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becauseicantthinkwritings · 3 years

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Ours Is Not To Reason Why

Part 2!

Billy Russo x female reader

Warnings: Canon typical violence, swearing, smut, fingering (f receiving), oral (m receiving), Billy’s a bitch, consent is once again not explicitly stated.

A/N: This is more plot that porn but have fun anyways! Word count: 6.2k

You’re sitting in his office, taking in all the information that Billy has thrown your way. You can feel his eyes on you, so you try your hardest to look as calm as possible.

The man that made an attempt to break into your home last night, couldn’t be linked to your father’s ex- employee, Eric Walker. You wanted to believe that the two incidents were unrelated, but that seemed like too many coincidences.

They were discussing an increase in your security which had your shoulders dropping with every mention of ‘increased monitoring’ and ‘more manpower.’ You sigh and try to readjust yourself in your seat. You wince at the soreness between your legs, eyes darting to Billy at the same moment. You catch his eyes already on you, the corner of his lips twitch before he looks away. The bastard. You were wearing the same outfit from last night- having come straight here from Billy’s place. Your body was littered with bruises and bites that would no doubt take days to fade.

“I know you suggested that we stop attending so many formal galas, but there’s one coming up in three weeks that is imperative that we attend.” Your father says. You watch Billy’s shoulders tense slightly. “It’s someone I’m hoping to turn into a business partner, so whatever you need to do to keep her safe, get it done.” He’s turning to you now, “I also need you to show his son some of your works, he’s something of an art enthusiast, and any reason for him to be impressed will help me out.” You acknowledge in the back of your head that your father does not ask for your help, but rather, he tells you what you need to do. A younger version of you would have surely protested something that seemed so obviously like a matchmaking attempt, but the gears are turning in your head, so you simply press your lips together and nod.

It’s your turn to speak now, “I’ll need to go shopping for a dress for the gala, and I want a night out with my friends.”

“What about a night in?” Billy suggests, you look at him, raising your eyebrows to motion for him to elaborate. “You can have your friends over to your house, I can have a nice, secure area with as little surprises as possible.” He explains.

You hum in thought. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take it.” You smile at him, he smiles back.

Your father clears his throat.

“Then it’s settled, get it done, Russo.” He says in conclusion, standing from his seat.

You mirror his actions and watch as he moves forward to shake Billy’s hand.

Billy turns to you next, he looks so professional, it’s a little hard to imagine that just last night he was splitting you open on his cock.

“Come with me, Miss Y/L/N. I’ll take you home.” He says.

The image of the way he looked naked as he moaned your name plays across your mind.

“Sure thing Mister Russo, lead the way.”

The car ride started off quiet, and you wished it had remained that way.

“So, about last night.” Billy started.

You hum in acknowledgement. “If you say it was a mistake, I’m going to hit you over the head.”

He laughs in surprise. “I take it you liked it then?”

“You’re still an asshole.” You say turning away from him.

More silence.

“I’m glad you liked it at least… because it would be against our best interests for it to happen again.”

Oh “And here I thought you… liked it too.” God, you were stupid.

“I did.” He says carefully. Your eyebrows raise as you turn to look at him, one arm on the wheel as he spares a glance at you.

“It’s just,” he sighs, searching for the words to make this as amicable as possible.

“You’re a client. You’re my job. Getting involved like that can have consequences. I shouldn’t be fucking the person I’m getting paid to protect.”

Wouldn’t wanna get in the way of your payday, you think bitterly.

You take a slow, deep breath, when the realization that you’re actually disappointed hits you.

You’re disappointed that Billy doesn’t want anything more from you.

The second thing you feel is shock and fear. Who the hell was Billy Russo to get you feeling that way after one night of sex?!

It was literally one orgasm, pull yourself together.

Your third emotion is acceptance, after you ponder his reasonings in your head. It is after all, very unprofessional to sleep with someone you’re supposed to be protecting.

“You’re really quiet.” He comments.

You blink in surprise as his words pull you out of your head.

“You’re right,” you relinquish, “Getting involved with clients is bad.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just a small nod and the conversation is over.

It was hard to sleep that night. Rolling around all the thoughts in your head, anxiety at being a target, apprehension at having to ‘impress’ one of your father’s clients… whatever that means, wishing you could torment Billy the way he tormented you.

An idea sparks in your head then, sure, you agreed to not get involved with Billy, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t tease him. Maybe if you riled him enough… just maybe.

It’s three days before you decide to act out your plan of tormenting Billy. You start by simply picking the right outfit, choosing another heart-stopping skirt that you know will grab his attention.

You finally fall asleep to the satisfying thoughts of making Billy beg.

When he first sees you, he tries to play it off, he’s holding the car door open for you to get in so that you can begin your commute to work. You know it’s working as you observe his eyes move to look at you way more often than usual. You slip into the car easily, watching as he follows.

Billy clears his throat and makes an attempt to readjust his body, trying to find a more comfortable position on the seat. Your eyes zero in on his belt, looking similar to the one he used to bind you days ago. You look up at him slowly, and you realize his eyes are already on you, as you appraise his form. Your eyes move back down to his belt and you smile sweetly, turning away from him. You know that he knows what you’re thinking about.

Your hands tied above your head as Billy licks at your breast while thrusting hard into you.

The tension in the car is palpable, what with both of you obviously trying to ignore each other. It would be incredibly unprofessional to try to jump his bones, after he gave you that speech about why you couldn’t be together the other day. Both of you were obviously worked up from being so close together and not being able to really do anything about it.

He was pent up though, you could tell, it was a very good look on him, the top button of his grey shirt opened, no tie, his hair not exactly as perfect as it usually is. It seemed to you that the lightest breeze would set him off. Good thing you knew how to blow.

You pull your secret weapon out of your bag. You hear him sigh harshly when he sees it. Your smile widens, as you lick your lips and unwrap the lollipop. You’re not one to be eating candy so early in the morning, and you’ve never done it before so it’s quite obvious to Billy that the lollipop is a carefully picked tool designed to torture him. Your lips wrap around it and you gently hum at the sweet watermelon flavour, swirling the hard candy around your mouth. You pull it out of your mouth slowly and give it two small licks with the tip of your tongue. You hear his sharp intake of breath and you turn to look at him with wide eyes. He’s looking at you with a clenched jaw, eyes sharp.

You pull the candy out of your mouth with a pop, extending it to him playfully.

“Want a taste?” you ask. His eyes narrow at you.

You are fighting the urge to laugh at him, trying to keep the clueless persona.

“No thank you.” He says, turning away from you to look outside.

You shrug and resume eating the lollipop.

When the car finally stops at your work, you quietly follow behind Billy as he escorts you into your workplace. There’s a bit more people today on the gallery floor- women. You ignore the looks you get, or rather that Billy gets, as he escorts you to your workspace.

You wait patiently at the door of your art room as Billy does his daily sweep. You notice that there are now two guards at your door, rather than the usual one.

“All clear.” He calls out, which is your cue to enter.

You shrug off your jacket when you get inside, the lollipop still caught between your teeth.

As the door closes behind you, Billy is on you in an instant.

He presses his body into yours, trapping you against the door. You make a small squeak as your back hits the hard surface. He pulls the lollipop out of your mouth and tilts your head up to capture your lips with his. He kisses you feverishly, dipping his tongue into your mouth repeatedly. You sigh against his lips, feeling that fire burn within you. Your hands go around his shoulders, pressing yourself deeper into him as he continues to kiss every thought out of your head. He bites gently at your bottom lip and pulls away suddenly. He quickly presses the lollipop back between your parted lips.

You stumble forward as he pulls completely away from you.

You watch as his tongue peeks out to lick his lips. He swipes at the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

“I prefer cherry.” He says, moving to the door. He opens it, the wood gently bumping into your ass.

“Have a nice day Miss Y/L/N.” He says cordially and then he’s gone.

You stand there for several moments, long after the door had closed, that stupid lollipop still in your mouth, trying to figure out if you won that exchange or not.

You definitely don’t feel like a winner.

You’re midway through your workday when there’s a knock at your door.

“Yes?” You call out.

Your assistant, Delia, sticks her head in.

“Hey, Y/N, there’s a Richard Fisk here to see you.”

Before you can ask who on earth is Richard Fisk, your phone pings.

It’s your father.

Show Richard Fisk a good time.

A good time? Gee dad, should I sleep with him? You think bitingly.

“I’ll be out in a second.” You say to Delia, not looking at her.

You find him staring at some of the paintings at the front of the gallery. With his back turned to you, you get to study him a bit before you approach. He’s taller than you, with sandy brown hair that falls into his eyes and wide shoulders.

“Mister Fisk,” You greet and he turns to you. You introduce yourself and extend a hand for him to shake. His eyes are a lovely mix of browns and golds.

“Hello, Y/N, god please, call me Richard, I hate being called ‘Mister Fisk’” he says, his both hands come up to cradle yours. He speaks with a hint of an accent. You blink in surprise at how warm he seems to be to someone he’s just met.

You smile, returning his warmth, “My father tells me you’re something of an enthusiast for art. I’d love to show you some of the works I have around my gallery.

“I’d love to see the pieces you have. I was truly impressed when I noticed that you have some very exclusive artists displayed I your gallery. Like this one-“ he says, indicating to the piece he was looking at earlier, “How did you convince Morozova to only sell his art through your gallery?”

You smile at Richard, “I gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse is all. Shall we begin?”

With a nod of his head, you take him through the pieces you have displayed in your gallery. You discuss a few pieces every now and then, laughing politely at his jokes. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of Billy’s guards following you around.

He reveals to you that he’s spent some time in Switzerland, which explains the very mild accent he speaks with. Although the conversation runs smoothly, you can’t help but notice he avoids revealing anything remotely personal. When you ask where he’s currently living, he responds with a simple “Oh, not too far from here actually.” When you ask what his job is, he says he works with his father, but never really tells you what he does.

Of course, it may just be that Richard doesn’t want to reveal his personal life to a perfect stranger, so you try not to let the warning bells in your head ring too loudly. It just feels like he has some advantage over you because he knows what you do, where you live and who your father is. You, on the other hand, have no access to any such information from him.

It surely doesn’t take long for the conversation to reach a sore spot when Richard says, “You sure have a lot of security around you.”

“Yeah,” you agree. He waits for you to elaborate, but you remain quiet, pretending to study the sculpture in front of you.

“Heard there was a kidnapping attempt.” He pushes.

You swallow. Brief flashes of the screaming and gunfire floods your mind. You feel your heart pick up; your palms are clammy.

“Yeah,” you say with a half-hearted laugh, “that was crazy, but Anvil’s done a good job at protecting me so far.”

“Billy Russo, right?”

You cut him a sideways glance, “You know him?” you ask.

“Only by name.” He responds with a smile.

Maybe those alarm bells should be ringing louder.

“Well, I’m still here, so that’s good.” You clear your throat, “Shall we continue?”

With a smile and a nod, the moment passes by.

Richard Fisk doesn’t leave without getting your phone number. He smiles and says it’s for business purposes, but you know you won’t be surprised if he texts you soon.

Billy’s not there at the end of the day… which is expected, obviously- except that you want him to be.

You reach forward and lower the partition.

“Hey, can you take me to Anvil? I need to speak with Mister Russo.”

The driver responds with a simple nod and you thank him.

You wait outside his office, as his receptionist alerts him to your presence. You don’t hear his response, but she turns with a smile and tell you that you can go in.

You smile and enter the office.

“Mister Russo.” You greet. He’s added a black tie on top of his grey shirt from when you saw him this morning. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, putting all of his veiny forearms on display.

Billy stands from his seat behind the large desk and makes his way around to the other side. He stops in front of you and leans against his desk. He crosses his arms in front of him.

“Everything alright?” his voice is low.

You take a moment to scan the room you’ve been in several times and contemplate what you’re about to say.

“Yes, but I need a favour.” You glance at him.

His eyebrows raise in question. Your eyes glance down to his hands.

“I need you to find out everything you can about Richard Fisk. Everything. If someone’s ever accused him of something. I want to know.”

“A background check? So early in the relationship? A little soon to suddenly not trust him don’t you think?”

You frown, “I’ve had one meeting with him and you’re talking about a relationship? Are you insane- “

Billy throws his hands up in surrender, a small laugh escaping him.

“I’m just teasing, Y/N” he says with a wink.

You narrow your eyes at him, blood slowly rising to a simmer beneath the surface of your skin. You think about the scalding kiss this morning and having to work through your day with his lips seared into your mind.

“Teasing?” You ask, irritation apparent in your voice, “You’d know all about teasing, wouldn’t you?”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” He says, with a slow blink and a raise of his eyebrows.

You laugh, “All you can do is tease and torment, get people frustrated.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re fucking excused. I can tease too you know.” You emphasize your point by poking him square in the chest.

“You don’t think I know that?” He grabs you by the hips and pull you into his body. Your eyes widen as you see the lustful look in his dark eyes. “Between the two of us, you’re the bigger fucking tease here. Just look-“ he says, he grabs you by the hips and hoists you onto his desk. You gasp as he presses his body between your legs and points down to the area of exposed skin just below your skirt. You look down and notice that you have some black paint smeared along your thigh.

His hands come up to grab your thighs roughly, you gasp at the harsh contact. His beard scratches your cheek when he leans forward to whisper in your ear, “Your thighs are always covered in fucking paint. Like a nice little trail leading to that tight pussy. And I know. I fucking know that if I was to reach up to touch that cunt… I’d find it dripping wet and ready for my cock.” He sighs, pulling back slightly, “And I’m the fucking tease? Guess again princess.”

You push him back and hop off the desk. “Don’t flatter yourself Russo.” You grit out before starting to move away from him, toward the door.

You barely get the door open before his hand is slamming it back closed. His body is pressed flush to your back.

“Running away princess?” He says into your ear, “Not gonna prove my point for me?”

You lean your head back to rest against his chest, his hand moves over your stomach.

“Fuck you.” You say half-heartedly.

He hums, his warm hands slide under your skirt easily. He wastes no time in slipping his hands beneath your panties, fingers dipping between your wet folds easily. His laugh is filled with something sinister.

“I fucking knew it.” He says, the only way you can answer him is with a small whine.

He starts slowly, running the tips of his fingers over your clit, teasing you with gentle touches.

You buck against his fingers, trying to get more friction. You should be more worried about how close you are to the door, and the fact that anyone can try to walk in at any moment. You’re too preoccupied with Billy though, and the slow magic his hands are working on you. His fingers press into you easily, pumping slowly, his other hand wraps firmly around your neck. You moan his name as softly as you can.

“You’re always fucking teasing me. With these pretty legs, that hot mouth. Always reminding me that I can’t just have a taste whenever I want.”

His hot breath across your face and neck has your skin tingling. His mouth ghosts over your neck, just barely pressing his teeth into your skin. His fingers reaching that spot inside you that has you squirming in his arms. The pace of his fingers quicken and you try to stifle a cry.

“You have no fucking idea how often I think about pulling you into the first room I can find, flipping that skirt up and stretching you out on my cock.”

His hand comes up to cover your mouth and his pace picks up more. You moan and bite down on the fleshy part of his hand. His fingers setting an unrelenting pace. Your eyes roll back into your head.

You reach up and grip his wrist, trying to signal at your impending orgasm.

“And now you’re going to have your dirty little orgasm on the tips of my fingers hmm?”

You feel the palm of his hand press against your clit and your orgasm explodes behind your eyes. You let out a shivering moan, muffled by his hand as you feel yourself clench repeatedly around his fingers.

He removes his hand from your mouth to let it rest against your neck once more. He slips his other hand out of your wet heat but continues to gently run circles over your clit. You twitch helplessly in his arms as you come down from your high.

“I’ll give you a choice,” he breathes into your ear, “in what I fuck next… your pussy or your mouth?”

Jesus fucking Christ, you think.

You’re barely thinking when you whisper, “Mouth.”

You’re dazed, and can barely register the feeling of him pulling you toward his desk. You watch as he sits in his chair, you’re standing between his legs.

“Knees.” He orders.

You hesitate, you don’t exactly like taking orders from him.

“Knees. Now. Or I spank that disobedient pussy.”

You sink to your knees without a sound.

“Good girl.” He praises, leaning forward so that his you can feel his warm breath on your lips.

You can’t help it when you sink your fingers into his hair and pull his mouth into yours. The kiss is slow and steady and gradually builds into something heated and needy. Your hands move down to palm at his erection through his pants and he moans into your mouth. He doesn’t stop kissing you as you unbuckle his belt and opens his pants. His tongue presses into your mouth when you free his erection and start to give it gentle strokes. He moans into your mouth again and pulls away this time.

“Fucking tease.” He mumbles against your mouth - you smile in response.

He leans back in his chair when you drop your head to lick the tip of his cock. He groans again.

You take your time, working him into your mouth and getting accustomed to his size and taste. You look up at him to watch as he pulls his tie loose, trying to get a bit more comfortable.

His hands move to grip either side of his chair when you sink your mouth down onto his cock. You bob a couple of times, enjoying the feel of him hitting the back of your throat gently. You moan at how filthy this is, sucking him off in his office where anyone can walk in.

He gasps, euphoria taking root in his body.

You pull back and look up at him. You take one of his hands and guide it into your hair.

“I believe you promised to fuck my face Mister Russo.”

“Shit.” He swears as he guides your head back down onto his erection.

He starts by guiding your head slowly, but soon loses control and begins fucking your mouth faster. His breaths and moans are in tandem with the motion of your head. You screw your eyes shut, putting all your focus into taking whatever pace he sets.

“Doing so good for me baby.” His voice is uneven, and you savour the small groans he makes as you swallow around his cock.

You tap his thigh when you feel like your head is about to explode from the lack of air and he lets you up easily. He takes a moment to watch your gasp for air. His thumb moves to slide across your spit-slicked lips.

“Messy messy.” He teases.

You look up at him with wide eyes and continue pumping him with your hand. You give a firm squeeze to his tip and he jerks, guiding your head back down to his erection.

You pull out all the stops, determined to make him cum. Your hand and mouth working in sync to make sure that Billy’s a groaning, twitching mess. You can feel his thighs clenching and unclenching, trying to fight at his impending orgasm. You glance up as he throws his head back and you know he’s a hair’s breadth away from the edge.

“I’m-“ he gasps and you moan around his cock in response.

His hand tightens in your hair as he explodes in your mouth. He moans loudly and the taste of his salty cum coats your tongue and prompts you to swallow.

He groans two more times before releasing the back of your head. You give him a few gentle licks and raise your head from his cock. He’s looking at you, pupils blown wide, lips red, breathing shallow, beads of sweat glistening at the skin on his forehead and neck.

His warm hand cups your cheek gently and you lean into his palm, looking up at him.

“That was-“ a knock sounds at his door.

Both your expressions flare with panic.

You get to your feet as fast as possible, wiping at your mouth and smoothing your hair as best as possible. Billy is moving around too, tucking himself back into his pants and straightening his tie.

You feel like a silly teenager about to get caught with your pants down where you shouldn’t be and the thought makes you giggle.

The knock sounds again, this time the door cracks open to show his assistant, “Excuse me Mr. Russo, your next appointment is here.”

You hear Billy curse under his breath.

“Give me a minute, I’m just finishing up here.” He says calmly.

Your actions finally catch up to your brain and you put your face in your hands.

“What did we just do.” You whine.

You hear him chuckle, “Call it a temporary suspension of our agreement.”

Your shoulders drop. Temporary suspension means the agreement is still there.

“Okay,” you agree, walking to the door. “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget what I asked you for.”

You leave with those words, and Billy’s left berating himself for being so weak around you.

Two days later:

You hum quietly as you work, hoping to finish the piece you’re working on so that you can present it to a client that might appreciate it. It’s late, around 10pm. This isn’t the first time you’ve worked late into the night and Billy never seems to mind it when you do. You figure that he can sympathize with having to work late, and the fact that you’re not in a public area that makes him more agreeable to late hours rather than some of your more outlandish ideas.

You hum gently as you work, using more black paint than you usually do. Letting the emotions you want to portray guide your hands. You want the viewer to feel safe when they look at this piece. Blanketed. Protected. Similar to the way a certain person makes you feel. Well, mostly protected. The other emotions he makes you feel are a confusing mess, so you try not to think about it too much. The other emotions rear up when you try to ignore them You know you’re a fool for getting involved with Billy Russo in the first place. This is definitely going to bite you in the ass.

You pause, shaking your head, trying to get back into the right frame of mind- when the lights go out.

You freeze, not sure what to do. You try to listen for sounds outside, but you don’t hear anything. There’s supposed to be two guards outside. Someone should have checked on you by now. You contemplate going out to check- when you feel it.

You can’t see anything, the darkness is too thick. But you can feel the shift in the air, you can hear muted breaths coming from somewhere in the room. You slowly put your paintbrush down, as if moving too fast will cause some kind of reaction.

Someone is in here with you.

At the same time your phone illuminates. Billy’s name bold on the screen.

You lunge for the device, your fingers just sliding over the answer button when a rough grip on your hair pulls you away.

“Billy! –“ Is all you can say before a hand covers your mouth.

You feel yourself being thrown, and your head hits the edge of the table on your way down. You crumple to the floor dazed, a sharp ringing in your ear.

You can’t tell how much time has passed before you feel hands grabbing at you. You try to fight back as best as possible in your dazed state, scratching and clawing at the unknown perpetrator. Finally, a voice cuts through the ringing in your head.

“-me. It’s me, Billy. I’m here.” You pause, squinting through the darkness.

“Billy?” you ask slowly.

The lights click back on and you groan as they temporarily blind you. Your head is throbbing painfully, and you gently press your fingers into the spot, recoiling quickly as the pain intensifies.

“Ow.” You mumble meekly.

You look up at Billy to find him surveying the room. You stiffen and look around as well.

“There was someone in here with me.” You say quickly. “No one came in or out,” you try to recall, “the window’s been sealed shut for a long time.”

You watch Billy walk to the double windows to examine them. “They’re still sealed shut.” He says.

“So how did he get in?” you voice your thoughts out loud.

Billy scans the room. You can almost see the gears turning in his head as he assesses any possible entry point. His eyebrows raise in realization as he looks up. Confused, you look up too. A vent?

“You think-“ “-That’s the only way in.”

“Makes no sense.” You say, pained.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” He says, helping you to your feet. He takes your face into his hands to examine the bump.

“I’m okay. I’ve had worse.” You say slowly.

With instructions to stay behind him, you try your best to keep up as he leads you out. You see that both guards have been knocked unconscious and are being tended to. Billy guides you through the front entrance and immediately ushers you into the backseat of one of his secure vehicles.

Your head aches as he instructs you to keep your head down and signals the driver to go.

The entire drive passes in silence, you can tell Billy is trying to focus on keeping you safe and you spend the drive with your body curled low in the backseat. Whatever piece of your mind isn’t in pain is occupied with telling you that something isn’t right. You can hardly focus when you hear Billy inform your father of the incident. He presses the phone to your ear, and you hear your father’s voice asking if you’re okay.

“I’m fine,” you say into the device, “just a little bump on the head.”

You barely register when he says he’ll see you in a bit, the small sound of agreement is the only noise you make before hanging up.

You make it back to your house in one piece. Billy helps you sit on your couch and he brings an ice pack to press against your head. Your eyes follow him as he moves to each window, checking the locks and observing outside, before pulling your curtains shut.

With the ice numbing the pain you start being able to focus on that other voice in your head- the one screaming at you that something’s wrong.

“Billy.” You call out.

He’s at your side in an instant.

“Something wrong?”

“Yes.”

He waits for you to speak.

“He should have killed me. Why didn’t he kill me?”

“You’re safe now, Y/N.”

“No, no, “ you groan and re-adjust the ice pack. “He had enough time. He could have put a gun to my head and killed me right there… so why didn’t he?”

“Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill you.”

You shake your head, thoughts coming too slow for your liking.

“His goal couldn’t have been to kidnap me, it would be too hard to get me into that ceiling vent. So, what was the goal?”

Billy knows you’re on the verge of something, but the realization isn’t as clear yet.

“Maybe his goal was to hurt you.”

“Hurt me? That’s stupid.” You mumble. You think about the night someone tried to break in. You thought that was Eric Walker, but what if it was more related to this event than the first one?

You look up at him.

“That night we- um, the night the guy tried to break in… what changed?’

His eyebrows draw together. “What are you asking?”

You groan. “What’s different between tonight and that night. What did you do differently?”

You watch Billy think, his eyes scan the room as he recalls the events of that night. You take your time studying his attire, it’s not the first time you’ve seen him dressed so comfortably, but every time feels like the first. He never fails to look his most attractive. It’s quite annoying when you know you look like someone that’s been thrown about- as you should because, well, you’d actually been thrown about.

Billy turns to you, “I didn’t call your father until I knew where you were. I didn’t tell him that I couldn’t find you.”

You blink. “So by the time he heard any news, it was a nice, neutralized threat, and I was safe and unharmed so he had no real cause to come check on me?”

You watch Billy’s eyes widen in realization. He stands abruptly and pulls his phone from his pocket.

“Call your father,” he instructs, “tell him to turn back and get somewhere safe. He’s the target.”

You nod quickly, reaching for your phone, one hand still pressing the ice pack to your head.

He answers on the third ring.

“Dad!” you say before he can speak, “You need to turn around, you’re the target.”

“What?” he asks, “Why would I be the target? He has nothing to gain from killing or kidnapping me.”

You’re thinking runs at a mile a minute now.

“What about robbing you?” You say, making eye contact with Billy, who is on another call, “Do you have anything on you worth stealing?”

The silence speaks volumes.

“I have to go. I’ll call you when I’m safe.”

“Dad-“ The line goes dead.

Shit.

Billy’s back is to you, shooting instructions down the line. When he’s done, he turns back around.

“You should go. Make sure he’s safe.” You suggest.

Billy shakes his head, “I sent Frankie to secure him. If there’s anyone better than me, it’s him.

You slump back into the couch, the ache in your head slowly returning.

“He’ll be alright, Y/N, I think we figured them out before they could do any real harm.”

You know he’s right, but it doesn’t stop the fear and anxiety from creeping in. He reaches out to put his hand over yours.

“Look, I’m gonna do a quick patrol of the grounds,” he says, watching as your eyes widen and your shoulders stiffen. “Hey,” he says, ducking his head into your view, “You’re safe okay? I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

You lean into him, pressing your head into his shoulder. You breathe in his scent, feeling it wrap around you, easing your panic. He was right after all, if he was here, you’d be safe.

You glance at your phone every minute, waiting for a call, a text, something. Billy had been gone for about ten minutes so far and you couldn’t help imagining the worst scenario. You try to distract yourself by taking a shower and tending to the bump on your head, keeping it iced and taking some painkillers to alleviate the pain.

Five more minutes go by in anxious silence before Billy finally returns.

“Your dad’s okay.” He says, “Got him to a safe house and everything. We even caught up to the guys that was planning to cause an accident to steal whatever important thing he had on him. He had to ditch his phone though, told me to tell you he’s okay and he’ll see you soon.”

You were moving before you could register it. Pressing your face to his chest and wrapping your arms around him tightly. He returns the embrace hesitantly. You don’t know what it is about him that moves every nerve ending in your body from scared to subdued.

Exhaustion finally hits you hard, and you feel your knees wobble.

“Don’t leave.” You say in a small voice, “Please.”

You take his hand in yours and pull him to your bedroom. He watches as you tuck yourself in, and you pat the spot next to you. He kicks off his shoes and lies down next to you on the bed- over the sheets. He watches you, as you fall asleep, with one last whisper telling you that you’re safe… you’re out like a light.

Billy stays awake for a lot longer, lying on the bed, thinking about all the things that went wrong today. He thinks about the ways he could have fucked up, and contemplates solutions for those shortcomings. He glances at you, his hand moves to push a strand of hair away from your face. There’s an ache in his chest, and the slow sparks of a feeling he will not name.

#billy russo x female reader #ben barnes #billy russo #billy russo smut #billy russo x reader #my writings #the punisher #im tryin so hard #part 3?#ours is not to reason why #I'll die if i find a typo #i read this like 5 times there better not be any typos

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all-things-fic · 4 years

Text

Rekindled

A/N: Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who nominated me as November Author of the Month. I wasn’t expecting that at all and it was a lovely surprise! Secondly, here is Rekindled. Hope you all enjoy it!

This was originally meant to be for @majorharry‘s 20k challenge, but I failed on that front. It’s a long one so grab yourself a brew / beverage of choice and get comfy!

I’m about to disappear again as I usually do and start working on my Christmas fic, as well as those Quarantine Harry updates.

Tonight had started out like any other Saturday evening.

You had been out with friends. Cosy little pub off a cobbled backstreet, in a secluded corner. Very British. Very cramped. All old wood and leather bound seats. The slight smell of stale beer in the air and plenty of chatter that sometimes had you shouting to ensure the friend sitting two people away from you was able to hear.

This was a pub that you frequented for quite a while now. A pub that made it so some in your friendship group could grab a proper ale, while others opted for more of a fruity alcoholic beverage. A real all rounder. Did a nice roast on Sunday - eat in or takeout, choice was yours - for a reasonable price by London’s standards.

The minute he had walked in, you had noticed him. You could recognise his hunched shoulders anywhere. Forever silently willing him to stand up straight and embrace the way his height made him tower over some of his friends. Rather than have him try and make himself smaller. Part of you believed it was to buy him time so he wouldn’t get noticed whenever he knew he was going to be in particular place for longer than an hour.

He had been joined by a male friend. Someone you also knew quite well. Someone who you had seen quite recently actually. An art showing over at Cob Gallery being the reason for your meeting which hadn’t happened too long ago. You remembered the invite being shoved through your letterbox, a far cry from when he used to shunt you a quick text and write your name at the bottom of the guest list using Sam’s kohl eyeliner on the evening of the event itself.

You’d taken the piss out of him that afternoon, a quick phone call telling him that he was “no longer the Tomo Campbell I know”.

That had been two weeks ago. So, you knew it would be rude of either you, or him, to not acknowledge the other. And you knew he would be the one to cave in.

And you were right.

Tomo’s friendly brown eyes had glanced at you one too many times, over Harry’s shoulder for him to not give you - or anyone else who may have made the meeting slightly awkward - away.

The continuous trailing of his gaze had in fact caused Harry to chuckle awkwardly, joking at how he wouldn’t let Sam know of his wandering eye as they shared a night on the town. The joke fell short though, as did his chuckle, when at the last glance over Harry twisted his body around to see what all the fuss was about as he leaned against the bar and let his eyes fall onto yours.

You broke his gaze, reaching forward for your balloon glass full of gin and pressed your face as far into it as possible. A feeling filled you that made you hope the hot flush you felt underneath your skin hadn’t started to give away your unnecessary panic.

See things with you and Harry hadn’t ended badly. In fact, it was more like a fizzle. A bit like the sweet that pops against your tongue. Sometimes you enjoyed it and other times it was unfulfilling, some would say annoying. The latter explained the ending.

No big fights. No fat, hot tears rolling down cheeks. No loss of voices from slanging matches and screaming until the early hours. It just... Ended.

That fizzle was what made it amicable. You both breaking it off to go and do your own thing. Neither openly keeping up to date with the other, but still absolutely aware of what was going on. In your case that was a lot easier, in his not so much. However, Harry somehow managed to master the art of leading questions without seeming too much of a beg with mutual friends.

As he looked on at you taking the longest sip from your drink, he had smiled awkwardly before he allowed his eyes to roam the scene of your group of friends and tried to analyse what met his gaze. A group of eight, men heavily outweighing the women with their five to your genders three.

He would definitely class himself a liar if he was asked about where his mind had gone, and he said that it hadn’t gone to queries around relationship statuses and potential partnerships with any of the men around the table.

He eyed them, all five of them. Definitely wasn’t the guy three people away, neither was it the guy sat diagonally opposite you. They were blonde, definitely not your type. Well, blondes hadn’t been your type the last time he had been between your legs.

His eyes had been zoned in on the guy that had his back facing him, he wasn’t sitting directly opposite you. Instead he was seated in the opposite seat, but one. Better positioning for someone who wanted to obtain a cheeky glance and still be inconspicuous to the group around him.

“I’m gonna have to go and say hello,” Tomo pulled Harry out of his trance, his eyes lifting up from the beer mat that he had been tapping agitatedly against the bar top once he’d turned away from the scene.

“‘S fine wi’me, mate,” Harry softly smiled, reaching for his drink and taking a large sip.

“Come an’ get it over with, H.”

Harry had quietly eyed Tomo after his open ended suggestion of joining him. His eyes slightly sceptical at the proposal but somehow his legs took over his decision making as he trudged behind his artist friend and got introduced to those faces he didn’t know and acknowledged the ones that he did.

Pulling up a pew at the table had been a lot easier for Harry than he had expected. Dragging the wooden stool to sit himself in between you and the guy to his right, who he now knew to be Conor and the person he really wanted to know the name of was Joe. Joe was a wanker- well, banker. Same difference, right?

Conversation wasn’t always smooth sailing. The larger group helped however. Also helped him get his moments with you and you with him. Moments that neither of you had known you needed before being sat with his knee brushing yours, due to how cramped your table had suddenly become.

And it was sweltering now. The bare knee of your ripped jeans, knocking against Harry’s bare knee from his ripped jeans as he edged himself closer to the table wanting to catch what the topic of conversation was down at the easily the “laddier” end of the table.

Harry had fit right in. Of course his demeanour changed with certain people. Those he had already been in the presence of those years previous were immediately hit with morbid delivery and sarcastic humour, while others were met with his sometimes hard to crack shell.

And like always as the night had gone on the crowd had tapered off. Some had decided to go onto a club, an offering your declined not wanting to spend the night with people rubbing up against you and feeling like one of the oldest people in the room.

Some of your friends had gone back to their other commitments, like Tomo who made it quite clear he didn’t want to miss his “curfew” that Sam had given him considering he was the one on swimming lesson duty in the morning.

That ended up leaving you and Harry. Surprisingly a pairing that you hadn’t expected to happen that evening and even more surprising, one that you weren’t particularly dreading.

You knew it had something to do with the gin, and definitely had something to do with the tequila.

Part of you was thankful for the less than responsible drinking habits you had taken that evening. It allowed you to remain calm as your ex-boyfriend sat across from you looking like time was on his side and aging was being kind to him.

It was definitely being kinder to him than it was to you, anyway.

Bastard.

Conversation had been a mixture of light and heavy. Harry showing you a series of different pictures he had taken on his travels as he jetset around the world with his album and his modelling contract (that he adamantly assured you wasn’t a modelling contract), and basically just his very healthy bank balance.

The heavy had been you bitching about the contract project you had been working on and asking him if he would be willing to potentially commit a serious crime with you against one of your colleagues. He’d quipped he probably wasn’t suitable but he was sure he knew a guy.

At one point, his eyes had dropped down to your pedicured toes in your black strappy heels. When he managed to drag his eyes away for your feet, and rested his chin on the inside heel of his palm, you knew he wanted to say something.

“‘M pretty sure we have matching pedis,” he groused, voice so low that if you hadn’t been watching his mouth you wouldn’t have caught a word of what he had just said.

Eyes flicking up to his green gaze, you saw the light shimmering through them. Clearly he was amused by your expression of shock and potential bemusement from his statement.

“Sod off,” you chided, pushing gently at his arm. “You’re joking.”

“‘M not darl-“ he cut himself off with a clear of his throat. “‘M not, an’ if yer lucky later I might take m’socks off to prove it an’all.”

“Not sure if I like the insinuation of there being a later.” You paused for a small amount of time, before adding, “Nor the confidence in how you said it.”

“God loves a trier and so did you, once.”

He eyed you from the corner of his vision, mouth wrapped around the lip of his glass as he knocked back what was left of the alcoholic contents inside.

You were sure he hadn’t meant to let that one slip but there was no way he was going to let his expression give him away and silently confirm with you that thought.

How had the two of you picked up as if you hadn’t missed a beat?

“You never did mind me keeping them on though, did yer?”

That was enough to break his gaze. To cause a silence you didn’t know how to fill. To suddenly make you feel incredibly parched as if you hadn’t been necking gin after gin, all evening.

“How yer getting ‘ome?”

His question cut through it all. His voice of concern, matching his watchful gaze as he looked up at you from the empty glass he had begun twirling on the mahogany wood.

“Was just gonna Uber it back.”

“‘M a fifteen minute walk from ‘ere, d’ya know tha’?”

“I do know that,” you acknowledged, eyes looking over at him and seeing the way his hair had begun to curl close to his temples from the way he perspired in the heat of the pub.

“‘Course you do. Done that walk a fair few times ain’t we?”

You hummed. The feeling of your lips lifting into a soft smile at the memories of the two of you walking hand in hand through the dark London streets. Harry with his head down, trying to look inconspicuous. Also, so he could watch his feet and try his best not to trip up over them.

The times he’d done that thing you loved. Where he would forgo holding your hand and instead walk slightly behind you with his arm wrapped around your shoulder and across the top of your chest. His lips heavy against your hair as he hid his face and chuckled breathily against the shell of your ear when he hadn’t been watching his feet and indeed, tripped. It was always inevitable.

“So wha’s another nigh’?”

And really what was another night? Other than potentially a messy morning.

Not before long you were wrapping the chain handle of your bag across your body and tottering out of the booth you had occupied all night.

Silently you had battled with yourself as to whether you should use the bathroom, but didn’t think you needed it considering how you hadn’t had the rush of pressure usually felt when you were really desperate to relieve yourself.

Shame the feeling didn’t last as you felt a huge gust of cold wind, thanks to London autumn air, washing over you.

With your arms folded around your body as you walked, you tried your best to shield yourself as the lights of passing cars hurt your tired eyes. Harry had been talking to you about all sorts of rubbish, filling in the gaps of dead air that weren’t taken up by the noise around your both.

“My shoes are going to be fucking ruined,” you grumbled, hearing the sound of muddy stones clacking and crunching underneath your heels.

Harry chuckled at your obvious disdain, keeping himself close to you in the dimly lit area. The stride to his walk was confident, a little more power behind it than unsteady. He had consumed drinks, but not enough that he didn’t realise how close both he and you were to his home.

As you walked, your eyes surveyed the area. A group of people were getting closer, a few hoods lifted making it hard for you to figure out their make up.

Before you could give yourself time to think, you unravelled your folded arms and reached down for Harry’s hand.

“Think we could cross here,” you spoke, a chatter to your voice both from the cold and this unusual anxious feeling. Your eyes darted over the road, left and right before you turned as the group approached you.

A boisterous boom of laughter left one of the groups mouth, causing you to sharply look back down the street. The grip of Harry’s hand against yours changed, his fingers taking your traditional hand hold to one of interlocking digits.

He felt moved by the way you appeared to still hold the desire to be protective over him.

“‘M alrigh’,” he pulled you to him, using his hand and causing you to turn your front and press into his side. “Jus’ let ‘em pass us.”

You silently nodded.

“‘S just a couple’a lads walking ‘ome after a night out,” he mumbled. “‘S all it is. You’re alright.”

This feeling felt foreign as you felt a tightness in your chest while you stood still with him in the middle of the street. You hadn’t expected to feel any sort of hesitation but you, like everyone else, had heard about the incident which had taken place with him. Virtually on the doorstep of his own home too.

Harry offering you comfort and reassurance just as quick as you were to do so for him, had you finding a weird source of strength and confidence. He welcomed the pressing of your forehead to his cheek, knowing if he tilted his head slightly his lips could brush so tenderly against your forehead, your temple. He would most likely get a smell of your shampoo, wondering if you still used the same as before.

The grip of his hand loosened against yours, his clammy palm, which felt soothingly warm, ran up against the long sleeve of your top. It curled around your neck, holding you securely to him, before he wrapped his arm around you.

Then he dropped his lips, them pressing to your temple and then lower to your cheekbone. He lingered, his breathing slightly quivered as the noise from the group got louder.

You lifted your head slightly, Harry rearing up just in time to ensure you didn’t headbutt him. His chin was soft as he looked down at you; it took the edge off. His eyes were manic as they moved, there was no mistaking it but everything else about him came off so calm.

He blew out his shaky sigh, causing you to dart your eyes over his and gently push up onto your tiptoes in your heels to softly kiss his lips. You knew he wasn’t expecting it, you didn’t even know what you were doing before you did it. Yet, you relaxed the minute he drew you even closer using the arm he had curled around your upper back to hold you close.

A wolf whistle caused you to smile against his lips, as he did the same. His gentle breathy laugh bouncing against your lips as he chanced it and pressed pecks against your lips in quick succession.

“Evening lads,” Harry nodded his head once he came up for air, making sure he got a good look of two of them and making sure they knew that he had. They cheered in praise at the two of you and your public display, threw out a couple of slightly lewd and alcohol fused comments at the scene. One even going as far as to take the red and white striped scarf from around his neck and whip it furiously above his head. “Someone’s ‘appy. The Arsenal must’ve ‘ad a win.”

You nodded as you eyed them, completely embarrassed by the way you had misread a group of loud football fans for violent thugs. You weren’t necessarily far wrong, but still.

Chattering teeth caused Harry to pull you close to him. “Let's get you in before you catch your death.”

***

Shoes had been left at the door.

The aching balls of your feet grateful for the cool wooden flooring and curling into the luxurious fabric of the rugs currently beneath them.

You’d watched as Harry toed off his obscenely dirty Vans, and walked ahead of you towards the back of the house. The place where his envious lounge and open plan kitchen could be found.

Harry’s home had this way of being welcoming, no matter how long it had been since you had last graced its presence. You assumed he’d made it this way for a reason, especially when that reason was his way of life. Leaving for long periods of time to then return again, to pick right up where he had left off.

And in many ways, that was how you felt about the current situation.

Handbag now discarded at your feet, you sat with your side resting against the back of Harry’s teal velvet couch. Surrounded by expensive scatter cushion after expensive scatter cushion, a collection he had amassed during your time apart.

He was playing the playlist. Not just any playlist, the playlist. The one he would always turn on, volume low, so it was more of a hum than anything else after you’d gotten back from a night on the tiles and fancied a night cap.

You didn’t need to zone in on the sounds. It so happened that you had heard the playlist so many times before that you didn’t need to have it blasting through the speakers to know the track list. It was burned into your brain and would be for a very long time.

The worst thing of all was that he knew. He just knew.

His lips had taken on this quirk. Slightly upturned more so on one side of his face than another as he stood at the kitchen island, feeling your eyes watch him as he put together his perfected cheese on toast supper.

It was an offer you couldn’t refuse. A large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon held loosely in your hand as you whispered along to the song playing in the background, mouth watering at the thought of the carby goodness Harry was preparing for you both under the grill of his oven.

The smell that filled your senses was delightful and exactly what you needed to soak up the alcohol you had previously consumed, never mind the alcohol you were about to.

“Do you want any brown sauce on yours, or ketchup?” You heard him talk louder as the tray he’d been cooking on clattered against his oven hob.

You stayed silent as you watched him, tea towel over his shoulder as he plated up your toast while his mouth barely sang along to the playlist. Gently lifting the bread off the grill before letting it drop quickly from his grip to the plate because of how hot it was.

He looked up at you from under his brow, hair fallen into a middle part around his face. His eyes enjoyed the way your legs had curled up beneath you as you rested your right cheek onto your hand and fondly watched him.

You seemed relaxed to him, albeit amused.

“Don’t even think about laughing at me when ‘m cooking for you.”

You smiled - cheese on toast was hardly cooking - pulling your glass of wine to your lips and taking a sip. “Don’t know why you don’t just get a knife and fork, you numpty.”

“Saves on the washing up doing it this way,” he winced as he dropped another slice to the second plate.

“And makes you lose your fingerprints in the process.

Harry shook his head as he pressed his thumb to his lips and licked the sore burn, before he gently blew against it. “Never did answer my question,” he reminded, wiping his hands on the towel thrown over his shoulder.

“Ketchup’s fine. Ta.”

Watching him reach across for the bottle of Heinz, you saw him squirt the sauce onto your plate and then saw him do the same to his own.

Seemingly happy with his work, he whipped the towel off his shoulder and to the side, before scooping up the two plates and striding over to you with ease.

“Voila,” he spoke, offering you the answer to your predicted hangover prayers, in cheese on toast form.

Reaching forward, you gently took the plate off his hands with both of yours and let your eyes drop down to the melted goodness. Keeping your eyes down you took in the decoration that Harry had added. He’d taken to drawing a smiley face onto the top of the cheese using the ketchup.

“You’re such a silly sod sometimes,” you spoke, lifting your eyes as you watched him drop down onto the couch next to you and get himself comfortable.

Legs up on the coffee table in front of him, almost horizontal with his plate gently resting atop his rounded stomach. Head tipped back and vision lazy, his lips tilted up into a crooked smile as he looked over at you.

“‘S it okay?”

“Looks it,” you replied, lifting up the toast and taking the biggest bite you could muster. Your nose came into contact with some sauce from your hunger-driven vigour. “Proof is in the tasting though, I s’pose,” you continued, mouth full and covered by your hand to avoid him seeing the chewed up contents.

You hummed as you closed your eyes, enjoying the taste of the simplistic home cooked food and melted goodness. So simple in taste, but so effective.

From where Harry lounged, he softly watched you. All relaxed, closed eyes, with a drop of tomato ketchup decorating the end of your nose.

Before you had the chance, and he couldn’t fight himself, Harry reached up to gently swipe at the sauce and remove it from your skin.

You opened your eyes, blinking over at him as he pressed his thumb between his lips and licked away the sauce he had retrieved. His eyes were mischievous as they glanced at you before he took a bite out of his own food and savoured the taste.

The groan that left his throat as he chewed was a sound familiar to you in other capacities, causing you to squeeze your legs together and forcefully take another bite of your own toast.

“Tell you what? If there’s one thing I do, ‘s make a bloody good cheese on toast.”

You smirked, amused by his boasting. “Nothing like a slice of conceited-ness as a platter cleanser, for afters.”

“Summat much more appealing for afters, don’t worry about tha’, darling. Got you sorted.”

***

Bellies full and content, you slipped further down onto Harry’s couch. The two of you finding yourself closer together ask you basked in the warmth of Harry’s home.

“You weren’t lying when you said your nails matched mine,” your voice was sleepy as you spoke, right foot hitting Harry’s left slightly as you brought up your earlier conversation at the pub.

He chuckled into your hair, watching you lift your foot and gently place it atop of his. He made a space for it, moving his right leg so that there was an even bigger gap between his feet to slot yours between.

“I think mine's a bit lighter to be honest,” you continued, eyes scrutinising his painted nails as much as they could from down the length of your body and his.

“That’s some bullshit,” Harry groused, rubbing his feet gently against yours to warm them, his voice causing his chest to vibrate against your head as it rested there “I even had it on m’ hands but I’ve been picking at it. Look.”

Harry obnoxiously held his hand in front of your vision, wiggling his fingers causing you to reach for his fingers and hold his hand still. Sure enough, he was true to his word, presenting you with chipped nail polish that was nothing more than the odd tiny dot against his clean nails.

You smirked when he pushed them slightly closer to your face than intended, “Alright, think you’ve proven your point.”

Hand knocked back he brought it forward again, “‘M not so sure, try again.”

The only response you could muster up was a giggle fit for a schoolgirl, Harry’s response to pull you even closer as he softly smiled.

A silence overtook you both, as you closed your eyes and let yourself become more intune with the music playing around you.

Your face was pressed into the side of his neck able to inhale his worn in aftershave and the soft startings of stubble down the side of his throat.

The silence was heavy and you knew exactly why. Listening to the base of the song across his speakers mixing with your staggered breathing and rising pulse.

You knew you shouldn’t but you couldn’t help yourself. It wasn’t like it needed attention drawn to it. Yet, the words were tumbling off your lips regardless.

“This song always makes me…you know.”

The words were mumbled but of course he caught them because he did know. But it was whether he wanted to go there.

The thought of talking about sex and the sex you had together in a coherent state wasn’t ideal. He wouldn’t have anything to blame his honesty on, if he wasn’t more inebriated than he currently found himself.

“Think we need some more wine for tha’,” he mumbled, lips pressed to your forehead as you hummed in agreement and felt him begin to shift to raise himself from the couch to retrieve a bottle.

***

More wine wasn’t a good idea and you knew it. From the way your tongue was much looser and your lips a lot more numb now.

The two of you had begun to dance on a weird ledge after he’d refilled your glass. The kind where you were openly flirting and backbiting against the other to try and see who could inflict the moment that had the two of you wincing.

“Who caught your eye while I was out of the picture?”

“Who didn’t catch yours?”

Harry was sitting on the couch, side pressed into the back of the couch. Leaning with his elbow and allowing his face to rest in the palm of his hand as he looked at you.

“Alright,” he stressed with a raise to his eyebrows and a quirk to his lips.

You were a bit flustered due to the way your back bite to him revealed how you were actually caught up in his business of seeing other people when you tried to act like you didn’t care.

Clearing his throat Harry adopted a soft tone to break you out of your fluster.

“There was one girl. Took her to dinner two times.”

You held his eyes with yours, watching the way he slowly smirked, “But you already know that don’t ya?”

Before you could stop yourself, you threw the throw cushion sitting to the right of you, at him.

“Watch the wine,” he said around a laugh, as he raised his wine glass into the air and pushed the cushion to the floor before it had a chance of creating him a cleaning catastrophe in the early hours.

“Hate you,” you mumbled, turning to your right to look at him from where you had reached forward to put your wine glass down to the table. Before you sat back you ran your index finger against the rim of your wine glass and tapped your nail gently against the base.

“‘s tha’ why you’re sat eating cheese on toast and drinking wine on my sofa at almost 2am,” he spoke against the rim of his glass, knocking back what was remaining inside.

“I’ve been coerced to be here,” you replied, watching him reach forward, raising his eyebrows at your false suggestion. When he sat back against the couch he was biting back his smile, his eyes shining and crinkles deeply set in the corners.

“Know where the door is,” he goaded, raising his eyebrows again, arm raising to point in the direction of his hallway. He waited for your response and in that time leaned forward towards the coffee table once more, grabbing the wine bottle and topping you up before moving onto refilling his own.

Your eyes dropped down to the rich red liquid as it sloshed against the clear glass. While his words were telling you to leave, his actions were doing the complete opposite.

Filling the silence he asked, “So, how many dinners am I competing with?”

“Three” you mumbled as you lifted your drink and took a sip for courage.

Harry’s head titled as he surveyed you, “Bloody hell you didn’t hang around!”

“I have no more cushions left,” you spoke to his cheeky comment with a light hearted threat of throwing something at him for his brazen clap back. “Only my wine.”

He smiled at your warning to throw it all over him before he drawled, “And we wouldn’t wanna waste tha’”

You hummed in agreement, freely taking yet another sip. Finally, something you agreed on.

Harry kept his eyes on you, waiting. The two of you almost seeing who would cave in first to try and dig for more information on the relations of the other while you were apart. What he really wanted to know was how many men he was competing against. Was it one man three times, or three separate men?

With all the questions buzzing around his head, he knew it would be him who would give in.

He was correct.

“Gonna let me ‘ave a look then? Pull ‘em up on your phone. ‘S only fair. Mine was taken out of my hands.”

His ambiguous comment alluded to the paparazzi pictures of him that had been splashed all over the tabloid online outlets, as well as every other social media platform known to man.

You didn’t hesitate, the alcohol in your bloodstream almost encouraged you as you reached for your bag at your feet and took out your phone. Said liquid confidence even helped in your handing over of the phone. “Pass codes the same,” you said, as Harry stared at you before he dropped his eyes down to the screen and tried the first code that came to his mind, your birthday.

The screen shook at him, causing a sheepish smile to pull up onto his lips as he thought about his second guess. He punched in the code of your mother’s birthday and unlocked the phone within a short five seconds.

You did notice the stall to his movements, clearly realising how part of this was wrong. It wasn’t his, or your, business to know everything in such detail.

Sensing his hesitancy also, you told him where to find a photograph if he was so desperate for a nose; on your private Instagram page. He took that as a small victory cause he knew you still had pictures of him on your profile that hadn’t been taken down.

You gave him names, knowing that it was an invasion of privacy for the men in question but equally not caring. His thumb was fast as it typed and spelt out the name into the search bar. Harry also not caring at how desperate he was to see his competition.

“Hold this for me,” he said, passing over his wine glass so that he could cup your phone in both his hands, his undivided attention firmly on his foe. You looked on as you saw him zoom in on the picture of guy number two, who had the chance of a third date.

He was silent as he looked and swiped and read comments. He didn’t know if this was the type of man he was expecting. Had he even been expecting anyone at all?

Running his eyes over the pictures he was greeted with what he could only describe to be your average City man. All overcoats and expensive suits.

Looks wise, he understood. Perfect five o’clock shadow. Seemed tall enough in photos. Obviously liked a gym session or two. However there was one thing about him that just looked so out of place-

Breaking the silence, he said, “Can’t even do a tie properly can he?”

“Neither can you,” you shot back.

“Don’t have to when you have someone willing to help.”

He looked at you from under his brow to see if you were going to correct him. When he realised you weren’t, he continued, “Never been tempted to fix his,” he asked, swiping across to look at another picture.

“He hasn’t worn a tie on a date yet,” you responded.

Harry zoned in on the use of the word yet.

“What’s he drive?” He asked randomly, continuing the swipe through the pictures with his right thumb.

“Range Rover Sport.”

“Probably on finance,” he spoke his comeback quickly, expressing his true feelings. It wasn’t going to be on finance but no one could blame him on wanting to throw a cheap shot in some way. “Doesn’t really seem the type to be blessed with the big dick energy. Overcompensating somehow.”

You found yourself biting down against your lips, trying to stifle a laugh. His pettiness has reared itself in less than ten minutes and you could see the way it wove through his features, with a quirk to his eyebrows and a scrunch of his nose. He was dismissive and you supposed he had every reason to be, you were after all sat on his couch.

“Why do you really think I’m giving you another try,” you smirked, nails tapping at your glass again.

He held your gaze, “You planning on testing me out, seeing if it still works?”

“Might do,” you took another sip of your drink. “Depends if I have the energy.”

“Why do you think I gave you summat to eat?”

You breathed out a laugh as your mouth fell, right hand reaching up to slap him across the top of his arm. He seemed pleased with himself as he locked your phone and loosely held it out to you.

“‘S enough of looking at tha’,'' he hummed, licking gently at his lips. “How did you meet him?”

Again a breathy laugh left your lips as you stared at him, incredulously. Harry’s eyes easily held yours as he waited on your answer.

“You aren’t in the least bit interested,” you licked your lips, the taste coating them slightly bitter from the lingering wine residue. “Don’t know why you’re trying to make it seem as if you are.”

“Humour me, darling,” he mused, lips softly lifting. “Or humour him, whichever you prefer.”

And you know you shouldn’t be doing this, laughing at the expense of someone else in such a way. You saw the larger swallow from Harry too and you knew he was feeling the same.

However, here you were, giving eyes to a man that you didn’t think would get to see you in such a way again.

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Cause at least one of us would make it worth your while.”

You felt your breathing quicken as you held Harry’s eyes. He did nothing to deter you from holding his gaze.

“You have to stop being so nice,” he added. “If he isn't doing anything for you, that’s okay.”

Reaching forward you rid your hands of your phone, letting it slide against his coffee table. “And do you not think you slightly have an unfair advantage?”

“I think,” he paused, his eyes looking at you. “I think we had something good.”

“Had being the operative word-“

“And I think we could have something good again. In fact I know we could.”

You stalled at his words. The confidence behind them. It was admirable how he was shooting his shot. Especially given you knew how inside he was most likely quaking with nerves.

“Tell him no.”

His words made you chest feel tight, his hand reaching across the distance between the two of you on the sofa. His palm facing up, you slowly lifted your hands to sit in his.

No sooner had your skin come in contact, Harry clasped his hand around yours and softly stroked his thumb to the back of it. He dipped down, lips meeting your knuckles before he tugged at you so softly you almost felt you had imagined it.

He wanted you closer, the arms length distance now too much as he started to show himself to you. His pettiness and his affection, they strangely won you over. Stoked something within you that had you edging further towards him.

Hand unlatching from yours, he lifted his left arm and wrapped it loosely around the back of your neck. With little persuasion you dropped your forehead against his jaw again.

Harry’s swallow was audible as his fingertips softly stroked at your shoulder. His breath softly fanned against the skin of your temple, his lips turning to press the faintest kiss to your hairline.

“Tell him to piss off.”

You chuckled, breathily, head knocking itself back to look up at him. Eyes light with a sense of joyous infatuation at the moment you found yourself in.

Harry shifted, his right hand quickly discarding both your wine glasses before it placed itself against your hot cheek. The coolness of his slender fingers soothing and welcomed.

“Tell him no,” he breathed, as his lips hovered close to yours, as he tilted your face upwards to meet his.

With your eyes closed you felt a sense of guilt, for some unknown reason. It wasn’t like you were committed to anyone outside of the situation that you found yourself in, but you felt slightly wrong for what you were doing. Harry sensed it, able to read the downturn of your lips for what it was. He nudged his nose gently against yours, allowing his eyes to take their time in admiring your expressions and waited on the unnecessary internal conflict to ease.

“Want me to tell him?” He asked, leaving breathy and wet kisses down your cheek, and along your jawline as you tilted your head back. “‘S not a problem.”

Your mind was swimming as you found yourself sinking back into the couch beneath you. Harry’s voice melting you as he continued talking, “Really get him to take the hint that you’re not interested.”

He kept his face buried against the underside of your chin as it pointed up at the ceiling, hands tracing down your arms and cupping at your hands to press them into his hair as he sucked at your skin.

“I know what you’re doing,” you hummed, scratching at the back of his head, enjoying the feel of his soft locks beneath your touch.

Harry deeply groaned as you pulled at the strands, “What’s that?”

“Trying to have your way with me when I’m under the influence,” you joked, quirk to your lips. “Always was that little bit more placid that way.”

You felt the way his lips moved from underneath your chin, finding the corner of your mouth, before he pulled up to look at you. He eyed you, all heavy lidded and messy lips. “You’re not tha’ pissed are ya?”

“No.”

“Then I’m definitely more than jus’ trying.” He reached for your face, lifting your chin and angling it how he wanted. “‘M taking, ‘m begging,” he spoke confidently, unashamed.

His lips were dominant as they engulfed yours, a groan leaving your throat as your kiss was messy from the offset. His lips puckered and pulled, drawing you closer to him as he breathed through his nose and gave you his tongue.

Your chest was heaving as he skimmed his lips against your face, mouth finding the sensitive skin of your neck once more as you bit down on your bottom lip and tried not to laugh.

“Charming of you to want your way with me on your couch.”

Harry chuckled against your neck, face lifting shortly to look at you. His pupils were blown out already, as his skin took on more of a rosy flush from the beginnings of his exertion. That or you’d embarrassed him.

“Sorry, I should’ve asked,” he mused. ”Where’d you want it?”

Legs curled gently around the backs of his thigh, still covered by the denim of his jeans, you pressed against them with the heel of your foot.

“Where’d you think?”

He knew exactly where. You were a simple creature. You liked simple things. Sex was always fun to have all over the house, but depending on the level of intimacy you craved, depended on where you were willing to open your legs.

Tonight was a weird one for you to decide upon. The fumble on the couch, while it was exciting and showed you Harry’s desperation to have you once more, it would be over before you knew it. Also it would most likely leave you with a horrible crick in your neck as your keepsake.

You didn’t want that. You wanted your keepsake to be the ache in your thighs from how he had taken you in different positions because while a bed was boring for some, it allowed you the option to roll around for as long as your bodies permitted. Bending in all different shapes and ways that sometimes neither of you would’ve been able to imagine.

He broke you from your thoughts once more, hand gently finding your bum and tapping against it. “Up yer get,” he spoke, starting to push himself up knowing you wanted to go upstairs.

With your legs curled around his, Harry couldn’t go too far. He chuckled with amusement as he dropped his eyes down to his legs and yours, before looking back up. He didn’t need to even ask as he looked at you, leaning forward he inhaled through his nose as he kissed sweetly at your lips and lifted you.

A smile pulled onto your face, causing difficulty to continue kissing. “Stop tha’,” he mouthed against the corner of your lips, as he hoisted your legs. “‘M trying to take charge here.”

“Why do that when you’re still so good at taking direction?” The lilt to your voice was one of glee, you had easily gotten your own way.

Tousling your hair and flicking it away, behind your shoulders, you rolled your lips into your mouth as you felt the slight bruising from his expressions of desire. He was watching you as you looked at him, doe-eyes sparkling with intrigue and adoration.

“Give us a kiss,” his deep voice ignited a warm fire within, as he still tried to assert himself while he walked the two of you away from his open plan lounge and closer to his kitchen.

You continued to eye him, enjoying the way he wasn’t going to back down. You just needed to stand your ground just as much.

As your bum hit the work surface, your hands traced over Harry’s cheeks, cupping his face before moving to grip at the counter. Head tilted slightly, he looked down the bridge of his nose at you through hooded, dark eyes.

He stepped in between your wide open legs and enjoyed the closeness that they brought when you brought them together to keep him to you. Heavy breathing filled the silent air as you both traced each other's features with touch and sight. Taste could wait, but it would get here soon enough.

He gulped as he swallowed.

“Please.”

At first it was gritty. His voice tight and throat dry. His lips forming the word confidently.

Again he swallowed. “Please, gimme a kiss. You kiss me, like before.”

The victorious hum that left his lips was one that you would let slide, as his hands ran down the length of your arms and reached up to wrap around your own. He placed them back onto his face, mouth breaking away as he left open mouthed kisses to your left palm, nose nudging at the end of your long sleeve top where he inhaled your worn away perfume.

He could feel your pulse as he curled his fingers around your wrist. It was strong and rhythmic, inviting to his primal desire which caused him to gently nip at your flesh with his front teeth.

Turning his eyes back to yours, you silently asked him for another kiss with your soft and slow blinking gaze, knowing he wanted to get just as reacquainted as you did.

He obliged, pressing closer to the counter and letting his lips meet yours quickly. His quick change in motion caused you to reach behind you to steady yourself, your hand coming into contact with an item you couldn’t identify until you gasped and pulled away thanks to the smashing sound.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” you whispered quickly, trying to catch your breath. Harry’s eyes turned to take a look at one of the daintier wine glasses he had pulled down from the rack earlier but chose not to use. The item now lay broken against the flooring of his kitchen.

“Really should tidy up before we go up,” he groaned, mouth pressed into the side of your cheek as you surveyed the mess made on his coffee table over the other side of the room. He reluctantly pulled away from you, walking the short distance to the broken glass.

“Watch yourself,” you said, meaning his bare feet around the glass.

Crouching down, Harry started to collate the bigger shards of glass together, stacking them up against the tiles of his kitchen floor. As you peered down, still sitting on his kitchen island, he looked up at you.

“Couldn’t do me a favour? Go an’ grab the dustpan and brush.”

You blinked. Was he alluding that he kept everything in the same place? Given how he’d asked so vaguely, knowing you would understand.

Softly, he smiled up at you and chuckled around his words, “Same place as last time, yes.”

Taking a while to kick into action, you slowly slid off the work surface and let your feet softly pad over to the other side of the kitchen. The third cupboard from the right, on the lower half of the kitchen was where Harry kept items that Anne had brought him. You know, the things that Mum’s knew would be important but somehow never crossed their children’s minds. Regardless of whether their children were grown adults.

Sure enough, there sat the same blue dustpan and brush. The item was as vibrant as the last time you had seen it, in similar fashion. Leaning down you grabbed at it, shutting the cupboard gently using your foot and walked back to Harry.

You handed it off and heard his whispered thanks, as you rested the side of your hip against his cupboards.

“Don’t think I’ve had this out since the last time you so elegantly broke one of my favourite glasses.”

You knew he was messing with you but that didn’t stop the blush of embarrassment, hitting your skin, and filling you with warmth. “I’ll replace it.”

“‘M jokin’, ‘s fine. Only a bit o’ glass-“

His sentence was cut short as the two of you jumped, the sound of a phone filling Harry’s space.

“‘S not mine,” he jutted his lips out, as he pushed himself up from his crouched position and carefully walked towards the bin with his broken glass.

You turned towards the noise that was your phone and how it blared from Harry’s coffee table, where you had placed it earlier. Walking the short distance, you reached for it and was met with a familiar male name.

Biting your bottom lip, you swiped across the phone and pressed it to your ear. His soothing voice greeted you, slightly worried in tone as he breathed a sigh of relief.

Letting your feet take you to the kitchen island again, you responded telling him you were fine and how sorry you were that you hadn’t let him know you had gotten home okay.

From over the other side of the room, you watched as Harry quirked a brow at you while he picked up the empty bottle of wine and wine stained glasses from the coffee table in his lounge.

You weren’t home. You were far from home.

“Who is it?” He mouthed as he got closer, glasses clinking as he placed them onto the work surface of the kitchen island, after discarding the bottle of wine as loudly as possible into the bin.

You pulled the phone away from your ear showing him the name that he had earlier been typing into your Instagram search bar. Under the dim light you could see the slight squint to his eyes and the way his nostrils flared.

He darted his eyes from the phone screen and back to yours, watching as you put the phone back to your ear.

“Yeah I had a great night, ‘m just tired.”

Harry dropped his head, a smirk forming on his lips. You were far from tired and this was nothing more than a moodkill. With his hands pressed to the worktop, he looked up at you as you stood diagonally opposite him.

Eyes glancing down to your left hand that was spread against the work surface, Harry reached for it. The tips of his fingers running gently between the divots of your knuckles, before his hand slipped underneath your fingers and tugged you towards him.

You slowly obliged him, as your eyes moved to his face. “Come to bed,” he mouthed, watching as your top teeth worried at your bottom lip. His right hand moved to slip around to your lower back as you arched, pulling your chest away from his trying to keep his mouth away from the phone.

“Come to bed wi’me,” his voice was a whisper now, not quite loud enough for the person on the other end of the line to hear but a next step up from how he was previously just mouthing his words to you.

As he tried to distract you, he dipped in and out of your conversation which was the most monotonous thing he had ever found himself eavesdropping into.

With your chest open to him, he nosed his way along your skin, head nudging at your hand that held the phone. His lips pulled into a smile as you faked a yawn, clearly trying to politely give the man on the other end a hint that you were done.

Still he heard the drone of this guy, who was now even repeating things he had previously said to try and keep you on the line with him. You weren’t interested though, too preoccupied by the way that Harry was once again pressing kissing to the skin that he could get too.

Before you knew what was happening Harry had clearly had enough.

“We’re tired, pal. Take the hint,” he spoke into the phone that still rested against your ear, his lips finding the bottom end of the receiver. “‘S time for bed.”

You had to pull the handset away from your ear, not wanting to hear his reaction from the sound of Harry's voice. You blindly ended the call, keeping your eyes on your ex-boyfriend, whose green-eyed monster had made itself known.

He helped guide your phone down to his marble countertop and watched as the phone was brought to life with a call. The same name appearing on your screen as he tried to call you back.

Harry didn’t take long to decline the call, quickly turning the phone to silent and placing it face up once he’d finished. Again, it lit to life, this time buzzing against his work surface rather than omitting a jarring noise into the silence the two of you shared.

“‘S a bit creepy in’t it?”

His question lingered as his eyes moved between the phone and you, watching another call ring out. “If he rings again, ‘m gonna answer.”

As expected the phone lit up for the fourth time. However, before Harry could reach for the item you pushed it, causing it to slide against the work surface and away, just enough that it was out of his reach.

Harry clenched his jaw, his muscle pulsing as he looked at you. “‘S he always like tha’?”

“He’s just realised the girl he was dating is in the company of some other bloke.”

“Dating or taken on dates? There’s a difference,” he raised his eyebrows. “‘S a huge difference an’all.”

You stared at him, watching him lower his body to lean against the counter with his elbows and wipe down his face in frustration. Unwarranted at that.

“I don’t like ‘im.”

“Of course you don’t,” you hummed.

Sharply he turned his neck to look at you, “‘s tha’ supposed to mean?”

“That I agree.”

“No,” he frowned. “It was how you said it.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I’m not-“ he cut himself off, sigh heavy. “I’m not saying you can’t.”

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, thinking of how to navigate his way out of this.

“‘M saying that you don’t always have to,” he dropped his voice, slowly standing and letting his itching hands reach for you.

With his hand resting against your ribs, you stayed still. He didn’t guide you anywhere, he waited. Waited on your next move. When he felt your stoic figure relax underneath his touch, his tight chest expanded. Maybe he could talk himself out of this one.

“When we tried this before,” he softly spoke, pulling his hand away from you to motion between you both, “We shared the load, started to become a team.”

“Yeah and look where that got us.”

He felt his lips twitch from your negative deadpan. “‘S got you back ‘ere again tonight so ‘m doing summat right.”

Shaking your head at him, he rolled his lips into his mouth trying to fight his pleased smile. He dropped his eyes to the counter below him as he mumbled his sorry.

“If you were to ask me, I think we did alrigh’.”

“You would say that.”’

You watched as he jutted out his lips, before running his hand down his mouth and facial hair. He leaned on his palm, his eyes taking you in and wishing you would speak.

“My Mum talks about you all the fucking time,”

“Say tha’ like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is when you’re trying to get over someone,” you glanced at him from the corner of your vision.

“Now why would you want to do that?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it,” you were scornful. He shook his head, clearly amused.

“I’ve still got half of your belongings upstairs, if you wan’ ‘em. You have no idea.”

You squinted your eyes at him. Trying to read him. “Appearances aren’t always what they seem. Don’t know how many more times I’ll have to tell you about papers and social media, ‘s all a load of bollocks.”

Standing once more, Harry rolled his shoulders and brushed his hair off his face. Once his hands were at the back of his head, he linked his fingers and turned to look at you. Head resting back on his hands, the two of you held each other’s eyes. Him from the corner of his vision, you dead on. No words passed between the two of you.

“‘M going to bed,” he sighed, dropping his arms and tapping gently against the kitchen counter twice before pushing away.

His body screamed dejected as he walked away, his shoulders sagged and head down as he walked through his home, towards the second floor and his bedroom.

Swallowing thickly, you rolled your lips into your mouth again before you spoke his name. The way you called for him caused Harry to stop his movement, back continuing to face you as he silently waited for your next move after you voiced your plea.

You let your feet take you to him, abandoning your phone on the kitchen island and trying your hardest to ignore the white hot anxiety that overtook your being.

Close enough to touch now, you looked on at your shaking fingers as they gently reached out for him. Your feet took you as close as they could, arm wrapping gently around his abdomen and feeling it quiver with a nervous exhale.

Lips against the linen of his shirt collar as you pushed onto your tiptoes, hoping that the wine stain upon them wouldn’t attach itself to the cream garment. His head dropped forward, exposing the curvature of his neck to you as his hand gently slid over yours and he rested his fingers between the splayed gaps of your own.

Gentle squeeze. Reassuring reminder.

Take your time.

“Come show me this stuff.”

***

There was always something exhilarating about someone leading you upstairs. The different ways in which it could play out. Playful with a swing to your hands, sensual with a gentle tug to keep your close.

The feel of Harry’s hand in yours was always wanted. Every stroke of his thumb against your knuckles or the back of your hand, a reminder of the affection you had been missing.

His eyes looking over his shoulder at you as he came to the bottom step of the second set of stairs. A silent reminder that you could back out at any time.

The floorboards still creaked in the same place as always and part of you hated that you didn’t need him to lead you down the hallway because you knew exactly where his room was.

However, taking yourself to bed never possessed the same majestic undertone as when someone else did.

You were now sitting with your legs tucked underneath you at the end of his bed, rummaging through the box of things that he had neatly packed together for you so they were ready for you to have back if you ever came to collect them.

Every so often you would pull something out to him, showing it and either sharing a story or laughing. As you looked up at him now, showing a tequila shot glass and shaking it suggestively at him, he looked every inch ready to sleep.

Harry was stretched out straight on his bed, his linen shirt still covering his upper body but the buttons were all undone, revealing his chest and stomach to you. Tattoos on display to your eyes that you hadn’t seen for what felt like forever.

The top button of his jeans had been undone as he got comfortable and his ankles were crossed, with his right leg over his left. His eyes were heavily lidded and blinking slower and slower each time you presented him with a new item.

Double chin forming from the way his head was propped up, he spoke deeply in acknowledgement of the glass with the less than elegant design on the side.

“Remember getting through a whole bottle of tequila with that,” he drawled, hands clasping on top of his stomach. “Don’t know why we didn’t just pass the bottle between the two of us.”

“That’s because someone insisted that if we were gonna do it, we had to do it proper.”

“Haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”

“That’s convenient,” you deadpanned knowing that there was probably some truth behind his words given how inebriated you had both been at the time.

Thoughts aside you continued looking into the box to see a worn slogan shirt peering up at you. Pushing aside the half empty bottle of perfume that was once your favourite, you silently admired the tee that you knew didn’t belong to you.

A soft smile pulled itself onto your lips. Sometimes nice boy Harry was unbearable. He’d taken to folding the shirt that you adored as if it were on a shelf in a posh(er) department store than usual. Think more John Lewis than Debenhams.

Slowly you pulled the item from the box and enjoyed the feel of the soft cotton against your fingers. You loved that the shirt’s collar was slightly saggy, a sign of how loved it had been.

Your voice left your throat as more of a dreamy sigh than you imagined. “I loved this shirt,” you spoke as you held it up in front of your face, eyes tracing over the blue slogan of ‘Enjoy health. Eat your honey.” and the cheeky looking bee that was drawn within the circle.

Who didn’t love an innuendo?

Without a second thought, you let the item fall into your lap, hands quickly turning to pull at your black v-neck top and reveal your matching black lace bra underneath.

Harry slapped his hand against his eyes, quickly covering them. The sound caused you to look up at him. “Don’t be so daft, Harry,” you spoke, fighting your smile by rolling your lips into your mouth as you saw him splinter his fingers and look at you through the gap he had created.

“Could give a guy a little warning,” he groaned, continuing to peek over at you.

Shaking your head, you enjoyed the way the cool fabric fell down the skin of your stomach as you covered yourself once more. You knew if you were to turn your head slightly and press your nose to the collar, a mixture of your perfume and his cologne would remain.

You fought the urge however, as you pulled your hair out from underneath the collar and quickly pushed your hand up the back of the shirt to undo your bra.

It was almost second nature for you to remove your underwear to get comfy within your comfier clothes and the sagging of your bra cups away from boobs was always a delightful feeling at the end of any night. Drunk or otherwise.

You pulled at the straps of your bra from underneath the sleeves of your shirt, before diving your hand under the hemline and dropping the item less than gracefully into the box that held your other items.

“Think you’re forgetting who that actually belongs to,” he drawled, head resting against the pillows beneath him now and watching you rummage once more.

“I think you gave up the privilege of wearing this item the minute you dropped it inside this box all neatly folded like you worked a shift at Topshop rather than Manderville’s every Saturday.”

He cackled, head tilted back as he enjoyed your self-righteous indignation and absolute pisstake.

“All Saints was more my thing.”

“That’s because you’re fake indie.”

He was amused as he shook his head over at you with a silent smile. “And being fake indie is exactly why you decided to live on the edge of Camden and not in the thick of Camden itself.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t once tell me that you’d want to raise a family in Hampstead.”

You felt your face heat up at the way he’d completely called your bluff. “That was when I was young and naive.”

“As opposed to us now? Being old and decrepit.”

Again you were silent as you started to put the items around you back into the worn cardboard box.

“Why’re still fuckin’ around wi’that box?”

Your eyes snapped up at him as he kept your eyes. “The only thing you should be fuckin’ around with, is me.”

Raising your eyebrows, you said, “Now who sounds young and naive. Anyway, what happened to you just taking.”

Harry was silent as he took in your words, his body slowly rising from his lounged position and he sat up to approach you. You dropped your gaze down his chest and to his stomach, enjoying the slight rolls of his abdomen as he adopted his new seated position.

His eyes were focused as your gaze found his once more. A soft determination. This sheen to his skin in the lamp lighting of his bedroom, causing him to naturally glow.

Once he was secure in his upright position, closer to you, Harry snatched at the box with one hand and picked it up to sit it down on the floor at his side of the bed.

He then swooped suddenly, hand scooping around your waist and drawing you to him with squealed laughter. His lips fell against your cheek as he shushed you, aiding you as you moved position to get comfortable.

“Remember the first time I had you in this bed?” He asked, chest to chest with you. Your mouth was agape with your quickened breathing, as his lips puckered slightly at the corner of your mouth and he gently leant his nose to yours.

You both watched each other through heavy eyelids, breathing mixed in rising anticipation. A soft nudge of his nose as he asked, “Do yer?”

A nod was all you could muster.

“Was good sex,” he husked, hoodied eyes holding yours. “Was always good sex.”

You hummed in agreement. Feeling the way your nerve endings came alight as you pushed your fingers through the hair at his temple.

Heat flowed through your body, circling in your stomach as his words echoed.

“Still gonna be good sex, ‘f you’ll let me. Better even.”

The faintest smile pulled at your lips, causing your eyes to glisten.

“Eh,” he nudged. “You gonna let me, or tell me otherwise?”

“Personally, think you’re just talking a good game.”

“You know ‘m fucking not.”

Harry pulled you to him, his mouth claiming yours easily. So hungry and intense. Lips that were desperate to show you what you had been missing. Lips that were desperate to wipe away the touch of another, asking you what the fuck you were even thinking in trying it with some other bloke?

Gone was the brushing of lips, faint and fleeting. Harry’s liquid confidence started to come into play as his lips formed into a smile when he gave you his tongue and hummed as he did.

Harry cupped your face as he slanted his mouth over yours, soft moans leaving your throat as you kept him close.

Lips were coaxing, as he groaned between quiet wet smacking sounds that otherwise would have had you cringing.

Now he had you however, how could he part? Your smell was intoxicating to him, as was the touch of your fingers in his hair and nails gently scratching at his scalp. His mewls were catlike when he pressed his wet lips to your skin.

Breathing now more like a pant, it puffed against your elongated neck as he pulled away and made a beeline for your clavicle and then chest, movements slower. Chestnut hair tickled the underside of your chin and caused the faintest of smiles to ghost across your lips from the way it felt.

His nose nudged the collar of his shirt that sat against your body enticingly. The smell of your perfume everywhere to him.

Now lower down you found his forehead was pressed to your clavicle as you felt his teeth playfully tug the cotton between them. A puff of air left your nose as you bit down onto your bottom lip to try and suppressed your giggle.

“Smells like us,” he hummed, mouth breathing hot and heavy against the shirt that sat directly above your nipples. “‘S tha’ good.”

Your only response was the tipping back of your head, fingers carding heavily through the hair at the nape of his neck.

Had he always been this skilful? Vocal, sure. But it never quite hit you like it was doing tonight. His deep hums and moans, his hands spreading so confidently across your back to hold you to him.

And when you cradled the back of his head and pressed that was when you found yourself moaning his name deep from the back of your throat as his mouth gently sucked at your hardened nipples through his beloved shirt.

His name left your lips again, this time in the softest gasp as a small frown hit your eyebrows and your hips started to faintly roll atop his. He moaned gratefully into your chest, his tongue wetting the fabric of his shirt so it clung to your raised nipple.

As he nosed along the cotton, he found your second nipple, his hand quick to raise to the first and squeeze at your breast that had not been forgotten. His touch wanted - you and it - to know that.

This is what you’d been missing so long. A sense of feeling you had buried somewhere else. Blocking out the way he managed to make you feel more alive than anyone else had.

With cheeks hollowed as he suckled, you whispered, “That’s nice.”

His hum of agreement vibrated through your chest as he kept his face pressed against you.

Everything about him became deliberate and slow, his hands now moving underneath your shirt and fingertips gently grazing at soft, warm skin prickling goosebumps in their wake.

Sliding lower his left hand palmed against the back pocket of your jeans, fingers catching against the thick and sewed seams. Hand pressed heavy to aid the soft rock to your hips, tapping lightly to the top of your bum.

“‘M gonna take these off,” he hummed, looking up at you from where his face was still pressed into your chest.

“Are you?”

It felt as if the room spun before you could even comprehend what was happening, a squealed laugh leaving your lips next as your arms tightened around Harry’s shoulders. He lightly lifted and rolled you, your back landing against his mattress gently as your laughter tapered off.

His lips were sponging kisses to your jawline and cheeks, as you felt the backs of his fingers slide gingerly against the exposed skin of your stomach. Slowly you felt the fabric pull away and fall slack against your stomach when he managed to twist the button with one hand, as your arms fell against the mattress and into the pillows that were slightly pressed higher against the headboard.

“Took you long enough,” you goaded, a smirk lacing your lips as you felt Harry pull away and watched him kneel sitting back with his feet against his bum.

His face was a picture, clearly amused, as he swiftly pulled his own shirt away and threw it behind him. Hands slowly trailed back up to the waistband of your jeans as he lightly hovered over you.

His head found your stomach, the soft skin on show from where the tee had ridden up. Soft puckered kiss, he lifted his head and pressed his chin into your stomach.

“Last chance,” he voiced, soft. While he wasn’t willing to forget about it all, regardless of the ache he had between his own legs, you had to be in this with him as much as he was.

Blinking down at him, you moved your hand up to gently push through his hair and without words raised your hips off the bed enough for him to get the message.

The smile that pulled at his lips, was so triumphant you had to knock your head back to stop yourself from chastising him for being full of himself.

Your hands however couldn’t help themselves as they joined Harry while he pulled your trousers down your legs and watched goosebumps rise upon your skin from their exposure to the cold.

Now he was at the end of the bed, you dropped your head to the side to look at him. The way he looked as he carelessly threw your item of clothing over to the chair that sat in the corner of his room.

His eyes slowly came back to you, as he followed his own motion and saw the faintest of smiles dance across your features.

“What yer thinking?”

You were thinking a lot of things. Mainly more so how mystical he looked in the soft glow of the London evening that was creeping in through the haphazard way he had drawn his curtains. Your smile only deepend at how it was more so from the street lamp lights than any full moon, but he didn’t have to know that.

Of course he would want to though, because your smile was more so on show now thanks to the thought in your mind.

Harry shook his head as he fought his own smile, dropping his face slightly to watch his hands as he fiddled with his own jeans.

“Whatever’s got you smiling, ‘s doing nothing for my ego as ‘m undressing m’self in front of yer.”

You knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself, which is why you lightly laughed.

He spoke your name in a pretend warning.

“‘S doin’ everythin’ for you,” you spoke sultry, “Don’t even try it. Got a girl half naked and waiting for you.”

At those words he looked up at you, through his curtains of thick waves that had fallen into his line of vision.

You breathed deeply, eyes unable to move from his captivating stare even though you knew he was practically naked from the waist down. You knew from the way his upper body moved as he pushed down his jeans; you knew from the sound of the clothes bunching around his ankles.

Now you found yourself wondering again. Wondering if he still kept his condoms where he had done last time. Sometimes in the bedside table drawer, other times hidden in the top of his wardrobe.

Were you going to see him twist and turn, get him showing you how white his bum cheeks were in comparison to his infuriatingly evenly tanned thighs and legs? Or was he going to hold your eyes, dip his knee into the bottom of his bed and crawl up you once more so he could grab one from the bedside table.

“Not just any girl,” he finally replied, his knee dipping into the bottom of the bed. You supposed that answered your question.

“No?”

A small shake of his head.

“The girl.”

Harry chuckled, giving himself away as he watched the way you relaxed deeper into the mattress as he found your legs easy to accommodate him.

“I’ve never been the anything,” you emphasised.

With his lips against your cheek, you felt his puffed breath as he responded, “Yea, you fuckin’ have.”

You kept him to you with a hand against the back of his head, fingers woven through his hand unable to not enjoy the feel of his silky locks beneath your touch. Reacquainting yourself with everything that you thought you had lost.

His lips unlatched from yours with a soft, wet sound as your eyes rolled back into your head when he started to trail kisses down your cheek, down your neck once more.

There was no mistaking how greedy they were, his chin knocking yours and his teeth scraping against your skin as he held your jaw with a steady hand in hope of keeping you still beneath him.

Legs moved from where they were open, softly brushing at his sides so your calves wrapped and touched the back of his thighs. The feel of his hairs against your smooth legs becoming a weirdly exhilarating reminder of your closeness once more.

Head buried in your chest, you felt him locate the wet patch against the cotton from his previous play and quickly enclose his mouth once more. Warm hands pushed beneath your body and the mattress, sliding underneath and raising your chest further to his face.

Your mouth fell open as you felt the pressure of his lips and tongue, enclosed around your nipple again, grow stronger. With a hand in his hair once more, you wondered if he was going to take you out of this shirt, or fuck you in it.

As the pressure lessened, with your head pressed into the bed beneath you, you heard the rustling of his nose and face against the shirt. He rubbed his face against you, inhaling and moving his hands closer to your lower back.

Hands in contact with your underwear, you felt him smooth over the fabric of your bum. He pulled at your thigh, before pushing at your knees with a gentle but assured touch.

“If I remember correctly,” he started, voice muffled as his face was still pressed to your breast. “This leg needs to go here, like this. Mm?”

Clammy hand splayed against your thigh, you felt him direct your other leg, “And this one needs to be a bit lower, otherwise you get cramp.”

There was a pause, and you could feel the way his lips were twitching atop the cotton of the tee. Matching yours at the flippant comment that was only funny because it was true.

Humming again, he added, “Keep ‘em like this. Keep me here like this.”

Doing what he asked, you bit back a moan when he moved to fit his palm over you through your underwear. The warmth from it radiating through you, making your throb and giving you the urge to fold your legs in on it.

Tentative strokes were what you received, at first. Up and down, coaxing you and drawing you into him. Then his fingers became more confident, certain in their touch, moving with a sense of familiarity you had been missing.

“‘S this okay?”

His voice was soft, hard to hear over your breathing and the blood starting to rush around your ears. You found yourself nodding, however. Giving him the permission he desired, making his next movement the easiest.

His fingers hooked, slipped underneath the thin piece of fabric and the quiet groan that left his lips only had you moving your legs that bit higher.

“‘S it nice.”

Harry was enticing. From his oozing velvety voice to his careful, barely there touch. You were lost to him. Finding it hard to breath as your body begged for you to be actually - really - touched.

With a heavy swallow, you felt your eyes fall shut with your slow, deep breath and let your head turn to the side, finding the edge of a propped up pillow to shield your torture expression.

“Don’t hide from me,” his voice lazily made itself known, as he looked up from under his brow at you and caused your eyes to drop as you looked down your body. He descended lower and lower, hands pushing up at his tee against your stomach, to reveal your bare skin to him.

Spongy kisses, encased by stubble, pressed into your skin. His fingers never once let up in their tease, touch opening you up for him. The soft twitch of your legs when his fingers landed on your clit, sliding over it.

“Relax for me,” he hummed. “You good… s’it feel good?”

Confident nod, you swallowed again. Tongue pushing between your lips to lick away the dryness.

“Okay wi’this?”

Another nod.

The press of his fingers onto your clit caused you to breathe deeply. A hiss of ‘yes’ as you exhaled.

“Tell me if it’s changed.”

And you knew what he meant. His desire to know if you still liked things the same as before important to him.

You couldn’t help the low and long moan that left your throat. Neither could you stop the lift of your hips from the bed as you twisted your body as he stroked at your clit.

Heavenly ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ were pulled from you. Encased by ‘yeses’ of various pitches. Harry’s nose was buried into the skin of your ribs, having managed to push the tee you still wore to underneath your boobs and in the process expose more of your skin to him.

His mouth sucked against your skin on the inside of your left boob, just at the underside, and from the groan he omitted you knew you were going to be left with an almighty love bite.

��Oh,” you sighed, as you felt his tongue lave at the mark, again nudging upwards and taking the shirt with him. Tongue over your exposed nipple, alert from the cold and due to your aroused state.

Your lower half was warm, fire stoked while he stroked at your clit. A sharply exhaled ‘fuck’ from you had him smiling around your nipple. The last time you had found yourself getting this wet - soaked and slick, the kind that meant your walls were smooth and would pull him right in - had been with him.

A laugh left you from underneath your breath, one not noticed by Harry who was too lost in the feel of you beneath him. The thought of anyone being able to get you this way from an act so virginal was unknown. Of course, he was the exception. Of course.

“Hear tha’?”

So lazy he couldn’t even ask you properly.

“Nice an’ wet.”

The slip of his fingers moving lower had you humming delightfully, legs falling open a bit more as his fingers danced at your entrance. The contrast of the heel of his palm to your clit was welcomed, warm but dry in comparison to heavily wet fingers.

You could feel yourself pulsing as his palm gently rubbed you again, nervous energy had you teetering. Fingers at your center. You wanted them, you wanted him in anyway he would give you himself.

Quiet, apart from staggered breathing, he smiled to himself when he felt your walls give way to him and his two fingers with ease. Your moan was voracious, a clear need apparent as the edges of it died against your dry throat.

He knew it was his name. He had heard it like that before. Plenty of times. Said in the same tone too. Sprinkled with incoherent desire.

“‘S that want you wanted?” He found himself asking. “Should’a just said.”

And you would’ve if you could. But instead your head was tossed back and your toes were curling into the sheets.

These were the moments he has missed. When he really thought about your time apart. The moments where the two of you were so lost in each other that the nonsense that slipped from each of your lips was met with no judgement but rather embraced.

Reacquainting after time apart. Rekindling your desires and unspoken love for one another.

Eyes on your face, he couldn’t quite see you how he would’ve liked but he did nothing to change it. His own want went out of the window in favour of you getting and keeping yours.

The smell of you was everywhere as he dropped his eyes and pushed his face against your boobs once more. A man quite willing to suffocate in his need to want more.

He could feel your falling apart under his experienced touch, relentless and unfleeting now. His fingers curled and with each ‘come hither’ your breathy moans only drove him on.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he spoke through gritted teeth, the tension in his arm burning at his wrist. Mutters of desperate mantras - ‘come on, come on’ - mouthed to your skin.

And you could - like this - you could. But did you want to?

While you were feverishly hot, everywhere, for him - body unable to stop rolling with each pull of his fingers - your head knocked back and softly shook from side to side.

“No,” you moaned lightly, “Not yet… Harry.”

“No?”

His questioning had you dropping your eyes, head still lolled to the side with pouted expression.

Mind still slightly hazy, you stared at him. He was still in his underwear, very obviously hard. Head nudging slightly, you breathed, “Come here.”

Empty. That’s how you felt when he slowly moved his fingers and left you clenching around nothing but the cold air of his bedroom.

His right hand was against your skin, middle and third finger slightly hovering away as they were coated in you and he selfishly didn’t want to lose that to your flesh but rather his tongue.

Legs welcomed him, smoothing around the backs of his thighs once before lifting and using your feet to try to push his underwear down.

Harry let out a noise you hadn’t heard in a while, a mix between a grunt and chuckle. The kind that created an aggravated fire within you.

“‘S not gonna work,” he mumbled, eyes closing as he felt the warmth of you against his clothes bulge. Your one thigh lifting to encourage him to roll onto his back.

And he did, taking him with you. A mess of awkward limbs tangling. With shaky knees you climbed over him, eyes down and taking in his underwear.

A pair of black briefs fit him just right, hugged him and holding his straining cock.

Your eyes slowly rose up his body, his chest lifting and falling with heavy breathing as his chin softened while he looked down at you with his fingers just about leaving his mouth from where he’d cleaned your arousal off of them.

You felt his eyes peering at you as you lowered down, nose first teasing against the waistband of his underwear before you found your lips pressed kisses to the tops of his thighs. Enjoying a little bit too much the feel of his leg hair against your nose and lips.

Hand lifted, it blindly sought out the waistline of his pants and allowed fingers to slip inside to pull down the material.

Just about past his thighs, you locked eyes with Harry. His soft blinking gaze and content smile had you grinning impishly, knowing in the faintly lit room he would most likely be able to make out the blush upon your skin.

You’d saw but more arousingly heard his cock move as the briefs which encased it gave way and it fell back, heavy, against Harry’s lower abdomen. And that was where it lay, next to the hair in Harry’s stomach and down to his pubic region.

Small crawl to get you better situated, you flipped some of your hair over to your opposite shoulder and felt him touch the back of your head with a barely there graze as you licked up the underside of his cock.

“Shit, darling,” he breathed, voice blissful above you but filled with a rawness only brought on by sexual vulnerability.

Looking up his body, you could see the grin that had made its way to his lips. His teeth quick to bite it away, with little to no avail.

You licked again, mouth moving lower to delicately suck one of his balls into your mouth.

The groan that left him was husky, right from the back of his throat. The kind that gave you shivers from how unguarded it was. His legs widened against the bed, your eyes diverted to his thighs from his movement. How thick they looked as they flattened beneath you on his bed.

Wrapping your hand around him, you ran your thumb over the head of his cock. Up and down. Slowly taking in every movement and what it did to him. Just like you remembered.

“‘S this right?” You asked, hand and mouth working him and his balls over. Looking up once more you watched him hum, with the smallest of nods. His lips were rolled into his mouth, dimples prominent as they dipped into his cheeks.

His nostrils flared as he breathed and his hair had started to fall across his forehead from how he’d been dipping his head back into the pillows beneath him.

“Squeeze me ‘ere,” he reminded you, voice holding a slight tremble, his hand encasing yours and encouraging a tighter hold as he leisurely dragged both his and your hand up and down his cock. “Slowly- tha’s it.”

You pulsed between your thighs as you watched him moving your hand with his, each downward pull showing his glistening head more and more. Heavy swallow, you knew he was holding back and you would be lying if you said the visual wasn’t encouraging you to take him in your mouth properly.

Almost like second nature you did exactly that. Licking at your lips as you lifted up and wrapped your lips around his exposed tip. When his hand faltered from the pleased sound you voiced now you were on him, you were able to slip from under his grip and felt him continue to wank as you suckled so teasingly.

With each bob of your head, you felt his hand pull away more, as your mouth and jaw stretched around his hard cock.

“Yea’,” he groused, deeply when his hand fell to give way to your mouth and move to shift your curtaining hair. Harry rolled his hips up gently, eager to get the last bit of him down your throat. Old him would’ve voiced it too, but he felt this moment didn’t call for that.

He softly fucked your face, if there were such a thing. The nudges of his cock warming through your core as the throbbing sensation that had been lingering between your legs only grew.

Harry fought against himself to make you gag, teetering on it with each raise of his hips as his glassy eyes barely focused on you. Too engrossed in the filth he wished to voice.

“God, look at you,” he dropped his head back. Ironic really. Unable to continue looking as he said it. It was tame in comparison to how he wanted to speak.

So, he laughed. Breathy at first, before becoming a little bit louder. You lips twitching into a smile as you lifted off of him and gently tugged before letting it fall and bounce proudly erect. Kissing up his stomach and placing your knees either side of his hips.

He had almost forgotten you weren’t completely naked until you sat on top of him covered up. Eyes too taken by your face to care, as you blinked down at him with a doe-eyed expression that made him want to lap you up in any way he could have you.

His right hand pulled you down to him, lips greedy against yours as his left hand found the top of your bum cheek, trying to blindly find his cock and guide him into you regardless of knowing it wouldn’t work.

“Like this?” He asked as his lips hovered at the corner of yours, wanting to know if you wanted it this way. “How’d you wan’ it?”

“On top.”

“Me?”

Your voices were breathy as you spoke around the faintest of kisses. Both eager to start from the feel of you both so close to each other.

The faintest of nods was given to him and it was all it took for him to roll the both of you, further continuing to ruckle up the bedsheet beneath you.

“Do I need one?”

And you knew you should be responsible and not shake your head no at his ambiguous mention of protection. All rushed and breathy, chest heavy as he exhaled in a nervous rush, but you just wanted him. Bare and in you.

Underwear was quickly removed before you’re resumed your position.

He watched you softly as you shook your head no, Harry pushing the shirt up under your boobs, your arms wrapping around his neck as he continued to kiss at your jaw and cheeks.

“Planning on staying over?”

Feeling him shift up and jar his head back, just enough to get a good look at you, you stared at him not knowing how to respond. It was practically morning now, so hadn’t you already?

His hands moved your legs as you thought, his one holding you where he needed you to be.

“Don’t think ‘bout it for too long, darling,” he joked nudging his nose gently against you as he watched the way your lips went against you, smiling at his words.

“Let me know how long we can go for,” he added, gently taking his cock that was sprung and bobbing between you into his hand. He looked down and tapped it to your wetness, sliding it down with a press of his fingers to the topside of his shiny cock to line himself up.

“Gonna let me have you all night.”

Your breathing picked up, chest trembling slightly at how much more of a statement those words sounded than a question. An amorous glance looked back at him, slow blinking and head lolled gently to the side.

“Eh? Sleep in the mornin’?”

A deep and shaky breath had your mouth falling, your eyes slowly shutting as you felt him push in. You were right when you thought about how easily you would take him earlier. Body crying out for a good fuck.

“Fuck me,” he groaned deeply, head dropping forward and hair hanging down. You reached for him, wanting to see his face.

Harry obliged you, his face turning to find your wrist and pressing a chaste kiss to your skin. “Missed havin’ you like this,” he breathed. Quick bite down to his bottom lips, nostrils flared.

“‘S tight.”

He knew the remark was boyish. Unable to stop himself as he eased out and rolled his hips back into yours. Each push and pull giving you a little more of him. Deep frown etched between his eyebrows as his breath caught in his throat, mouth slightly fallen and lips starting to dry.

“Haven’t-“ your voice croaked, head dipping into the pillow beneath you.

Haven’t slept with anyone in a while. Haven’t slept with anyone since you last slept with him. Haven’t had the desire to.

He hummed in agreement as the two of you felt the words fall away from you both. Harry’s concentration firmly on each roll of his hips as he gave you more of him. The rhythm he set being one that you could only describe as intimate. Familiar.

He was warm on top of you as he alternated between grinding dips of his hips, thrusts that were tantalisingly slow, making your hips roll up to meet him and causing him to smile at how you wanted it.

He had to voice it. “You want it, don’t you?”

He only knew so easily because he did too. He had done the minute he fucked the whole thing up and let you slip away with his dwindling text messages in response and shorter phone calls every time you had a chance.

Your hand glided to the back of his head, the other down to his bum as you encouraged him to give you his entire weight. He was close but you want him closer. Close was never close enough.

Was that enough to answer his question of wanting it, wanting him?

Squeezing at his bum, you fought the urge you had to give him a slap, too caught up into the heavy groan that moulded into your face as he pressed his nose to your skin.

“You make me good,” he lowly gruffed against your cheek, his hand trailing down to take yours from his bum.

Fingers laced and pressed against the mattress upon which you lay, you tilted your head back and pressed it harder into the pillow beneath you. You keened and mewled beneath him, breathy noises of indecipherable words as the head of his cock bumps your spot inside.

“You make me feel good.”

You were taken by his gasp, how desperate he sounded as he hiked your leg higher, wanting you to spread yourself open for him. His hips don’t give you much choice other than to play along as he moved with an assiduity you had never found with any other man.

He allowed you to feel every inch of him going in, pulling out and going back in. Teasing himself and you with a slow and measured pace that had you passionately panting underneath him.

“No one gets it like this.”

Looking at him with heavy-lidded vision, you wove your fingers through his hair and tugged. His face contorted blissfully, breath catching in his throat before it heaved out of his mouth as his chest forced him to exhale.

You were nodding, agreeing with him. No one had you like this. Him like this. It like this. Sweltering and sticky.

Teeth gritted, he grunted as he thrusts grew heavier now with more conviction behind their motion.

“Deeper,” you gasped, “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

His pelvis was heavy against yours now, making it difficult for you to lift and roll your hips to meet his thrusts. And he knew you loved it like this, he still knew that.

Legs practically pushed to your chest, held there by your own fruition as they rocked and rubbed up against his fleshy sides cradling him to you, feet bobbing in the air with toes curled.

The sensual roll he was giving you caused the grip of your fingers to go slack against his head. You could feel him smiling against your skin, as your breath hitched in your throat and your hand squeezed at his.

“Touch my arse,” he moaned, sliding his hand out of yours and breathing in quick succession until your hand met his bum cheek once more.

This time you didn’t falter, gently tapping and feeling the tension to his thrusts as he clenched. Quick squeeze and nails digging in creating crescent moons against his white bits. “Yeah darlin’, know I like it like tha’.”

Head turned to the side, you messily brought your mouths together. He chuckled as you broke away, probably from the words he’d just spoken. Laughter dying down into a hum as your feet wrapped around his lower back.

His lips were dry as they met yours, too caught up in how his mouth hung open, to make them wet and inviting, as his need to breathe was evident.

“No ones like you,” you admitted. “No one comes close.”

He revelled in the whine of your last word, how it had your back arching and allowed him to wind his hand around you to lift your bum slightly to encourage your hips to continue meeting his.

He knew you were tired, the breathy whines that were spoken up towards the ceiling were not lost on him. And he knew he had to keep going, to give it to you how you deserved. To make up for the lost time, to say sorry for ‘being a bit of a dick’. A lot of a dick.

When you knocked your head back, your eyes were unable to concentrate and he was mesmerised by the visual of complete, unadulterated lust that was present on your features. Hair sticking to your temples from your exertion and face void of any concern.

“Make me come,” you whispered your plea, feeling him bury his face into your neck and drop himself down flush to you. With one hand woven through the hair on the back of his head, your other stayed at him bum feeling the grind of his groin against yours as he lay on you.

He was sensual now, if not a little tired himself, as his breathing left his mouth in hot pants against the side of your neck. You could feel yourself beginning to flush from the heaviness of his body as you both rocked from the force of his motions and the fullness of him above you.

With rustling sheets and sounds of grunts, your cooed ‘oh’ left you, as you felt the motion of Harry’s hips pickup pace. Your fingers clawed into his hair, lifting the strands and softly pulling as your body ached in the most delectable way.

Harry groaned around a smile, muffled by your skin as he could feel his stomach start to tighten; his orgasm impending. He tried to hold off as much as he could, eager to watch you come undone first in the best way he could as he was rendered speechless and breathless alongside it.

Instead you were both a mess of tangled limbs, with rocking motions so vigorous that you felt yourself moving up the bed. A symphony of noises - slapping skin, feeble grunts and creaking bed.

Harry wheezed, knowing he sounded pathetic by too caught up to care. Through hooded eyes you caught sight of his mouth falling agape before he ground his teeth together as his thrusts heavily rolled into you, nudging your entire body.

Your mouth fell as his name unashamedly fell from your lips. Demandingly, but in a juxtaposed whisper, you told him to give it to you.

“I am,” he whispered. “Oh, I am, darling- Mmhm.“

You whimpered, feeling each breath get harder to produce as your abdomen began to tighten and your chest heave. “I’m coming,” you hastily whispered. Voice nothing more than a pant.

Looking up at Harry, you watched his bottom lip become captive to his teeth, as his nostrils flared while he breathed. His thrusts were at their heaviest now, wetter and sloppier but getting the job done.

“Gonna- oh.”

This was the loudest you’d been in a while. Moans long and dying off into wordless bliss as your muscles tensed and your orgasm rolled through you. Leaving you as nothing more than cloudy thoughts, and a warm, floaty body.

You felt the bounce of his laugh against his skin from his breath, as he continued to move above you and moulded you into nothing but a high-pitched mess as he wouldn’t stop.

Body falling slightly slack, relaxed and pliant to the bed, you felt Harry move his face into your neck and nudge his hips once more. His ruts were less rhythmic, rough grunts and indecipherable slurring only matching his pending euphoria.

With his final, heavily thrust, his hips slammed to a stop against yours. Your breathing stuttered as you held him to you, hands moving over his shuddering shoulders and ears listening to his muffled groans which vibrated through you.

“Yea’,” he drawled. Low from the back of his throat. “Yes.”

***

Sunday mornings were made to be slow. To bask in the stillness. To hear nothing but the blood that was rushing through your ears.

It was far too bright to be considered early morning. Not with the winter months looming.

You stretched your limbs, listening for the crack of your back as your hands reached for the t-shirt that was still awkwardly bunched up to your armpits.

Rolling your body slightly you reached for the hem and pulled it down, letting your head fall to the side to see an empty bed which allowed a sense of regret to creep into your morning thoughts. Blinking slowly, you almost missed the sound of the bedroom door gently bouncing against the wall.

A hushed, “bollocks” spat out for the other side of the wood causing your lips to twitch upwards in a smile.

A pause came to Harry’s movements as he caught your eye in nothing more than a pair of fresh underwear and mismatched mugs in each hand.

“Stayed the night,” he hummed, eyes softly shining. A soft smile pulled onto your lips as he left a cup of tea closer to your side of the bed and you watched him start to blow gently at the lip of his own mug. With his mouth about to take a sip, he asked, “Fancy staying another?”

#harry styles #harry styles smut #rekindled fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles fic #harry fic #Harry x reader #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 3 years

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The Long Con Part Two

Previous Part | Masterlist | Next Part Pairing: Marcus Pike x Reader Rating: T Notes: Thanks for all of the encouragement on the first couple of parts of this 🥰💕 I hope y’all had a good week! 💖 Warnings: Cursing; some angst Summary: “Shitty liars need to practice, Pike.”

“Alright, I’ve got a list,” You said, shrugging off your bag and setting it down beside Marcus’ couch. “A list?” Marcus repeated, coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water for you, “Of what?” “Thank you-- Things that we need to sort out before we get to Austin. Look, you’re a shitty liar, right? Your words, I’m paraphrasing,” You tacked on, reaching into your bag and pulling out your notebook and a pen.

“Uh-huh,” Marcus agreed amusedly. “Right, so hopefully if we sort out our details now, you won’t feel so freaked when we’re down there. And you won’t be trying to cobble together facts on the fly. That would get incredibly messy— especially if we’re going to pull this off all week.” “A full week of lying to my family,” Marcus sighed, “Talk about a long con, huh?” You glanced up at him from under your lashes, amused. “God, you’re such a boy scout. And technically you’ve already lied to them, you started the second you told Marnie that you were bringing me— though that’s technically not a lie anymore. Just...Don’t think about it as lying, pretend you’re undercover or something,” You shrugged, flipping your notebook over to your list of questions. “So I’d be lying to myself about the lie? Isn’t that compounding it?” “You’re overthinking it, Agent.” “You might want to start calling me Marcus.” “Right,” You muttered, “I will...Remember to do that.” “So what’s on the list?” Your eyes darted up from your list as you watched Marcus shrug out of his suit jacket. You’d seen Pike in less-than-pristine states before, especially throughout the Coleman case. You’d seen him with his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up, and when you were half-tweaked on caffeine in your cramped office, it was… more than a little distracting. You leaned forward, picking up the glass and taking a pull from it before setting it down and settling back again. “Basics first,” You said, “How we met. I say we stick with ‘work’.” “That’s not a lie.” “I know, I thought you’d like that.” “I do.” “Okay. How long have we been together?” “Uh...Few months at least-- Five?” “I can handle five,” You jotted it down, “How come you haven’t mentioned me to them before?” You glanced over at Marcus, smiling a little when you saw his panicked expression. “Or have you gotten this one already?” You added. “No, I haven’t-- Work has been busy? Again, I think that would be sufficient, so-- Hang on.” You raised your brows as Marcus leaned back against his couch. You could practically hear the gears turning in his head. “What’s happening over there?” You asked. “We should change how long we’ve been together to...Maybe two or three months? If we’d been together for five and I hadn’t said anything, my family would be very suspicious.” You nodded, scribbling out ‘5’ and writing ‘2-3’. “‘Kay. Are there any significant past relationships - serious girlfriends, fiancés that I should know about? I don’t need full details, just, like, broad strokes so that if someone mentions something, I’m not completely in the dark.” “One ex-wife, one ex-fiancé,” Marcus answered without hesitation. You nodded a little, jotting that down, and stilled when he added, “My ex-wife will be at the wedding.” “Good to know. Is that contentious?” “No,” Marcus shook his head, “No, it ended amicably.” You considered Marcus, his puppy-dog eyes, soft smile and kind nature, and you couldn’t imagine it ending any other way. “She’s still close to my family,” He tacked on. “Oh,” You laughed a little, “Great. That’s gonna be fun for me.” “What do you mean?” Marcus frowned. You shot him a look. “Your family is still close to your ex-wife. You’re bringing a new girlfriend home. You don’t think this could get a little tense? Or is your entire family just as nice as you are?” Your brows rose as Marcus laughed a little, his head ducking bashfully at the question. “We try not to judge,” he conceded, shrugging, “I’ve brought a couple of other people home since the divorce. They’re not going to jump to conclusions.” You hummed, glancing further down your list. Your stomach twisted at one question, but it was one that you knew that you had to ask. “Speaking of jumping to conclusions,” You shifted in your seat, “Is there anyone in your family that might run a background check on me?” “A background check?” “Yeah,” You nodded, “I mean, I know my records are sealed and wouldn’t pop if someone ran a normal background check on me, but if anyone in your family is in law enforcement like you and...And went poking?” “No, they wouldn’t,” Marcus shook his head. “You sure?” “I’m positive.” You lowered your eyes, biting the inside of your cheek to stopper asking for a third reassurance as you jotted the note down. “...You don’t trust easily, do you?” Marcus asked softly. The question turned your blood icy for a moment. But for as much ire as it raised in you, you were careful not to take offense. You knew that he wasn’t trying to get a rise out of you - you were doing the guy a favor, and it would be pretty ill-advised of the man to piss you off at this point. “What ever gave you that idea?” You teased instead, giving him a look out of the corner of your eye. Marcus’ lips twitched with a smile and you returned it. “Alright,” You added, looking through the rest of your list, “Let’s see what else we’ve got before we start drilling this stuff.”

“Drilling?” “Shitty liars need to practice, Pike.” “Marcus.” “Hey, it was better than ‘Agent’.” “At least I’m not the only one that needs practice.” --

“Run it by me again,” You requested, tucking one leg up under yourself and leaning back against the arm of the couch. Marcus sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face. He’d ditched the tie, had popped the top few buttons of his shirt, and his sleeves had been rolled up around his elbows. The man looked a little haggard - it was precious. He straightened up, brow scrunching before his head tipped to the side just a little. “Okay. Okay, we met a year ago when I moved to D.C... You work with the Bureau, assisting on cases, mostly art forgeries.” You nodded encouragingly, waving him on. “We started dating two and a half months ago,” He’d settled on that, finally, not wanting to pick two or three, “After we spent so much time together on the Coleman case. You’re an art history professor, you...Have been engaged twice before,” He added, pointing a finger at you. You rolled your eyes a little bit. “Keep going,” You ordered. You raised a brow as Marcus’ brow furrowed a little more, his head turning just a bit. “You don’t have any siblings, you’re not close to your family, and we have not set any plans for the future in stone...Yet.” “Why do you keep tacking on that ‘yet’?” “Because my family knows me. They know I think about those things, and they know I don’t get into relationships unless I really think there’s something there. If they feel me pulling back on that, they’ll think it’s because I’m worried about scaring you off.” “You’re bringing me home not only to meet your family, but to stay there for a week and for a wedding-- which your entire family will be attending. I think that’s a healthy fear,” You retorted. Marcus smiled a little bit, raising his hand in concession. “How’d I do?” He asked. “Much better. You didn’t close your eyes halfway through to remember the details and you stopped ticking things off on your fingers. You do this thing, though, when you’re getting ready to lie, it’s like watching someone wind up for a pitch.” “What do I do?” “You do this--” You imitated Marcus’ furrowed brow and tilted head, “It’s subtle, but you always do it.” “You think my family’ll notice?” “Only if you play poker with them.” Marcus chuckled, slouching back against the arm of the couch and scrubbing his hand over his face. “God, I’m beat,” He muttered. You nodded a little, shutting your notebook and getting ready to tell Marcus that you would get out of his hair. “Wanna go get some dinner?” Was his next question. -- “Did you seriously just order pancakes?” You asked, brows raised. You’d wound up at a diner not too far from Marcus’ apartment - somewhere where the staff seemed to know and were very fond of him. “Yeah,” Marcus nodded firmly, “Dinner is the best time for breakfast.” You chuckled a little, reaching out and taking up your soda. “So, engaged twice?” He asked. You rolled your eyes a little. “Once in college, when I was young and...Quite stupid,” You admitted, “And then once a couple of years ago.” “What happened the second time, if you don’t...Mind?” Marcus cringed a little as he asked. It took you a moment to answer, and he rushed to add, “You don’t have to tell me.” You shook your head. “It’s okay,” You promised, “I, um… I told them that I had a record.” Marcus’ expression softened. “You hadn’t told them before?” “We moved really fast, which I usually don’t when it comes to relationships. I don’t know, usually that stuff is always on my mind when I’m with someone, but with them it never really felt like it mattered. When I did tell them, though, it…” Your eyes lowered to the table as regret twisted in your stomach, “It broke everything.” “Did you tell them what happened?” “They didn’t give me the chance.” The two of you were quiet for a few moments - Marcus digesting this information as you sat in the swirl of bitterness that it had dredged up. “Anyway,” You shook your head, drawing the both of you out of it, “Guess it shouldn’t really matter that they left when they did. I realized later that, given their reaction, they were going to leave no matter when I told them… How much of that you disclose to your family is up to you.” Marcus didn’t say anything for a few moments, searching your face. “Know what I never understood?” He finally asked. “What?” “Why they never nailed any of the people buying from you or your grandmother.” You shot him a skeptical look. “You know that it’s not punishable by law to buy a forgery or be a rich piece of shit.” “You were a kid,” Marcus frowned. You considered this for a moment, directing your eyes to the ceiling to find the best way to order your thoughts. “...I was a minor,” You contended, “But I was old enough to know that what we were doing was wrong. I… I knew that we were duping people, I knew that it was illegal. I knew the paintings were forgeries, and I knew that the people that we were dealing with were dangerous. I’m just lucky I wasn’t tried as an adult.” “You were raised to do all of that and then left hung out to dry by the person that was supposed to protect you,” Marcus argued quietly. You swallowed thickly, hurriedly looking to the table as you felt tears spring up in your eyes. You tried not to think about these things most days. And for Marcus to have this level of empathy, of understanding...You were sure that the man had glanced through your case file at some point when he started working with you, but hadn’t expected this. Most people didn’t look too far past what you were doing to try and understand how you’d come to be in your position. But then, most people weren’t Marcus. “...No wonder I don’t trust easy, huh?” You tried to joke after you’d blinked the tears away and lifted your eyes back to his, a thin smile on your lips. Before he could say another word on the matter, the food arrived.

The two of you tucked in quietly, After a few minutes, you nudged his foot with yours.

“Tell me about Marnie? And her fiancé, um… Hazel, right?” You requested.

Marcus’ face pulled with a fond smile, and you felt ease wash over you again. -- “So, just let me know what the wedding colors are so I don’t wind up wearing a dress that matches them and we should be all good,” You reached for your bag as Marcus pulled his car up in front of your apartment building. “Sure thing.” “And if you think of anything else that your family might ask about us, you know, so we can plan ahead.” “I will.” “Okay-- Oh! Uh… Are you a big PDA guy? Like, is that something your family’s going to expect?” “I tend to be kinda touchy, yeah, but I can tone it down.” “Well, what are we talking about here? Hand-holding, hugging?” “Yeah,” He nodded, “And probably a hand on your shoulder or your back, maybe a kiss on your cheek or forehead or…” Anticipation thrummed through you as his gaze darted to your lips. “‘Kay,” You nodded a little, feeling your heartbeat tick up in your chest. “We don’t have to--” Marcus started to reassure, but you waved him off. “It’s totally fine,” You reassured him, “I trust you.” Marcus smiled at you, a gentle smile overtaking his lips. “Glad to hear it. I’ll get you those wedding colors as soon as I can.” “Thanks,” You smiled, “Night, Marcus.” “Goodnight,” He chuckled as you got out of the car. Tag list: @hufflepuffing-all-day-long ; @spideysimpossiblegirl ; @blueeyesatnight ; @elen-aranel ; @yespolkadotkitty ; @artsymaddie ; @phoenixhalliwell ; @lunaserenade ; @winniedaboo ; @empress-palpat1ne ; @randomness501 ; @nutmeg-20 ; @leonieb ; @the-feckless-wonder ; @lou-la-lou ; @captain-jebi ; @supernaturalgirl ; @naturenebula21 ; @evelynseventyr ; @giselatropicana

#The Long Con #Marcus Pike x Reader #Marcus Pike x You #Marcus Pike/Reader #Marcus Pike Fic #Marcus Pike Imagine

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system-of-a-feather · 2 years

Note

On topic of moon knight, I tried to searched it first but can't seems to find the answer....so I decided to ask you I hope you don't mind.

What do you think when people especially singlets ship the alters in both romantic and/or sexual way? Since Marc x Steven is gaining more attention after Eps 5.

I heard that dating between alters are actually a thing but I kinda want to know your thought.

Man, I'mma out myself, but I fucking ship Marc X Steven. I'm not a mega stan over it cause like, I don't really get uber into ships anymore, but if you know my personal blog I will sip that tea if I see art or text posts on it. It's beautiful, hilarious, I love it man. It's a quality ship.

And with that being said, for the most part I have absolutely no issue with it obviously. Dating between alters is actually relatively common and I think it often reflects either A) self love or B) a need / comfort in having someone care for you which is commonly something you don't really get in lives that end up with someone developing DID.

All sorts of elaborate relationships can form between parts, like if it can happen between two people, it can happen between two parts. How that dynamic works in practice is obviously going to be different when you share the same body, but I personally find that building very human, very personal relationships between parts is a very helpful and very key aspect of learning to live healthily and happily with the disorder - both in terms of going towards final fusion AND functional multiplicity.

I think some might say that doing so much increase differentiation and division between parts or make it harder to fuse due to this or that and thus it isn't conducive to final fusion, but as a system that is like 98% likely going towards final fusion, its done us a lot.

Either way, we've had like... two formal relationships and one "its complicated" in the past - with one of the formal relationships ending up in amicable break up (that was me and Aderis from waaay back when we were teens) and being on two years strong. .... and ironically, the ones that are two years strong actually are hilariously like Marc and Steven now that I'm thinking about it. Both of those parts are relatively private of their personal / internal lives and while they don't mind us talking about it, out of respect I'm not gonna call names, but I do find that a large reason I like Marc and Steven XD Reminds me of my "parents" as we jokingly call them.

Honestly though, all sorts of dynamics between parts can form and so "This is my husband Marc and his boyfriend Steven" is like 10/10.

With that being said, I do have to give a small caveat that I *do* have a bit of a problem with people sexualizing the disorder ('uwu the local unhinged man'; like, can we not call mentally ill people unhinged thanks) or making it into something a lot more weird than it like.... actually is. I haven't seen too much of that specifically about Marc X Steven, though I'm sure its there (I don't like, run around in the tags) because people just are *like that* with systems sometimes

A few additional loose details and thought though:

It is absolutely not selfcest or whatever. I get why some might think that, but no.

IF they were established to believe they were literal brothers / identify as literal brothers, a case could be made that it might be weird in terms of 'incest'; however even then there is a case that it isn't on the account that being brothers in terms of DID is a lot more of an 'identifying' than 'literally brothers'. This isn't applicable anyways to Marc X Steven since they aren't thought to be / established to see themselves as literal siblings.

TLDR: I not only am fine with it, but I like Marc X Steven and I don't mind singlets liking it too; just as long as they aren't being weird about it or sexualizing a disorder based on childhood trauma.

#alter: riku #marc x steven #steven x marc #marcsteven #moon knight #moon knight tw #mk tw #incest mention #selfcest ention #ask #asks

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alottanothing · 3 years

Text

Kismet

Summary: Evie prepares a meal for the stranger who helped her and finds herself more than a little smitten.

Previous Part: Hope

Word Count: 5707

Warnings: Language

Tag List: @ramilicious, @txmel, @edteche2, @gloriousdarkangelsworld, @diasimar, @xmxisxforxmaybe (Let me know if I missed you, or if you would like to be added to the tag list)

A/N: Okay, I almost didn't get this up today because I was up most of the night sewing kilts for Highland Weekend at the Ohio Renfiare. BUT I stayed awake and did my final read-through, so this should be mostly okay. I skipped a couple steps in my editing to get this up on time but I think, for the most part, it's okay. If you see a grammatical booboo, just ignore it, I'll get in here sometime this week with my other two editing steps and find it, then repost this. Capisce? Okay, cool...now. I hope you enjoy it, I also hope my trying to phonetically write Mer's accent doesn't get too annoying. I know you really shouldn't write accents, but I think it helps add to the characters. And I do try to keep it to a minimum so it doesn't get annoying. Thanks for the love the first part received last month! I know waiting so long between updates is a bit sad after weekly updates with LtR. But life is busy right now and once a month is all can guarantee.

Jonny did not know how to keep a house.

In fact, Jonny did not know how to do much more than drink, argue, and get into fights. He was nothing but a thorn in Evie's side—never mind how much she needed him for a place to lay her head. A necessary thorn was still a thorn. Given the opportunity, she would rip it out as soon as she could and dress the wound promptly so she was finally able to heal better. She stayed only because she had no other choice. And every time Jonny raised his voice or stumbled in reeking of alcohol and red-faced, Evie could hear her best friend's warning in her head. Cynthia had begged her not to go with him, but she hadn't listened.

Oh, how she wished she had.

Luckily, Jonny wasn't the kind of man who liked to stay home which eased the ache of the ever-present thorn in her side. Whatever money he did have, he spent out on the town—the town being New Orleans. Like Evie, Jonny had been born and raised in the Big Apple, the noise and the chaos was part of him. As such, he hadn't taken to the quiet suburban life Bridge City offered as well as Evie. She liked the quiet, easy flow of the sleepy town. Her housemate loathed his new home. He thrived in disarray, thus, he found a group of like-minded young men to run amok with in the neighboring metropolis every chance he got.

If Jonny had been any sort of amicable company, the notion of him leaving most every night to wreak havoc several miles away would have been upsetting. Thankfully, his penchant for city life meant a good portion of Evie's days were spent out from under Jonny's tyranny. The hours he was gone were blissful and calm, and she relished in them. Whether she was creating art or tending to chores around the old house, Evie didn't care as long as Jonny wasn't there—never mind how lonely the routine often was.

Evie had never gotten the chance to meet Jonny's maternal grandmother, though she suspected she would have liked to. Unlike her grandson, she seemed like any other sweet elderly woman judging by the furnishings she'd left behind. There were dozens of lace doilies, and table cloths with soft patterns, decretive china even, but it was the plethora of photos the old woman kept that told Evie she'd carried a kindly heart. All of them were kept in pristine albums or intricate frames; they were the only barbles that seemed to have been cleaned or dusted with any regularity which spoke of how much she must have treasured them. Evie loved those tiny trinkets and black and white memories. It didn't matter that they were not her legacy of family heirlooms to keep, she adored them anyway.

She couldn't count the number of times she'd replaced a broken frame that had fallen victim to Jonny's drunken belligerence or scrubbed tirelessly at a stain he'd left on the patterned tablecloths. It proved to be a hefty undertaking, but dwelling in the fantasies of someone else's history let her forget the grief of her own. She was willing to sacrifice a little elbow grease if it allowed her mind to roam away from the shadow that never really seemed to vanish.

For all the effort Evie put in on the interior, the cottage held little in the way of curb appeal. The porch was sunken in the middle, the paint was peeling off in chunks, and the yard was mostly weeds. Worst, however, was the screen door which squeaked so loudly, every dog in the neighborhood howled in protest every time someone crossed the threshold. The outside needed love that Evie simply didn't have the energy to lend. Despite the grit, however, the foundations were sturdy enough that she didn't worry. The cottage proved to be stronger than she looked—a feat Evie felt she had in common with the old house. And while it was a swell enough place to rest her head, it never truly felt like home. Home was somewhere safe, and as long as Jonny lived under that roof she wasn't safe. Not really.

Fortunately, Jonny wasn't home when Evie returned after her run-in with Mr. Shelton—Mer, she corrected herself with a hint of a giddy smile. Without her housemate there, her evening promised to be hopeful instead of lonely, and she wasted no time in figuring out what to make for dinner.

With her red pumps replaced by her worn-in slippers and her blue checkered apron secured around her waist, she set a pot of water to boil and dialed the phone conveniently located in the kitchen. Every evening she called her sister-in-law to pass the time and keep up on unimportant gossip back home; this time, however, Evie was excited to finally have some good news to share.

"You got the job, didn't you?" Cynthia Clarke asked on the other end, sounding hopeful. "I knew you would."

Evie grinned, still amazed how the sound of Cyn's voice always seemed to settle some of the ever-present anxieties buzzing in her head. She missed her friend so much.

"I didn't even say yes."

"Did you or did you not get the job?" Cynthia pressed.

"I did," Evie confirmed and her smile grew hearing her friend cheer on the other end of the phone.

"See! I knew it." Cynthia said. "My gut feeling is always right."

Evie rolled her eyes and shook her head fondly.

"I think I'm gonna like working there too, so that's good." she mused as she stood at the stove, eyeing the pot of water she’d set to boil.

"That's so great, Ev. I'm so proud of you." Cynthia paused before continuing. "So, what are you up to tonight? Avoiding Jonny?"

"Sorta," Evie nodded even though she knew her friend wouldn't see.

As she continued to watch her cooking pot of water she told Cynthia all about her trouble with Jonny's car and the man who'd been so kind to help her.

"Wait. You invited the stranger over who fixed the car?" Concern was heavy in Cyn's voice, and Evie half expected a lecture to follow.

Despite knowing each other since childhood, Cynthia had taken on the role of her protector since Evie's family was no longer in the picture. The war had claimed Evie's father, and brother—although they'd never found her brother, Jimmy after he disappeared behind enemy lines. Evie never lost hope that Jimmy would one day be found, Cynthia though, was certain her husband was never coming home. After Cyn’s brother, Charlie, died at Normandy Cynthia had difficulty believing anyone was going to make it home. As for Evie's mother, losing a child and her husband to the war was too much for her tender heart and she passed not long after. Ever since, Cynthia was overcome with the need to act as Evie's guardian.

"He wouldn't let me pay him," Evie explained. "So I'm making him dinner—it seemed like the least I could do."

"I suppose…." Cynthia didn't sound convinced, if anything she sounded slightly irritated there was no quick way for her to argue the logic. "Just be careful, Evie. You don't know this guy—he could be another Jonny Doyle. Or worse."

"He's not," Evie said quickly. She wanted nothing more than to tell her friend all about how benevolent Mer was, but she decided against it. Cynthia would only argue that point somehow.

A long pause followed, and Evie wedged the receiver between her ear and shoulder so her hands were free to work on the meal.

"So, what are you cooking?" This time, there was a hint of jest in her friend's tone when she spoke.

The art of cooking was one creative outlet that Evie struggled with, second only to music. In her youth, her mother did all the cooking—it was a passion of her mother's—thus Evie had done little more than watch in wonder as her mother whipped up meal after meal effortlessly. Breakfast she the meal she was probably best at, apple pies too, but anything beyond that Evie required a step by step guide to prepare. And even then she lacked confidence. Thankfully, when she'd fled south, she remembered to grab her mother's cookbook. It was a cumbersome tome with yellowed pages and notes scribbled into the margins: a piece of art itself cultivated over years of collecting recipe after recipe starting the moment her mother stepped off the boat that brought her from Ireland. And like a witch and her spellbook, Evie depended on it.

"Spaghetti with garlic bread," Evie admitted feeling as though the meal lacked a certain something.

Pasta was something she knew held a low degree of difficulty when it came to preparing. Surely she couldn't mess up pasta.

“Mmm, I can almost smell it,” Cynthia said.

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously,” Cyn replied. “You’re mom’s spaghetti recipe was always my favorite.”

A doleful smile pulled at the corners of her lips, thinking back to her mother happily cooking in the kitchen as she sang a Celtic tune. It seemed strange that those moments would never again play out, instead they’d become bittersweet memories Evie could only relive in her mind.

“Mine too,” she murmured, suddenly missing her family.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Evie’s mind roamed the dregs of her grief before blinking back into reality and the hope of something happy to come.

“I need to go, Cyn,” Evie told her friend with a sigh. “I don’t want to burn the garlic bread.”

Cynthia chuckled and said her goodbye, only after making Evie promise to call her in the morning to let her know how everything went.

With her second hand restored after hanging up, Evelyn reached for her mother’s cookbook to give the steps another look over to ensure she had done everything and added every herb and ingredient she was supposed to. She’d followed everything perfectly, even factoring in the little notes scribbled into the margins left there by her mother—those she smiled at fondly and traced the fading ink with her fingers. Everything was as it should be. Even so, without a taste, Evie knew the sauce she had prepared would never be as savory as what her mother made so effortlessly.

“You were the artist in the kitchen, Ma,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll stick to paper and canvas.”

For the smallest of a moment Evie thought she would hear the warmth of her mother’s laugh, and when it never came she sighed again, trying not to dwell on the shadows behind her. What mattered was the light ahead.

Despite her lack of confidence, the meal came together without any severe hiccups. The noodles were not overcooked, the sauce was a complementing mix of savory and sweet (though, as she had guessed after a tiny taste, was not nearly as good as her mother's) and the garlic bread was nicely golden. A small tingle of pride manifested in the form of a surprised, but satisfied, smile as she surveyed the dinner before her.

“Not bad, Ev,” she told herself, knowing her mother would have been delighted.

With the cooking done, Evie threw a glance over her shoulder to the clock mounted on the wall, triggering a surge of anxiety to bubble in her gut. Stranger, perhaps, was the amount of excitement coursing through her veins. It was as though all of her happiness was riding on whether or not she would see Merriell again. None of it made sense; the man was little more than a stranger. The coupling of nerves and delight was not a feeling that put her ill at ease, however. She trusted it. And it was that peculiar sensation that seemed to fuel her movements.

With a few minutes to spare, Evie wandered into the small bathroom to freshen up. She made sure her hair was still pinned the way she liked—up and pretty. Her make-up was holding up nicely despite the heat; all she needed was a fresh layer of lipstick to complete the illusion of a put-together young lady. It wasn't often she wore a dress with heels and a face of cosmetics—she liked to when the opportunity arose, but she was just as comfortable in a pair of old overalls and smudges of charcoal on her face.

Just as she wiggled back into her red pumps—discarding her worn-in house slippers with a couple of calculated kicks—a knock on the door signaled Merriells arrival. Immediately a grin curled onto Evie's lips and her heart began to pound an anxious-excited rhythm. A blush threatened to color her cheeks to give away the torrid muscle beating in her chest—her ever yearning heart already making leaps and bounds for a man she had known for mere hours.

Don't be ridiculous—she warned herself taking in a deep breath to curb the eagerness coursing in her veins. Untying her apron, she tossed it along with her discarded slippers and went to answer the door, taking one last deep breath to steady the fervor in her heart.

Merriell had changed and showered. The sweet bouquet of his shampoo coupled invitingly with the musk of the aftershave he'd chosen, making it difficult for Evie to keep from soaking in the scent he carried. His curls were still somewhat damp—too much moisture in the air to keep the heat from drying them on his way over—though they fought to spring back into their previous fluff. The grease-covered, jeans he'd been wearing had been replaced by a nice pair of tan slacks, and the buttoned shirt he wore was a soft shade of green that made his eyes glitter a deeper emerald as he stood under the glow of the porch light. All Evie could do was stare—utterly beguiled—every rational thought in her head lost to her.

Mer smirked, amused by her ogling. "Hiya."

Evie blinked, coming back to reality, suddenly feeling foolish, and uttered a nervous "hi" before swinging her arm to invite him inside.

"Come in."

Merriell's smile grew as he crossed the threshold, inhaling deeply. "Mm, smells tasty in here."

He gently forced a bottle into her hands as he passed on his way to investigate the savory smells in the kitchen.

"I wasn' sho what ya was makin', but I figured wine usually goes with anythin'."

"Oh, thank you." Evie glanced at the label, unable to read the French words printed there. "You didn't have to bring anything."

"I know," Mer shrugged, placing his hands in his pockets. "I just wanted to make a good impression."

There was something almost boyish when he smiled then—cheeks coloring pink ever-so-slightly—that made him even more of a mystery. One Evie was eager to solve.

"Well," she said placing the bottle on the kitchen table. "It should go perfectly with dinner."

His expression lost a hint of its boyish charm as it grew into a look of delight.

"Make yourself at home," Evie gestured vaguely between the table and the sofa in the living room as she ventured to the cabinet where the stemware was kept.

She placed two crystal glasses on the table along with the wine and retraced her steps to fetch some of the nicer china Jonny's grandmother had kept. Mer watched her, his gaze, gentle and attentive, and a little bit yearning as she methodically sat the table.

"Need help with anythin'?" he asked finally.

"Nope," She replied with a smile. "Everything is almost ready."

The hearty red sauce on the stove was beginning to boil again which told her it was hot enough to serve, and Evie eyed the pot with scrutiny, praying silently her attempt at cooking would go over well.

"I'll pour us a glass then," Mer announced.

"Great, lemme…" Evie spun to fish for the corkscrew in the drawer of misfit utensils, finding it, only to turn to see Merriell holding his lighter against the neck of the dark bottle just below the cork.

Before she could ask, a loud pop sounded, causing her to jump as the cork went flying.

"Oh my goodness!" she laughed, a little surprised, a little impressed. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Mer shrugged, a sly expression on his features, and left her question unanswered.

"How much ya want?" He held the open bottle over the top of her glass, waiting patiently.

"Enough," she said, tossing him a coy smirk without really meaning to.

He bit his lower lip as he smiled, chuckling under his breath when he poured a generous glass of red wine for each of them. She thanked him as he took his seat and grabbed his plate to dish out their dinner.

"How much pasta would you like?"

Mer's face lit with charm and mischief as he turned to face her.

"Enough," he grinned.

The expression on his face was playful, his smirk devious and amused by his own response and his cheekiness settled warmly in Evie's stomach. Not only did she revel in it, but she also played into his whimsy and scooped as much spaghetti into his plate as she could before coupling it with the savory sauce and a slice of bread.

Despite being only strangers, the atmosphere that bloomed that evening was not marked by any hint of bashfulness, instead, it was relaxed and amiable. Warmth that Evie had longed to dwell in again—that unrefutable kindness she'd lost with the passing of her family—flowed uninhibited from the man sitting adjacent to her. His conversation was cautious but still jovial and genuine. It was the first time since running south Evie could recall what life felt like without grief and fear weighing upon her. Merriell was a stranger, but she felt safe with him. Jonny had never made her feel that way.

"So," Evie spoke as she twirled the last bit of pasta with her fork. "What is it you do, Mr. Shelton?"

Mer cast her a look of disapproval—no doubt in retaliation to being addressed so formally—before his features softened back into a neutral, yet somehow still amused side smirk.

"Nothin' too excitin'," he stated vaguely. "The odd jobs are what I like ta do the most—like fixin' ya car this aftah noon."

Without really meaning to, Evie leaned forward, resting her elbow and chin on the table, utterly enchanted by the beautiful stranger at her table.

"You like to get your hands dirty, huh? Fixing things?" she was entirely too intrigued with the thought of what he could do with his hands.

He shrugged, suddenly modest after a foray of playfully arrogant smirks and glances. It made him abruptly twice as charming.

"I've always had a knack for it, I guess." Merriell finished the food on his plate with the help of his remaining garlic bread to mop up the sauce still left on his dish.

"What about you?" he asked after chewing. "Ya workin' anywhere?"

All at once, a proud smile lit up Evie's face. After all the excitement of seeing Merriell again, she'd almost forgotten about her good news.

"Actually, I just got a job today—the general store downtown, Southern Comfort."

Mer's face lit up too, "Birdie's place?"

"Yeah, you know it?" Of course, he knows it! She thought, Bridge City's population was slightly less than the number of people who lived in a single district back home in New York. Everyone knew everyone else.

"Sho do—I was practically raised there…ole Birdie's like a second mothah to me."

"Really?" Evie found a great deal of comfort in that notion. In fact the more she thought on it, the more she realized how similar the old woman and Mer were; they radiated the same magnetism and sincerity.

"Mmhm," he nodded, his eyes focusing elsewhere as the veil of memories danced across the contours of his features. "My mama used ta work there…once upon a time…"

"Does she still work there?"

Merriell's face lost a hit of its levity and he swallowed as though to fight off the onslaught of sudden emotion threatening to cast a shadow onto his expression.

"No…" he said softly. "She—uh—she died, about a year ago."

Shit!

Abruptly, sick knots twisted into Evie's stomach, feeling callous, but understanding of the quiet misery he hid under layers of charm and arrogance.

"Merriell, I'm…I'm sorry—I didn't mean…"

He met her eyes and cast her a quick smile—doleful, but enough to ease the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"It's okay," he reassured her, reaching for his glass of wine and taking a good gulp before changing the subject. "Birdie's great—you'll enjoy workin' for her."

"I hope so…" Evie said softly, still too embarrassed to meet Mer's glance longer than a second or two.

For the first time all night the atmosphere they shared felt cumbersome—perhaps more melancholy—than she'd wanted it to get. Evie sat, worrying her bottom lip, her fingers toying with a loose thread in the table cloth as she stole quick glances through her lashes in Mer's direction.

He was nursing the alcohol in his glass with the same sadness she'd caught plaguing him as he sat at the bar hours ago. And while Evie was eager to know if his grief stemmed only from the loss of his mother, or perhaps more, Merriell was still too much of a stranger to warrant such questions. It didn't matter how easy it was to be near him, she had not earned the right to know his narrative.

A soft sigh broke past her lips as she fought to find a way to properly allay the gloom that was quickly ruining an otherwise wonderful evening. It wasn't until her eyes found their desert sitting on the counter, waiting to save the day, that she perked up.

"Got any room for apple pie?" Evie asked with a hesitant smile. She hoped he wanted to stay long enough to have a slice, though she would not have blamed him for wanting to leave.

Immediately Mer perked up too, the shadows on his features retreating with the promise of something sweet.

"I was countin' on it—seems as how you promised a slice earlier," he said with a boyish grin.

When she stood, he did too, helping clear away their dinner plates, and letting them soak in the sink to be washed later. Evie cut them each a slice of apple pie and the delight on Mer’s face made her smile too seeing him lick his lips as his grin continued to grow. Catching that flash of his tongue was like a bolt of hot lightning striking her without warning; a blush rose so quickly on her cheeks Evie had to look away to keep the blunder a secret. Thankfully, the pie was more than enough to hold Merriell’s attention away from her.

“Mmmm… Almost looks too good to eat,” he said ogling the desert in front of him.

When Evie chanced a look his way, the expression on his face caused her to chuckle, “‘oughta be, I made one for my pa every year for his birthday since I was nine. It’s probably the only thing I have any confidence in making in the kitchen.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Mer quipped as he loaded his fork with as much pie as he could.

The moment he took a bite, his brows creased, and eyes closed as he chewed painfully slow. Those few seconds were like agony. Evie’s heart was pounding in her chest with so much anticipation she feared she might faint as she watched him sample the only thing she could actually make that was worth a damn.

“Fuck me, if that ain’t the best apple pie I’ve evah had the pleasure of tasting.”

A somewhat nervous, but relieved chuckle sounded in the back of Evelyn’s throat as she watched Merriell shovel a larger bite of pie into his mouth.

“Mmm… Yep. God damn delightful.”

“Stop,” Evie said sheepishly, suddenly afraid he was overselling his reaction to keep from hurting her feelings.

“No,” he wiped his mouth and leaned across the table to meet her gaze with a sincere expression that stole away all the doubt writhing in her stomach.

“I mean it. If I wasn’t so full of pasta, I’d eat that whole damn pie right now.”

“Well,” Evie grinned softly, trying not to let her blush color her cheeks too obviously. “Thank you. And you’re welcome to take the rest of it when you go.”

Excitement took form on his face with a smirk that was sweet but roguish all at once—a sort of debonair charm that amplified his magnetism—as if his bright eyes dark curls and razor-sharp jaw did not make him alluring enough already. Again she had to look away knowing the pink in her cheeks would be too strong to combat.

“Imma have ta take ya up on that offah. An’ I’ll be thinkin’ ‘bout you every time I cut me a slice.”

That blush was unstoppable; her heart was suddenly so smitten, it felt as though butterflies were fluttering merrily in her stomach. She felt weightless with warmth and hope swelling in her bosom, fearing any slight breeze would carry her off. It was ridiculous how at ease Evie felt sitting there eating pie with a complete stranger. The conversation had been easy all night; even when it had delved into less savory topics he still made her feel comfortable. Evelyn had forgotten what it was like to be in the company of a man who wasn’t easy to anger, who was genuine and kind and wanted only to live in the moment.

For a time the whimsy of the atmosphere faded as the warmth in her heart ached, suddenly missing her brother James and Cynthia's brother Charlie. Both of them were good men, kind and genuine—like Merriell—but they had been swallowed by the rages of war. Brave young men were lost forever, while a man like Jonny Doyle was still alive How was that fair?

No matter how pleasant her thoughts could be, they always fell back to the grief that plagued her. She sighed, deeply, pushing those intrusive memories back into the depths of her mind so she could find joy once more in the moment with a kind stranger.

When Merrill finished his plate he made a beeline for the sink full of soaking dishes.

“Oh, no,” she said jumping to her feet. “I can do those.”

Merriell, however, shook his head. “Uh-uh, you did the cookin’, I can do the cleanin’.”

When Evie tried to argue, Mer simply shook his head, his grin amused but determined as he kept scrubbing the dirty dishes.

“Let me help at least,” she suggested. “I’ll dry and put them away.”

Before he could protest, she snatched the freshly rinsed dish from his hand and began wiping away the droplets of water clinging to the porcelain surface, throwing him a smug smirk that made him chuckle.

“Alright,“ he smirked.

She watched him for a moment not really paying attention to her task as he scrubbed the old plates clean, overcome with a blissful vision of peaceful domesticity. It made her stomach fill to the brim with whimsy and her heart was fluttering again; had this stranger bewitched her already? Or did what she feel bubbling lightly in her gut like a seltzer stem from an end to her loneliness—even if it was only for a few hours? Evelyn didn’t know. Nevertheless, she was intrigued with a profound feeling and she wanted to dwell in it for as long as she could.

Occasionally as he would hand a freshly washed dish her way, his calloused fingertips would brush against her skin, igniting a spark she didn’t know how to react to. It was more than an amicable tingle racing from the tips of her fingers right to her heart. And each time they touched, Merriell would cast her a gentle smile that held nothing more than his inherent charm and magnetism. She wondered if he felt it too, or if her need for companionship was playing a dirty trick on her.

When the dishes were all back in their usual places—the night drawing to a close—Evelyn realized she was not ready to say farewell to her Beautiful Stranger. She longed to stay up all night just chatting with him, she did not care about what, Evelyn only wanted to stay encompassed a while longer in the blissful warmth he brought into her life. Once he was gone, all she would be able to do was stay up and ponder the significance of those little touches and the sparks they brought.

Thankfully, Merriell lingered on the old rickety porch, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto his plate of leftover pie, seeming to stall their inevitable departure.

“Well,” he said with a grin. “Thank you for invitin’ a stranger ovah for dinna.” He paused, glancing at the leftover pie in his hand. “Can’t recall ever having a better plate of pasta, an’ nothin’ evah gonna beat this pie.”

Evie quickly looked at her feet to hide another blush.

“It was the least I could do,” she told him before looking back to meet his eyes. “You have no idea how much of a savior you were this afternoon…”

A glint of concern flashed in his eye, his brows beginning to crease as his unspoken question lingered between them.

She thought about telling him—telling him how Jonny was nothing more than a throne in her side, and how much she cherished Merriells company—but Mer was still a stranger. It wasn’t right to unload so much onto someone she’d only known for a few hours.

Before Mer could offer any reply, the sound of screeching tires stole all their focus as an old wagon pulled along the curb—narrowly missing a collision with the mailbox. The rowdy passengers were laughing and shouting loud enough even before the door opened to let Jonny stumble out. He staggered on drunk feet and screamed a handful of profanities to his buddies in the car which made them all roar with laughter.

It was only after the wagon full of hooligans pulled away that Jonny began to stagger towards the house, and it was exactly then that Evie’s fluttering heart became consumed with panic.

She and Mer watched him cross the yard, unseen, both frozen: Evie in fear and Merriell in confusion. Jonny’s intoxication level inhibited him from taking notice of them until he was at the base of the steps leading onto the porch. Immediately, his eyes narrowed and he frowned.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Jonny, this is Mr. Merriell Shelton,” Evie said quickly, willing her voice not to shake.

The Doyle’s were not known for their hospitality, nor were they known to trust most people. Especially strangers.

“He helped me this afternoon with a bit of trouble I was having,” she explained vaguely, hoping to thwart any more suspicion. “I made him dinner to say thank you—he’s just about to leave.”

Jonny eyed Merriell, seizing him up as best he could through drunken lenses. Mer stood his ground, eyeing him back with a subtle intensity that never so much as cracked under Jonny’s scrutiny.

Finally, being the better man, Mer held out his hand in a friendly manner, “nice ta meet ya.”

Jonny cast a prolonged glare at Merriell's open hand, his brows furrowed and part of his lip hiked up in a sort of snarl. Instead of returning the kind gesture, Jonny made a show of spitting at his feet before tossing his heavy leer at Evelyn.

"Evie, do not invite any more strangers into my house. I don't care if they are dying." He shoved past them both, purposely bumping Mer's shoulder (most likely in hopes to start something) muttering as he went: "I don't trust any of these filthy southerners."

Shock sent Evie's jaw slack; this time the redness in her cheeks was a symptom of embarrassment instead of infatuation. She should have known Jonny would say something rude and uncouth. Without another thought, she grabbed Mer by his sleeve and pulled him across the lawn until they stood next to his truck parked along the curb.

"I am so sorry about him," she said, crossing her arms and glaring at Jonny's house, ashamed and angry.

Mer shrugged as he placed his partially eaten pie in the passenger seat through the open window before fixing his hands in his front pockets.

"Ya boyfriend's a bit of an asshole."

"He is not my boyfriend," Evie corrected vehemently. "I don't think he knows that though. I'm just staying here until I can figure some things out."

Merriell was quiet a moment, nodding silently. It seemed as though he was taking his time processing the whole situation. There was compassion on his face and behind his eyes, but it was guarded somehow. Evie caught it though and she was grateful when he didn't ask the questions plainly forming in his mind.

"Well," he said finally, his tone light as one corner of his mouth quirked into a grin. "Since he ain't ya othah half, I feel more inclined ta leave ya with this…"

Gently, Merriell caressed her upper arm as he leaned forward to plant a tender kiss on her cheek. He let his lips linger slightly longer than was common for such an act, that all at once wove a new hopefulness into her heart.

"Dinna was swell," he added as he pulled away, his smile somehow more charming than it had been all night. "Hope I see ya again, Evie."

"Me too," she murmured.

Evie watched as he got in his truck to leave, her hand held to the cheek he'd graced with his kiss. And when he drove away, it took everything inside of her to keep from running after him.

#Beautiful Stranger Series #Merriell Shelton x Original Character #Merriell Shelton #Snafu Shelton #HBO War #The Pacific #The Pacific Fanfiction #Rami Malek Fanfiction

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