Interlude [h.s]

thirty-nine

Her soul jolts, a shiver runs down her spine.

"Why don't you... touch me?" he murmurs, taking her hand and putting it on his chest. She can feel his heart beat as fast as hers, and it thrills her enough to crash her lips against his again.

She grabs his shirt and pulls him closer, and he wraps his arms around her. It's been too long since they last kissed, and his presence is drowning her, deafening her. Her fingers tangle into his hair and his hands graze her spine, sliding lower and lower.

Alouette is hot all over, his touch scorching her like burning flames when he gets under her shirt. She undoes the buttons of his and slips it off his shoulders. He deepens the kiss and she moves to sit on his lap, brushing the smooth skin of his neck, tracing the line of his collarbones. He hums into her mouth, a spike of electricity down her back.

If kissing him for the first time felt like falling from the stars, this time around it feels like the moment before crashing, when you still don't know if you'll be met by ocean waves or hard ground. The dark ghost of reality looms in the corner of her mind, but she purposely ignores it. She's falling. She will crash. She's still looking at the stars, there's still wind in her ears, but she knows it'll all end soon—too soon. She can feel the truth coming, so she just kisses him harder instead, shuts her eyes more forcefully, ignores the darkness her soul is about to fall into.

Then there's a knock on the door, and it all comes to an end.

She straightens her back and opens her eyes, and Harry is already looking at her, his chin raised towards her. Her hands are on his naked chest and his curls are in his eyes, his lips as red as rose blooms and slightly swollen. Being so close to him, she can see a darker shadow under his eyes, so faint that she almost mistakes it for makeup. Almost. He looks so real and so beautiful that it nearly kills her.

For a moment they only stare at each other, and then there's a second knock.

Harry pulls her closer to him. "Aren't you going to open the door?" he whispers in her ear, and Alouette sinks back into reality. Of course he isn't going to open it when his shirt is a crumpled mess and so is his hair. When she's sitting on his lap.

Alouette clears her throat and stands up, straightening her clothes before stepping around the couch. Harry disappears in the other room, and she opens the door.

Evie is standing on the other side, and she doesn't seem minimally bothered nor surprised to find her still here. "Let Mr. Styles know everything is ready for him downstairs, will you?" she says. "I do hope he's presentable, because we're on a time crunch. If he waits any longer he'll have to go directly live."

"I'll let him know."

Evie looks her over and for a terrifying moment Alouette fears she doesn't look as tidy as she thought, but then she walks away.

Alouette lets out the breath she didn't know she was holding and closes the door again, leaning against it.

Harry walks into the room again, this time around he's dressed as usual. He swapped the wrinkled dress shirt with lace on its cuffs with another one, and he put a black waistcoat and jacket on as well.

"It was Evie," Alouette tells him. "You have to go downstairs."

The corners of his lips imperceptibly turn upwards. "I don't have to do anything," he reminds her, "however, I will go downstairs."

Alouette chuckles. "Same end result."

Harry fixes one of his cufflinks. "Is that why you came here?" he asks, "to remind me my list of duties isn't quite finished for today?"