Summary: Harry and I are at the beach… and, while he’s busy gawking at sexy beach-goers, I’m marking what’s mine.
Words: 940
"Hey! Hey!" Harry giggled, trying to push me away as I wrapped my arms around his hips. "What are you doing, baby?"
Like a barnacle, clinging to a rock, I embraced him as tightly as I could and pulled him in close to me, pressing my chin to his saltwater-mist-kissed tummy. "You're all over me today, love. What's with you?"
With his shirt off — half buried in the sand beneath his feet — and his skin glistening in the golden sunshine, he should've known that I was going to have a hard time keeping my hands to myself. Even after several months of being together, I couldn't resist the urge to touch him whenever I saw him topless.
I loved to flick his nipples around, trace the curves of his top surgery scars, kiss on his little belly, and play with his love handles.
From the very beginning of our relationship, his torso was my own personal playground.
"I'm just giving you a hug, baby." I chuckled, breathing in his briny saltwater scent. "That's all." My chin pressed to the bottom of his stomach, just above the waistband of his trunks, I couldn't help but to nibble at the rim of his bellybutton, squishing his damp, supple flesh between my lips. It was a bad habit of mine.
I could taste the briny ocean water as it oozed out from the hole. He'd had gone swimming in the sea earlier in the day, and his navel was still brimming with saltwater.
As nasty as it was, the flavor alone wasn't enough to stop me from chomping down. "You're just so... huggable."
Normally, he would've tried to shake me off of him, and stop me from covering him in hickies, but he was too busy people-watching to take notice of what I had been doing.
The beach was crawling with dozens of tall, slender women in bikinis, and muscular men walking around with bulges that could sink ships... but, with my arms clung around him, I didn't care that Harry had wandering eyes.
While he was busy gawking at beach babes, standing idly in front of me, like a big sandcastle, I was busy having my way with him... turning him in circles, nibbling on his bellybutton, and covering his body with purple-red love marks, taking full advantage of the opportunity while he was too distracted to stop me.
"Mmm... that tickles." He hummed, looking down at me, watching me gnaw away at his plump midsection. "This what you've been doing while I've been standing here? Turning me around... eating my bellybutton?"
His navel was always such a sensitive spot for him — a spot that he never liked for me to touch... not unless he really wanted me to. It was an innie, deeper and wider than any other bellybutton that I'd seen before. I couldn't resist it.
Sometimes, he'd get mad and scold me for merely poking at it... and sometimes he'd practically throw it at me, forcing his belly against my face and begging me to slip my tongue into the hole.
Knowing when he wanted me to touch it was always a guessing game... but it was a fun game to play.
"You're a weirdo."
"I know I am." I said, trailing my mouth toward the side of his tummy, following the contours of his fern tattoo. "But... can you blame me? You're not just huggable, you're kissable too. So soft."
Staying within the lines of the black ink, I began to suck on his flesh, marking his frontside, the same as I'd done to his back. Harry didn't fight me.
I could almost taste the pigment... the bitterness of the ink, seeping into my taste buds, mingling with the saltwater tang.
"You've been drinking so much water since we've been here." I told him. "Now you're all puffy."
"You're gonna give me a bunch of hickies if you keep kissing me like that." He chuckled, watching as I did my work. Unbeknownst to him, his back was already riddled with them.
His skin was so fragile, it could hardly withstand the sunlight. I barely had to do any work, and it was covered in dark bruises and hickies. The markings were so obvious in the light — like shadowy spots — that other beach goers were starting to stare at us.
"I'm not a coloring book, babe. And, even if I was... you're too old to be coloring."
"There's no age cap for coloring, Harry."
His wisecracking only made me kiss him harder... even more determined to mark him up, for everyone to see.
"And... as far as I care, you are a coloring book. My big coloring book. All inked up, waiting to be filled in."
"Yeah? Well... ferns aren't purple."
"So what."
I tried my best to stay focused... to keep my lips pressed to him, and make my point... but there was no denying how absurd we were being. Me, sucking hickies onto his skin, and him standing over me, explaining how he wasn't made to be colored on. It was such a random thing to debate about. So silly.
If he were able to see his backside, he would've known just how foolish we both looked.
"You're gonna look like a big ol' grape by the time we leave here." I said finally.
Unable to contain my laughter, I gave up the effort, hiding my face against his pudge, and smothering my laughter with his softness.
Clearly, the summer heat was getting to me... and Harry was water-drunk. We were just a couple of idiots, having a day at the beach.
★ "When he and the band finished recording in Jamaica, he ended up drunk and wet from the ocean, toasting everybody, wearing a dress he’d traded with someone’s girlfriend. 'I don’t remember the toast', he says, 'but I remember the feeling'."
★ “I think ‘Lights Up’ came at the end of a long period of self-reflection, self-acceptance. Through the two years of making the record, I went through a lot of personal changes - I just had the conversations with myself that you don’t always have. And I just feel more comfortable being myself.”
