
You talk about work first. You tell her about a piece you’re drafting and how your editor keeps asking for more bite. She tells you about a brand dinner where a micro celebrity tried to explain crypto to her for twenty minutes.
By the second glass of wine, you feel looser. Not reckless. Just less tight in your chest.
Camille studies you from across the couch. “Did you delete it?”
You know exactly what she means.
“No.”
Her eyes light up. “So you kept it.”
“That does not mean anything.”
“It means you’re curious.”
“It means I forgot.”
She gives you a look that says she does not believe you for a second.
“Open it.”
“Camille.”
“Open it. We’re in a safe environment. I will curate.”
“You are the least neutral curator alive.”
“Correct.”
You hesitate, then reach for your phone. The app opens faster than you expect, like it’s been waiting.
Profiles start sliding past. A director in Berlin. A DJ in Miami. A guy whose bio is just a single black square emoji.
Camille narrates like it’s a sport.
“Absolutely not.”
“He looks like he says ‘let’s circle back.’”
“Oh he owns a boat. You were right about the boats.”
You laugh more than you have in days. It feels harmless. Distant. These are just faces on a screen.
You swipe left. Left. Left. Then you pause.
Camille notices immediately. “What.”
“Nothing.”
“Show me.”
You turn the phone toward her.
The first photo is candid. Slightly blurry. Sunglasses. A half smile that feels familiar in a way your brain takes a second to process. The second is him on what looks like a boat, wind pushing his hair back. The third is simple. Black shirt. Direct eye contact with the camera.
There’s no over the top bio. Just his name. Harry. A few understated details. A song playing in the background of the profile that you recognize immediately.
Your stomach drops in a way that has nothing to do with wine.
Camille blinks. Then blinks again. “Is that…”
“Yes.”
She grabs your wrist. “Oh my god.”
“It’s fake.”
“It does not look fake.”
“It’s absolutely fake.”
The photos don’t look like press shots. They look like someone handed a friend a phone. The prompts are understated. Almost boring. Which somehow makes it worse.
Camille leans closer to the screen. “Location?”
You glance at the top. It lists New York, but there’s a small note about frequent travel.
Your heart is beating faster now, and you hate that it is.
“This is stupid,” you say, more to yourself than to her.
“Swipe right.”
“No.”
“Why not.”
“Because what if it matches.”
“That is the point of the app.”
“Camille.”
She softens, just slightly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you’re going to tell this story one day, you’re going to wish you swiped right.”
You stare at the screen. At the small, digital version of a man you have only ever seen on stages and magazine covers. It feels ridiculous. Unreal. He is just another profile. Just another person in a room full of people.
You swallow.
“This is insane.”
“I know,” she whispers, grinning.
You swipe right.
The screen barely has time to settle before it flashes.
It’s a match.
You and Camille freeze at the exact same time, staring at the glowing words like they might rearrange themselves into something more reasonable.
“No,” you say immediately.
Camille grabs your arm. “No way.”
The phone is still in your hand. Still warm. Still real.
You both scream. It’s not cute. It’s not controlled. It’s loud and sharp and slightly panicked. Camille knocks over her wine glass in the process and you fling the phone onto the couch like it just burned you.
“Oh my god,” she says, half laughing, half hyperventilating.
“This is not funny,” you say, backing away from the couch like the phone might start speaking.
“You matched with him.”
“It’s fake.”
“It literally says matched.”
“That does not mean anything. People hack things.”
She lunges for the phone. You lunge too. You both miss and it slides off the couch and lands face down on the rug.
You stare at it.
“Pick it up,” she whispers.
“You pick it up.”
“It’s your life.”
“It was your code.”
She laughs in this nervous, stressed out way that makes everything feel ten times more unhinged. “Okay. Okay. Breathe. This is fine. You’re fine.”
“I am not fine.”
She scoops up the phone and flips it over. Still there. His name at the top of the screen. The little notification bubble waiting.
“You have to message him,” she says.
You actually yell. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No. Absolutely not. I am not messaging him.”
“You cannot match with Harry Styles and then just sit there.”
“I can and I will.”
She shoves the phone toward you. “Say hi.”
“I don’t know how to say hi to that.”
“You say hi like you would to anyone else.”
“That is objectively untrue.”
You grab the phone from her and clutch it to your chest like you’re protecting it from her.
“What if it’s not him,” you say quickly. “What if it’s someone pretending to be him and I say something normal and they screenshot it and it’s humiliating.”
Camille squints at the profile again. “The photos look real. The prompts look real. It’s understated in a way that feels real.”
“That is not comforting.”
She tilts her head. “Do you want him to message first?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t control that.”
You glance down at the screen like it might betray you at any second. “This was supposed to be funny.”
“It is funny.”
“It is not funny. It’s deeply stressful.”
She grins despite herself. “You are glowing right now.”
“I am panicking.”
“Same,” she says brightly.
Your thumb hovers over the message bar. Blank. Waiting.
“Okay,” Camille says, suddenly serious. “If you don’t message him, you’re going to think about it all week. If you do message him, worst case scenario he doesn’t respond and we move on.”
“And best case.”
She smiles slowly. “We get a story.”
You look at the phone. At his name. At the tiny space where words are supposed to go.
You feel ridiculous. You feel curious. You feel a small flicker of something that does not feel like your ex.
“I hate you,” you tell her.
“I know,” she says sweetly.
Your thumb taps the keyboard. Then you panic and throw the phone back onto the couch again.
“No. I can’t.”
Camille bursts out laughing and dives for it before you can. “You are impossible.”
“Do not send anything,” you warn, scrambling after her.
“I won’t. I promise. I’m just looking.”
You both collapse onto the couch, shoulders pressed together, staring at the screen like it’s a live wire.
The message bar is still empty. Waiting. You stare at the blinking cursor like it’s personally judging you.
Camille is practically vibrating next to you.
“Okay,” she says carefully, like she’s negotiating with a wild animal. “Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“You are spiraling.”
“I am thinking.”
“You have been thinking for ten full minutes.”
You glance at the clock. She’s right. It has been ten full minutes of you typing something, deleting it, typing something else, deleting that too.
“What if I say something weird,” you say.
“You won’t.”
“What if I black out and accidentally propose.”
She snorts. “Then at least it would be memorable.”
You press your lips together and look back down at his name. It still feels surreal. Too big for the tiny screen.
“Okay,” you say slowly. “You can send it.”
Her eyes widen. “Really.”
“Yes. But nothing embarrassing. Nothing flirty. Nothing that sounds like I’ve ever listened to music in my life.”
She grabs the phone gently, like it might shatter. “Relax.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
You watch her thumbs hover over the keyboard. Your heart is pounding again, which is ridiculous. This is a dating app. People message each other every day. This is normal.
Painfully normal, you remind yourself.
“Just say hi,” you whisper.
“That’s boring.”
“Boring is safe.”
She thinks for a second, then starts typing. You crane your neck to see.
Hi. I was told this app was for models and DJs and men who own boats, so I’m slightly confused.
You stare at it.
“That’s actually good,” you admit quietly.
“I know.”
“It sounds like me.”
“Because I am a genius.”
She looks at you one more time. “Last chance.”
You take a breath. The worst that happens is nothing. The worst that happens is it is him and he doesn’t respond. The worst that happens is you wake up tomorrow and your life is exactly the same as it was this morning.
“Send it,” you say.
She taps the screen. The message flies off into the void. You both immediately scream again and she drops the phone onto your lap this time.
“It’s done,” she says, laughing in that stressed out way that makes everything feel unreal. “You did it.”
“I didn’t do it. You did it.”
“You approved it.”
You stare at the chat. The message sits there, small and harmless looking. Sent. Now you wait.
Camille leans her head against your shoulder. “See. That wasn’t so bad.”
You swallow. “It was terrible.”
She smiles. “Admit it. You’re curious.”
You are.
There isn’t an immediate response. Of course there isn’t.
You and Camille stare at the screen for a full minute like something dramatic is supposed to happen. It doesn’t. The chat just sits there with your message hanging in polite, digital silence.
Camille eventually clears her throat. “Well. He’s busy.”
“Right,” you say quickly. “He’s… him.”
“He could be in a studio. Or asleep. Or on a boat.”
“Stop mentioning boats.”
She laughs, but after another minute of nothing, the intensity fizzles. The wine settles. The night moves on. You order takeout. You watch something mindless. You do not check the app again before you fall asleep on her couch.
The next morning, you half expect a notification. There isn’t one. And weirdly, that makes it easier.
Life resumes.
You go to work. You draft headlines. You sit in meetings where someone says the phrase content vertical without irony. The Raya message drifts to the back of your mind, filed somewhere between embarrassing and funny.
Every few days, Camille checks in.
“Any movement?”
“No.”
“Are you checking?”
“Not obsessively.”
“That is not what I asked.”
You roll your eyes at her texts and keep walking down the street, coffee in hand. It becomes a bit. A running joke. The time you matched with Harry Styles and nothing happened.
You stop opening the app altogether. You don’t want to see the unchanged chat. It feels cleaner to leave it unopened than to confirm the silence.
A week passes. Then another.
The sharpness of it dulls. You stop imagining what you would say if he responded. You stop replaying the message in your head. It becomes a story you’ll tell someday. Remember when.
One evening, you’re walking up the stairs to your apartment, juggling your tote bag and your keys. It’s been a long day. You stayed late finishing a piece and your brain feels like static. All you want is a shower and something easy to eat.
Your phone buzzes in your hand.
You don’t even look at the screen at first. You assume it’s Camille. She tends to text around this time, usually something chaotic like I have a new theory about men.
You push your door open with your shoulder and glance down casually.
It’s not iMessage blue.
It’s the Raya icon.
Your heart drops so fast you actually miss the doorway and bump your hip against the frame.
You stare at the notification. Harry sent you a message.
For a second, you just stand there in your dim apartment hallway, door half open behind you, keys still in your hand.
You genuinely consider not opening it. Preserving the possibility instead of facing whatever is actually there.
Your phone buzzes again. Another message.Your throat goes dry.
You step inside slowly and close the door with your foot, like you’re trying not to disturb something fragile. The apartment is quiet. The only sound is your own breathing, suddenly louder than it should be.
You unlock your phone.
Your thumb hovers over the app.
You think, absurdly, I thought this was Camille.
It isn’t.
It’s him.
You open it before you can talk yourself out of it.
The chat loads.
Your message is still there at the top, slightly smug now that it has company.
Below it:
I don’t own a boat. Feels important to clarify.
You stare at it.
Then the second message.
But I am slightly offended I got lumped in with DJs.
You let out a sound that is half laugh, half something close to hysteria.
It’s him. It has to be him. The tone is dry. Understated. Not trying too hard. Not grand.
You drop your bag on the floor without meaning to.
Your brain immediately starts overanalyzing. How long ago did he send this. You check.
Three minutes.
Three.
He is currently on the app.
Your heart begins beating in a way that feels wildly disproportionate to a dating app notification.
You pace once across your living room. Then back.
You consider calling Camille. You absolutely cannot call Camille. She will scream and make this worse.
You look back at the messages.
There are no emojis. No exclamation points. Just clean, simple sentences.
You sit down on the edge of your couch and type.
I appreciate the clarification.
It feels neutral. Slightly amused. Safe.
You hesitate for only a second this time before hitting send.
The message delivers.
You immediately lock your phone and toss it onto the couch like distance will regulate your nervous system.
It buzzes.
You freeze.
You turn slowly and pick it up.
That was faster than I expected. I thought you might have forgotten about this place.
Your stomach flips.
You type back before you can overthink it.
I did. Briefly.
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Fair. I disappear for weeks at a time. Occupational hazard.
You swallow. Occupational hazard. He’s referencing it without naming it. Casual.
You lean back into your couch now, letting yourself settle into it.
Hazard implies danger. Should I be concerned.
The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.
Only if you’re afraid of slightly inconsistent texting habits.
You actually smile.
That feels honest. Not polished. Not trying to charm.
You decide to push, just slightly.
And what exactly is the occupation that causes that.
You stare at the screen after sending it. It’s a normal question. Completely normal.
The three dots take longer this time.
Then:
I sing sometimes.
You laugh out loud in your empty apartment.
Sometimes.
You rest your head back against the couch and type:
Ah. Casual.
A pause.
Then:
And you’re painfully normal, if I remember correctly.
Your cheeks warm.
Writer. Online newspaper. I cover city council meetings sometimes. No boats involved.
Three dots.
That sounds more interesting than boats.
You blink at the screen.
You weren’t expecting that.
Before you can respond, another message appears.
How did you end up on this app if you’re so painfully normal.
There’s no judgment in it. It reads curious. Respectful.
You hesitate for a second, then decide honesty is easier than crafting something cool.
A friend passed along an invite code. She said it would be character building.
You add, after a beat:
I haven’t decided if she was right.
The typing bubble appears again.
I respect a friend with connections. Sounds efficient.
You smile at that.
Your apartment feels different now. Lighter somehow. Charged in a quiet way.
It stays small. Contained. Two people in a digital room, testing the edges.
And for the first time in weeks, your chest feels full of something that isn’t grief.
It’s curiosity.
And it feels dangerously close to excitement.
You stare at the screen for a second longer than necessary, letting the fact that this is happening settle somewhere in your chest.
You decide to keep it light.
She would be thrilled to hear that. She considers herself very well connected.
The typing bubble appears almost immediately.
Sounds intimidating. Should I be worried about her vetting process.
You smile.
She’d absolutely run a background check if she could.
That feels fair.
The ease of it surprises you. There’s no heavy flirting. No performance. Just conversation.
Another message appears.
So. Writer for an online newspaper.
You shift on the couch, tucking one leg under you.
Yes. Very glamorous.
What do you write about.
You consider giving him the short version. Instead, you answer properly.
Local things. City council meetings when they matter. Housing issues. Small business stories. Restaurant openings. The kind of pieces people actually click on at eight in the morning while they’re drinking coffee.
You pause, then add:
Sometimes it’s more human. I interviewed a man last month who’s been feeding the same stray cat outside a laundromat for nine years. That one did surprisingly well.
The typing bubble appears quickly.
That sounds more interesting than most things I’ve read today.
You blink at the screen.
It’s not glamorous. But it’s real.
A moment passes.
Real is better.
You feel that one land somewhere you weren’t expecting.
Then:
What got you into it.
It isn’t surface level. He keeps asking follow ups like he actually wants to know.
You think about it before answering.
I like paying attention to things that would get ignored otherwise. Small decisions. Small people. The stuff that doesn’t trend but still matters.
You hover over the screen, suddenly aware you might be revealing more than you planned to.
You send it anyway.
The typing bubble lingers.
That doesn’t sound painfully normal to me.
Your cheeks warm.
You’ve exchanged maybe fifteen messages with me. That’s not a thorough character study.
I work well with limited data.
You laugh under your breath.
You decide to pivot.
And you. You “sing sometimes.” Is that what you put on tax forms.
A beat.
Depends who’s asking.
I’m asking.
There’s a slightly longer pause this time.
I travel a lot. I write songs. I spend more time in airports than I’d like.
It’s understated. No résumé. No ego.
Then another message appears.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Italy lately. I’m there now.
You sit up a little straighter.
Oh.
Work. I tend to stay longer than planned.
You picture it without meaning to. Warmer air. Different language. A life that moves at a different speed.
That sounds better than New York in February.
It’s quieter. Less arguing outside the window.
You smile.
On impulse, you switch languages.
Quindi ora sei ufficialmente italiano?
(So are you officially Italian now?)
You immediately wonder if that was too much.
The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.
Capisco un po’. Not enough to get in trouble.
(I understand a little.)
Your eyebrows lift.
That’s suspiciously vague.
It’s strategic.
You laugh.
How much is “un po’.”
(“A little.”)
A beat.
Enough to order dinner. Not enough to win an argument.
You shake your head, smiling into your phone, alone in your apartment but suddenly not feeling it quite as much.
You stare at the last message for a while.
Enough to order dinner. Not enough to win an argument.
You type a response. Delete it. Type another. Delete that too.
You don’t want to overextend it. You don’t want to drag the conversation into the early morning just because you can. He said it was late there. You can feel the natural pause settling in.
So you send one last thing.
That feels like the correct level of fluency.
The message delivers.
You lock your phone before he can respond.
Not in a dramatic way. Just deliberately. You don’t want to sit there watching the typing bubble. You don’t want to turn this into something frantic.
You set your phone on the coffee table and lean back against the couch, staring at the ceiling.
Your apartment is quiet again.
It feels different though. Charged. Like the air shifted a few degrees.
You tell yourself you’re being normal. You had a conversation. That’s it. People have conversations every day.
Still.
After a minute, you reach for your phone again.
You don’t open the chat.
You open his profile.
The first photo loads. Slightly blurry. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair. A half smile that looks unguarded. The kind of picture that feels like it was taken by someone standing too close, not a press photographer.
You swipe.
The boat photo. Wind in his hair. Sun on his face. He looks relaxed in a way that feels almost private.
You swipe again.
The black shirt. Direct eye contact with the camera. No exaggerated expression. Just him.
You exhale slowly.
He’s beautiful.
Not in a distant, untouchable way. In a human way. In a way that feels almost unfair when it’s paired with the quiet, thoughtful messages you just read.
You zoom in slightly before you can stop yourself, studying details you would absolutely make fun of Camille for noticing. The curve of his mouth. The line of his jaw. The softness in his eyes that doesn’t fully translate on stage but shows up here.
Your stomach flips again.
You close the app.
Open it again.
Just to look one more time.
You’re not desperate. You’re curious. There’s a difference, you tell yourself.
You set your phone down for good this time and stand up, pacing once across your living room.
This is ridiculous, you think.
You give it a few days.
Not on purpose at first. Just life moving the way it does. Work piles up. Your editor sends back notes. You spend an entire afternoon interviewing a bakery owner who insists on telling you her full life story before answering a single question.
You do not open the app.
You think about it, though.
In line for coffee.
On the train.
When your phone buzzes and your heart does something irrational before you check the notification and it’s just a news alert.
You tell yourself this is healthy. Measured. You are not spiraling. You are not glued to a screen waiting for a typing bubble.
You are taking it slow.
By day three, you’ve convinced yourself that leaving space makes you mysterious.
By day four, you realize you are just nervous.
Camille texts you on Thursday night.
Are you alive.
You stare at the message.
Yes.
That’s it? she replies. Suspicious.
You hesitate, then type:
He messaged.
There are three dots immediately.
WHAT.
You call her before she can send anything else because you know she will escalate.
She answers on the first ring.
“You cannot just text ‘he messaged’ and leave it there,” she says, already breathless.
“It was normal,” you say quickly. “Very normal. Calm. Human.”
“Define human.”
“We talked about work. Italy came up.”
“Italy,” she repeats, like it’s a plot twist in a show she’s invested in.
“He’s there.”
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
She goes quiet for a second. “So what’s the problem.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Then why do you sound like there is.”
You sit on the edge of your bed, twisting the hem of your shirt around your fingers.
“I just… I don’t want to ruin it.”
“Ruin what.”
“I don’t know. The tone. The ease.”
Camille softens.
“You’re allowed to enjoy something without pre ruining it.”
“I’m not pre ruining it.”
“You’re rationing it,” she says gently.
You look at the floor.
She’s not wrong.
“I haven’t opened the app in a few days,” you admit.
“On purpose?”
“Kind of.”
“Why.”
You search for the right words.
“Because if I answer too fast, it feels like I care too much. And if I answer too slow, it feels like I’m playing a game. I don’t want to play a game.”
Camille exhales.
“You are overthinking this.”
“I know.”
“He is a man. On a dating app. You are a woman. On a dating app. You are allowed to respond when you want to respond.”
“It’s different.”
“Because he’s famous.”
You don’t answer.
She continues, softer now.
“Is he talking to you like he’s famous.”
“No.”
“Is he acting like you should be impressed.”
“No.”
“Then stop assigning weight to it.”
You lean back onto your bed and stare at the ceiling.
“I’ve just been taking it slow,” you say finally.
“Slow is fine,” she replies. “Slow is sexy. Slow is mysterious. Slow is emotionally regulated. But slow is not avoidance.”
You laugh quietly.
“Which one am I.”
“A little of both,” she says.
You glance at your phone on your nightstand.
It hasn’t buzzed.
But you know the conversation is still there. Waiting. Not in a demanding way. Just existing.
You shift on your bed, tucking the phone tighter between your shoulder and your ear so you can free up one hand.
“Don’t,” Camille says immediately.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to. I can hear it.”
You roll your eyes even though she can’t see you. “I’m just looking.”
“You are absolutely about to open the app.”
You don’t deny it this time. You pull the phone away from your ear for a second, switch to speaker, and open Raya.
The screen loads.
Your thumb hesitates before you tap the chat.
Nothing new.
The last message is still there. Calm. Unmoved. No typing bubble. No fresh notification.
You stare at it longer than you should.
“Well?” Camille asks through the speaker.
“Nothing.”
There’s a small pause.
“That’s okay,” you add quickly. “He’s busy.”
Camille hums in a way that says she’s watching you spiral from miles away.
“Yeah,” she says. “He probably is.”
You exit the chat but don’t close the app right away. You linger on his profile picture at the top of the screen like it might offer some kind of reassurance.
“He said he disappears for weeks sometimes,” you say, trying to sound unaffected. “Occupational hazard.”
“You remember the exact phrasing,” she points out.
“Stop.”
You finally lock your phone and set it on your nightstand.
“I don’t want to be the girl who waits around,” you admit.
“You checked once,” she says calmly. “While actively talking to me.”
“That still counts.”
“It counts as being human.”
You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling.
“It’s fine,” you say again, softer this time. “He’s in Italy. It’s late there. He probably has a life.”
Camille laughs gently. “I hope so.”
You smile despite yourself.
“It was one conversation,” you continue. “A good one. But still.”
“And if that’s all it is, that’s still nice,” she says.
The week stretches longer than you expect.
Not in a dramatic way. Just quietly.
You stop checking every day. Then you stop checking at all. Work fills the space. You finish the bakery piece. You sit through a zoning meeting that runs forty minutes past what it should. You have dinner with Camille where neither of you says his name out loud.
It settles into something that almost feels finished.
You tell yourself that was nice. A good conversation. A small reminder that the world is bigger than one breakup.
You don’t delete the app.
You just let it exist.
It’s the following Tuesday when it happens.
You’re on the train, wedged between a woman reading a thriller and a man aggressively eating almonds out of a plastic bag. You’re half listening to a podcast, half staring at nothing.
Your phone buzzes in your hand.
You glance down automatically.
Raya.
Your stomach drops so fast you actually miss your stop announcement.
You stare at the notification without opening it.
Harry sent you a message.
The train keeps moving. Someone coughs. The world continues like this is not a seismic event.
You open it.
The chat loads.
The last message is still yours. Then below it, new.
Sorry. I disappeared.
Your throat tightens.
Another message comes through.
You were right about the argument thing. I lost one in Italian. Very humbling experience.
You let out a soft, startled laugh on the train, earning a brief look from the almond man.
It’s been a week.
A full week.
And yet the tone is exactly the same. Dry. Casual. Like no time has passed.
You type slowly, deliberately.
That does sound humbling.
You stare at it.
Then add:
I assumed you were busy.
The typing bubble appears almost immediately.
I was.
A pause.
Didn’t mean to vanish.
There’s something in that. Not defensive. Not overly apologetic. Just acknowledging.
You lean back against the train pole, trying to keep your expression neutral.
Occupational hazard, you write.
Three dots.
Exactly.
Another pause.
How’s New York.
You smile to yourself.
The fact that he remembers where you are.
Still cold. Still loud. No progress on the arguing neighbors.
The typing bubble.
I admire their commitment.
You laugh softly.
The train lurches and you grab the pole with your free hand, heart still beating faster than it needs
The train rattles forward and you stay where you are, letting two stops pass without even thinking about it.
Your phone buzzes again.
Did you write anything interesting this week.
You blink at the screen.
It’s such a simple question. And yet it doesn’t feel like filler.
You shift your weight and type carefully.
I wrote about a bakery that almost closed because of a rent increase. The neighborhood showed up for them. It worked.
There’s a pause.
Then:
That’s a good story.
You smile.
It felt like one.
Another message appears before you can overanalyze.
Do you ever want to write something bigger.
You hesitate.
Bigger how.
More glamorous. More visible. Less local.
You decide not to shrink.
Sometimes. But I like knowing exactly who I’m writing for. It feels less abstract.
The typing bubble lingers.
That makes sense.
Then:
Abstract gets lonely.
That lingers quietly.
You swallow.
The train announces the next stop. Yours. You step off, weaving through people while still holding your phone low against your chest.
Lonely in what way, you type as you climb the stairs to street level.
A longer pause this time.
You reach the sidewalk just as the reply comes through.
You play to a lot of people. It doesn’t mean they know you.
Your steps slow.
The city noise rushes around you. Taxis. Conversations. Wind cutting down the block.
You type carefully.
Do you want them to?
Three dots.
Disappear.
Reappear.
Not all of them.
There’s something steady in that answer. Not self pitying. Not dramatic.
You walk toward your apartment, pulse still elevated.
Selective, you write.
Almost instantly:
Exactly.
You smile.
There’s a rhythm now. A comfort.
Another message comes through.
What are you doing right now.
You glance around at the sidewalk, at the guy walking a dog in a tiny sweater.
Walking home. It’s disgustingly cold.
Italy would like to offer an alternative.
You laugh.
That feels like a marketing pitch.
It is.
You shake your head.
What are you doing?
A beat.
On a terrace. It’s late. I should be inside.
You can almost see it without trying. Warm air. Quiet. Different sky.
And yet, you type.
And yet I’m not.
There’s a softness to that.
You unlock your apartment door and step inside, shutting out the noise of the street.
Why not, you ask.
The typing bubble appears almost immediately this time.
Because I’m enjoying this conversation.
Your breath catches just slightly.
You sit down on the edge of your couch again, like your body instinctively knows you need to brace for impact.
You stare at the screen.
Then, slowly:
Me too.
There’s no immediate response.
Just the quiet hum of your apartment and the faint echo of traffic outside.
Then:
Good.
It continues like that.
Not intense. Not dramatic. Just steady.
A few messages in the morning. Sometimes late at night. Sometimes nothing for a full day, then a casual reappearance like no time has passed.
You fall into a rhythm without meaning to.
How’s the bakery.
Thriving. The power of carbs.
Impressive.
—————
How’s Italy.
Still warm. Still confusing me grammatically.
Have you won an argument yet.
Absolutely not.
—————
What are you writing today?
Housing piece. Slightly less charming than stray cats.
You make it sound charming.
—————
Some days it’s just:
Morning.
Morning.
Or:
You alive?
Barely.
It never tips into too much.
He disappears occasionally. Reappears with something small and thoughtful.
Heard a song today that felt like something you’d write about.
Saw a café that would make a good scene in an article.
You don’t ask for proof. You don’t demand consistency. You just let it exist.
Camille notices the shift before you say anything.
“You’re calmer,” she observes one night over dinner.
“Am I.”
“Yes. You’re not spiraling. You’re just… talking.”
That’s exactly it.
You’re just talking. Having fun even.
No declarations. No flirting that feels forced. Just pieces of each other exchanged in manageable amounts.
He tells you about long studio days without naming locations. You tell him about a zoning vote that got unexpectedly heated. He sends a photo once, unprompted. A blurry shot of a street at night. Warm lights. Stone buildings.
It’s quieter than New York, he writes.
You send back a photo of your street. Snow piled against the curb. A bodega glowing under fluorescent light.
It’s louder, you reply.
The time difference becomes familiar. You start to recognize when he’s likely awake. He learns your routine too.
You’re usually on the train around now, he texts one morning.
You pause at that.
Observant.
Limited data, he replies.
You smile.
It’s been three weeks.
Three weeks of casual conversation. Of checking the app without panic. Of feeling something build slowly instead of crashing all at once.
There are no grand gestures.
Just consistency.
It’s a random Wednesday afternoon when it shifts.
You’re at your desk, halfway through rewriting a paragraph for the third time, when your phone buzzes.
You glance down automatically.
Raya.
You open it without thinking now. No dramatic pause. No pacing.
I’m coming back to the States for a bit.
Your fingers still over the keyboard.
You stare at the message for a second.
Then:
Oh?
The typing bubble appears quickly.
Yeah. A few weeks.
Your heart picks up, just slightly.
Where.
A pause. Not long. Just long enough for you to become aware of your own breathing.
Los Angeles.
You lean back in your chair.
Of course.
Work? you type.
Promo. New album coming out. Record meetings. The usual chaos.
You smile at the understatement.
That sounds mildly busy.
It’ll be fine, he replies. Just loud.
You glance around your small office. Your muted computer screen. The hum of fluorescent lights.
You thrive in loud, you write.
There’s a pause.
Sometimes, he replies. Sometimes it’s just noise.
You sit with that for a second.
Then:
When are you back.
Next week.
Your stomach flips. You hate that it does.
Next week feels close. Close in a way Italy never did.
You try to sound casual.
That’s soon.
Yeah.
Another pause.
Will you be in New York at all, you ask before you can talk yourself out of it.
There’s a slightly longer beat this time.
Possibly. Not sure yet. Schedules are still moving around.
You nod to yourself like that makes it less vague.
Fair.
The typing bubble appears again.
Would you want to know if I am?
Your breath catches.
You read it twice.
It’s not a grand gesture. Not an invitation. Just a question.
But it feels like one.
You swallow and type carefully.
I think I would.
There’s no immediate response.
Just the faint hum of your office and your own pulse in your ears.
Then:
Okay.
Life keeps moving.
He flies back to the States and the day he lands your phone buzzes mid afternoon.
Made it. LA is aggressively sunny.
You smile at your desk.
Welcome back to chaos.
A photo comes through. Blurry palm trees from the window of a car. Another of what looks like a studio. Cables. A mic stand. Nothing flashy.
Proof of life, he writes.
You send one back without overthinking it. Your laptop open. Notes scattered across your desk. A coffee cup with lipstick on the rim.
Proof of deadlines.
He replies almost instantly.
Yours looks more organized than mine.
That’s a generous interpretation.
The weeks in LA settle into the same rhythm you built before. Messages between meetings. Late night replies when he’s done for the day.
Long one today, he texts one evening.
Good long or exhausting long.
A bit of both.
He sends a photo of a sunset over the hills. The sky pink and unreal.
You send back a photo of your street in the rain. Reflections in the pavement. A taxi splashing through a puddle.
Still louder, you caption it.
Still warmer here, he replies.
It feels steady. Not performative. Just two lives running parallel with small windows into each other.
You don’t talk about meeting. Not directly. It floats unspoken between you.
Until one night.
It’s late afternoon. You’re already in bed, half asleep, when your phone buzzes on your nightstand.
Raya.
You squint at the screen.
You up.
You blink, suddenly awake.
Unfortunately yes.
The typing bubble appears immediately.
I’m in New York.
You sit up in bed so fast you almost knock your lamp over.
What.
Another message.
One night. Early meetings tomorrow. Flying back out after.
Your heart is pounding now. Loud in the quiet of your apartment.
That’s… random.
Very.
You stare at the screen, trying to slow your breathing.
Where in the city, you type.
A pause.
Midtown. Hotel near the park.
Of course.
You swallow.
The distance between Italy and New York felt theoretical. LA felt far enough to be safe.
But this.
This is different.
Another message comes through.
Thought you’d want to know.
You stare at that one for a long time.
Your city. His one night.
The possibility hanging there.
You stare at Thought you’d want to know until the screen dims.
Your heart is beating too loud for how quiet your apartment is.
You could ignore the implication. You could say that’s exciting, hope it goes well. You could play it safe.
Instead, you sit up straighter and type carefully.
Busy schedule? Or do you get to pretend you’re a normal person for a few hours.
You erase it.
Too pointed.
You try again.
Any plans after your meetings.
Neutral. Almost casual.
You hit send before you can overthink it.
The typing bubble appears quickly. Disappears. Comes back.
I was hoping you might ask that.
Your stomach flips.
Then, another message.
No plans yet.
You inhale slowly.
He doesn’t leave it there.
Do you want to get a drink?
There’s no hedging. No vague maybe we should. No soft landing.
Just direct.
Your pulse kicks up again.
You stare at the message, reading it twice to make sure you didn’t invent it.
This is real. He is in your city. For one night.
You type back, forcing your fingers to stay steady.
That depends.
A pause.
On what.
You smile despite yourself.
On whether you’ve improved your argument skills.
Three dots.
I can lose in English too. Very versatile.
You laugh quietly.
Then you type what you actually mean.
What time?
It takes a few seconds longer this time.
I’m free after nine. I can come to you. Or we can meet somewhere you’re comfortable. If that’s not too late.
There it is again. Direct. But careful.
Not assuming.
Your chest feels tight in a way that isn’t panic. It’s anticipation.
You glance around your apartment like it might offer guidance.
There’s a place near me. Quiet but nice. Not Midtown chaos, you write.
The reply comes quickly.
Send me the name.
Another pause.
See you at nine.
Your breath catches at the simplicity of it.
No overcomplicating. No dramatic build.
Just a plan.
You lock your phone slowly and stare at your reflection in the dark window.
One night.
Nine o’clock.
The second you lock your phone, the calm dissolves.
You stand in the middle of your bedroom staring at your closet like it personally orchestrated this.
“This is ridiculous,” you mutter.
It is one drink. One man. One normal human interaction.
Except it is not normal and you know it.
You start pulling hangers aside too fast. Sweater. No. Too casual. Black dress. Absolutely not. That feels like you’re trying too hard. Jeans. Maybe. But which ones. The good ones. Obviously the good ones.
You sit on the edge of your bed and take a breath.
Cute and comfy. Well dressed. Effortless.
You settle on high waisted tailored trousers and a soft cream button up that drapes just right. Simple gold hoops. Loafers. Hair down, brushed out, not overly styled.
You look at yourself in the mirror.
You look like you. Just slightly steadier.
“Okay,” you whisper.
At 8:45 you’re pacing. At 8:50 you grab your coat. At 8:55 you’re walking faster than necessary.
The bar you chose is dim and narrow and usually quiet on weeknights. You push the door open at exactly 9:00.
No one else is there.
Just the bartender wiping down the counter and a couple in the corner booth speaking in low voices.
You swallow and walk to the bar, sliding onto a stool.
“Can I get you something?”
“Just a glass of red.”
Your phone sits face down on the bar in front of you.
9:02.
That’s fine. Two minutes means nothing.
You take a small sip of your wine and try not to look at the door every time it opens.
9:05.
He’s in Midtown. Traffic exists. Elevators exist. Security exists.
9:08.
Your stomach starts doing something uncomfortable.
You flip your phone over casually.
No new messages.
You open the app.
Nothing.
The last thing he said still sits there.
See you at nine.
You swallow.
9:10.
The bartender glances at the door when it opens. It’s not him. Just someone picking up a takeout order.
Heat creeps up your neck.
This is fine. You are early. Or he is late. That happens. That’s human.
9:12.
You open his profile again without meaning to. The same photos. The same half smile.
A ridiculous thought creeps in.
What if this is the long game.
What if you have been talking to someone who is not him. What if this is the punchline. What if you are about to become a story Camille tells at dinner parties.
9:15.
Your chest feels tight now.
You pick up your phone and hover over the chat.
You could send something casual.
You alive.
Too pointed.
All good.
Too needy.
You lock your phone again and place it back down carefully.
You will not spiral in public.
9:17.
The door opens again.
You look up automatically.
And for a split second, before your brain catches up, you think you might actually be getting catfished.
The door closes behind him and the cold air follows.
For half a second your brain doesn’t register anything except tall.
Then the details come into focus.
Black coat. Slightly windblown hair. That same half smile from the photos, only less curated. More real. His eyes scan the room quickly, adjusting to the dim light.
And then they land on you.
Recognition is instant.
Not confusion. Not hesitation.
Recognition.
Your stomach drops in a completely different way.
He walks toward the bar without rushing. Calm. Almost casual. Like this is just another Wednesday night and not the culmination of three weeks of careful conversation.
You are suddenly very aware of how you’re sitting. Of your hands. Of your face.
He stops a few feet away.
“Hi.”
His voice is softer than you expected. Warmer.
You blink once like your body needs to reboot.
“Hi.”
There’s a flicker of something in his expression. Relief, maybe. Like he wasn’t entirely sure either.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Elevator situation.”
You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “That tracks.”
He smiles properly at that.
Up close, he looks exactly like himself and not at all like a screen version. There’s texture. Movement. A small crease near his eyes when he smiles.
“Is this seat taken?” he asks, nodding to the stool beside you.
You shake your head. “No.”
He slides onto it and shrugs off his coat, draping it over the back. The bartender appears immediately.
“Whiskey,” he says, then glances at you. “That okay?”
You nod, like you have any authority over it.
There’s a small beat of quiet once the bartender steps away.
This is the moment that could be awkward.
It isn’t.
He turns slightly toward you.
“You look like yourself,” he says.
You blink. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I wasn’t catfished.”
You laugh before you can stop yourself.
“That was absolutely my fear fifteen minutes ago.”
His eyebrows lift. “Really.”
“9:15 was dark for me.”
He laughs softly at that, shaking his head. “I should’ve sent a message. That’s on me.”
“It’s fine,” you say quickly. “You’re here.”
The simplicity of that lands between you.
He studies you for a second in a way that doesn’t feel invasive. Just present.
“You’re real,” he says quietly.
“I could say the same.”
He smiles again, smaller this time. Less public. More private.
The bartender sets his drink down. He thanks him absentmindedly without breaking eye contact with you.
For a moment the noise of the bar fades into the background.
It’s just the two of you. No typing bubbles. No time difference. No distance.
Just this.
He takes a sip of his drink and tilts his head slightly.
“So,” he says. “Hi.”
And somehow it feels like the beginning all over again.
Authors Note: Thank you to my friend @zclhes for making the new cover photo for this story!
hiii so then i have a request: it’s basically kind of like cockwarming so harry has realized his gf has been very stressed, so he takes a bath with her and hives her princess treatment and in the bath he puts it in because that usually relaxes both of them so not really actually sex but could also lead to that if you want to
OOOOOHHH Just got me feeling ALL THE WAYS just reading this lol!!!
The Princess Treatment
Pairings: Harry Styles x Reader
Genre: Fluff, Soft Domestic, Soft Comfort, Smut, Heavy Smut, Cock Play, Anal Sex, Clit Play, Penetration, Breast Groping, Nipple Play
Word Count: ~2k words
Warnings: None. Just Harry and Yn having some fun in the tub ;)
Prompt: You're stressed out from life, work and everything else and Harry decides that a nice bath might relax you -- and him too.
◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊
(My first smut post. Lemme know what you think!!!! ;)))))
The weight of the world had settled into the space between your shoulders, a hard, unyielding knot of tension that no amount of stretching or sighing could unravel. It had been one of those days—no, one of those months—where every email was a demand, every deadline a cliff edge, and the quiet hum of the city outside your window felt less like a lullaby and more like a taunt.
You’d trudged through the front door of your lavish home, a place that usually felt like a sanctuary, and dropped your bag onto the marble floor with a thud that seemed to echo your own internal state of collapse.
Silence. You’d expected to hear the faint strum of a guitar from his studio or the low murmur of a record spinning in the living room. But there was nothing. A tiny, irrational pang of disappointment pricked at you. You’d been craving him, craving the specific brand of calm that only Harry Styles could manufacture.
“Haz?” you called out, your voice sounding thin and weary even to your own ears.
No answer. You kicked off your shoes, the cool floor a minor relief against your aching feet and padded further into the house. Then you saw it: a single, deep red rose petal on the bottom step of the staircase.
You stopped, frowning. You hadn’t bought roses.
Another petal a few steps up. And another. A trail of crimson, velvety softness leading upstairs. Your heart, which had been beating a sluggish, tired rhythm, gave a curious little flutter.
You followed the path, your exhaustion momentarily forgotten, replaced by a burgeoning curiosity. The trail led down the hall, past the bedrooms, and stopped at the closed door of the master bathroom. From under the door, a warm, golden light spilled out, and the most incredible scent drifted through the air—a mix of sandalwood, bergamot, and the unmistakable sweetness of roses.
You pushed the door open slowly.
The sight that greeted you stole the breath from your lungs.
The entire bathroom was transformed. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of rose petals carpeted the floor, a lush crimson river leading to the sunken, free-standing tub, which was itself overflowing with them. They floated on the water’s surface like a delicate, fragrant mosaic.
Dozens of pillar candles of varying heights flickered from every available surface—the vanity, the edges of the tub, the windowsill—casting the room in a warm, intimate, dancing light. The mirrors were slightly steamed, and soft, melodic music, something instrumental and gentle, played from a hidden speaker.
And there he was.
Harry stood by the tub, wearing just a soft pair of grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips. His brown hair was slightly mussed, and his green eyes, reflecting the candlelight, held a softness that made your throat tighten. A small, knowing smile played on his lips.
“Hi, love,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated right through the last of your stress. “Rough day?”
You could only nod, your eyes stinging with sudden, overwhelmed tears. You weren’t a crier, not usually, but this—the sheer thoughtfulness, the blatant romance of it—unmoored you completely.
He crossed the petal-strewn floor in two strides and cupped your face in his hands. His thumbs swept gently under your eyes, catching the tears before they could fall. “Hey, none of that,” he murmured, leaning his forehead against yours. “This is a no-stress zone. Officially.”
“Harry,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “This is… it’s too much. You didn’t have to…”
“I know I didn’t have to,” he interrupted softly, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I wanted to. I saw your text this afternoon, the one that just said ‘Ugh.’ I knew my girl needed some looking after.” He took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours. “C’mon. Your bath is getting cold, and I’ve put in that expensive oil you like. The one that smells like vanilla and heaven.”
He led you to the edge of the tub. With infinitely gentle hands, he helped you out of your stiff work clothes, each piece falling to the petal-covered floor until you were standing bare before him in the candlelight. There was no urgency in his touch, only reverence. He kissed your shoulder, his lips warm against your skin, before helping you step into the water.
It was perfection. The water was the exact temperature you loved—blissfully hot, almost scalding, just how you needed it to seep into your bones. The scent of the oils and the roses enveloped you instantly.
You sank down with a sigh that felt like it came from the very depths of your soul, the water rising up to your chest. You let your head rest back against the curved edge and closed your eyes, feeling the tensions of the day begin to, ever so slowly, dissolve.
You heard the soft rustle of fabric and opened your eyes to see Harry shedding his sweatpants. The candlelight played over the familiar planes of his body, the tattoos you knew by heart, the lean strength of him. He was beautiful, a living piece of art in the flickering golden light. He stepped into the tub opposite you, the water sloshing gently, and sank down, his long legs stretching out alongside yours amidst a sea of petals.
For a long while, you just sat in comfortable silence. The music swelled softly. He reached out and took your foot in his hand, his thumb finding the arch and pressing in a slow, circular motion that made you groan in pure ecstasy.
“That’s it,” he said, his voice a low hum. “Just let go. I’ve got you.”
He worked on your feet for a few minutes, then urged you to turn around, presenting your back to him. You complied, shuffling in the water until you were settled between his legs, your back resting against his chest. His arms came around you, and his hands found your shoulders.
His touch was magic. Strong, skilled fingers sought out the rock-hard knot between your shoulder blades and began to knead it with a firm, steady pressure. You let out a low moan, your head lolling back against his shoulder.
“There’s the trouble-maker,” he muttered, his lips close to your ear. He worked the knot relentlessly, until it began to yield under his ministrations, melting away from a stone of stress into something pliable and soft. You were boneless against him, completely surrendered to the sensation. The heat of the water, the scent of the roses, the sound of his breathing in your ear—it was a symphony of relaxation.
You could feel him, hard and warm, pressing against the small of your back. It wasn’t a demand; it was just a fact of his presence, a part of the intimate tableau. The massage slowed, his hands smoothing over your now-pliant muscles in long, soothing strokes. His lips found the sensitive spot just below your ear, kissing it softly, then tracing a path down the column of your neck.
A different kind of heat began to unspool low in your belly, intertwining with the warmth of the bath. The relaxation was morphing, shifting into something heavier, more wanting. You tilted your head to the side, giving him better access, a silent invitation.
He took it. His hands drifted down from your shoulders, over your slick, oil-slicked skin, to cup your breasts. His thumbs circled your nipples, which peaked instantly under the water, tight and sensitive. A soft gasp escaped you, getting lost in the steam-filled air.
“Feeling better?” he whispered, his voice husky now, laced with a desire that mirrored your own.
“Mmm,” you managed, incapable of coherent speech. “So much better.”
One of his hands drifted lower, over the flat plane of your stomach, down through the warm, rose-strewn water. His fingertips brushed through your curls, so gently it was almost a question. You answered by pressing back against him, a clear, unmistakable consent.
His touch was exquisite. He knew your body as well as his own, his fingers finding the perfect rhythm, the perfect pressure to make you arch against him, the water lapping at your skin. The relaxation he had so carefully built was now thrumming with a new, electric energy. The candles flickered, casting your entangled shadows on the wall. The petals stuck to you and Harry's skin, tiny red kisses against the steam-sheened flush that was spreading across your chest.
You were writhing against his hand, breaths coming in short, sharp pants, when he suddenly stilled. You whimpered in protest at the loss of contact.
“Shhh, darling,” he soothed, kissing your shoulder. “I’ve got you.”
He shifted behind you, his hands on your hips, guiding you up slightly. You knew what he wanted. You braced your hands on the edge of the tub, lifting your body just enough. You felt the broad, smooth head of his cock nudge against you, and then, with a slow, exquisite pressure, he was pushing inside.
The feeling was overwhelming. The heat of the water magnified every sensation, the slickness of the oils making his entry seamless and deep. You cried out, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief and pleasure as he filled you completely, stretching you in the most perfect way. He was sheathed to the hilt, his body pressed flush against your back, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, holding you steady.
For a long moment, neither of you moved. You were just connected, breathing in sync, feeling the incredible intimacy of the join. The stress, the worry, the noise of the world—it all vanished, burned away by the candlelight and the profound, soul-deep connection you shared with him in this moment. He was your anchor, your safe harbor.
“Okay?” he breathed into your ear, his voice strained with the effort of holding still.
“Perfect,” you rasped. “Don’t you dare stop.”
A low groan vibrated through his chest and into yours. He began to move, a slow, rolling rhythm that was less about frantic passion and more about a deep, soulful communion. The water swirled and pulsed around you with every thrust, rose petals clinging to your arms, your breasts, your joined bodies. His pace was relentless and tender, each movement calculated to draw out the pleasure, to build it slowly and beautifully.
One of his hands slid up your body, over your slick stomach, to cradle one of your breasts, his thumb rolling over your nipple in time with his thrusts. The other hand remained splayed on your lower stomach, holding you firmly against him, ensuring every stroke was as deep as possible.
The combined sensations were dizzying. The friction inside you, the play of his hands on your sensitive skin, the hot water, the heady scent of roses and sex, the sight of his strong, tattooed forearm wrapped around you—it was a sensory overload of the most blissful kind. You let your head fall back against his shoulder, turning to capture his mouth in a wet, desperate kiss. He met you with equal fervor, his tongue tangling with yours.
His thrusts began to deepen, to gain a slightly more urgent edge. The water sloshed gently over the side of the tub, a soft slap, slap, slap accompanying the sound of your ragged breathing and his low, guttural moans.
“You feel… so fucking good,” he gritted out, his voice raw. “So perfect for me, my love. My wife.”
His words, spoken with such possessiveness and adoration, pushed you closer to the edge. You could feel the coil of pleasure tightening unbearably low in your abdomen, a pressure building with every one of his deep, sure strokes.
“Harry… I’m close,” you panted, your fingers digging into the edge of the tub.
“I know, baby, I know,” he murmured, his breath hot against your neck. “Let go. I’ve got you. Always.”
He slid the hand on your stomach lower, through your wet waves, finding that perfect, swollen spot. The second his fingers made contact, you shattered.
Your orgasm crashed over you not like a wave, but like a warm, all-enveloping tide. It radiated out from your core, melting every last remnant of tension, washing through you with a force that made you cry out his name, your body seizing around his. The world narrowed to the feeling of him inside you, the sound of his voice in your ear, and the blinding, sparkling pleasure coursing through your veins.
Feeling you clench around him was his undoing. With a deep, ragged groan that was halfway a sob, he buried himself as deep as he could, his own release pulsing into you, hot and endless. His arms tightened around you like a vice, holding you through the tremors that wracked both your bodies.
For a long time, you stayed like that, slumped together in the cooling, petal-strewn water, breathing heavily. The only sounds were the soft crackle of the candles and the slowing beat of your hearts. Slowly, carefully, he softened inside you and slipped out. He turned you gently in his arms until you were facing him, your legs tangled together under the water. Your bodies were still flush, your foreheads resting together.
His green eyes, dark with spent passion and unwavering love, searched yours. He brushed a stray petal from your cheek. “Welcome back,” he whispered, a soft smile gracing his beautiful, familiar face.
You smiled, a real, genuine, stress-free smile for the first time in weeks. You felt light. You felt cherished. You felt like a princess in a fairy tale, but better, because this was real, and he was yours.
“I never left,” you whispered back, leaning in to kiss him softly. “You just brought me home.”
Summary: meeting Harry Styles at Glastonbury and you have an unforgettable night together, only you wake up to videos of you two kissing everywhere
Warnings: smut, smut, smut, cursing, mentions of drinking, oral (f! and m! receiving), handjob, unprotected sex (wrap before you tap), daddy kink, squirting (if you squint), overstimulation, dirty talk, size kink ( if you squint)
Authors note: yes i’m aware i’m a year late to writing about harry going glastonbury but here the story is, hope you enjoy it xx
word count: 2.5k
“C'mon it's gonna be fun, trust me.”
That's how you ended up here in Glastonbury. The air buzzing with music and laughter, Lola was forcing you to take shots of vodka, and the fields were alive with thousands of people singing in unison. Your group had insisted on matching face gems before heading into the crowd.
Now here you are dancing without care, completely lost in moment.
“This is the best weekend of my life!” your friend, amelia shouted over the music.
You laughed agreeing with her, throwing your hands in the air as the band reached the chorus. Everyone was jumping, strangers turning into friends for a few minutes beneath the blinding lights of the stage.
As the song was coming to an end, you spun around and collided straight into someone.
“Oh my god, I'm so sor-”
You froze.
The person in front of you smiled warmly, running his hands through his hair. “It’s alright, I think I bumped into you too.”
Your brain short circuited.
Harry Styles.
No like it was actually Harry styles.
He wasn't surrounded by security or a group of fans.
He was just here blending in being normal.
He was wearing an oversized jacket with red shorts that were so short you could see the tiger on his thigh peeking out and a pair of sunglasses. Somehow the blending in was working despite him being one of the most recognizable people in the world.
You blinked.
“...You’re harry styles.”
He grinned, “Guilty.”
Your friends had shock written all over their face, whispering between the three of them.
Harry looked between all of you before chuckling, introducing himself to all of you individually.
“I’m Harry.”
You laughed nervously, “I... know.”
This caused him to laugh even harder, “and you’re?”
“I’m y/n.”
“Lovely to meet you.”
His friends had now wandered over to you, wondering what had happened.
“You alright, mate? One had asked.
Harry nodded.
“Yeah. We nearly started a mosh pit.”
Everyone laughed.
Everyone introduced themselves naturally, your friends introducing themselves, Harry introduced the people he was with and somehow the conversation flowed like you had all known each other for years.
You and harry were now standing separately from both your groups talking about the performances, the best food stalls and laughed about how impossible it to find anyone with the lack of signal.
“So... Who are you excited to see next?” harry asked.
You answered, and his eyes lit up.
“No way, I was hoping to catch them too.”
The next set started and before you knew it, both groups had drifted together into the crowd dancing.
The next couple of hours you danced side by side, shouting lyrics and laughing whenever someone bumped into your group.
You admired this about harry in this moment. He wasn’t trying to be centre of attention. He just seemed to be happy to be another person in a big crowd enjoying music.
When the set was over, he turned to look at you.
“We’re heading over to one of the VIP tents for a bit.”
He hesitated before smiling, “You and your friends should join us.”
You looked at your friends and they were nodding.
“Yeah sure, we’ll join you.”
-
The VIP tent was buzzing.
Music pulsed through the speakers while people chatted, danced and grabbed drinks from the bar.
Harry handed you a drink.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers,” you said clinking your glasses together.
The atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed. There was no pressure, no awkwardness, just music, dancing and easy conversation.
Harry was exactly the sort of person who made everyone around him feel included and comfortable.
As the two of you guys found yourselves in a conversation with more drinks flowing, harry pulled you into dance with him.
“I’m such a bad dancer,” you said while laughing.
“Perfect. Me too.”
People around you were singing lyrics they barely knew, jumping around with drinks in hand.
Harry spun you dramatically.
“I wasn’t prepared for choreography!”
“I’m improvising!”
“It shows!”
He laughed so hard he almost lost his balance.
-
Hours passed quickly, dancing until you were breathless, and talking between songs.
You were both now sweating and harry was leaning in closer to you, brushing your fallen hair behind your ear.
“You look very beautiful.”
“Thank you,” you said while flicking your eyes from his to his lips.
He licks his lips before leaning closer to you and pulling you in for a kiss. Its gentle and slow at first before there's a switch in him. He pulls you closer by your waist, teasing his tongue at your bottom lip.
You place your hands into his hair, kissing him back just as passionately allowing him to insert his tongue into your mouth. He lets out a groan as you both stand there in the midst of the crowd making out.
He pulls away pupils dilated and slightly breathless, “you wanna get out of here?”
“Yeah, let's go.”
You say your goodbyes to your friends telling them you'll update them tomorrow while they grin widely at you.
Harry grabs your hand eagerly dragging you out and you're now entering the back of a black SUV.
He enters last telling the driver his address and closing the partition door.
One look at him and you're pouncing onto him, pulling his head closer to you. While he rests his hand on your waist moving your hips back and forth for you.
You moan into his mouth at the feel of him through his shorts. Both of you now heavy breathing and hands roaming.
“Fuck,” you whimpered as you feel his lips drag down your neck. Your hand now reaching into the middle of you both palming him through his shorts. He groaned against you, gripping his big hand against your tiny wrist encouraging you to keep doing what you were doing.
He throws his head back against the headrest letting out little whimpers into the car, “please, don't stop.”
You pull your hand into the waistband of his shorts, wrapping your hand around him, stroking him gently. “you’re so big,” you say as you pull your hand out to spit on it and continue your actions.
He smirks up at you, “don't worry, I'll make sure you can take it.”
You continue jerking him off in the back of this car, edging him closer to his orgasm. “I want you to come for me.”
“I'm so close,” he says while moaning.
He pulls you in for a messy kiss, tounges clashing and the stroking of your hand now moving faster, while brushing your thumb over his tip leaving him shuddering.
“I’m coming,” he says.
“I know baby, you're going to help me clean it up.”
A few more strokes and he's spilling himself into your hand. Your soaked hand continuing to stroke him through his orgasm causing him to jerk and pull your hand off.
Licking the rest of his cum off your palm groaning at the taste of him. After you shoved your fingers into his mouth letting him suck off the rest, continuing to suck on your fingers while whining.
The car now came to a halt signalling you had now made it to Harry's place.
-
You both stumbled through his door, kissing each other, ripping off clothes.
He carried you over his shoulder and into his bedroom tossing you onto his king-sized bed.
After you were both done undressing each other now completely naked in front of one another.
Harry hovered above you kissing from your neck down, his facial hair causing you to let out little squeals. His calloused hands squeezing your sides, “do you want this?”
“Yes, please.”
He kissed down your body, taking his time around your chest and pouring his attention onto your nipples individually. Sucking and nipping at them to get a reaction out of you.
He was now where you wanted him in-between your legs taking his time while peppering kisses on your thighs while looking up at you. Your pussy now soaking wet just waiting for him to devour you.
He let out a moan while running his thumb along your soaked folds before burying his tongue against your heat, diving and sucking. The feel of his moustache ruffing against your clit while thrusting his tongue in and out of you was driving you crazy. He continued to eat you out like he was dying for it.
You gripped onto his hair forcing his face closer and he gripped tighter onto your thighs. “H, I need your fingers.”
Now, he's smirking up at you “yeah, I'll give you what you want.” Wasting no time, he inserts two fingers into your pussy, roughly pounding while taking your clit into his mouth. The wetness of you echoes into the room.
“Fuck baby, you taste so fucking good.”
“Your pussy is so tight around my fingers, your soaking my face.”
His mouth was so filthy, uttering dirty words while devouring you like you were his last meal.
“H, I'm so close. Don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping till you've soaked me, sweetheart.”
Your moans increase in volume not caring who can hear, gripping his hair tighter. Harry gets the hint and pulls his face closer to your heat and keeps going.
A few more licks and thrusts of his fingers and you were gushing everywhere. It came hard and fast and didn’t stop and neither did harry. You could feel yourself dripping down to your asshole and the feeling of harry licking into you was becoming too much.
Harry lifts his head from you, gathering your arousal with a finger and places it to your mouth. Repeating what you did to him in the car, you keep sucking while looking up at him and he lets out a groan.
Now reaching into his bedside drawer he pulls out a condom.
“I want to feel you properly,” you say looking up at him while wrapping your legs around his waist.
He let a groan out at the sentence, “fuck, you’re going to kill me.”
He now pulls you in for a kiss, letting his tongue slip into your mouth. You kiss him back earnestly, sucking on his bottom lip before letting it pull back to his mouth.
You wrap your hand around him smearing his tip with your arousal dragging him up and down you. Before you line him up with you entrance and he take over pushing into you slowly. The welcoming of your warm pussy and the stretch of his cock causes you to both let out a loud moan.
He continued to thrust into you, picking up his pace feeling your walls clench around him.
Your eyes flutter shut and let out little whimpers as he thrusts roughly into you. He grabs your face, “look at me baby.” you open your eyes, with a flushed face. “What a good fucking girl.”
“Yes daddy.”
He wraps a hand around your throat before pounding into your harder, “you wanna play like that tonight?” you nod up at him, causing him to squeeze your cheeks before harshly spitting into your mouth.
“Oh, fuck.”
“You like that?”
He looks down between you both seeing his cock drive in and out of you, creamy at the base and the way your pussy welcomes him in every time.
He can feel you getting closer as you clench around him, “you gonna come for me?”
“uh-huh. I'm close.”
Every thrust inside of you was hitting spots you didn’t even know existed, bodies smacking wetly together. One more thrust and you exploded everywhere, back arching, nails scraping down Harry's back and jaw dropping.
It was too much, harry kept on thrusting and you kept coming around him. Everything was wet, he kept slipping out due to your orgasm soaking his cock.
“Cum.” you demanded. “I want you to fill me up and make it stick daddy.”
He let out an animalistic groan and slammed into you one last time, cock throbbing while he filled you with his warm cum. He kept pounding his heavy load into your pussy. “Fuck, Ima make it stick baby.”
After he was done, he pulled out slowly watching it drip before he inserted a finger fucking his cum back into you.
The feeling it was too much.
“Give it to me baby”
“Harry, I can't.”
“Yes, you can, be a good girl and give me more.”
He inserted another into you, the squelching noise of him continuing to finger fuck you. It didn't take long before you reached your orgasm again, throwing your head back and closing your eyes, all you could see was stars.
You came around him for the third time that night.
Pulling his hand away before placing his fingers into his mouth moaning at the taste of you.
“That was memorable,” you said out of breath.
He chuckled before laying down next to you, “very.”
You got up to pee and do your bathroom antics before you came back and laid down on top of his chest, he was running his hand across your back which caused you to slowly drift into sleep.
-
You woke up the next morning with a hand draped across your waist.
You groaned and reached for your phone, before you saw texts from your friends.
LOLA (5 missed calls):
| ARE YOU AWAKE??
LOLA:
| TURN YOUR PHONE ON RIGHT NOW
You unlocked your phone and thats when your notifications exploded.
#harryandmysterygirl was trending on Instagram.
There were videos.
Hundreds of them.
One clip showed you and harry laughing as harry spun you. Another captured of you and harry in a group talking while his hand rested at the back of your neck.
Then it was the video.
It was blurry, shaky and filmed by someone in the crowd.
You remember it vividly in the VIP tent.
You and harry were dancing close to one another before he leaned in to kiss you. This video caught everything, the way his hands were resting on your hips and how you both kissed each other passionately before pulling away to continue dancing.
The internet had its opinions.
| “WHO IS SHE??”
| “HARRY LOOKS LIKE SUCH A BAD KISSER.
| “I WAS STANDING NEAR THEM!”
Your jaw dropped.
“Oh... no, no no.”
Harry stirred awake next to you.
“Please tell me that’s not the internet.”
Harry rubbed his eyes before gazing at your expressions.
“I’m guessing it is?”
You turned your phone towards him while he stared at the screen.
“.... Well.”
Another notification came through.
TMZ: fans react after videos of Harry Styles sharing a passionate kiss at Glastonbury with an unidentified girl.
Harry blinked once.
Then twice.
The let out a dramatic sigh.
“I was hoping we could at least make it to lunchtime.”
You let out a laugh, “Isn’t your manager going to kill you?”
“Yeah, but there's nothing we can do. It's okay don't worry.”
“So.. Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Do you regret it?”
He takes a pause, “Do you?”
“No.”
“Then I'm glad we are on the same page.”
The night came back to you piece by piece, remembering the girls forcing you to do shots, bumping into each other and the kiss you shared in the VIP tent, last night in his bedroom.
You let out a breath you’d been holding in.
“Well,” Harry said, “next year... We avoid cameras.”
You grinned at him.
“Or at least avoid making out where everyone has their cameras out.”
“Now that,” he laughed, “Might be impossible at Glastonbury.”
Warnings/From me: this is going to be a pretty angsty mini-series. I really love baseball--one of my more knowledgeable sports. I'm thinking 3-4 parts but you know how I love to yap. There are some hard parental topics in here: neglectful parents, foster care (a really BRIEF mention, and it's pretty inflated the way I made it sound)
Summary: “She goes to the games.”
“What games?”
“Our games?”
“She said so. She knew I could throw to home and she knew you turned seven or eight double plays this year.”
Niall sipped his juice and nodded, his eyes widened in surprise. “Impressive. Maybe she does.”
Harry always looked forward to playing.
But he really wanted the game to start today.
*Present*
There was nothing like seeing a live game at the park.
It was like the crack of the ball off the bat was different. It made her toes tingle. She thought of Brad Pitt in one of her favorite baseball movies (after The Sandlot, of course. Benny the Jet Rodriguez, while fictional, would steal her heart the way he stole home).
It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.
It was hard.
She loved the stadium. The warm summer nights under the sunset, the stars hiding behind the park lights. All of it. She liked watching the little kids run for foul balls in the bleachers. The crowd doing the wave around the field... She loved the smell of hot dogs and nacho cheese. She didn’t mind the sticky seats from melted soft serve and stale beer.
The ballpark felt like home, and she didn’t care if she was just a tour guide, ball girl, did the ticket sales, or worked the stands in one way or another. The kiss-cam during the seventh inning stretch, the tiger mascot, and the impromptu dance-offs all made her nostalgic for something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on but knew she loved anyway.
How could you not be romantic about baseball?
She pulled her ponytail through her cap.
“Hey, Scout.”
She smiled and turned to the gentleman behind her. He was older of course, from when she first met him, but that was almost twenty years ago. Time was a thief, people used that when talking about babies, but she could see it stealing the strength from one of her favorite people on the planet.
“Joe,” she nodded with a grin.
He tossed a ball to her, but she was still fiddling with her hair so she could only dodge it before it smacked into her head. She rolled her eyes as it pinged off the seat behind her. “What are you doing today?”
“Whatever the fuck I want,” she stated sweetly. Because it was true. She could do whatever she wanted.
*Before*
Joe found her sneaking into the ballpark when she was seven years old. She stole popcorn off the counter when orders were up and people weren’t paying attention. She kept moving throughout the stadium any time a worker got close, and she was worried they would blow up her spot. She’d sat in the bleachers mostly, sometimes behind the baseline when there weren’t a lot of away fans cheering for the team behind third base. Bravely she snuck in just behind home plate once. She still longed for that kind of closeness that she only got when she walked up and down selling popcorn.
But Joe found her: small and scared, skinned knee, and sniffling under the walkway as everyone was exiting the park. He did a double take, tilted his head at her as he rounded behind the steps only seeing her through the slats because Joe cared about his park and he wanted it to look nice and someone had dropped a soda cup on the ground and didn’t pick it up. “Where’s your folks, kiddo?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…” she mumbled at the time. Shame filled her. The ballpark was one of the only places that felt like home in her crazy mixed up young life and now she was going to get kicked out for good.
“You don’t know?” He repeated.
“I don’t have parents,” she explained. She had foster parents that didn’t pay much attention to her because there were so many of them crammed into bunk beds and whatnot. They were nice enough and she felt lucky about that.
He blinked, confused how a seven-year-old could manage their way past security. “How’d you get in here?” He asked and crouched in front of her. He looked familiar but she couldn’t figure out why. But she knew that he would have to tell on her and she’d never be able to go back. She shook her head. “Kiddo, listen. I’m not mad. I love the game as much as anyone. I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
She swallowed. “My dad used to take me here before he left,” she said quietly, sniffly.
“Left?”
She shrugged. It didn’t matter when or why he left. “I love baseball,” she said.
“Yeah?” He smiled gently. “Who’s your favorite player?” He was expecting her to say the most popular player on the team. He told her so; if it was, he’d get her an autograph pronto—after he took care of her knee.
“David Wells.”
He blinked. She was far too young to have seen him play on TV and remembered him playing. “Really,” he stated.
She nodded. “I liked what he said.”
He wasn’t familiar with what he said. Or maybe he was, but Joe was still distracted by this small, sniffly little girl knowing a ball player that she’d likely never seen live. One that most non-baseball players wouldn’t know. Maybe not even known by avid fans. “What was that?”
“Anyone can do anything on any given day.”
She remembered the way Joe’s face melted. His expression softened and he held his hand out to her. “Let’s get you cleaned up, kiddo,” he said.
Joe looked familiar because he turned out to be President of Baseball Operations for the Tigers. Joe’s brother was CEO and the whole family had owned the team for years. My great-grandfather got it for a song.
If Joe hadn’t found her and cleaned her up that day, she would have continued to love the old, worn seats, the timeless concession stands beneath the stands that warmed to over a hundred degrees in the dead of summer. The team was in her blood. The stadium, The Den home of the Tigers, was also very much her home.
Because the only other place home existed was long gone. Inside her baseball cap was a picture of her, her mom, and her dad. Back when her mom hadn’t left because being a mom was too much and when Dad was still around because it wasn’t too much to be without Mom. Back when they were happy outside the stadium.
*Present*
Presently, Joe chuckled, knowing that whatever she decided to do that day would help the stadium, the team, the business immensely. “I uh… I have some news.”
She stared at him in his light wind breaker because the warm wind was picking up. If one of the guys hit the ball toward right field with enough power tonight, they’d be lucky, she was sure. It would be a homerun. His hat was black with an B outlined on the center; it was orange overlaid with black stripes.
The Blackridge Tigers were on a losing streak. To be fair, they hadn’t really had a winning streak since she was born, and she often felt like she was the curse—even though the losing streak had been around for years before she was on the planet.
There were only a few times in her life when she felt sick to her stomach like she did right then. Something ominous was coming. Her dad started the conversation almost the exact same way back before. He had picked her up from school early and told her that life was going to be very different and he was sorry.
“What’s wrong?” She asked nervously.
Joe scared her one day last year. He looked a little overwhelmed, a little green. He caught a bad case of pneumonia, and she truly feared for his life. He was like a grandfather and had done so much to help her for the last almost twenty-something years of her life. She would do anything for him and the mere thought of losing him was…
“Nothing serious, Scout. I’m healthy as a horse. It’s just—”
She released the breath she was holding. Relief filled her. Then she could handle it. Whatever it was.
Still, it was the ides of summer. While she personally anticipated Joe would be around for a long time (she would make sure of it) something bad was coming.
Summer had a way of doing that to her.
She longed for September and October baseball. She prayed it would stretch into that first week of November even when The Tigers were invariably out of the playoffs.
“What is it? Just tell me.”
“We made some trades.”
Her stomach somersaulted. She loved the team. It was hard not to. A lot of the players got a little nervous coming to Blackridge, knowing the curse was likely never going to give them a ring.
So maybe that was why she put her heart and soul into the team. To make it easier on the players. If they weren’t going to win, at least they would fall in love with the Tigers the way she had.
“Who?”
“Mostly some members from the minors.” She deflated. She loved those guys too, but it was a little easier since she didn’t see them every day like she did with the team that was filing onto the field for batting practice.
“Hey Scout!” Someone shouted. She waved back as others from the team called out to her and greeted her. She couldn’t make out the voice that called out to her, she was too far away.
“Oh…” she pouted. Trades in the minors happened all the time. Especially with the league trade deadline quickly approaching. “...Okay?”
“We picked up Horan,” he said.
“Chicago gave him up?” She blinked in surprise. Her brow furrowed. “Is he hurt?”
“Not to my knowledge,” he shrugged.
Shit, that was huge. Niall was great and their shortstop, while a lovely guy, was constantly hurt.
Niall was not. And she knew Niall was good. Always had been.
But Joe wouldn’t tell her about Niall in some deep mysterious way. It was good and big news, but it wasn’t ominous. Niall wouldn’t ruin her summer.
“Why is this news?” She asked tentatively.
Joe looked up at the sky, rubbed the back of his head. “Because we also got Styles.”
For a moment she froze. She knew it. She knew it was something bad.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she laughed. “No, you didn’t,” she snorted and leaned down to start picking up the discarded cups, cans, and popcorn buckets from the night before that were tucked away from the initial clean-up crew. “We don’t have that kind of cap space… Harry Styles wouldn’t come here with a ten-foot pole.”
“It’s part of a larger…web of trades. I won’t bore you with the details.”
“Is he hurt?” She asked, ignoring the way the feeling pulled in her chest like this was real. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t coming here. It was a stupid question; she hoped he was hurt. Because if it was, she didn’t want him playing.
Not on her team.
“No…” he trailed off, but there was something clearly on the tip of his tongue that he wasn’t saying.
Harry Styles was a first round pick three years ago to the biggest team in baseball. He was offered an absurd contract. He played center field and was drafted right out of the middle of college.
Her college.
“He’s not coming here,” she snapped.
“Scout.”
“Joe, you know I love this park and this team, and I love you just as much—and I know you love me so don’t do this. I know I owe you my entire life but please don’t do this to me. Don’t let that dumb, smug prick—”
“Hey Scout,” that stupid, cocky smile on his stupid pretty face came from somewhere behind her. She didn’t need to turn around. She could hear it. She glared at Joe. Her shoulders stiffened. She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t.
“Now?”
“Well… I told Horan about your tour—it’s tradition around here, kiddo, you know? You’re important to the team. And Pickens—he knows Horan, he told him about it and… and Niall and Harry you know… they’ve always been friends… so…”
She tilted her head back stared at the bright blue sky.
The guy that crushed her heart. The last time she indulged in looking him up and watching his game late at night, under the covers of her bed with her iPad tenting the sheet so she didn’t have to hold it up. He was three hours behind and it was still light out and not bed time like it was for her. Harry had a game to play.
There he was at bat. The screen displayed his stats in a bar across the width of the camera shot, even though she already knew them because she was a glutton for punishment.
What the little bar failed to mention were all the other things she knew about Harry. That he was hot. He knew it too. He exuded confidence and was just so fucking irritating. That he liked chicken sandwiches over burgers. He had Sunday dinner with his mom no matter what (unless there was a game). Harry liked to sleep with the fan on but not directed at him. He didn’t like peas–especially in his soup. He didn’t like wearing batting gloves and he hated high and outside pitches even though when he made contact, he almost always got a hit.
She turned, slowly. Barely looking over her shoulder to see the hot jackass that was going to ruin the thing she loved most. He’d almost done it once already. It was like he was back to make sure it actually happened this time.
Harry waved at her like this was another day–as if years hadn’t passed between them. She glared at him, flipped him off, and started marching down toward the field with Joe following behind her.
“No.”
“Scout, come on,” he called gently. “It’s been—”
She spun back to the man who was very close to betraying her. When he never should have. When he promised not to. “Joe, this is my home,” she croaked, her eyes watering. “Don’t. He’ll… he’ll ruin it.”
“Scout,” his gaze softened like the day he found the small girl sniffling beneath the stairs. He took her hand, giving it a squeeze.
She shook her head, desperately trying to hold the sobs back. “Joe, please.”
“Listen kiddo, give him a chance, yeah?”
“Should I even mention he’s playing like shit these days?” She sniffled and wiped her nose.
Joe smirked, shrugged one shoulder. “You know what they say Scout, anyone can do anything on any given day.”
*Before*
Joe didn’t kick her out that day he found her. But for the next six or so years of her young life, Joe let her continue sneaking into every game she was able to get to. However, instead of stealing popcorn, the concession stands left one out for her specifically as soon as they caught wind of her arrival. When she was floating her way through stealing seats that were unoccupied, or trying to hide the fact she was an unattended minor wandering around the stadium for a seat to watch, workers made sure she was always safe and always had a place to sit and enjoy the game.
Despite how turbulent her homelife was, The Den was her favorite place to be.
She amused Joe. She knew it. She had a collection of baseball cards that her dad had left behind that she brought to the stadium once when she was nine trying her hardest not to lose them on her way in. It was one of the only things she treasured so much. For a tiny little girl, she could prattle off the statistics of long-since retired players. Joe found it fascinating.
Joe didn’t have a lot of regrets in his life. He had a tremendous job, a team he loved, and a good family. He never had kids of his own, though. This little girl seemed like the closest thing he’d ever get. He was too old at the time to adopt her. Plus, he didn’t know the first thing about raising a kid without two parents and he was running a ball club that required way more attention than a little girl who just wanted to eat popcorn and catch foul balls.
But Joe wanted to make sure she was taken care of as best as he could.
So he watched out for her and helped her as much as he could.
The moment she was old enough to work, she started by cleaning up the stands. She told Joe her dream was to sit on the sidelines and catch foul balls so Joe let her do that too once she was old enough. Sometimes she wandered the stadium, taking in it’s history and listening to the tour guide list all the famous players, so much so that if they forgot one, she could chime in.
“I don’t have anyone to watch my kid.”
“That’s not my problem,” she wanted the current head coach gone. Luke was a certified dick and there was no reason for it. He wanted to prove himself for some reason and he was just a shitty person and an even shittier coach. “You wanted on this team, you have to make sacrifices.”
“My kid?” It was Figuera—Figgy. He was new to the team, and he was struggling and she could see why. The tiny two-year-old was looking around in fascination. His eyes wide and shiny while he suckled on the binky. But Figgy was young and if this didn’t pan out, who knew what could happen with the baby.
“What’s the problem—”
Luke interrupted him. Which also irritated her. “Joe, Figgy isn’t cut out for this team. I’m trying to break the curse and we can’t have distractions like not coming to practice because he can’t find childcare. Don’t have a kid if you can’t—”
“I can watch him.”
It took her a moment to realize she spoke. But eight pairs of eyes turned to her. Figgy looked relieved. The baby waved excitedly to meet a new friend. She smiled and waved back. Luke looked pissed.
But Joe’s soft smile matched the one from the day she met him. “Thanks, kiddo. That all, Luke?” Joe turned pointedly. Figgy handed off the diaper bag and the kid.
“Thanks, kiddo,” the team knew about her of course, but she’d not really made herself that much of a presence in front of the players.
“Hey Figgy?” She called after as he started for the field.
“I know I’m like sixteen, a girl, and not a batting coach, but I watched your last at bat and I think you’re overreaching in the box. Maybe you could try crowding the plate a little more?
He smirked, shrugged one shoulder. Figgy gave her his kid and she saved his career for another day. The least he could do was hear her out. “I’ll give it a shot, Miss Scout,” he teased.
But Figgy crowded the plate, and hit a homerun on his next at bat.
So everyone called her Scout after that.
*Before*
When she went to college, it was the first time she missed opening day since she started sneaking into the stadium.
But Joe had provided her with a scholarship—the one and only that she was fairly sure came from his own bank account as far as she could tell (at least that’s what it looked like on the check).
He claimed it was given to a promising young woman with a passion for baseball who worked for the club–anyone was eligible so he encouraged her to apply.
But she never saw an application or posting for it the years after she received it–a full ride to the local university. She sobbed for a day. When she turned eighteen, she knew that her time bouncing around the government system was over. Quietly, she continued sneaking into the stadium and slept on a cot in the trainer’s room. She showered before anyone arrived and pretended to come in from the subway.
Joe wondered if she ever noticed that there were always clean sheets and towels hidden in that office, but didn’t say anything anyway.
The plan was to study kinesiology and minor in statistics. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do yet, but she knew she had to end up in The Den no matter what.
The university, while local, was too big of a commute for a daily job at The Den during the semester. Missing fall ball made her immensely sad. She missed the smell of the candied apples and the chill of post-season coming up.
But it would have eaten away hours of her life and she had to study. She had to make Joe proud. She had to do it for herself. She had to pay Joe back for giving her a chance at the life she loved so much.
As soon as she had enough money saved that first month after turning eighteen, she got a tiny studio apartment, just a (sort of long) train ride away from the park. About equidistant and just another (similarly long) train ride to the local university.
So yeah, she missed opening day at The Den.
Fortunately, the university’s baseball team was pretty good. Or at least, she thought they were.
She sat in the stands behind home plate. There weren’t as many seats as The Den of course. But enough that she could get a good spot. She watched the first game with rapt attention. The pitcher was good. The second baseman too. She remembered her Dad always said you needed to be strong up the middle of the field. The first baseman struggled with an outside fastball most consistently. The right fielder was an excellent bunter but couldn’t hit into the gap to save his life.
But it was the center fielder that drew her attention most.
For a lot of reasons.
It was very possible she could see his smile from behind home plate while he was out in the field. His teeth nearly gleamed in the sunlight. She couldn’t make out his eyes between the sunglasses, the distance, and ball cap but she could just tell that he was hot. It was the way he stood out there in the middle of the field. The way he chewed his gum was hot. He was ready for the ball to come his way on every pitch, every crack of the bat, he was waiting. In the span of three weeks, she’d watched him throw home without a cutoff and get the out at least four times. He was a solid hitter—no home runs that she’d seen but he consistently got on base–sometimes he even got a double, and one triple. Inside pitches were his favorite but it was clear he didn’t like the high and outside ones and almost always took the risk of watching them sail past him in hopes the umpire would call a ball instead of a strike.
Confident.
That was how she would describe the guy on the right side of the plate. The name Styles was written above the number 33. Just like her favorite player that she told Joe about on the day she met him.
Harry Styles was confident.
She went to every home game and watched, cheered, and paid attention to the players. “You should come watch a game with me,” she told Joe while they ate lunch in his office after she spent her Saturday morning doing family tours.
“I get a bit more attention when I go to games, Scout,” Joe chuckled.
“There’s some really good players. They wouldn’t normally get recognition at a D-2 school. You’re missing out,” she said knowingly.
Joe smiled at her with a shake of his head. She really had him wrapped around her finger. “I’ll come see the next one when the team’s away. We’ll make a day of it.”
*
Harry had just finished a workout at the gym and a bunch of the guys from the team were heading to the dining hall for breakfast. He had his headphones on because he liked to wind down after a workout. The music he played wasn’t as exciting and fun as when the game was about to start or when the whole team was warming up or running together.
It was just something he did to meditate quietly to himself while still hanging out with his teammates.
The group claimed one of the only open tables left in the hall and everyone quickly dropped their stuff haphazardly into a seat before heading to the food lines that were growing by the second with people rushing to get something in their system before their nine AM student rush.
Harry took an extra second to set his stuff down. He thought about waiting till the lines died down, maybe waiting until one of the guys came back just to keep an eye on their stuff. Instead, Harry’s phone slid out of the side pocket of his backpack and he watched it drop and slide just a bit toward the other table next to his. He crouched to grab it.
Elvis was crooning in his ear right as they entered the hall. A song his mom played a lot growing up; he loved it. It made him a little nostalgic, a little homesick, but mostly he just loved how sweet the song was, how soft it felt.
A hand grabbed his phone before he could.
He looked up just in time for Mr. Presley to say, Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you. Harry pushed one of the headphones aside immediately. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s alright,” she smiled gently.
Harry had listened to the song about a hundred thousand times (roughly). But not once had his heart rate ever increased like he was running to catch a fly ball. “M’Harry,” he stated.
“I know,” she giggled.
Harry blinked. She did look kind of familiar—but he’d never seen her up close like this. Her skin was kissed ever so softly by the sun and he desperately wished he could have been the sun so he too could kiss her. Her hair was in a couple of twists and then looped to the back of her head in an artful kind of way. She was pretty. Really, really pretty. She had sunglasses looped over the center of her shirt, a pencil tucked behind her ear, and a small stack of books on the table in front of her alongside her tray. Statistics was on the spine. Then a pink book that didn’t look like it was mandatory reading for class and one spiral bound notebook.
Good God he was in love.
And she knew him? Did they have a class together? It had to be that boring seminar class that he didn’t even know why he bothered showing up for. No one was paying attention. The man just loved to hear himself talk. “Do we have class together?”
“No, I’ve been to like fifteen baseball games this season.”
She had to be joking.
They weren’t spectacular. It wasn’t a D-1 team. The only girls who came to the field were dating one of his teammates. If she was dating someone on the team, Harry should have known and if he didn’t, someone was definitely going to kill him by the end of the day. He couldn’t have fallen in love with someone else’s girl just by looking at her pretty eyelashes and how her smile made her cheeks turn into the most delectable looking apples that he wanted to take a bite out of.
Harry thought her eyebrows were cute, for God’s sake.
Maybe it was Elvis’ fault. But he didn’t care. She was beautiful… and she watched baseball? Their less than stellar team?
“Really,” he couldn’t help but sound a little surprised.
“M-hmm. I love baseball. I go to The Den all the time—I work there,” she explained. “But I can’t make it work between my commute here and there. I’m smack in the middle. So I had to get my fix somehow. You guys are good.”
Harry chuckled. Maybe she didn’t know baseball that well. “That’s kind of you, but we’re kind of garbage.”
She shrugged. “Maybe your record’s not great, but you’ve all got some serious talent.”
Elvis was supposed to be calming him down and he wasn’t. Harry was falling fast. Too fast. Foolishly fast, right? Maybe Elvis was trying to warn him. “You think so?”
She nodded. “I’ve been watching baseball my whole life. Your throws from center field to home are really impressive. The shortstop—Niall, I think? He’s really agile. He’s turned like seven or eight double plays that could be major league.”
If Harry’s jaw was on the floor, he couldn’t care any longer. He was in love. Pure and simple. There was a chance the next words out of his mouth were going to be just that; that he loved her, and he needed her to be in his life every moment of every day. Or a wedding date, he wasn’t sure.
“I’ve got to get to class, but good luck today,” she smiled kindly standing, tucking her books away, and hiking her bag over her shoulder. “It was really nice meeting you,” she grabbed her empty tray and walked away.
“Who was that?” Niall asked, sitting down and immediately followed Harry’s gaze as he stared after the pretty girl exiting the hall.
He pulled his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even get her name.”
Niall smirked. “That’s too bad, she’s cute.”
He stared at his friend. “You don’t know her?”
“Why would I know her?”
“She goes to the games.”
“What games?”
“Our games.”
“For our 7-12 asses?” Niall laughed. “No way.”
“She said so. She knew I could throw to home and she knew you turned seven or eight double plays this year.”
Niall sipped his juice and nodded, his eyes widened in surprise. “Impressive. Maybe she does.”
Harry always looked forward to playing.
But he really wanted the game to start today.
*
During warm-ups she liked to sit along the first baseline because she didn’t want to look like a crazy person behind home plate. The last thing she wanted the team to think was that she was just there to look at the guys.
While she waited for warm ups to wrap up, she looked over her human anatomy textbook on her lap. Trying to commit to memory the muscles in the legs to her brain for the test she was going to have next week. The music was fun, the sun was shining, even though she had a non-descript baseball hat on to keep it out of her eyes. It wasn’t The Den, but live baseball was one of the best things on earth.
“Hey!”
She continued reading without looking up. In the weeks that she’d been attending, no one had ever spoken to her so she was pretty confident the attention wasn’t for her.
“Heads up!”
This time she did look up (because it was the one thing she always paid attention to when she was anywhere near a baseball field–Joe made sure of it), but it was almost too late.
She would have been fine. She’d been hit by more pitches and foul balls than she could say. Once Joe found her worthy enough (and old enough to see around the bench fence) to hang out around batting practice, he spent at least one day a year stuffing tissue up her nose to stop the blood because she was running after ground balls with grown professional men and she was only eleven.
The only thing she could do was duck and put an arm protectively over the top of her head before it hit her. Instead, the ball was snatched right next to her head.
By the guy that was usually the furthest away from her for half of the game.
Harry tossed the ball back and shook his hand out since he caught it without a glove. “That would have hurt.”
She felt her cheeks warm and hoped she could blame the sun. “Thanks, are you alright?” She asked, hoping she didn’t just injure their star center fielder.
“Little bit of a sting, otherwise fine,” he smiled and sat on her left. He looked cute in uniform. He looked cute at-bat as well. Baseball pants had to have been designed by a woman because there is no way a man would have thought to make them look like that. They had to get women invested somehow.
But Harry also looked pretty cute in the dining hall that morning.
And they were green.
His eyes were very green—so now she knew, even if he had sunglasses on she would know.
“You always sit here?” He asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’ll move behind home in a minute. I like watching to see if the ump is good or not,” she smiled.
He snorted and shook his head. His eyes dropped to the book in her lap. “Are you studying?” He lifted a section of the thick textbook and dropped the pages with a small thud.
She nodded. “Figured I’d be safe during warmups from fouls but I was wrong.”
“Riker’s a shit hitter. No one is safe. That’s why he pitches,” Harry smirked. She laughed. He lifted the bulk of her book again and read the cover this time. “Anatomy,” he whistled. “Impressive.”
She blushed. “Oh… no… not really,” but it was kind of impressive. But Harry was hot and she knew that hot guys were usually pretty intimidated by smart girls. Especially when she could probably study his swing for a day and make it better.
“What are you studying?”
“Kinesiology… and a minor in statistics.”
He tilted his head and grinned brightly. “Extremely impressive.”
“Not… not really, I just really love baseball,” she explained.
“You going to move up to the front office of The Den?” He asked, delight in his eyes.
She nodded and shrugged trying not to be overconfident. Joe didn’t need the publicity of some orphan girl trying to overstep. “That’s the plan anyway.”
Harry smiled. “I gotta go,” he nodded toward the field. “You said you commute, yeah? Can you stick around after the game?” He asked.
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I can,” she nodded.
Harry stood. “So… we have the same ump as the last game… what did you think of his calls?”
She closed the right side of her textbook and picked up the scorebook beneath it that she was using to keep track of the games she attended. It would help with the statistics project she would need to do at the end of the semester. Without looking up, she flipped the pages until she found the last game, slid her finger over the boxes and noted which ones had a circle around them in red versus blue and which ones didn’t—her own ranking system for how she viewed the call versus the ump. “He was pretty good,” she nodded, recalling the numbers she ran briefly after the game. “He called the high and outside ones as strikes more often so that’s why you only got two hits and struck out more than other games. I think you should try swinging at them though,” she shrugged again. “Otherwise, the pitcher will catch on that you don’t like them and maybe only throw them.”
Harry’s mouth was pressed into a straight line. HIs pupils seemed too wide. “How do you know I don’t like high and outside?” He asked.
She sucked her lip into her mouth, closed the score book and her textbook before making her move to behind home. “I-I told you; I really like baseball.”
Harry nodded slowly, walking backward without looking. Nearly bumping into other people. Ignoring the small set of fans that wanted his attention. “Don’t move, after the game. I’ll meet you right here.”
She nodded. “Good luck,” she waved.
Harry smiled. “Thanks, kitten,” he winked.
Harry hit two of the high and outside pitches that were thrown to him. The first one fouled off the tip of his bat and was caught by the third baseman. The second one he hit into the gap of shallow left field which gave him a double but drove in the winning run in the eighth inning.
*
For that entire week, Harry followed her around like a puppy. He asked her to come over after practice on Wednesday and she told him all about his stats about the team’s stats. She explained what she learned from her physical motion class about his hips and swing and the statistical likelihood that the player on the team they were playing next would bunt down the first baseline. (Which was nearly 85%, by her count, and she was correct).
Harry winked at her when he went to the plate. He swung outside. He got breakfast with her after the gym. He met her for dinner after batting practice. He, without shame, asked to take the subway with her to her apartment which seemed like it was thousands of miles away and he didn’t know how she did that every day. “I usually just read,” she shrugged.
For a week, Harry spent every free moment of time hanging out with her. Becoming her best friend. He told her about his classes, the seminar he never should have taken. How he would love to become a professional ball player. He told her about his family and Niall and the team.
For a week he listened to Elvis.
Somethings are meant to be…
She had the most beautiful laugh and he loved hearing it. It was almost as good as The King crooning in his ear about how he was an idiot for falling in love with her.
But how could he not? She loved the sport he loved. She was brilliant. So brilliant he was almost ashamed and embarrassed he didn’t realize his own swing was subpar. That his own hip movement was ruining his own game. “Did you play?” He asked. They were watching the Tigers lose on her TV, they were sitting on a small loveseat that barely fit her, let alone her and a whole baseball player.
She shook her head. “Not… on a team. Just… like ground balls and batting to… friends,” she said. She didn’t talk much about her family, but he didn’t pry. There was something in her eyes that seemed… cautious. Like she didn’t want to tell him everything. She didn’t have to, maybe it would take time. Whatever, he really liked seeing her and he’d wait as long as he needed. He asked what she did at The Den and she said a bit of everything. “I just wanted to be there, and I’ve got a pension for stats, right? So I do tours and sell stuff and…” she smiled. “I know they’re not the best team, but they’re my family.”
“I bet when you get your degree, you’ll turn the team around.”
“Thanks,” she smiled. “I fear they’re not going to win,” it was ten to five in the top of the ninth. It was a fair assumption. “Do you want to go get ice cream?”
Harry smiled. “Can’t have baseball without ice cream.”
“That’s my motto.”
*
Harry saw her on the first base sideline during warmups. He was pretty confident she was looking at her psychology textbook. He wanted to tell her to just sit behind home plate. She wouldn’t look weird like she thought she would. He wanted her to be safe and he was worried Riker was going to hit her with another one of his terrible foul balls.
“No fucking way,” Niall gasped.
“Is that–?”
“What’s he doing here?”
Maybe they wouldn’t know who it was if it was a different city, but the president of Baseball Operations of the Blackridge Tigers was walking down the left field line. Harry turned to his coach who looked as shocked as the rest of the team. There would be a ton of people at the field today if anyone caught wind of this.
By the looks of the other team already snapping pictures, it wouldn’t be long until social media found out.
He was dressed normally; like a grandpa going to watch a little league game, and not one of the higher ups of a professional baseball team. “Hey Scout,” he called.
The pretty girl that Harry was falling disastrously fast in love with waved at Joe Tucker.
“No fucking way,” Riker gaped.
“Scout?” Niall smacked Harry’s stomach. “How did you not know?”
Harry felt like he couldn’t breathe. Was she…? She couldn’t be a scout… she was the same age as Harry and… No. Why didn’t she say anything? All this week? When she said she worked at The Den…
What the fuck was going on?
Harry was going to embarrass the fuck out of himself, but he had to ask. Had to. He jogged over to her. Regardless of her new stardom, regardless of the fact he might embarrass himself in front of a professional baseball team president. He needed to understand or he’d miss every play and ruin every at-bat.
She was mid-sentence when he approached and Joe was looking over the field, watching the teams cautiously throw back and forth to warm up. Like he would pick on on the spot to start tomorrow night’s game. She gave Harry a wave and then put her hand on Joe’s shoulder.
“This Harry Styles. He plays center field and we’re working on the high and outside pitches but he’s going to be a professional ball player,” she smiled confidently.
Harry stuck his hand out. “Mr. Tucker, it’s an honor to meet you.”
“Joe’s fine. Nice to meet you Harry,” he shook his hand and Harry was grateful he was right handed because he definitely would have forgotten to take his glove off; if he was Niall he would have been embarrassed right at the introduction. “You’re taking her advice, right? It’s unnerving at first, but she’s almost always right. This brain of hers,” he shook his head with a smile and squeezed around her shoulders, pressed a kiss to the side of her head.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s just a suggestion.”
“Figgy didn’t think so.”
Vincent Figuera? She gave advice to Vincent Figuera? What the fuck.
“When you said you worked at The Den…” he trailed off.
Joe laughed. “Scout, you didn’t warn them?”
“You said it was already going to be too much publicity.”
“She’s worried you would only want to be friends with her because she could get you into batting practice,” he explained with a knowing smile. Harry was barely keeping up. This beautiful, brilliant, woman who loved baseball almost as much as Harry (actually, quite possibly way more) and was apparently best friends with the president of the Blackridge Tigers and he had no idea.
Boy Elvis, really knew how to pick them.
“I uh…” Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to be her friend because of that… sir.”
She snorted and packed her stuff into her backpack. “Sir,” she muttered under her breath.
“What my unofficial granddaughter is trying to say is that she’s sorry she didn’t warn you.”
She pursed her lips, pinched her eyebrows together. “I actually was not saying sorry, at all,” she shook her head and started for home plate.
He chuckled, wiggled his eyebrows at Harry, and followed after her. “Who raised her, you know?” He smiled and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “You go after her, I’ll say hi to your coach. Good luck out there, I hear you’ve got an impressive throw to home–I hope I get to see it.”
Harry turned to look at his team all staring at him, expecting more answers. They heard Harry was talking to a new girl but they didn’t know anything about her. Harry knew nothing about her other than she was smart and worked at The Den.
“When you said you worked at The Den,” he caught up to her behind home plate. “I thought you meant you did ticket sales or sold cotton candy.”
“I do,” she shrugged.
“Kitten, your grandfather is the president.”
“He’s not my real grandfather,” she put her bag beneath her seat, placed the scorebook in her lap and had two pencils, red and blue–both with erasers, ready in her hand.
“He calls you Scout.”
She looked at Harry and for the first time in a week, he realized that emotion hiding in her eyes wasn’t caution, for making sure she didn’t overstep on how much she knew about baseball (which Harry wouldn’t have cared if she did). It was fear. Worry. And why wouldn’t she be worried? Why wouldn’t anyone on this team do exactly as her not-grandfather said? Why wouldn’t anyone on this team fake being friends with her to get into the inner park of The Den. “So?”
He frowned. “I wish you told me, is all.”
She scribbled the starting line up for their team into her book–from memory but paused part way through. “Is Niall batting fifth or sixth?” Harry stared at her without answering. Finally she looked up and met his gaze. She stared back and he thought he might just kiss her right there. He was annoyed, not mad. He was in awe, but not mad. He felt a little hurt, but definitely not mad. She looked back at the scorebook and then took the paper she got at the entrance for the opposing team’s lineup for the other side. “I don’t like announcing it,” she said finally.
Which he understood. “I liked you before I found out, if you recall.”
“I liked the idea of that remaining a fact, believe it or not.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
She looked at him again and huffed. “I was abandoned by my parents by the time I was seven years old. My dad loved baseball. Those baseball cards? It was a parting gift. I love baseball because it’s the only happy, consistent thing that ever happened in my little life. When I was seven-and-a-half I snuck into The Den because I was in a home with too many kids. I was lucky it was a nice home all things considered. Joe found me with a scraped knee and let me continue sneaking in. I owe him my life. Okay? I get to be around baseball all the time. I get to do whatever I want there because it’s the only thing I have and I earned it. He thinks I deserve it. I’m not going to ruin the one thing I love and have the one person who loves me even though he doesn’t have to because I let a bunch of college-frat guys into The Den just because I can,” she swallowed hard and Harry wondered how someone so beautiful and brave and brilliant could say all that without crying. He was supposed to go out and play? In front of Joe Tucker? Without crying?
Maybe he should tell her he loved her. Maybe Elvis didn’t know a thing about wise men or fools.
Then he would have to kiss her.
“Will you be here after the game?” Harry asked.
She blinked, surprised by the question. “Yeah?”
“Don’t leave until I see you, yeah?”
She looked at him curiously. Mistrust was clear in her pretty eyes with pretty lashes that drove him crazy. “Okay…I think Joe and I were going to get lunch. Do you want to come with us?”
Harry smiled at her, hopeful. It didn’t change anything. He was still in love with her. She just had an extra cool background. “Only if you want me to.”
That mistrust didn’t go away, but it lessened. Just a bit, right before his own eyes. “Please,” she nodded.
“I’ll hit a home run for you,” he offered.
“Not really in your repertoire,” she smirked. “Numbers don’t lie, you know?”
He shrugged, smiled, and headed for the rest of the team. “I’ll try anyway for you.”
*Present*
It was an absolute nightmare to see the distrust in her eyes. He spent so much time getting rid of it and he had no one to blame but himself.
She spoke directly to Niall while giving the tour. Ignored every one of Harry’s questions mostly because the majority of them pertained to how she was doing. Niall smirked, shook his head periodically at Harry’s great misfortune. When Harry did have a question that didn’t pertain to her, he asked Niall to repeat it which she answered with absolute delight.
At the end of the most tortured hour of watching her pretty self talk about the thing she loved most to the person she loved least (and Niall), they came back to where the tour started and presumably, Harry and Niall would head in the clubhouse, get their little cubby and head out to batting practice.
Fortunately, it had been a few years but Niall didn’t seem to hate Harry’s guts the way she did.
“Thanks for the tour, princess,” Niall winked. “It’s going to be so fun seeing you all the time again. I’m just going to use the restroom,” he clapped Harry on the shoulder and muttered good luck under his breath.
“You look beautiful, kitten.”
She ignored him, stood against the wall, arms crossed and looking anywhere but him. “Y’still doing all the fun stuff or do you get to be a trainer now?”
She took out her phone, scrolled for a minute, and pretended Harry didn’t even speak. “Think we’ll win on your birthday, yeah?”
She looked up at him. “So you do remember my birthday.”
“You’re talking to me,” he smiled.
“Go fuck yourself, Harry.”
His heart hurt a little, but he couldn’t help it. He was glad she was talking to him. Even if she was mad–furious. “I’m sor–”
“Don’t even bother, Harry,” she pushed off the wall and because it had been years and he didn’t know this park the way she did, he didn’t follow her. Because he knew she’d lose him very quickly.
“I love the way my name sounds in your mouth, kitten,” he called after her.
She raised her middle finger up behind her as Niall exited the bathroom. “She hates you, I think.”
Harry frowned. “I don’t blame her.”
“It’s a little mean to play this game with her, Harry. You know what she’s been through. I’m your friend, I know…but she’s my friend too.”
“I know, Niall. I know.”
“So what are you going to do?” He asked.
Harry ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. “I’m going to fix it.”
Confident.
Harry Styles had always been confident.
He just hoped she still saw it that way.
--
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Ok so I read your influencer y/n x Harry blurb and I’d love to read something about her being on tour!! Him not showing his face in the vlogs but being a little narrator is so cute. Only if you feel up to it!
Oh I am very down to do that! Short but so cute.
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Warnings: playful biting and pinching, teasing
“So the accom is very swanky, if I do say so myself.” Y/N did an artful pan across the room, purposefully missing the shot that had his feet hanging off the bed. “Guess that’s what happens when you sleep with the boss, huh?”
“Oi!” She snickered hearing his little rebuttal, but she chose to ignore it as she went to the balcony, continuing to talk to the recording.
“So you all were asking if you’d be seeing me at the shows, and the answer is yes. Of course. I unfortunately can’t take pictures with you all when I’m there because of the ‘security risk’ thing, and the boss is very protective of little ole’ me. I saw some comments asking that and thought I’d address that in a vlog so you guys know I’m not being some weirdo who’s let fame go to her head.”
The snort coming from the bed made her narrow her eyes, flicking her middle finger towards him off camera. He always liked to make little noises and comments and it was something people tended to look forward to.
Harry would pretend like he didn’t do it on purpose, but he did. They’d made the decision to keep their relationship mostly private which meant she didn’t want him in her vlogs, especially because she wanted an identity outside of him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to let people have tiny glimpses.
Her audience called it edging, and she wouldn’t disagree.
Considering he was majorly offline it made the most sense. Besides that point, their memories were theirs. She recorded quite a lot of just the two of them but it wouldn’t ever see the public- just the tiny private account she had with people in their inner circle, which was about 30 people.
“Also, yes, this is the new merch and I did steal it. Took it right off the vendor table.” She plucked the black tee shirt and showed it off, the glittery writing sparkling in the setting sun.
“You did what?” Was called from the bed, making her roll her eyes.
“Was it gonna make a difference if I took it today? We both know I’d m go in the dressing room tomorrow and ask your assistant to bother himself with getting me one of these as soon as we got there. I figured I’d snag it at rehearsal so I could christen it by sleeping in it… like a good luck charm.” She grinned the specific ‘innocent but absolutely not innocent’ grin that always had him huffing at her, but it didn’t matter. It was all for show anyways.
He liked seeing his stuff on her. That was proven time and time again.
“Can’t believe m’in love with a criminal.”
Y/N knew that line would be picked up and people would run it all over the internet but she was going to leave it in. Just a little reminder to everyone that he was indeed in love with her.
No matter how many times people pretended an international pop star needed an influencer for a ‘PR. Relationship’
Her following was massive and nothing to scoff at. That wasn’t her downplaying her success, but facts were facts. Her 15 mil didn’t do much for his however many millions more he had. That wasn’t something neither of them paid attention to.
“You are, and don’t you forget it. You’re all lucky he’s the singer in this because if I could hold a tune, I’d be be singing ‘mama I’m in love with a criminal.’ I’m sparing everyone’s ears.”
Y/N really couldn’t sing for shit and it was quite funny. She prayed that if they ever had kids that they’d inherit his musicality, because hers was hopeless.
“Anyway, you’re going to get to see the venue tomorrow. I’m pulling up before the opening act because a flower shop has graciously offered to let me help them make some bouquets of tulips and let me film it! So I’ll get to bring the boss good luck flowers and have some content about local business, which I’m stoked about.”
Harry watched her ramble to the camera and sort of envied the way she was able to be so natural and real on film. That was a weak point for him at the beginning, getting comfortable with people recording him, talking to cameras, all of that.
Y/N teased him about his prepared, rehearsed and recycled answers at times but routine and predictability felt good to him. Being with her had him working a bit more on loosening up on camera- especially when he witnessed her recording herself brushing her teeth while he stood off to the side, unashamed of toothpaste dripping down her chin.
They were so different in so many ways, but that was why it worked so well. Bringing different things to the table, different talents, different experiences.
Unfortunately she was right about the singing, though. Her karaoke resembled a howling dog, and he loved her for it.
He heard her shut the recording off before feet padded to the bed, making him look up from his book just in time to put it to the side as she crawled onto his lap. No warning, nothing at all, but that was just how she rolled.
“Hello. Didn’t know we were in Australia.”
“Huh?” Y/N pulled her face from his neck, hair a mess as she peered at him.
“Considering I’ve got a koala on me. Didn’t know we’ve gone from Amsterdam to somewhere in Aus.” He repeated, a laugh escaping him as she groaned, putting her head back to his shoulder with an ungraceful ‘thunk’.
“You missed out on a career in comedy.” She muttered sarcastically, stretching her limbs out and over him until he was covered in a blanket of Y/N, and his hand was rubbing up and down her back. “The stand up scene mourns. Thankfully you’ve got a hundred thousand people who may show up tomorrow for your gig, so it all works out.”
“Fresh.” He shook his head giving the meat of her bum a little pinch to make her squeak. It didn’t hurt, just took her off guard as she stuck her cold feet over his as revenge. “And now m’getting attacked. Wonder what your audience would say if they knew you were torturing me when the camera was off, mm?”
“They’d thank me.” She scoffed, letting her teeth lightly dig into his pec. “For that transition from Matilda.”
You became his sugar baby to survive, but Harry’s possessiveness soon turns into something softer. The black card pays the bills, but it’s the unexpected love that threatens to ruin you both.
Author's note: SUMMER BREAK IS HERE! Enjoying the freedom while it lasts, because I’ll be heading back to school on July 14th. Until then, let the writing marathon begin! Happy reading!
Rating: Explicit. 🔞 content. reader discretion is advised.
The townhouse was quiet, but it was no longer the screaming silence of a tomb. It was the soft, expectant quiet of a home waiting to be lived in.
Harry walked to the kitchen island. He flicked on the under-cabinet lights, bathing the marble in a warm, amber glow. He took off his jacket, looking exhausted, and draped it over the back of a bar stool.
He rolled up his sleeves, not with military precision, but with the weary relief of a man who was done being Harry Styles for the day.
"Wine?" he asked, opening the fridge. "I think the white is actually cold for once."
"Red is fine," Y/N said from the doorway.
He pulled out a bottle of Barolo. He poured two glasses and handed her one, clinking the rim against hers gently.
"To chaos," he murmured, a small, tired smile playing on his lips.
"To chaos," she agreed.
Harry took a long sip, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he looked at the stove.
"I’m making carbonara," he said. "It’s... well, it’s the only thing I can make without a recipe. Is that okay?"
"It sounds perfect."
He washed his hands and got to work.
Y/N walked over to the island. In the old days, she would have sat on a stool and waited. Today, she hopped up onto the marble counter, letting her legs dangle.
Harry turned around to grab the cheese grater and paused. He looked at her perched on his expensive countertop.
"You know," he said, pausing with a block of Pecorino in his hand. "Strictly speaking, this is a health code violation. Putting your shoes against the cabinets."
"Is that a rule, Mr. Styles?" Y/N teased, taking a sip of her wine. "Are you going to write me up?"
Harry looked at her. He looked at her sneakers bumping against his cabinets. He looked at the hole in her sweatshirt. He realized he didn't care about the cabinets at all.
"No," he said softly. "I think I like it."
He stepped closer, not to intimidate, but just to be near her. He rested his forehead against her shoulder for a brief second, breathing her in.
"Just don't kick the wine glass," he mumbled into her sweatshirt.
"I make no promises."
Harry chuckled, a warm, rusty sound, and went back to cooking.
He wasn't surgical about it. He was focused, sure, but there was a domestic rhythm to it. He grated the cheese, a little bit flying onto the floor which he ignored. He threw the guanciale into the pan, wincing slightly when the oil popped.
"So," he said, stirring the pasta. "The job hunt."
Y/N stiffened slightly. "What about it?"
"I know the CEO of Bloomsbury," Harry said. He tried to sound casual, but Y/N could hear the 'fixer' in his voice trying to come out. "We play golf. I could make a call."
Y/N set her wine glass down.
"Harry."
He turned around, tongs in hand, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It’s just a call. It’s efficient."
"No calls," she said firmly. "If I get a job, I want to know I got it. Not because of who I'm sleeping with."
Harry opened his mouth to argue, to explain leverage and networking, but he stopped. He looked at her stubborn face. He realized that trying to control this was exactly what drove her away last time.
He sighed, surrendering. "Okay. No calls."
"Thank you."
"But," he added, pointing the tongs at her. "If you run out of money and start eating instant noodles again, I’m buying you groceries. I can’t watch you starve, Y/N. That’s my line."
Y/N smiled. "Deal. Groceries are allowed."
Harry finished the pasta. He tossed the noodles in the sauce, checking the consistency with a frown of concentration.
"I think it's ready," he said, sounding a little unsure.
He plated it into two bowls and grabbed forks. He handed her a bowl and leaned against the counter next to her, holding his own.
"Tell me if it's rubbish," he said, watching her take the first bite. "I haven't made this in a while."
Y/N chewed. It was rich, salty, and perfect.
"It’s terrible," she deadpanned. "Worst thing I've ever eaten."
Harry’s face fell for a fraction of a second before he saw her grin.
"Brat," he laughed, nudging her shoulder with his own.
He took a bite of his own pasta, letting out a hum of satisfaction. He stood there, leaning against the counter in his socks and unbuttoned shirt, eating dinner with her.
It wasn't a power play. It wasn't a scene from a movie. It was just dinner. And for the first time in a long time, Harry looked like he was actually home.
5:30 AM.
Harry’s internal clock was a precision instrument. He didn't need an alarm. His eyes opened at exactly 5:30 AM, just as the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was turning a bruised purple.
His body went into autopilot.
Step 1: Get up.
Step 2: Check Nikkei and Hang Seng markets.
Step 3: Espresso.
Step 4: Five-mile run.
He sat up, the duvet pooling at his waist. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, his thumb hovering over the email icon.
Then he felt the weight shift beside him.
He froze.
Slowly, Harry turned his head.
Y/N was asleep on the other side of the massive bed. She was buried under the white duvet, only a messy tangle of hair and one bare shoulder visible. She was breathing deeply, a soft, rhythmic sound that was completely foreign to this room.
For the last ten years, this room had been a functional space. It was where he slept to recharge for the next day of work. It was temperature-controlled, soundproofed, and efficient.
Now, it was warm. It was occupied.
Harry looked at his phone. 34 Unread Emails.
He looked at the girl sleeping in his bed.
He put the phone back down. Face down.
He slid out of bed carefully, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He walked to the bathroom, not turning on the lights, moving by the muscle memory of living in this space for a decade. He brushed his teeth. He splashed cold water on his face.
He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked tired. But the tightness around his eyes, the tension that had been there for a month, was gone.
He walked out to the kitchen.
Usually, he drank a kale smoothie and a double shot of espresso while standing up, reading the Financial Times on his iPad.
Today, he made coffee.
He used the French press. It took longer. It required patience. He waited for the grounds to steep, watching the steam rise in the silent kitchen. He found two mugs. He poured the coffee, adding a splash of oat milk to one because he remembered she hated it black.
He walked back to the bedroom.
Y/N was still asleep, but she had moved. She was now sprawled diagonally across the bed, claiming the majority of the real estate.
Harry smiled. He walked over to the side of the bed and set the mugs down on the nightstand.
He sat down on the edge of the mattress. The dip caused Y/N to stir. She groaned, scrunching her nose up against the pillow.
"What time is it?" she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.
"Early," Harry whispered. "Go back to sleep."
"You're up," she accused blindly, one eye cracking open to squint at him. "You're going for a run."
"Not today."
Y/N shifted, rolling onto her back. She looked up at him. She looked at his bare chest, at the tattoos, at the mug of coffee steaming next to him.
"Is that for me?"
"Unless you want me to drink two."
She pushed herself up, the sheet falling to her waist. She reached for the mug, wrapping both hands around it.
"You're supposed to be running," she said, blowing on the steam. "Or conquering the stock market. Or yelling at people."
"I can yell if you want," Harry offered dryly. "Get off my lawn."
Y/N laughed, a sleepy, raspy sound that did something dangerous to Harry’s chest.
"Come back to bed," she said.
Harry hesitated. "I have a conference call at eight."
"That is two hours away." She patted the empty space beside her. "Come here. The coffee tastes better horizontal."
Harry looked at the window. The sun was starting to crest over the horizon, lighting up the city that was waking up below them. He thought about his schedule. He thought about the unread emails.
Then he looked at Y/N, hair messy, holding his mug, looking at him like he was the only thing in the world worth waking up for.
He climbed back into bed.
He didn't lie on his side of the mattress. He slid in close to her, propping himself up against the headboard. Y/N immediately shifted, resting her head on his chest, her legs tangling with his.
"You're warm," she murmured.
"You're stealing the covers," he countered, pulling the duvet up over her shoulder.
"Negotiation tactic," she mumbled, closing her eyes again.
Harry took a sip of his coffee. He balanced the mug on his stomach. He rested his other hand on her arm, his thumb tracing slow, idle circles on her skin.
He watched the sun come up. He didn't check the markets. He didn't plan the day.
"You have a conference call," Y/N whispered, her hand moving idly up his chest to trace the ink of the swallow on his clavicle.
"I know."
"You should get ready."
"I have time," Harry lied. He didn't have time. He had twenty minutes to shower, shave, and review a forty-page briefing.
But then Y/N shifted. Her leg slid over his, the friction of skin against skin sending a slow, lazy heat through him that had nothing to do with the coffee. She pressed a soft kiss to the side of his neck, right over his pulse point.
Harry set the mug down on the nightstand. Hard.
He turned to her, catching her lips in a slow, languid kiss that tasted of oat milk and sleep.
The morning light was pouring in now, bright and unforgiving, but neither of them cared to hide. This wasn't the frantic, desperate collision of the night before. This was slow. It was indulgent.
Harry moved over her, shielding her from the sun. The room filled with the soft sounds of tangled sheets and quiet sighs. He took his time, learning the new rhythm of her body in the daylight, memorizing the way she looked with her hair spread across his pillows and his name on her lips.
For thirty minutes, the world outside the townhouse ceased to exist. The stock markets opened, the emails piled up, and the city rushed to work.
But Harry, the man who never missed a meeting, simply didn't care.
When they finally lay back against the pillows, breathless and tangled together in the ruined sheets, Harry glanced at the clock.
8:05 AM.
He was late.
He smiled at the ceiling, pulled Y/N closer into his side, and closed his eyes.
"Worth it," he murmured.
It was 2:00 PM on Saturday when the peace of the townhouse was shattered.
The intercom buzzed.
"Delivery for Mr. Styles," the concierge announced, sounding slightly out of breath. "It... it barely fits, sir."
"Come in" Harry said.
He stood in the center of the living room. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, arms crossed, looking at the large, empty expanse of wall above the console table. It was the only wall in the house large enough to accommodate the monstrosity he had purchased.
Y/N was sitting on the sofa, eating an apple and trying to hide her grin.
"You don't have to do this," she said. "We can put it in storage. We can burn it. We can pretend it got lost in transit."
"No," Harry said stubbornly. "I bought it. I am hanging it."
"It’s four feet of black canvas, Harry. It’s going to look like a black hole opened up in your living room."
"It is a statement piece," Harry argued, though he didn't sound convinced. "It says... 'I appreciate the void'."
The front door open.
Two burly movers stumbled out. They were grappling with a massive square object wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap. They looked sweaty.
"Careful with the corners!" Harry instructed, stepping forward. "That frame is vintage mahogany."
"Where do you want it, guv?" one of the movers wheezed.
Harry pointed to the pristine white wall. "Center. Eye level."
It took twenty minutes. There was a lot of grunting, a near-miss with a Ming vase, and several terrifying creaks from the plasterboard. But finally, the massive object was secured.
"Right," the mover said, wiping his forehead. "Sign here, please."
Harry signed the digital pad and tipped them fifty pounds each. They left quickly, eager to escape the intense gaze of the man in the sweatpants.
Harry stood before the wrapped painting.
"Ready?" he asked.
"I can't watch," Y/N said, peeking through her fingers.
Harry reached up and tore the brown paper. He pulled it away in large strips.
The bubble wrap fell to the floor.
And there it was.
The Void.
It was exactly as she remembered it from the gallery, only here, against Harry’s tastefully curated grey and white decor, it looked even more aggressive. It was a massive, pitch-black square. It had no texture. It had no depth. It absorbed the light from the windows like a physical threat.
It was aggressively, violently ugly.
Harry stared at it. He stood perfectly still, his hands on his hips.
The silence stretched on for ten seconds. Twenty seconds.
"It is..." Harry started. He stopped. He tilted his head to the left. "It absorbs the light."
"It cost fifty thousand pounds," Harry murmured, as if the price tag might suddenly make it beautiful.
"It looks like you forgot to finish painting the wall."
"It is conceptual," he defended weakly.
He walked closer to it. He inspected the brushwork or lack thereof. He looked at the way it clashed horribly with the soft grey of the sofa and the warm wood of the floor. It was a scar on the perfection of the room.
And that, he realized, was exactly the point.
He turned to look at Y/N. She was giggling, her legs tucked under her on his three-thousand-pound sofa, looking at the monstrosity he had brought into his home.
Y/N's phone buzzed on the coffee table.
She picked it up and glanced at the screen. A snort of laughter escaped her.
"What?" Harry asked, still eyeing the painting warily.
"It's Josh," she said, reading the message. "He says: 'Just so you know, the painting is gone. The wall looks huge now. Also, tell your boyfriend thanks for taking it. It looked like depression.'"
Harry let out a short, sharp laugh.
"He's not wrong," Harry admitted. "But it's our depression now."
He looked back at the painting.
He hated it. Aesthetically, it offended every cell in his body. It was loud, abrasive, and ruined the flow of the townhouse.
But looking at it reminded him of the gallery. It reminded him of walking through that crowd and claiming her. It reminded him that he had chosen the mess over the perfection.
"We are keeping it," Harry decided.
"Are you sure?" Y/N asked, standing up and walking over to stand beside him. "You have to look at it every day."
Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. He kissed the top of her head.
"I like it," he lied. "It adds character. And it covers the smudge on the wall."
"There was no smudge on the wall, Harry."
"There is now," he said, gesturing to the giant black square. "A fifty-thousand-pound smudge."
He squeezed her shoulder.
"Welcome home, Y/N."
Y/N leaned her head against his arm, looking at the black abyss.
"You're an idiot," she whispered affectionately.
"I know," Harry agreed. "But I'm rich. So it's called 'eccentric'."
Next monday morning arrived with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Harry was ready. He was standing by the kitchen island, fully armored in a navy three-piece suit. His tie was dimpled perfectly. His watch was set to Tokyo time. He was drinking an espresso and reading a briefing on his iPad.
Y/N was... not ready.
She was sitting opposite him, wearing pajamas that had seen better days. Her hair was in a messy bun that was slowly unraveling. Her laptop was open, surrounded by a fortress of sticky notes and half-empty mugs.
Click. Click. Sigh.
Harry looked up over the top of his iPad.
"That was a heavy sigh," he noted.
"It was a 'I hate the modern recruitment process' sigh," Y/N corrected. She rubbed her temples. "Why do I have to upload my CV and then manually type out my entire work history into the boxes? It’s redundant. It’s inefficient."
"It tests your patience," Harry said. "And your attention to detail."
"It tests my will to live."
She hit enter. A loading bar spun on the screen. Then, a small red box popped up.
Error: Session Timed Out. Please refresh and try again.
Y/N didn't scream. She just closed her eyes and lowered her forehead slowly until it hit the cool marble of the counter with a dull thud.
Harry winced sympathetically.
He set his iPad down. He walked around the island.
This was the hard part.
Every instinct in his body screamed at him to fix it. He wanted to pick up his phone. He wanted to call his head of HR and tell them to find her a position. He wanted to call the CEO of every publishing house in London and demand they interview her.
He could solve this problem in five minutes.
But he had promised.
He stopped behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage the tension knotting at the base of her neck.
"Take a break," he murmured.
"I can't," Y/N mumbled into the countertop. "I have three more applications to finish before noon."
"You have been staring at that screen for two hours. Your brain is frying."
"My brain is fine. My future is frying."
Harry’s thumbs dug into the tight muscles. "You are being dramatic."
"I am being unemployed," she corrected, lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were tired. "Do you know how many rejections I’ve had this week? Four. And one of them was an automated email that called me 'Dear Applicant'."
Harry looked at her. He saw the fear behind the frustration. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of relying on him.
"Let me look at your CV," Harry said.
Y/N stiffened. "Why?"
"Because I hire people for a living," he said reasonably. "I know what people look for. Maybe it just needs a formatting tweak. A punchier opening."
"I don't need you to rewrite it."
"I'm not rewriting it. I'm... consulting."
Y/N hesitated. Then she spun the laptop around.
Harry leaned over. He scanned the document. His eyes moved fast, dissecting the layout, the font choice, the phrasing.
"Here," he said, pointing to the second paragraph. "You’re burying the lede. You put your degree at the bottom. Move it to the top. It’s your strongest asset right now."
"But the template said—"
"Forget the template. The template is for average candidates. You want to stand out." He scrolled down. "And this part about the café? Condense it. Focus on the transferable skills. Customer management. Crisis resolution."
"Crisis resolution?" Y/N raised an eyebrow. "I made lattes, Harry."
"You dealt with caffeine-deprived Londoners at 8 AM," Harry said seriously. "That is crisis resolution."
He reached for the trackpad, his fingers flying. He didn't rewrite her history, but he sharpened it. He tightened the sentences. He made it look professional. Clinical. Efficient.
"There," he said, straightening up. "Try that."
Y/N looked at the screen. It did look better. It looked cleaner.
"Okay," she admitted. "That’s better."
"I am useful occasionally," Harry smirked. He checked his watch. "I have to go. I’m late."
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
"Don't panic," he whispered against her hair. "You are brilliant. They will see it."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered. "You own the building."
"I started in the mailroom," Harry reminded her, a lie he liked to tell to sound grounded, though in reality, he started as a junior analyst at Goldman Sachs.
He walked to the elevator. He pressed the button.
As the doors slid open, he looked back. She was typing again, her posture a little straighter, attacking the form with renewed vigor.
Harry stepped into the elevator.
He took his phone out of his pocket. He opened his contacts. He scrolled to B. Bloomsbury CEO.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
He could just ask for a "favor." He wouldn't even have to tell her. He could just nudge her CV to the top of the pile...
He stared at the screen.
No walls. Real.
If he did it, and she found out, she would leave. And even if she didn't find out, he would know. He would know that he didn't trust her to handle her own life.
Harry closed his eyes. He let out a frustrated breath.
He locked the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.
He let the elevator take him down to the car, leaving her to fight her own battle. It was the hardest thing he had done all week.
By Saturday morning, the townhouse smelled of expensive coffee and the lingering scent of anxiety, mostly Y/N’s.
She was sitting on the floor of the living room—right under The Void—staring at her laptop, refreshing her email for the tenth time that hour.
Harry walked in. He looked offensively fresh.
He was wearing jeans. Not the stiff, dark indigo raw denim he wore on "casual Fridays" at the office, but actual, soft, light-wash vintage Levi’s. He had paired them with a white t-shirt and a beige cardigan. He looked soft. He looked approachable. He looked like a man who didn't have a net worth equivalent to a small country’s GDP.
"Get dressed," he said, nudging her foot with his toe.
"I am dressed," Y/N said, gesturing to her leggings.
"Properly dressed. We are going out."
Y/N looked up at him suspiciously. "Out? Out where? To the balcony?"
"To the flower market," Harry announced. "Columbia Road. I want hydrangeas. And you need Vitamin D. You’re starting to look like a vampire."
Y/N scrambled up. "Harry, Columbia Road on a Sunday? It’s a zoo. It’s loud, it’s crowded, and people shove you."
"I can handle a shove," Harry said dismissively.
"You fly private to avoid airport queues," she reminded him. "You hate crowds. You hate inefficiency."
"I am evolving," he stated calmly. He stepped closer, his hands finding her waist. "I want to buy flowers. I want to walk down the street with my girlfriend. And I want to get coffee that isn't served on a silver tray."
Y/N looked at him. He looked so hopeful. He wanted to do a normal Sunday thing. He wanted to play 'normal couple.'
She couldn't say no to him when he looked like that—soft and hopeful in his cardigan.
"Fine," she groaned. "But if someone steps on your Gucci loafers, don't look at me."
"And I'll risk it. Go put on shoes."
The car ride over was peaceful, but the moment the car pulled up to the curb near Shoreditch, the reality hit them.
It was chaos.
Columbia Road was a riot of color and sound. Street sellers were shouting out prices in heavy cockney accents—"Three bunches for a tenner! Get 'em while they're lovely!"—while throngs of people shuffled shoulder-to-shoulder down the narrow street. The air smelled of crushed stems, damp earth, roasting coffee, and frying bacon.
Harry opened the car door. He stepped out first.
He looked instantly out of place. With his perfect posture, his glowing skin, and his aura of extreme wealth, he looked like a visiting dignitary who had taken a wrong turn.
He didn't check the perimeter. He turned and offered his hand to Y/N.
She took it.
He pulled her out of the car and immediately interlaced their fingers. His grip was firm.
"Ready?" he asked close to her ear.
"Are you ready?" she countered. "That guy over there is selling succulents out of a pram."
"Innovative," Harry noted.
He led her into the crowd.
For the first five minutes, Y/N was tense. She kept waiting for Harry to snap. She waited for him to get annoyed by the slow walkers, or the people bumping into him, or the mud on the pavement.
But he didn't.
Harry moved with a surprising amount of ease. He seemed fascinated by the grit of it. He navigated the crush, pointing out different blooms.
"Ranunculus," he noted, nodding at a bucket of pink flowers. "Too frilly."
"I like them," Y/N argued.
"They die in two days," Harry dismissed. "Inefficient investment."
They stopped at a stall selling massive blue hydrangeas. Harry engaged the seller, a rough-looking man with a cigarette behind his ear, in a serious conversation about soil acidity. The seller called him "mate." Harry called him "sir." It was surreal.
Harry handed the man a twenty-pound note and accepted a giant armful of blue flowers. He turned back to Y/N, holding the bouquet in one arm and reaching for her hand with the other.
"Hydrangeas secured," he smiled. "Coffee next?"
"You're actually enjoying this," Y/N realized, letting him pull her back into the stream of people.
"I am," Harry said. "It's loud. It's messy. It's... real."
He squeezed her hand.
"And nobody is asking me about merger acquisitions," he added. "Which is a nice change of pace."
They walked toward a bakery. The queue snaked out the door.
"Queue," Harry noted.
"We can go somewhere else," Y/N offered quickly, knowing his patience limits.
"No," Harry said. He joined the back of the line, pulling her in front of him so her back was pressed against his chest. He wrapped his free arm (the one not holding the flowers) around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"We wait," he murmured. "Like normal people."
Y/N leaned back into him. She felt the solid warmth of his chest. She looked around at the students, the young families, the hipsters with their dogs. Nobody was looking at them. To this crowd, Harry wasn't a billionaire socialite. He was just a tall, handsome guy buying flowers for his girl.
It was the privacy she had missed. And it was the intimacy he had craved.
"I think they are running out of almond croissants." He pointed out.
They shuffled forward in the line. Y/N was leaning back against his chest and feeling safe in the anonymity of the crowd when a voice cut through the noise.
"Harry? Harry Styles?"
Y/N felt Harry stiffen against her back. It was not fear. It was the reflexive armor of a man who was used to being approached for money or favors.
He did not pull away from her though. He turned slowly and kept his arm firmly wrapped around her waist.
A man was standing near the entrance of the bakery. He looked to be about Harry’s age. He had silvering hair and wore a quilted Barbour jacket while holding a leash attached to a very expensive Vizsla. He looked like he belonged in a country club in Surrey rather than on a gritty pavement in Shoreditch.
"Charles," Harry said. His voice shifted instantly. The soft and playful tone he used with Y/N was gone. It was replaced by his smooth boardroom baritone. "I did not expect to see you this far east."
"I could say the same for you," Charles laughed. He stepped closer. He looked Harry up and down, taking in the vintage jeans and the armful of flowers. "Slumming it are we? Or just lost on the way to the club?"
"Just getting coffee," Harry said easily. "The blend here is superior to the club."
"Is it?" Charles looked skeptical. Then his gaze drifted down.
He looked at Y/N.
Y/N felt a sudden and sharp urge to pull away. She was wearing leggings and sneakers. She was twenty two. She was holding the hand of a billionaire who was currently chatting with a man who looked like he owned a bank. The disparity felt glaring. In her old life this was the moment Harry would have stepped away. He would have introduced her as an assistant or a friend or he would not have introduced her at all.
She tried to untangle her fingers from his to give him the space to be Harry Styles the respectable businessman.
Harry did not let her.
He tightened his grip on her hand. He crushed her fingers against his palm gently. He pulled her flush against his side leaving zero daylight between them.
"Charles," Harry said. His voice cut through the other man’s inspection. "This is Y/N."
Charles looked at her. He did the math instantly. His eyes flicked from her fresh makeup free face to Harry’s silvering temples. A small and knowing smirk touched his lips. It was the kind of look men gave each other when they saw an older friend with a much younger and beautiful girl. A look that said Well done old boy.
It made Y/N feel cheap.
"Pleasure," Charles said. He extended a hand. "Are you interning at the firm?"
It was a polite question but the insult was razor sharp.
Y/N opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to defend herself but Harry beat her to it.
"She is my partner," Harry said.
The word hung in the air. Not girlfriend. Not date. Partner. In Harry’s world, the world of equity and law, that word carried weight. It implied equality. It implied permanence.
Charles blinked. The smirk vanished and was replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise.
"Oh," Charles said. He cleared his throat and recalibrated quickly. "I see. My apologies. A pleasure to meet you Y/N."
"Nice to meet you," Y/N managed to say. Her voice was steady despite the rapid beating of her heart.
"We were just getting breakfast," Harry continued. His tone was polite but dismissive. He was signaling that the conversation was over. "Give my best to Eleanor."
"I will," Charles said. He looked a bit awkward now. "Good to see you Harry. Y/N."
He nodded and walked away, tugging his dog through the crowd.
Harry watched him go. He did not relax until Charles was swallowed by the sea of people.
"You did not have to do that," Y/N whispered as she looked up at him.
Harry looked down. The hard edge left his eyes and was replaced by that soft warmth he saved only for her.
"Do what?"
"Call me your partner. You could have just said friend. He was judging you. I saw his face."
Harry shrugged. He shifted the flowers so he could wrap his arm more securely around her shoulders.
"Charles judges everyone," Harry said. "He judges me for buying Japanese equities. He judges his wife for drinking Merlot. His opinion is irrelevant."
He leaned down and his lips brushed her ear.
"Besides," he murmured. "I am not hiding you Y/N. Not anymore. I do not care if you are twenty two or fifty two. You are mine. And I want everyone to know it."
Y/N felt a flush rise to her cheeks but this time it was not from embarrassment. She squeezed his hand.
"Partner," she repeated softly testing the word. "Does that mean I get equity in the firm?"
Harry laughed. It was a loud and genuine sound that made a few people in the queue turn and smile.
"Let us start with a doughnut," Harry said as he guided her toward the counter. "And if you manage not to get powdered sugar on my cardigan we can discuss stock options."
Wednesday evening was rainy. It was the kind of relentless London drizzle that turned the city into a grey smear against the windows.
Harry arrived home at 8:00 PM. He was tired. The merger with the German firm was proving difficult and he had spent six hours arguing about pension liabilities. He loosened his tie as he walked out of the private elevator. He was ready for silence. He was ready for a glass of whiskey and the view.
Instead he was greeted by a whirlwind.
"I got one," Y/N announced.
She was standing in the middle of the hallway. She was holding a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other. She looked like she was vibrating.
Harry paused. He placed his briefcase on the console table under The Void.
"You got a cold?" he asked as he stepped out of his loafers.
"No," she laughed. "I got an interview."
Harry straightened up. The fatigue vanished from his face.
"Really?"
"Yes," she beamed. "It is for an editorial assistant position. They emailed me twenty minutes ago. They want to see me on Friday."
Harry walked over to her. He took the spoon out of her hand and placed it on the table. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor.
"That is brilliant," he said as he spun her around once. "I told you. I told you the CV was solid."
"You did," she admitted as he set her down. "You were right. As always."
"Who is it with?" Harry asked as he walked toward the kitchen. "Bloomsbury? Penguin? Hachette?"
"It is called Ink & Bone," Y/N said.
Harry stopped pouring his water. He turned around.
"Ink & Bone," he repeated. "Is that a tattoo parlor?"
"No," Y/N rolled her eyes. "It is an independent press in Hackney. They publish experimental fiction and poetry. They are very cool Harry. They published that anthology I read to you last month."
Harry frowned. "Hackney? Is it... solvent?"
"It is not Vanguard Holdings," she said defensively. "They don't have glass elevators. But they have a mission statement I actually like."
Harry looked at her. He saw the excitement in her eyes. He had to suppress the instinct to check their credit rating on his phone.
"Then it sounds perfect," he lied smoothly. "Friday gives us two days to prepare."
"Prepare?"
"Yes," Harry said. He took a sip of water. His eyes narrowed slightly. He shifted from Boyfriend into Senior Partner. "Do you know their back catalog? Have you researched the founders? Do you have answers prepared for the standard behavioral questions?"
Y/N stared at him. "I was just going to read their latest release and wear my nice blazer."
"Insufficient," Harry declared. "If they are a small press they are looking for passion and specific knowledge. You need to walk in there knowing more about their company than they do."
He walked around the island. He picked up his iPad.
"Sit down," he instructed pointing to the stool. "We are doing a mock interview."
"Harry," she groaned. "I have dinner on the stove. It is stirring risotto."
"The risotto can wait. Your future cannot. Sit."
Y/N sat. She looked bemused.
Harry paced back and forth in front of the kitchen island. He looked terrifyingly competent even in his socks.
"Okay," he started. "I am the editor-in-chief of Ink & Bone. My name is... let us say, Sebastian. I wear corduroy and I take myself very seriously."
Y/N giggled.
"Focus," Harry snapped playfully. "So tell me Y/N. Why Ink & Bone? Why not a big corporate publisher where you could make actual money?"
Y/N straightened her spine. She cleared her throat.
"Well Sebastian," she started. "I admire the risk you take on new voices. The big publishers are chasing trends but you are chasing talent. I want to be part of finding the next great voice not just the next bestseller."
Harry stopped pacing. He looked at her. He blinked.
"That was... good," he admitted.
"I know," she smirked. "I practiced in the shower."
"Okay," Harry said stepping closer. "But what is your greatest weakness?"
"I care too much," Y/N said instantly.
"Cliché," Harry dismissed. "Try again. Give me a real weakness but frame it as a strength."
Y/N thought for a moment.
"I can be obsessive," she said slowly. "When I get stuck on a manuscript or a project I find it hard to switch off until it is perfect. I take the work home with me."
Harry smiled. It was a small and proud smile.
"Better," he noted. "Because it implies you will work unpaid overtime without complaining."
"Cynic," she muttered.
"Capitalist," he corrected.
He leaned across the island. He rested his elbows on the marble.
"One last question," Harry said. His voice dropped. He wasn't playing Sebastian anymore. He was just Harry. "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Y/N looked at him.
Five years was a lifetime. Five years ago she was in school. Five years from now she would be twenty-seven. Harry would be fifty.
She looked at the man standing in the million-pound kitchen. The man who had bought an ugly painting because she liked it. The man who was spending his Wednesday night helping her prep for a job that paid peanuts.
"I want to be editing my own list," she said softy. "I want to be doing work that matters."
She paused.
"And," she added, reaching across the counter to touch his hand. "I want to be coming home to you."
Harry stared at her. His expression softened completely. The ruthless CEO mask dissolved.
He turned his hand over and interlaced his fingers with hers.
"Good answer," he whispered. "You are hired."
"Do I get a signing bonus?" she teased.
Harry rounded the island. He pulled her off the stool and into his arms.
"I think we can arrange a bonus," he murmured against her lips. "But first you have to stir the risotto. It is burning."
Thursday night was not peaceful.
The mock interview had gone well but the reality of the situation was setting in. Y/N was standing in the middle of the guest bedroom which she had temporarily designated as her "staging area." The bed was covered in clothes.
It looked like a Primark had exploded.
There were black trousers that were slightly too grey from over-washing. There were blouses that had mysterious wrinkles that no amount of ironing could remove. There were blazers that fit her shoulders but not her arms or her arms but not her waist.
Y/N stood in her underwear. She stared at the pile of polyester blends and felt a rising tide of panic.
"I have nothing," she whispered to the empty room. "I am going to go in there naked. That will be memorable."
She picked up a white button-down shirt. She held it up to the light. There was a faint coffee stain on the hem.
"Garbage," she muttered throwing it onto the floor.
She picked up a skirt. It was too short.
"Clubwear," she hissed tossing it aside.
Harry appeared in the doorway.
He was holding two mugs of tea. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her storm around the room in her underwear kicking piles of clothes.
"Is the fashion show over?" he asked mildy. "Or is this the avant-garde section?"
Y/N spun around. She did not even try to cover herself. She was too angry for modesty.
"It is a disaster H," she announced. "Look at this." She gestured wildly to the bed. "This is what I have. It is student clothes. It is fast fashion. If I wear this to a serious publisher they are going to think I am there to deliver a pizza."
Harry walked into the room. He set the tea down on the bedside table.
"You are spiraling," he noted.
"I am being realistic! Appearance matters. You know that. You spend three thousand pounds on a suit because it signals power. This..." She picked up a cardigan and let it drop limp from her hand. "This signals 'please give me a discount'."
Harry looked at the cardigan. He tilted his head.
"It is a bit... pillowy," he admitted.
"See!" Y/N threw her hands up. "I can't go. I am going to cancel. I will tell them I have cholera."
"You do not have cholera," Harry said calmly. "And you are not cancelling."
He walked over to her. He placed his hands on her bare shoulders. His palms were warm. He rubbed his thumbs over her collarbones grounding her.
"Listen to me," he said looking her in the eye. "Wear the black trousers. Wear the white t-shirt. Wear your own blazer. Clean lines. Simple. It shows you are practical."
"It shows I am broke," she whispered. "I feel small Harry. I feel like I am going to walk in there and apologize for existing."
Harry studied her face. He saw the genuine insecurity there. He knew that for her this wasn't just about fabric. It was about armor. She felt exposed and she wanted a shield.
"Okay," Harry said. He dropped his hands. "I can fix that."
He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a sleek heavy piece of metal.
It was his black titanium American Express card.
He took her hand and pressed it into her palm curling her fingers over it.
"Harry," she started immediately trying to pull her hand away. "No. I do not need you to buy me clothes. I do not need charity. It is too late for that."
"It is not charity," Harry said, his voice serious. "It is strategy."
He squeezed her closed fist around the cold metal.
"I want you to take this tomorrow morning. Before the interview. I want you to go out and buy the outfit that makes you feel dangerous."
Y/N looked at him, wide-eyed. "Harry, I can't just go shopping with your black card. It’s too much."
"Why not?" Harry asked, tilting his head with a smirk. "I can give you orgasms, but I can't buy you an outfit for the most important day of your life?"
Y/N’s cheeks flushed pink, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to find a counter-argument.
"That... that is different," she stammered.
"Is it?" Harry stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, teasing rumble. "I have seen you naked. I have heard you scream my name. But a pair of trousers is where you draw the moral line?"
He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone.
"That seems like a very arbitrary rule, Y/N. Let me dress you. Let me help you"
Y/N looked down at her hand. The metal was cool against her skin. It was heavy. And he was right—it was ridiculous to be intimate in every other way but stubborn about this.
"You really want me to do this?" she asked. "I could buy a boat."
"Please do not buy a boat," Harry smiled. "But buy the trousers. The good ones. And the bag."
Y/N let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She gripped the card tighter.
"Okay," she whispered. "I’ll buy an outfit."
"Alright" Harry said. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Now drink your tea. You have a big day tomorrow."
Friday morning was not a blur of panic. It was a fashion show.
Harry was driving. He had insisted on taking the Range Rover because, according to him, it had "superior climate control for preserving hair volume."
Y/N sat in the passenger seat. She was not wearing a stiff suit. She was wearing the outfit she had bought yesterday with the black card.
It was perfect.
She wore a fitted black long-sleeve top that showed off her collarbones and tucked seamlessly into a pair of charcoal grey wide-leg trousers. They were tailored but slouched just enough to look effortless. On her feet were retro sneakers. On her shoulder sat the massive Goyard tote bag that cost more than her first car.
She looked like an off-duty model who had just popped out for a matcha latte.
"You keep looking at me," she noted, catching Harry’s eye as they stopped at a red light in Shoreditch.
"I am admiring my investment," Harry grinned. He reached over and rested his hand on her thigh. "You look very... Hackney chic. Very 'I curate art but I also take the bus sometimes just to feel something'."
Y/N laughed, swatting his arm lightly.
"That is exactly the vibe I was going for. Rich but approachable. Pretending not to be rich."
"It is working," Harry said. He tapped the steering wheel. "Although that bag is a dead giveaway. You look like you are carrying gold bars in there."
"It is empty," Y/N admitted. "It literally just has my CV, a bottle of water, and a lip balm. But it makes me feel important."
"It makes you look like you are about to hostile takeover the publishing house," Harry teased. "Which, for the record, is always an option if the interview goes south. I can just buy the building and we can turn it into a private library."
"Please do not buy the building Harry."
"I am just saying. It is Plan B."
He turned the car onto the side street. The graffiti-covered warehouses loomed above them. It was gritty. It was cool. It was exactly where she wanted to be.
Harry put the car in park. He turned to her.
"Okay," he said. The joking tone dropped just a fraction, replaced by that warm, steady look that always made her knees weak. "Nervous?"
"A little," she admitted. "My hands are sweating. I hope I don't ruin the purse”.
"The handles will survive," Harry assured her. "And so will you."
He reached across the console. He didn't give her a lecture this time. He just took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles.
"You look stunning Y/N," he murmured against her skin. "If this guy doesn't hire you he is legally blind."
"And if he is rude?" she asked, a playful glint in her eye.
"Then you use the bag," Harry said solemnly. "Swing it at his head. It will do damage."
Y/N let out a loud laugh. The tension in her chest broke.
"Okay," she breathed. "Assault the interviewer. Got it. Great advice."
"I am a full service boyfriend," Harry winked. "Now go. Go be brilliant."
She leaned over and kissed him. It wasn't a quick peck. It was a lingering, grateful kiss that tasted of mint and coffee.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Anytime," Harry smiled. "Call me when you are done. If you are not out in an hour I am coming in with a rescue team."
"Bye Harry."
Y/N opened the door. She stepped out onto the pavement.
She adjusted the strap of her tote bag. She smoothed the front of her grey trousers. She felt the cool air on her face.
She didn't feel small. She didn't feel desperate. She felt like the girl in the reflection—capable, stylish, and backed by a man who would burn the city down if she asked him to.
She walked toward the steel door of Number 42 with a swing in her step.
The interview was a blur but a good one.
Julian, the editor, was younger than she expected. He was maybe mid thirties with messy hair and he was wearing a vintage band t-shirt under a blazer.
He looked up when she walked in. He took in the trousers and the sneakers and the bag.
"Nice bag," Julian said nodding at the Goyard as she sat down. "We usually get people coming in here wearing stiff suits. They look like they are going to a funeral."
Y/N smiled dropping her bag onto the floor with a casual thud.
"I figured I should dress for the job I want," she said smoothly. "Not the funeral I am planning."
Julian laughed.
"Good answer," he said leaning back. "You fit the vibe. Now tell me about the books."
They talked for forty minutes. They talked about fiction. They talked about the industry. She didn't feel out of place. She felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
When she walked out the rain had started to drizzle again.
She didn't care.
She pulled out her phone. She didn't call Harry. She knew he had a meeting.
She opened the Uber app. She typed in Vanguard Holdings.
She stood on the curb looking effortlessly cool in her sneakers and wide leg trousers waiting for her ride to take her to the skyscraper where her boyfriend ran the world.
She felt like she had already got the job.
The lobby of Vanguard Holdings was a cathedral of glass and silence. It was filled with men in navy suits and women in pencil skirts who walked with the terrifying speed of people who billed by the minute.
Y/N walked through the revolving doors.
She did not look like them. She moved with a relaxed swagger that the stiff suits in the lobby couldn't quite comprehend, breezing past the security desk with a confidence that said she belonged there.
The security guard, Ralph, looked up and nodded respectfully. "Afternoon, Miss."
"Hi Ralph," Y/N smiled, pressing the button for the top floor.
The elevator shot up fifty stories in seconds. The doors slid open to reveal the executive suite. It was quiet up here. The carpet was thicker. The art on the walls was real Rothko.
Harry’s executive assistant, a terrifyingly efficient woman named Andrea, looked up from her desk. She looked frazzled.
"Oh," Andrea said, blinking. "He is in a mood. The Tokyo markets opened down. He is eating everyone alive."
"I will take my chances," Y/N said coolly.
She walked past the desk and pushed open the heavy mahogany doors to Harry’s office without knocking.
Harry was pacing.
He had abandoned his jacket on the sofa. His sleeves were rolled up. His tie was loosened. He was muttering something about "yield curves" and looking like he wanted to throw his phone out the window.
He spun around when the door opened.
"Andrea, for the last time, I do not want the—"
He stopped.
His eyes landed on Y/N. He took in her relaxed posture, her wind-blown hair, and the way she was looking at him like he was the only thing in the room that mattered.
The stress didn't vanish, but his eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't smile immediately.
"You didn't call," he said, his voice low.
Y/N dropped her bag onto a leather armchair with a heavy thud. She walked toward him.
"Hello to you too," she teased.
"We had an agreement," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked like the CEO now—stern and demanding. "You were supposed to call when you finished. I was five minutes away from sending a security team to Hackney to extract you."
"I wanted to surprise you," Y/N said, stopping right in front of him. She reached out and touched his arm. "And you looked like you needed a surprise. Andrea looks terrified."
Harry sighed, the tension finally leaving his shoulders as her touch registered. He couldn't stay mad.
"Andrea is terrified because Tokyo is a bloodbath," he admitted, uncrossing his arms to rest his hands on her hips. "And you are trouble. You made me worry."
"I am fine," she whispered. "I am better than fine. I missed you."
She kissed him.
It wasn't a sweet greeting. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, hard. She tasted the coffee on his tongue. She felt the vibration of his groan against her lips.
Harry’s grip tightened on her hips, digging into the charcoal fabric. He pulled her flush against him, claiming her mouth with a sudden, starving intensity.
"You are a menace," he growled against her mouth, his teeth grazing her lower lip. "Walking in here looking like sin... making me want to lock the door and let the Tokyo market burn just so I can hear you scream my name."
"Is it working?" she whispered breathlessly.
"Unfortunately, yes."
She smirked. She grabbed his tie and tugged. She walked backward, pulling him with her around the massive oak desk.
"Sit down," she commanded, nodding at his high-backed leather executive chair.
Harry glanced at the chair. Then he glanced at the three massive monitors setup on his desk.
The center screen was active. A video conference window was open. The room on the other side—a boardroom in Singapore—was currently empty, just a view of a long mahogany table, but the connection was live.
Harry saw the little green light on his webcam staring back at him.
"I shouldn't," he said, resisting her pull slightly. "The link is already active. They are just waiting for the partners to sit down."
"Is the microphone on?" Y/N asked, glancing at the screen.
Harry looked. The icon was red with a slash through it.
"Muted," he muttered. "But the camera is live, Y/N."
"Sit," she repeated.
Harry let out a breath, but he sat. He sank into the leather seat, immediately checking his position in the self-view window on the screen. He was centered. Professional.
Y/N didn't climb into his lap. Instead, she sank down.
She dropped to her knees in the small space between his chair and the desk, completely disappearing from the camera’s view. She was in the blind spot.
Harry looked down at her. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair.
"Y/N," he whispered urgently, his eyes darting back to the empty boardroom on the screen. "We shouldn't."
"Why?" she asked innocently. She ran her palms up his thighs, feeling the muscles jump under the suit fabric. "Nobody is there yet."
"They could walk in at any second," Harry hissed. "The camera is on. I am literally broadcasting to Asia right now."
"You are broadcasting your face," Y/N corrected softly. "Not your lap."
She reached for his belt buckle.
"We shouldn't," Harry repeated, but his voice was straining. "It is reckless. If they join..."
"Then you better hope you have a poker face," she whispered.
The belt buckle clicked open. The sound was sharp in the quiet office.
Harry looked at the screen. The empty boardroom in Singapore stared back at him. The green light of the camera mocked him. And under the desk, the woman he loved was undoing his zipper.
"Y/N," he warned, his voice tight. "Seriousy. We shouldn't do this."
"You need to relax," she challenged softly,"Focus on the meeting Harry."
Harry looked down at her. He looked at the mischief in her eyes. He looked at the way she was kneeling there, hidden in the shadows of his desk, safe from the camera but dangerously close to ruining him.
Harry saw movement on the center screen. A door opened in the boardroom in Singapore. Two men in dark suits walked in and began setting up their laptops.
"They are here," he hissed, his hand flying to the mouse to check the mute icon for the tenth time.
He looked down at her. She was already waiting, her breath warm against him.
He let out a defeated, shaky exhale. He looked at the ceiling for one second, praying for strength, before forcing his gaze back to the camera to compose his face into a mask of corporate indifference.
"You are going to get me in trouble" he whispered, though his hand drifted down to tangle in her hair. "If I lose this deal because..."
"You won't," she assured him softly.
She reached for the waistband of his boxer briefs, her cool fingers brushing against the hot skin of his lower stomach. Harry’s hips bucked slightly, an involuntary jerk of anticipation, as she hooked her thumbs over the elastic and dragged the black cotton down his thighs.
He sprang free, heavy and imposing. He was beautifully hard, his length thick and straining towards her, the velvet head glistening with a clear bead of need. He was twitching, desperate for her touch, looking so starkly needy against the formal darkness of his suit trousers.
Y/N let out a soft, appreciative hum. She wrapped her hand around him, feeling the heat radiate into her palm, squeezing the solid weight of him. He was perfect.
She didn't wait for another protest. She didn't wait for the men in Singapore to adjust their microphones.
She took him into her mouth.
Harry’s entire body went rigid. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, the shock of the warmth, the wetness, and the sudden suction hitting him like a physical blow.
He clamped his jaw shut, forcing his face to remain impassive, even as his hips instinctively tried to snap upward against the restriction of the desk.
On the screen, one of the partners—Mr. Tan—leaned into his microphone.
"Good morning, Mr. Styles. Or rather, good afternoon to you."
Harry had to speak. He had to unmute.
He reached for the mouse. His hand was shaking. He clicked the icon.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Harry said. His voice was a little rough, a little deeper than usual, but steady.
Under the desk, Y/N hummed against him, the vibration traveling straight up his spine. She swirled her tongue, slow and deliberate, coating him completely before beginning to bob her head.
Harry’s fingers dug into the leather armrests so hard he thought he might puncture the material. He didn't look down. He couldn't. If he looked down, he was dead.
"I trust you have had a chance to review the proposal?" Mr. Tan asked, shuffling papers.
Y/N took him deeper, her rhythm picking up, sucking him harder with every stroke.
Harry swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing visible on the high-definition feed. He forced a stiff, professional nod at the camera.
"I have," Harry managed, the words clipped and strained. "I have... the numbers right here."
He wasn't looking at the numbers. He was staring at the webcam lens, praying to a God he didn't believe in that he wouldn't groan into the microphone as his girlfriend swallowed him whole.
“The projections regarding the... the yield curves," Harry started, but the sentence fractured in the middle.
Y/N had tightened her lips. She wasn't just bobbing now; she was suctioning him, her cheeks hollowing as she dragged him deep into the wet heat of her throat, then pulling back slowly to swirl her tongue around the sensitive ridge of the glans.
Harry’s eyes lost focus. He blinked rapidly, his pupils blown wide. He saw the pixelated face of Mr. Tan looking at him expectantly, but all he could feel was the drag of her tongue and the maddening pressure of her throat.
He cleared his throat, a harsh, guttural sound.
"Excuse me," Harry managed, his voice dropping another octave. "The air conditioning in here is... quite dry."
"Understood," Mr. Tan nodded solemnly on the screen. "As I was saying, our primary concern is the volatility in the tech sector. We feel the exposure is too high."
Harry nodded. He needed to say 'We can hedge against that.' It was a simple sentence. He had said it a thousand times.
But just as he opened his mouth, Y/N released him from her mouth only to immediately take him back in, this time humming against the head of his cock. The vibration rattled through his entire nervous system.
Harry’s foot spasmed under the desk, kicking out and hitting the wood with a dull thud.
"Mr. Styles?" Mr. Tan asked, frowning slightly. "Are you with us?"
Harry grabbed the mouse and clicked Mute.
"Fuck," he exhaled, his head falling slightly back against the leather for one precious second, his face twisting in a mask of pure, agony-laced pleasure. "Jesus Christ, Y/N..."
He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to grab her hair and fuck her throat properly. He couldn't. He had to be the CEO.
He forced his head up. He composed his features. He clicked Unmute.
"Apologies," Harry said, his voice a mask of stone, though a bead of sweat was now tracking down his temple. "There was a lag on the audio feed. I lost you for a second."
It was the perfect lie. Boring. Technical. Plausible.
"Ah, the connection," Mr. Tan nodded sympathetically on the screen. "Is it stable now?
Under the desk, Y/N smirked around his length. She knew he was lying. She reached down with one hand to cup his heavy balls, massaging them gently, while her other hand wrapped around the base of his shaft to pump him in rhythm with her mouth.
The sensation was overwhelming. He was being assaulted from every angle.
"It appears stable," Harry gritted out, speaking too fast, desperate to get the words out before she made him stutter. "Please... proceed.”
Y/N swirled her tongue right over the slit at the tip, flicking it mercilessly.
Harry stopped breathing. His eyes bulged slightly. He stared dead into the camera, his expression freezing in a look of intense, pained concentration that probably looked like he was doing complex mental math.
In reality, he was trying not to scream.
"We were discussing the timeline," Mr. Tan said. "Regarding the tech exposure.”
Harry nodded stiffly.
"We can hedge," Harry managed, his voice strained. "I can have Andrea draw up the... the..."
Y/N took him deeper, swallowing him so thoroughly that the back of her throat massaged the sensitive head of his cock.
Harry’s vision blurred.
"...the derivatives," Harry finished on a breathless exhale.
"Excellent," Mr. Tan smiled. "And what is your timeline for execution?"
Harry looked at the time on the screen. Y/N had sped up. She was bobbing faster now, her messy hair brushing against his thighs, the wet, sloppy sounds of her work echoing in the small space under the desk.
Harry prayed the noise cancellation software on his microphone was as expensive as the IT department claimed it was.
"Timeline," Harry repeated. He gripped the desk so hard his knuckles popped. "As soon as possible. Immediately. Today."
He wasn't talking about the trade.
"Very aggressive," Mr. Tan noted, looking impressed. "We like that energy, Harry."
Harry let out a short, hysterical laugh that he quickly disguised as a throat clearing.
"I am feeling... very aggressive today," Harry choked out, his toes curling inside his leather loafers as Y/N took him so deep her nose brushed his pubic hair. "Very... motivated."
Warnings: smut, some sweat/musk kink (not much imo), pretty minor degradation/condescension, reader eats H's ass (it's at the end so plenty of juicy stuff beforehand if that's not your cup of tea), there is a spicy video linked at the beginning of the ass eating portion to give a better visual (links to the hub™), reader's body isn't really described (entrance is used 1x)
AN: Ahhh! I'm so glad to have finally wrapped this up and I can't wait for you all to read it! Huge shout-out to @maudie-duan & @maladaptivescorpio for being my sounding board's while I trudged my way through this one (and also for their editing prowess)! I hope that this story makes up for my absence and that y'all love it as much as I do! I have added another, separate authors note at the end if you want a lil scoop into my personal life, but that's enough of my yapping. Mwah (˶ > ₃ < ˶)♡
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"Take a run with me," he'd said. "It will be fun," he'd said.
Two miles in and your lungs felt like they were on fire, each breath coming out sharp and jagged, like a million tiny pinpricks. Sweat was beading along your hairline, the nape of your neck. You could feel a single solitary trickle begin its descent down the groove of your spine— icy from the nip of dawn as it carved down your heated skin
And there Harry was, a few paces ahead of you, running like a sub-3 marathon was a walk in the park. He kept looking back at you with one of those easy smiles he so often gave, eyes crinkling in that way that always made you feel at ease, that told you 'you can do this'. The sunlight was pale and golden, just having barely risen over apricot mallow-crested hills. It was unfair how perfect he looked glancing back at you, awash in aureate light, his smile like the sun itself— and there you were, lagging behind, sweaty as one could be, all while gasping for air.
The only upside to this was the shorts he wore— the tiniest shorts you'd ever seen on a man in your life. Almost every glorious inch of tanned, muscly skin was on display. And the fabric of said tiny shorts swished with every stride, revealing tiny glimpses of pale skin that rarely saw the light of day.
Long story short, you'd never felt more sweaty and gross in your entire life.
You only made it another quarter mile before your legs felt like they'd give out, like you were supported by jell-o alone. You hunched over, sweaty palms tacked to unstable knees, gasping for air like you'd been holding your breath underwater. The air cooled around you, licking at your sweat-damp skin with ice-cold fervor, chilling you down to the bone.
From your hunched-over position, you could only make out the bottom half of his body as he circled back— the lean musculature of his thighs, the unfair solidness of his build.
"Hey," Harry panted, "thought I lost ya there for a second." He placed a hand on the small of your sweaty back, thumb brushing against your surely sweat-damp bike shorts.
You glanced up at him past your eyebrows, eyes squinting in the brightness that loomed from behind his towering frame. And that— that was a sight to behold. Illuminated by the rising California sun, a landscape of yucca, cacti, and desert lavender the perfect backdrop for his statuesque body— the sight was near heavenly, and stole the last remnant of your breath.
The remainder of your discomfort dispersed through your shaking limbs, vanishing in the shadow of a new drive— a new desire, one that sparked in the flinty core of your body.
"Can we go back to the house now?" you asked.
With a hand solidly placed against his cocked hip, Harry quirked an eyebrow at you. "Yeah?"
Harry wouldn't be Harry if he didn't continue to jog around you in circles, as you slowly began the journey back to the house. He'd run ahead a hundred feet, before turning and practicing a new 'u-turn' technique he'd mentioned marathoners in Japan had begun to make popular— just to pace right back to you. Each time he made it back, he'd place a kiss on your lips before spinning around and doing it all over again.
Now this, you thought, this was a form of 'running' you could get on board with.
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By the time you made it back to the house, most of the sweat that had accumulated on your skin had dissipated along with the morning dew, leaving you, albeit still somewhat grimy feeling, slightly more rejuvenated than you had felt two miles into the barren Mojave desert.
Harry, on the other hand, was damp with the effects of his run. He'd discarded his shirt a mile into your trek back, tossing the damp cotton in your arms for 'safekeeping ', which you'd rolled your eyes at but still happily obliged in carrying.
The t-shirt you'd so carefully held onto was discarded the second you both stepped into the entryway. You turned, eyeing the slick skin of his chest, how his happy trail and chest hair pasted, wet, over bronze, sun-kissed skin. You skimmed over the illegal length of his shorts, eyeing the exposure of the tiger and words that were not often revealed, yet were now on full display for you.
Without a second thought, you stepped toward him, your hands finding his waist to hold him steady for what you had in mind. Your lips sank to the vale of his collarbone, hot tongue filling the hollow to lick at the salt on his skin. It was filthy and unexpected, evident by the gasp Harry let out between deep, regulating breaths.
As you nosed at his neck, you couldn't help but notice that his body radiated a heat, a taste, a smell you couldn't resist. Pure pheromones. The pure essence of him beneath your nose and tongue. You breathed deep, savoring the natural musk on his skin—similar to the coastal forests you grew up near. There was no refrain as you kissed, open-mouthed—tongue dancing, at the swallows on his chest, carving all the way down until the fine hair of his chest jelled under your tongue.
It was all intoxicating. Just a few moments with him under your nose and tongue and your mind was overtaken by the cloudy haze of 'taste him'.
"That's it," Harry murmured, a smile carving at his lips as you sank lower, your tongue laving at the thorax that adorned his diaphragm.
His hand smoothed over the loose flyaways of your ponytail, fingertips sinking into the contained hair against the base of your scalp as you nosed at fluttering butterfly wings. Licking and nuzzling, you breathed in everything his skin had to offer as you sank to your knees. The smooth, cold concrete beneath you instantly lost in the fiery blaze of your mind.
Harry's skin was still damp, his sweat having started to cool against your cheek as you kissed around his belly button, thumbs tracing laurel boughs. You pawed at the bunched elastic waistband of his running shorts, your nails carelessly biting into soft muscle of his belly as you tore the flimsy excuse for clothing down his thighs.
You were a spectacle to be mused at as you kissed down his abdomen. Your hands anchored at his hips, tongue out and spit slick, until your nose was nestled into the neatly trimmed patch of his pubic hair. You didn't care that he was still sweaty; you didn't care at all. If anything, the rich smell of him only fueled what was becoming irrepressible appetency.
"Oh, fuck," Harry moaned, fingers scrambling for purchase at the root of your ponytail as your tongue began to explore his hardening cock.
Mirth danced in his pupils as he watched you— watched as your taste buds scored against the natural curvature of him. Watched as your eyes went glassy and your spit began to drip in tacky rills from how you were lapping at his cock. You were just his sweet little thing, overtaken by some carnal desire that was rare to see. And how could he deny a sweet thing like you from lavishing at his body?— sweat and all.
"Taste good?" Harry goaded as your lips wrapped around the ruddy tip of him, tongue cradling his frenulum. And all you could do was groan, your eyes slipping shut— because yes, it did taste good. Salt from skin, salt from precum, salt from him. That's all that mattered, him- him- him.
You swallowed him down with ardor. Your passion present in the way you moaned, bobbing your head up and down his length. Every twitch of his fingers in your hair, each new bead of pre on your tongue, it all kindled the desire to consume, to devour; reaching a threshold of near intoxication as you surmounted the weight of him on your tongue, the nudge of him at the back of your throat.
It was messy the way you imbibed on his cock— all spit, eyes closed. One could say you were filthy; Harry certainly said so— "My filthy, filthy girl— sucking my cock so good, baby."
There was nothing Harry felt but veneration at the sight of you— a vision on your knees, your spit frothing at the base of him. Your dedication to the cause (sucking his cock) was admirable; one could even say quixotic. So why would he interfere? To push would be to sabotage, not just to your crusade but to his own satiety, too. So his hand stayed a constant at the back of your head, a grounding force to your undertaking, fingertips biting at your scalp just enough to let you know he was there— that he cared.
Reality slipped through between gags and rivulets of your own saliva. A brief moment where interoception could cudgel through your lecherous frenzy. You sputtered off his cock, spit clinging in sticky tendrils between your lower lip and the tip of him as you gasped for breath.
Now this, you thought, this is a way you wouldn't mind being breathless with him.
You looked up at Harry through salt clumped lashes, blinking away the tears you hadn't even realized you'd begun shed. And there Harry was, staring down at you with that cheeky look of adoration you weren't sure you'd ever get past— like it was you who hung the moon in his twilight sky. It was that look, those murky, mirth-dilated pupils that made you swoon, that told you that you were safe; safe to till at the soil of his body, to harvest what he had to sow.
"Hi," he cooed, fingers smoothing over the wayward hairs that fell loose around your face.
The simple greeting, just that one two-letter word, had you blushing and nuzzling at the crook of his thigh, into the safe ravine of his muscles. It was so ordinary, so casual— too much so for the circumstances. There you sat, cold concrete beneath your knees, spit clinging to plumped lips, his cock just inches from your face, and the word he chose was 'hi'?
Harry's fingers carded over your scalp, smoothing down your hair in a soothing motion. His affection was simple but, despite this, still brought forth an entrancing kind of comfort— the type that pacified you. "Why'd you stop, baby?" You shook your head against his thigh, still too shy to confront your own ravenous behavior.
His thumb brushed over the crease that nestled between your brows, smoothing away the line with a glide of his fingertip. "C'mon, why don't we get you off the floor?" He suggested, stroking along the back of your head, skimming down until he could rub against your shoulder.
Harry coaxed you upright on your shaky legs. His touch stable as he knew that any remaining sense of stability was long lost from the soreness of your muscles and the dissipating dump of adrenaline from your endeavors. He wrapped his arms around your torso, pulling you to his chest, cheek smooshed between sparrows as his palms smoothed over the expanse of your back.
"C'mon," He pulled away, bracing his hands on your slumped shoulders. "Did such a good job taking care of me," he hummed. "Why don't you let me take care of you now?"
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Harry pulled you along, slowly, your small hand pressed in the warmth of his grasp, until he was able to guide you in front of the couch and between his already denuded thighs.
He looked up at you through thick lashes, and you swore the gelation of your legs was going to be finalized just by the lithe sea foam of his irises, the leaden weight of his pupils. His palms were so warm, even through the spandex of your bike shorts, moored to the width of your hips, thumbs circling against your hip bones.
"Why don't we get these off?" he asked, timber deep.
You gave a nod, trying your best not to rock against the balls of your feet as he hooked his thumbs beneath the thick elastic band. You had half a mind to stop him when you realized how sweaty you'd been, how salt had dripped into what felt like every crevice and vale of your body. But he must have known; he'd seen how flushed and out of breath you were during your 'run', and if you hadn't cared, why would he?
Harry pulled you closer, until your knees knocked against the twill cushion of the couch, closer- closer- until he was able to paste a kiss in the well of your sternum. Your hand tangled into his short hair, the strands just long enough to stick up spiky between your fingers as you cradled his head to your body. He kissed, first gentle pecks, savoring the smoothness of your skin and the fine vellus hairs that greeted his lips— until avidity took over, until his lips and tongue weren't enough and the brusque edge of his teeth had to make do.
Your grasp tightened in the strands you held so desperately between clenched fingers. Your other hand tangled down at his nape, nails biting at the brawny topography of his shoulders and back as he sucked a mark over the projection of your ribs. The sound rewarded by his infliction rumbled gently beneath his taste buds, filling his mouth with a newfound taste of veneration. Urgency thrummed in both of your veins as his thumbs pried off the two-piece set that clung to your skin.
He mouthed at your belly, your chest, nipping and sucking and laving— savoring every inch of skin he could sink his teeth, his tongue, into. Dignity got lost in a tangle of your limbs, of skin on skin, as Harry pulled you —spread wide— into the cradle of his lap.
Caught in his snare, his hands were nearing opulency, and yet somehow still felt too finite. Fingers slid around the globes of your ass, hoisting, lifting, until he could position you where he liked. And you, you kissed at the rogue, sun-born freckles that had dared to pop up across his cheekbones under the despotic sun of the desert, as he manhandled you into the perfect, pliant position that he desired.
You honed in on the sensation of skin on tepid, sticky skin—on the heat that brewed in the bisect of your legs as his cock nudged against the cleft of your cunt and thigh. You wanted it— my god, you swore you'd never felt a hunger that deep.
You didn't even notice his hand traveling past your hip—not until you released a noise against his cheek, something caught between a mewl and gasp, as his cockhead caught at your entrance. Harry was breathing just as heavy, hot and humid, against the crook of your neck, the width of his hand broad against your lower back, his touch all encompassing.
He helped to guide you with ease, letting gravity take its course as you sank down the length of him. In that moment he occupied your every thought, filling you with such precision, such totality, that there was nothing else beyond the stretch of him against your walls. All your sensations pinpointed down to how he carved out a home for himself within your body, the give of his flesh beneath your nails, the taste of his skin between your teeth as you nipped at his cheekbone.
He pecked at your jawbone in return as you both shuddered out a breath. "Want to act like a feral kitten?" he hummed, lilt caught in his throat. "Then you can ride me like one."
And the low drawl of his words, the condescension laced into his tone, acted like he'd thrown gasoline onto the burning frame of your body. The pain of your tired muscles diffused, replaced instead by an inferno of brute appetency.
Harry's nails bit at your backside, digging into supple flesh as you dared to cock your hips forward. Your clit dragged through the coronet of his pubic hair as the compound of your ragged breaths hung heavy in the interstice of your bodies.
"C'mon," he goaded with a smile. "Show me how bad you want it."
And your overburdened muscles couldn't stop you if they tried.
The sound of skin slapping against skin overtook the room, accompanied only by frayed gasps that filtered past unbarred lips. You were thankful for the anchor of his palms against your back, broad and wide, like he was holding together the threads of your being— fearful that you'd unspool just from the pleasure of it all.
There was no need to be graceful, no gnawing voice in your head that said your movements had to look pretty— that all fell away. Everything fixated down to a single point— the mutual gratification that Harry's cock fucking into you brought. Your drive hadn't simmered down to that needy intuition to take, but it was close.
"Y'were so filthy sucking my sweaty cock," Harry bit out against the shell of your ear, nails cresting the dimples of your back as he thrust up. "My filthy, fucking, girl—"
"Fuck—" You gasped, teeth grazing against his jawbone as your clit rolled against his pelvis in that perfect way.
Maybe you were filthy— driven to madness just by your own hunger. But how could you not be when you had that pinned beneath the plush of your ass. That looking up at with hazy, lust-filled eyes. That cudgeling against the deepest, innermost parts of your being— reducing you to nothing but a vessel of desire.
There was something to be cherished about the noises that crawled up your throat, the unabashed groans and moans that dared to break free, fueled by an ardent hunger. How pleasure played your bodies like an instrument, the resonance echoing in between smooshed, sweaty ribcages. How there, reduced to subdued pleasure, your beings could surrender to one another, unbound.
Your orgasm steamrolled you without warning— hot and shuddering. And you clawed at the very vessel that guided you without second thought, nails gouging out marks in the tanned plane of his back, his shoulders; teeth grazing at the hinge of his jaw as your breaths unified in tepidity.
Slowly he nudged against the furthest reaches of your core, rocking you gently in his lap as you caught your breath against the damp skin of his neck, "How's my good girl?" He asked with a shift of his hips.
Words were so far astray in your mind that all Harry got was a garbled mumble, followed by the faint press of your lips to his collarbone. And that was enough for him as he held you, safe and spread as his palm slid up the sweaty curve of your spine, holding you steady as the aftershocks of your orgasm had you clenching around him.
Harry was content to just let you be, to relish in the softness of your skin, the warmth of your breath on his neck — and while the respite was nice, something still kindled in the flickering core of your body.
You could feel the muscles in his belly tremble as you shifted in his lap— feel the very effect of your body in the vibrations of his breath as he sucked in a sharp inhale. Harry's fingers were loose on your hips, your waist, as you clambered off of him. He stroked along the outside of your waist as you rose tall between his knees. There was a sense of wonderment as he looked up at you, of intrigue of what was to come.
Harry's gaze stayed firm on you as you sank to your knees, his touch light and constant on your arms, your shoulders, the cusp of your jaw— just enough to keep himself grounded to you, to remind himself that this was real.
You nuzzled into the warm cup of his palm, eyes closing as sanctity flowed in. You could envision yourself held in the haven of his branched thighs, kept safely in the web of his scent, his skin, his touch, forever— but you had bigger plans.
You let yourself look him as your nails found the insides of his thighs, running lightly across the sensitive skin. Let yourself admire how his lips parted in a gasp when you kissed the inside of his thigh, just above the knee. How, as you mouthed at untouched skin, his lips stayed parted, suspended like there was something to say— but there was nothing, just the galvanized energy that hung between you two, muggy and crackling.
By the time you reached his cock you swore his ruddy tip had deepened a few shades— still tacky with your arousal and glossy with a fresh layer of precum. Harry's hand tangled in your hair as you licked from the crook of his thigh to the swell of his sack. Dulcet and honeyed, his sweet sounds burrowed just as deeply into your being as his fingers did into your hair. You swore you could feel the tenor of his moan in your own sternum as you pulled the sensitive skin into your mouth.
"Fuck," Harry panted from above—
And that's when the impulse hit.
You'd done it before: nestled yourself so far into the bifurcate of his thighs that you'd carved out a home with just the tip of your tongue. The few times Harry had let you, you'd greatly enjoyed it— enjoyed the way your tongue on his hole made him whimper in that one specific way. How his had body wound so tight with pleasure that his muscles shook down to the source. How the daring venture and curl of a finger or two had elicited the sweetest sounds.
And now, here you were, craving to do it all again— wishing to devote yourself to the consummation of his pleasure until there was nothing left but the salt of his tears cresting on his cheeks and the salt from his cum spayed across his chest.
With mischievous eyes, you looked up at him, smiling. "Flip over," you said without pause, hand smoothing over the inside of his thigh as if to provide comfort for any apprehension of what was to come.
It took Harry a second to process what you meant, his brain still foggy with the memory of your walls tight around his cock. But he saw the ambition laced in your gaze, felt the anticipation of your touch, how your fingertips conveyed an unspoken vow as you stroked along the soft hair lining the insides of his thighs. So with the help of your guiding hand, Harry tottered into the position of your prophecy.
The position was inherently vulnerable: knees anchored apart, back arched; his rubicund cheek pressed against gabardine fabric. Still he settled with his face in the crook of his arms, blind to what you were about to do, but entirely trusting.
And it was that sight, the low curve of his back —how sweetly he arched for you— how his cock hung heavy and tumescent in the split of his muscled thighs, your juices still glistening along the length of him— it was that sight that kindled your desire.
Any whispers of hesitation from Harry dissipated as your touch stayed consistent along his thighs, the outside of his hip, the swell of his ass. You kept your touch slow and deliberate, mindful to embody veneration as you explored the vulnerable expanse of his parted thighs.
You couldn't help but press your fingers into the meat of his ass, not hard enough to leave half moons, but enough that his flesh dimpled around your fingertips as you playfully spread him open. He clenched beneath your touch as the first rill of spit fell in a viscous dribble. You couldn't help but dip your finger into your own beading saliva, drawing the slickness of your spit down and over the strata running from breach to sack.
Your lips fell to the silver striations that crested over his bum, tongue joining in the grooves of growth too fast. As your pointer and middle finger became acquainted with what would soon become your tongue’s new home, you kissed and licked and bit at the plush of his cheeks— earning a gruff little hum when your teeth sank too far.
With one hand splayed over the cleft of his cheek, your other found the root of him, fingers sinking down until your knuckles coupled with the tamed growth of his pubic hair. Your tongue rolled out, unceremoniously, spit already gathered across the soft body of your taste buds, before making sloppy landfall with his perineal stria. And you think to yourself, that at this point, your taste buds probably know Harry better than your mind ever will.
You could feel his muscles unfurl beneath your tongue, your fingers— how his hips canted back in a search for more. And more you were happy to give— happy to lap at the tautness of his rim, tongue slick, as it explored the hollow of its own creation.
You realized then that you'd do anything if it meant being in the audience of the noises he yielded. To soak in every breathy noise, each one more delectable than the last, felt like the highest accolade.
The gentle brush of his fingertips at your chin reminded you that there was more than just his hole to take care of. Your thumb replaced the tip of your tongue, fingertip prodding just beyond the tension of his rim, and you drew his cock backward, taking the ruddy tip of him into your mouth. With your own hand above his, joined at the root where your lips could not meet, you swallowed him down. And that sound —that hiss that rattled from behind clenched teeth— that told you all you needed to know.
His palm fell to your forearm, grasp tight and urgent as his hips began to rock —tipping the crown of himself into the tight vice of your awaiting throat until you were sputtering around his girth. With a gasp and a cough, your fervor did not cease. No— not when his shins were pressed to your biceps, one arm reaching back so that his hand braced at the back of your skull, caging you in the sanctity his body created.
You lapped, tongue dripping in the excess of your own saliva, until Harry's frame surrendered to the bliss you brought forth. Until his muscles unwound into tepid little pools of pleasure. Until his weight fell and your hands were forced to become anchors, snagged in the fortification of laurels. Until he was vitrified and heavy, his only movement the absent shift of his hips —of the impossible slickness that you had created— back against your awaiting, eager tongue.
You would have loved to see his face, to have watched as his brow rumpled, seen how his eyes squeezed shut, like ecstasy was blinding—bright. How his lips parted as a resounding string of nonsensical praise tumbled out — "fuck—ah—so good—always take care o'me so good—". But the triumph of his pleasure, the press of his ankles to your shoulders— how his body rended to the deftness of your tongue would have to be enough.
Harry came with a cry of your name, lachrymose and perfervid—his load warm and drippy as it fell over the cinch of your hand—
And you ate him through it— licked leisurely at the mess you'd created until he whined out in a bleat of overstimulation. Until his legs were shaking, taut with the effects of his pleasure, caging, pulling you in like if you were closer you'd feel it too. It was hard to want to pull away. Why would you when the muscles of his rim twitched beneath your tongue, spasming in waves that called you in.
Though, when you did surrender, strings of saliva strained in the chasm between your bodies, fusing you to him in lucent tendrils.
Harry was usually the one behind your undoing— the one to unravel you stitch by stich, to wind you around a spool to keep all for himself. So to see him reduced to such depths of enervation, to see your ambitions come to fruition, it all activated a new sense of pride. The kind that sat light and warm in your chest, wrapping itself around your ribs until you were buoyant and fuzzy.
There was no rush to move, no mad dash for self preservation, for clean-up. So you sat there, hand on the small of his back, winding tender circles as he caught his breath. You kissed the swell of his bum, the back of his thighs. You whispered sweetness into the softness of his skin as quiet nestled into both of your nooks and crannies.
Silence might unnerve some, carry the fear of uncertainty for others, but not for you two. The hush brought solace, a special kind of comfort. Bared entirely, there was no room for shame, no cubbyholes or shaded corners to shove the ugly things beneath.
You tumbled into a mass of sweaty limbs, of "I love you's", of gangly legs and canted feet. You held Harry's head to the swell of your chest, carded your fingers through his sweat damp hair, as he drew mindless little circles along the side of your hip. Swaddled one another in the care you'd always wished to have received before finding one another, until slowly you both regained some semblance of composure.
"I'm gonna have to take you on more runs if this is how you behave," Harry whispered against your throat.
"You better fucking not," you squawked, tightening your grasp in his hair and pulling hard in warning.
Harry moved faster than you could think, caging you beneath his weight in an instant. His fingertips activated like darts, finding the dip of your waist before you could throw a hand up to stop him. Your laughter struck, clapping like lightning as he tickled you. The sound illuminating and bright— everything that Harry wanted to hear in that moment.
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AN pt2: I wish I could say I am fully back in business after this, but alas, I am not. I'm undergoing a pretty major (and very much life changing) surgery next week (I'm getting top surgery!!) and wanted to get something posted before I am truly down for the count. I am ~hopeful~ though, that over the next 6 weeks, which is how long I am taking off work, that I will be able to get some writing done, but my #1 priority will 100% be rest! (I can just see myself bored out of my mind cooped up at home and getting writing done once I'm off the painkillers). Any whoosle, if you've made it this far I appreciate you so so much and am sending you all the love (๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵) ♡
