Beautiful Nobody {h.s}

Chapter Fourteen

"Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?" ― Stephanie Perkins

Harry woke with her in his arms still. Ellie must have been too tired to move at all last night for she lay in the same position with one hand on his and one under the pillow. Her right leg was still bent at the knee on top of the one he had managed to somehow wiggle in between hers. His chest was pressed against her back completely and his face was buried in the crook of her neck. A few stray hairs from her braid tickled his face but it wasn't anything that he wasn't used to. Her light pulse could be felt on the crook of his nose.

Harry couldn't help but take a deep breath and inhale her wondrous scent. It was a mix of vanilla and cinnamon with a hint of brown sugar. Ellie smelled like her little flat in New York and...his home. Now he truly believed that God had sent her to him and it made him fall even further in love with her.

He closed his eyes again slowly and relished in her warmth. His toes were even warm and that was the most shocking thing he'd felt. The winter months never brought warm toes for him which meant he'd always have to double the number of socks he wore.

I could get used to waking up to this, he thought before moving his behind a little further away. Ellie couldn't wake up to the feeling of his arousal.

Soon he felt her soft fingers drawing little designs on his hand. They went from tracing his tattoos to drawing one of her own to dragging the soft pads of her fingers over his tendons then back over again slowly. Harry made no move to alert her that he was awake for fear of ruining a moment that only lovers received.

Ellie threaded her fingers with his before starting her attentive gesture on his hand. Harry tried to relax himself slowly so she wouldn't know. Finally her fingers were threaded with his again and she took a deep breath in before slowly letting it out.

"I wish I wasn't so broken," she whispered after a few moments.

Harry swore he felt his heart stop and shatter into a million pieces. The way she said it sounded like she couldn't ever believe anything else and it couldn't be the only thing she believed in. Ellie could be fixed and Harry needed to let her know that.

But he couldn't right now. Ellie would find out soon enough and could possibly be angry that he was awake when she thought otherwise. In this predicament, he didn't know how to properly wake without making anything awkward. If he were to "wake" soon, Ellie would believe that she heard him.

Thankfully she turned in his hold and tapped his face with her palm until he let out a groan and grabbed her wrist. He pursed his lips with his eyes closed and rolled them so he could hold her like a child would hold a teddy bear with his lower half pressed into the bed. Ellie squealed and pounded her fists on his back until he let her go. Harry rolled over and groaned, glad that she had done what she had to "wake" him.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Ellie murmured. Harry shut his eyes and pulled a pillow over his face as the bed shifted slightly. Suddenly she was on top of his chest and pressing the pillow down then lifting it and hitting his face. "Wake up!"

"Ellie, stop!" he hollered as he barred his face from the torrential onslaught of abuse. Ellie giggled gleefully and continued to abuse his money maker. "Ellie, you're going-0omph!"

Harry sat up quickly, throwing her off and into his lap. Quickly he began to beat her with the same pillow that she had abused him with. No longer did he worry about his arousal. Ellie could deal with it for abusing him!

"Mercy!" Ellie laughed.

"There's no mercy in this war!"

And her laugh that followed was better than any music he'd ever heard. Harry thought for just a moment, I could get used to this.