Chapter 45
I couldn't say exactly what happened after we left the hotel. Nor could I say who dragged me out, shoved me into one of the black vans and slid into the seat next to mine hollering out at the drivers an address in Italian that I couldn't recognize. I also wouldn't be able to say just how I wound up next sitting squished between Niall and Louis at a booth in a very loud, very crowded bar with a drink in my hand.
Whether it was the nerves or the adrenaline that followed, everything had been a blur.
The only thing that had rung out loud and clear to me, the thing I found myself wondering as I stumbled out of the hotel on unsteady feet, as I sat fiddling with the hem of my dress in the back of the van, as I now sat alongside the rest of everyone else was that Harry wasn't here. And I had no idea where he was.
He'd disappeared right after the drop. All I'd gotten was a few seconds of confusing eye contact before he'd fled, completely ignoring me when I tried to go after him and ask what was going on, if I'd done something wrong. They were the questions I kept asking myself in the hours afterwards, where I played over and over in my head the events of the drop, trying to pinpoint exactly where I'd screwed up until I couldn't even stomach thinking about it anymore.
What I did remember was my ability to make mindless conversation, that I'd somehow been able to stay engaged enough with everyone around me to talk about what had gone on, to reiterate a million times over how crazy it was. That no, I hadn't gone in there expecting to break a man's nose and arm but yes, I would do it again if provoked. I had felt giddy, almost euphoric, in a way I'd never before experienced. The world around me, for a few brief hours at least, had seemed surreal.
But now that the adrenaline had worn off and the perfect, excited little bubble that I'd allowed myself to float around in these past few hours had popped, everything seemed too real. The severity of the situation, what I'd done, what Damien had tried to do, hit me like a physical blow. One that, when I finally found myself being dragged back to reality kicking and screaming, I was glad I was sitting down. And that someone had put a glass of whiskey in my hands.
"Where are we?"
The words sounded foreign coming out of my mouth. It didn't even sound like my own voice. For a few seconds, I wasn't sure if I'd just thought them or actually spoken them aloud until a hand closed tightly around my shoulder and an Irish voice slurred, "We're celebrating!"
"Niall, give her some space." Morgan wrapped her hand around his forearm, dragging him out of the booth, before promptly dropping herself down in his place. She set down her own glass, dragging a finger through the condensation, her eyes never leaving mine. Quietly, she clarified, "We're at a bar. A little out of the city."
"Right," I nodded slowly, taking a sip of my drink. My nose scrunched in disgust at the smoky, foul liquid that pooled onto my tongue. "Have we been here awhile?"
"A few hours," Morgan said softly. She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, still eyeing me carefully. Like I was a ticking time bomb.
"Where's Harry?"
"We don't know," she went on, trying and failing to hide the strain in her voice. "We still don't know anything since you asked about a half-hour ago."
"I – what?" My brows twitched together. I ran the heel of my hand over my forehead a few times. "I already asked?"
Morgan huffed a laugh, audible only to me over the music. Everyone else that had been sitting at our table had disappeared. "You sort of... checked out for a bit."
I glanced over at her. "Checked out...?"
"You were super talkative on the ride here; I swear you were almost vibrating right out of your seat. Zayn practically had you in his lap to keep you from jumping out the door," she was smiling now, trying to chip away at the thick layer of tension that hung between us. "You kept threatening to go back and break Temarran's other arm. You even showed us that Harry taught you how to use a revolver." She drew in a steadying breath, sobering her tone a fraction. "I think you were on a bit of an adrenaline high because as soon as we got here and actually started talking about repercussions, about Damien, you just sort of went... a little quiet," Her gaze landed on mine, eyes full of something I couldn't read. "It's normal though. The first time I did anything like this, I went into shock too. When I was like 14, I saw some guy get his shins shattered and I didn't sleep or talk to anyone for almost two whole weeks."
I couldn't stop the wince that passed over me. "God, you were 14?"
Morgan just shrugged, reaching forward to grab a French fry off of a plate on the table. "Surprisingly wasn't even the worst thing to have happened to me at that age."
"Is there a reason why we're at this specific bar?" I asked, reaching for a fry myself. It tasted like cardboard in my mouth, so I washed it down with another shot of whiskey, the alcohol warming me instantly.
"Zayn brought us here," Morgan popped another fry in her mouth. Followed by a piece of celery. "He dropped us all off and then headed back to help Harry. We haven't heard from either of them since."
"Oh, god." My stomach dropped. I leaned back into the leather of the booth, realizing when a few strands of synthetic hair brushed over my shoulders that I was still wearing my wig. "I'm sorry, fuck. Here I was apparently asking about Harry over and over when you don't even know where Zayn is." I buried my head in my palms. "Shit, you must be terrified–"
Morgan gently grabbed a hold of my wrist, lowering it to my lap. "I'm not," she assured me, ducking her head down until we were at eye level with one another. "They both do this shit all the time. They're probably just packing up our stuff at the hotel and making sure that all of the product is loaded correctly on the jet. It's less of a hassle when the rest of us just hang back somewhere safe and wait for the go-ahead."
"This is normal then?" I attempted to clarify, twirling my now empty glass around on the table. "Not knowing where they are?"
Morgan hesitated before giving me a pinched smile. She slid her nearly full glass in my direction. "They'll come get us soon."
I didn't need to be asked twice before downing the rest of the contents of Morgan's drink. By the time I was slamming the empty glass on the table, Morgan had already flagged down a waiter who was bringing two more. He was in the midst of placing them carefully down in front of each of us when I sullenly muttered, "I think I fucked up. I think Harry's mad at me."
Morgan paused with the glass halfway to her mouth, a shrill-like laugh bubbling from the back of her throat. "What the fuck are you going on about?"
"I don't think I should have attacked Temarran like I did," I shook my head, my voice low. "It feels now like the wrong move. And Harry just seemed so fucking pissed–"
"Yeah," Morgan cut me off, turning her entire body to face me. She dragged her leg up to rest on the booth between us. "I caught that part. You are absolutely fucking insane to believe that." Before I had a chance to interject, she went on, "What you did today was incredible. You handled it perfectly, way better than any of us would have after finding out we'd been fucking set up. Trust me when I say Harry was not mad at you for that. You did what you had to do."
"Right..." I averted my gaze, suddenly finding the ice at the bottom of my glass extremely interesting. "You're right."
Because she was. Harry didn't care what I did. This was a job. And if I told her how I really felt, how he'd stormed off so quickly without saying anything, had refused to even glance back in my direction and that it made me immediately feel like I'd something wrong, then she'd be right in assuming I was insane. Why should it even matter in the first place? It was that stupid part of me that somehow looked for his approval in these situations. That part of me wanted to make up for the stupid shit I'd pulled when I first met him. That was it.
"Temarran," I muttered humourlessly, dragging out the word and turned to look at her. "Stupid fucking name. Sounds like his parents just grabbed a handful of scrabble tiles and threw them on the table."
Morgan's face broke out into a grin and she threw her head back with a laugh. "Tell me about it," she choked, bracing a hand on my shoulder. "I swear I have to repeat the names of half the fucking dudes we do jobs with three or four times. They never even sound real. I once met someone named Igor–"
"Morgs," the breathless voice startled us both, cutting off the rest of Morgan's words. A set of hands slammed down flat on the table as Zayn materialized, his body silhouetted against the flashing lights behind him. His expression held nothing that his tone hadn't already revealed: undiluted alarm.
From behind him, the rest of the boys appeared, seemingly having been notified of Zayn's arrival prior to the two of us. Morgan glanced between them all, steadying herself on the table as she slid out of the booth and turned to face him. For a few seconds, nothing but wary glances were the only unspoken conversation.
"Hey," Morgan reached out to grab Zayn's shoulder, smoothing the material of his jacket down in an obvious attempt to calm him down. "What's up? What's going on?"
But Zayn didn't look like he was so easily able to be calmed down. There was urgency behind his eyes, enough to chill my blood and have me wondering what was going on. My heart hammered in my chest to the point of pain, with nerves about God only knew what. And on top of that, Harry still wasn't anywhere to be found. Where was he? Had something happened?
I hadn't even realized I'd slid out of the booth as well and was facing Zayn, eagerly expecting an explanation alongside everyone else, when a voice spoke from behind me. An eerily familiar one that had me whirling around, suddenly filled with a sense of relief that I'd been inadvertently searching for since we left the hotel.
"We have to leave." Harry was there, dressed as he was earlier, with not a hair out of place. Everything seemed normal, something that frustratingly reassured me to no end, as I looked him up and down multiple times. Fine. He was fine. The only difference, I noticed with a small start, was the blood all over his hands. "Now." He ground out, snapping me out of my trance. "We have to get everyone out of this fucking bar–"
"Harry." Morgan's voice was terrifyingly low. She stepped toward him, her body near trembling with rage. "What did you do?"
But he wasn't paying any attention to her. Harry's eyes were on me, his expression unreadable, raking numerous times up and down my body as if he didn't fully believe I was standing there. Only when Morgan repeated herself did he finally able to tear his gaze back in her direction, the action leaving me feeling a bit hollow. I put a hand flat on my chest, breathing in sync with my thundering heartbeat to collect myself. I hadn't realized just how much I'd been thinking about his safety until I saw him.
"What did you do?" Morgan's hands balled into fists. "Harry, what the fuck did you do?"
"We don't – fuck, nothing. I didn't fucking do anything," Harry snapped, dragging a bloodied hand through his hair. "We have to fucking get going, okay? We have to leave–"
"Why?" Morgan hissed, but she was already nodding at the other boys to start clearing out the bar. Almost instantly, the three of them – Niall, Louis and Liam – were milling about, talking about how the bar was closing soon, urging everyone with an extra bit of insistence to grab their things and get on their way.
"He killed them," Zayn cut in. It was the angriest I'd ever seen him, something that unnerved me. Zayn stepped up beside Morgan, glaring daggers at Harry. "I fucking told him not to. I told him to leave it alone but by the time I made it back, it was a massacre."
Harry didn't so much as flinch. Not even when Morgan fully shouted, "You did what? Them? As in Temarran and all of his men?"
"I wasn't fucking thinking," Harry shot back, clenching his jaw. His expression hardened. "I was just... I was pissed. They went behind our fucking back with Damien, what the fuck was I supposed to do?"
"Oh, I'm sure that's your fucking reason," Zayn hissed under his breath. It was weird to see him so uncomposed, so provoked. He'd drawn his gun and it was dangling precariously by his hip. For a split second, I was worried he was going to shoot Harry outright.
"All of them?" I asked a bit hoarsely, suddenly finding my voice and attempting to vocally wedge my way between the two of them before anything got out of hand. I was looking only at Harry. "You killed every last person at that hotel working with Temarran?"
Harry's lack of response was answer enough. His eyes clouded at my words, the darkness vaguely flashing with searing remorse, only for them to clear seconds later. He cleared his throat, averting his gaze. His hand opened and closed a few times at his side.
"Jesus, Harry," Morgan muttered in disbelief. "You're never like this. Do you realize what Damien is going to–"
One moment Morgan was talking, standing beside me, and the next, I could no longer hear her because my ears were ringing, and I was being shoved against the ground – hard. Harry's entire body covered mine, his arms landing on either side of my head, the fingers on his left hand having already closed around his gun. I was facing the floor, my head inches from the sticky, maroon carpet of the bar, and I could barely even wiggle around to see what was going on thanks to the way Harry had me pinned down, his chest flush up against my back.
His voice was a breathy mumble in my ear, "Are you okay?"
A quick internal scan of my body told me nothing was hurt or felt out of place. I couldn't say the same for the man on top of me, who seemed to have literally fucking appeared out of nowhere considering moments ago he'd been a good four feet away.
"I'm fine," I managed, trying and failing to shimmy myself free. "What's going on–"
Harry was already in the middle of hauling me up, his body half shielding mine. "We have to go." Everything around us was a mess, a gray haze. His free hand slipped from where it had been braced on my shoulder, sliding down to my hand where he intertwined our fingers. The next words he spoke had my gut rolling over with nausea, "The rest of Temarran's men followed us."
Time seemed to still. When I finally straightened all the way up and braved a glance over Harry's shoulder, all I could register was noise. Shouts. The bar had gone up in a state of chaos, smoke and broken glass everywhere, people running and screaming.
"Oh my god," I muttered, shaking my head. "Harry, what the fuck? Are his men here? Are they going to kill everyone–"
A gunshot. Multiple gunshots, I realized, and Harry was back covering my body with his like he'd done only a minute earlier. He pressed me against his chest, wrapping his free hand around my head to hold me still, his other firing off shots over my shoulder. The sickening thump of bodies landing against the ground made me wince, had me struggling to remain upright myself. Moments later, he was shuffling the two of us toward the back of the bar, through the crowd of people now running on either side of us, trying and failing to find their friends, their family, trying to flee.
"Morgan and Zayn–" I stammered, letting him drag me toward the back door. It was an effort to plant my feet, to try and twist my body around to see through the smoke. "Harry, we have to go get Morgan and Zayn. And the rest of the boys. They're still in there–"
"I watched them get out," Harry said into my ear, his voice slightly loud so that I could hear him over the noise. He gave me another gentle push – a silent order that we needed to leave. "We have to follow them, River. We have to go."
"But–" I was still struggling in his hold, acutely aware of the fact that Harry had his gun drawn and extended toward no one in particular. "There are so many people, Harry. We can't leave them here."
"River," Harry spun us around, trying and failing to pull me toward the door. Our feet crunched over broken glass, over flipped plates of abandoned food and cutlery. "Please." His eyes met mine, wide and alert. "C'mon. We have to fucking go."
He glanced over my shoulder at the mess behind us, giving me another tug. More shots rang out, followed by a bunch of Italian shouting – men, a group of them it sounded like – none of which I could recognize, but Harry stiffened, nostrils flaring as he pulled me toward him once again.
"We can't leave them," I tried to reason again, though found my feet stumbling in line with his toward the back door. The glaring red sign marking the exit loomed closer with every step. "They're innocent people. They're all going to die–"
"And I don't fucking care about those people," Harry snarled, spinning me around. His hands held my shoulders so tightly that it stung. "Let me just get you outside first, okay? And then I'll fucking figure out what to do. This isn't easy for me either."
The intensity of his gaze, the way he seemed completely and utterly terrified, had me nodding – silencing any other words that I might have said. I let him drag me toward the door, through the mess, through the chaos, until the two of us were nearly tripping over our feet to flee from the bar onto the pavement outside.
"Wait," I called before I was fully out the door, tightening my hand in Harry's hold to stop him. I braced a hand flat on the door frame and then reached out, my fingers barely grazing the red lever of the fire alarm. I yanked it down with all the force I could muster. The sound was loud and shrill, carrying through the entire bar, followed by a soft hissing as the entire place soon became drenched, courtesy of the sprinklers on the ceilings. The smoke cleared, screams stuttered, and all at once, the mayhem from inside the bar paused.
The people who hadn't seemed to have realized what was going on fled toward every exit, the word 'fire' becoming a reverent scream of order from multiple mouths as they followed behind Harry and I. The two of us stumbled out onto the street, soaked but alive, panting and shouting at the people over our shoulder to flee, to get somewhere safe. Harry pulled me a good hundred feet away before unlocking our fingers so that he could spin in my direction and place his hands on my shoulders.
"Do not move from this spot," he ordered through gritted teeth, bending down until we were at eye level. "Do you understand me?"
He had brought me to stand beside a fence, half-hidden in the shadows. My eyes widened. "You aren't going back in there by yourself, are you?" I reached to grab the revolver still tucked into my garter. "At least let me go with you–"
"Riv," Harry snapped, grabbing my jaw and holding me steady to look at him. "I just got you out. Do not move. Stay here. I have to take care of this, okay? They aren't looking to kill anyone in there, they're looking for me. For us. I have to get rid of them before they follow." The two of us were silent for a split second before he added, his tone a fraction softer, "Please."
"Okay," I muttered with a hasty nod of my head. "Fine. Go." Harry glanced me once over, dropping his hands. I grabbed a hold of his wrist right as he was about to step away, quietly and quickly mumbling, "Just... be careful. I'll fucking wring your neck if you don't come out of there in one piece."
For a split second, it looked like he was going to reprimand me. But then suddenly I was being yanked in his direction, feeling his calloused palm smooth its way up my neck to grip my jaw. "Do not fucking move," he said roughly, swallowing hard. "I'll be fine." He hesitated for a brief second, glancing once over his shoulder before muttering, "If I don't come back out in 15 minutes, run. Leave. Get as far away as you can. Zayn will find you."
He'd released me before I had a chance to object and I watched him jog over through the crowd of people working hard to disperse themselves, shouting out that they needed to fucking leave before disappearing back inside the bar. Only then did my brain seem to catch up with what was going on. My knees buckled and I pressed myself against the fence for support, my hand shooting out to flatten against the wood. I began to shake, my throat closing up and vision blurring.
But I willed myself to breathe, to think about how I was quite literally standing in the middle of nowhere in a small Italian town and that I needed to keep my wits about me. I could panic later, now wasn't the time. Now I just needed to make sure that both Harry and I got out of this fucking mess, found everyone else, and made it out of the country before either of us had a chance to die.
My shaky hands reached up to adjust my wig, trailing down to the hem of my dress where I brushed off a few flakes of dried blood, before grabbing the revolver from my garter. With a steeling breath, I turned toward the chaos and prepared myself. Waited for Harry to come back and anticipated what was to come.
Unfortunately, those split seconds of confidence didn't last for very long. Because when ten minutes passed and there was still no sign of Harry, part of me began to panic. And then fifteen minutes passed. And then twenty. When it had almost been a half hour, I was assuming the worst. My hands were shaking worse than ever, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do if Harry never came back, how I would contact Zayn and Morgan given that I'd left my phone back at the hotel and where I would go from here.
Except I refused to even entertain the idea of Harry being dead. He wasn't. Or at least, I wasn't about to let him die alone in a shitty, run-down bar full of men that I knew wouldn't care whose skull they were putting a bullet in so long as they obtained their original target. I knew that he'd told me to leave, to run, but no part of my brain had let me even consider that. My feet had stayed planted in the exact spot he'd left me, not daring to move. Not daring to leave without him.
"Okay, River," I muttered, straightening my shoulders. The screaming inside the bar had subsided but now half the place was actually on fire, the alarm still blaring loud and clear. Surprisingly though, no fire trucks or police had arrived. I didn't know if maybe it was because this was a small town or if Temarran's men had just planned for this in advance. "You can do this," I breathed, taking a step forward. "You can–"
Before I even had a chance to fully come to terms with what I had been about to do or raise the weapon in my hand, which now seemed so small and so useless compared to the hoard of men and their own artillery inside the bar, the back door was swinging open once more. Then, there was Harry. Running – no sprinting in my direction, shouting at me. What was he saying?
I stared at him, confused for only a moment, until three men came rushing out right behind him.
Go. He was telling me to go.
But by the time I realized this, he was at my side, closing his hand around my upper arm and yanking me forward. He was panting, his shirt ripped, and fresh blood trickled down his shoulder. Though I had no time to assess any other part of him given we both began sprinting down the street, him careful to stay behind me – to shield me, I realized a moment later.
"You fucking idiot," I breathed, pulling myself from his hold and moving out to run beside him. "Two targets are harder to aim for than one. And I will not have you getting shot because of me."
Harry just shot me a look, moving to only half-cover me now. "You're fucking unbelievable."
He was shooting behind him, the two of us ducking and diverting from the trail of shots in our direction as much as we could, but it was getting harder the closer they got on us.
"Jesus," I hissed under my breath, feeling an ache in my legs beginning to build. "How fucking long are their legs? How are they gaining on us so quickly?"
"It's the last of them," was all Harry said. Not a response to my question, but I figured he was preoccupied. "We just have to outrun these three and we're in the clear." His words were cut off sharply when he spun around again to shoot another few rounds. I didn't dare look back myself to see if he'd hit his mark, but we were still sprinting, our pace having only increased, so I doubted he had.
"Here," Harry hissed and then was grabbing me again, pulling me into a small alley.
"Harry," I glanced behind me at the men who were gaining on us. Short, stout, ugly men who looked like they were getting a little out of breath – thank god. Much like Temarran himself. I figured if I could get close enough and had enough rage in me like I did now, I'd be able to take them. "This is a dead-end. We're gonna get ourselves stuck–" My words were cut off short. I stumbled, pulling myself to a stop, as I saw what Harry's plan was. Every part of me froze. "No." I shook my head. "Harry, I can't–"
Harry was already on his knees, working to hotwire a Vespa that had been hidden in the shadows. It hummed to life, the headlights igniting and illuminating the secluded area. Behind us, I could hear Temarran's men shouting angrily, trying to figure out where we'd gone. Harry stalked forward, slamming a helmet down on my head.
He tilted my chin up to face him. "You have to."
I balked at the sight of the bike and kept shaking my head. "I can't. Harry, I can't. Please. I know it's stupid, but I'll throw up or maybe pass out if I get on that thing." The hazy image of what it felt like when my head had hit the earth of the ditch I'd fallen into off of my bike rose unbidden in my mind. I winced, "Seriously. Can't we outrun them or something–?"
"Riv," Harry's hand trailed down to my shoulder. He gave me a squeeze, his eyes still wide and alert as he glanced once behind me. "I promise you you're going to be okay. I won't let you fall off. We can't outrun them, this is our only option."
The voices were nearer now. My heart jumped into my throat.
Harry drew in a sharp breath, leaning down. "Trust me. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?"
For a brief moment, we just stared at each other. His eyes were roaming my face, obviously trying to decipher what else he could say, before I wordlessly pulled back, glancing again at the terrifying thing looming beside us.
"Fine," I swallowed hard. "Fine. Let's go."
Harry allowed himself only a second to breathe out a sigh of relief before he was squeezing my shoulders again, his gun digging hard into my skin, and then spun around, ushering me toward the Vespa. He sat me down first, shimmying me back by my hips before taking a seat in front of me.
"Wrap your arms around me," he murmured over his shoulder.
I hesitated, worried already about the fact that he wasn't wearing a helmet himself but held my tongue on that one. "Are you... are you sure?"
He straightened his shoulders. "We're both facing fears today."
I wrapped my arms around him, pressing myself so tightly against his back that I could feel the ridges of his spine, that I knew exactly when he was taking a breath. Until we basically moulded into the same person. It was an effort not to smack the back of his head with my helmet as I rested my chin on his shoulder, saying into his ear, "Can this thing even go that fast?"
It was an attempt to distract him, to derail his train of thought from the multitude of matters at hand that I had no doubt were working themselves into an abundance of memories that he would probably carry with him later. His entire body was stiff when he revved the engine, calling out, "Let's find out."
My only steadying grace when he lurched us forward at full speed was the fact that I had my face buried in the back of his head. Breathing in deeply his smell of pine, the smell of him, that I used to keep me grounded, to prevent me from thinking about the fact that we were currently both hurtling out of the alley, back the way we came, into the eye of the beast on a motored fucking death trap.
"Are you okay?" He turned his head a fraction to address me.
Before I had the chance to answer, we pulled onto the street and the familiar voices that had been chasing us mounted – elation now in their tone, obviously at the fact that they'd spotted us.
Open your eyes, I willed myself. Open your eyes. You're the only one who can look out for Harry while he's driving.
"River," Harry's voice sounded distant. "Hey. Riv. Are you okay?"
I ignored him, instead finally working up the courage to open my eyes, something I regretted doing the moment it happened. I had been wrong. This thing could go quite fucking fast and the city around us was zooming by. The wind bit at my skin, the synthetic purple hair still sat atop my head fluttering over my bare shoulders.
But then just as quickly as the fear had filled me, the adrenaline was there. The realization of what we were doing.
"River–" Harry hissed, glancing down when I loosened my hold from around him. "What the fuck are you doing? Hold on?"
"Trust me," I said into the shell of his ear, though my voice shook a bit. "Give me your gun." My own revolver had dropped somewhere when we were running. Harry's head snapped to the side as he tried to look at me. His own gun was pinned against the handle of the Vespa below his palm.
"Are you insane? No."
"Give me your gun!" I shouted at the same moment that shots began firing in our own direction. Both of us instinctively ducked, our path swerving a bit. A quick look over my shoulder was enough to have my eyes widening, the alarm setting in. "Harry, give me your fucking gun!" Somehow, Temarran's men had obtained their own Vespas. Only two of them followed now, the other most likely needing to hang behind thanks to the lack of a ride.
Harry ground his teeth. I could feel him weighing his options. Finally, after the longest few seconds of my entire fucking life, he handed me his gun.
"I could kill you right now," I teased, murmuring the words against his neck. All I was able to do considering I was in the process of trying to shimmy around.
Apparently, the joke wasn't nearly as funny to him. "I swear to god Riv if you let go of me–"
"Relax," I muttered, holding myself steady with a single arm and spinning around. It was an effort not to glance down at the road flying by beneath us or I definitely would have spilled the contents of my stomach onto the pavement. A little louder, I added, "You act like you're the one scared of bikes."
Holding a gun steady when you were standing on an unmoving piece of earth and had a clear target before you was hard. Holding a gun steady while you were literally flying on the tail end of a Vespa, clinging onto someone with a single hand, and aiming it at two moving people trying their hardest to point their own guns at you was near impossible.
"Oh, fuck off!" I shouted at the next bullet that whizzed by Harry and I. I tried to act like I was unfazed, but it had been closer than the other ones. Too close. "Harry," I muttered, turning back only briefly toward him. "How do you say fuck you in Italian?"
"What?" Harry's voice sounded both strained and annoyed. "River, what are you doing? I – fuck, it's vaffanculo. Just – can you hold on, please?"
"Vaffanculo," I repeated under my breath, spinning to face the other men again. And then I shouted it, screamed it actually, at the very same time that I took a shot of my own from Harry's gun in their direction. "Vaffanculo!"
It missed.
"Shit," I muttered. So, I fired again, the kickback shoving me a little closer into Harry's body. It missed. "Shit, shit, shit." Harry was trying and failing to glance back at what I was doing. "Stop it!" I hissed. "Eyes ahead of you!"
I shot again. And again. And again –
"Riv, you're gonna run out of bullets," Harry called over his shoulder. "I used most of them when I was in the bar–"
I ignored him, taking another shot, fully ready for it to fly somewhere in the air – completely away from my target – only to watch as one of the men grunted, falling forward against the handle of the Vespa. He veered left and right, the tire swerving, until they finally came into contact with the sidewalk and he tipped completely over.
"Oh my god!" I squealed, bracing the gun to my chest. I spun toward Harry. "Harry, I got him! I fucking shot him. Right in the shoulder."
"Yeah?" Harry was grinning, it was evident in his tone. He sped up a bit. "Atta fucking girl."
Tucking some of the purple wig behind my ear, I lined up my next shot, feeling my chest swell. This feeling, this elation – it was like a fucking drug. It warmed my whole body, made me feel that in that moment I was unstoppable, that I could conquer just about fucking anything. I could tell why this shit was easily addictive.
The next round I fired missed but that was because my target was now zig-zagging himself, obviously refusing to be the last one down. He was staring intently at me, his own bullets arcing into open air with each shot, his aim all out of sorts given his new strategy.
"C'mon," I muttered under my breath, lining up the shot. "Let's go, Riv. You've got this."
And I did. Sort of.
While I had aimed right for the man's fucking head, something that had surprised even me, the bullet landed a little astray. But still landed. Right in the tire of the Vespa, the whole thing deflating almost instantly. The metal screeched against the pavement while the man attempted, and failed, to right himself and his vehicle. It was no use though given that moments later, the entire thing stuttered and stopped altogether. I must have hit some of the internal mechanisms as well.
"Harry," I whirled toward him, muttering the word in his ear and snaking my other hand back around his waist. "They're gone. All three of them."
Even he seemed surprised. "What?" He turned to look at me, our faces inches apart. "How the fuck–" He glanced down at the gun, then behind him, his face breaking out into a grin. "You're incredible. You're fucking incredible."
It seemed that we'd lost them right on time because only minutes later, the two of us were pulling into that familiar tarmac that we'd landed on days earlier. The black vans were surrounding the jet, which looked prepped and ready for takeoff. Morgan and Zayn were standing on the stairs, both of which physically deflated with relief at the sight of us when we came flying in.
They were sprinting down to meet us before we'd even had a chance to slow to a stop.
"Oh my god," Morgan helped me off the back of the Vespa, tearing my helmet off and letting it drop to the ground. She adjusted my wig, looking me once over before pulling me into a bone-crushing hug. "We thought you were fucking dead."
"I'm okay," I assured her, stroking her back. "I thought you were dead. I'm glad you're fine."
"We've gotta get on the jet," Zayn was already in the process of assessing where we'd come from, trying to see if anyone was following us. "They know where we stay–"
"She shot them," Harry's voice was low when he spoke. When I glanced over at him, to see that he'd stepped off the Vespa, I realized he'd already been looking at me. Seemingly hadn't taken his eyes off me since we'd pulled in.
Morgan pulled back, her eyes wide. "Who? Shot who?"
"The um... the guys that were following us," I said quietly, feeling my face heat. We let Zayn usher us onto the jet. I stepped in after Morgan, feeling Harry make his way up right behind me.
"I'm sorry," a voice cut in and suddenly Louis' face appeared. He was lounging in one of the chairs alongside Liam and Niall. He looked relatively unscathed, thanks for a few cuts on his cheek and neck that had already been patched up. "Did I hear that correctly?" He went on, eyebrows up by his hairline. "You shot somebody?"
"Two people," Harry cut in, clearing his throat. His hand came to rest on the small of my back, motioning me forward. "She saved both of our fucking lives."
"Okay, I didn't actually hit both people. One of my shots hit a tire–"
"That's insane," Morgan squealed, taking a seat on the armrest of one of the chairs. Zayn had disappeared to tell the pilot we were ready to go – that we needed to leave right away. I assumed our stuff had already been loaded. "I'm so proud of you," she gushed, shaking her head.
The adrenaline was still very evidently coursing through me considering her compliment, where I might have otherwise felt nauseous over it, instead had me grinning. Only that feeling didn't last very long when Zayn re-appeared, his face solemn. Harry was still hovering at my side and he inched himself a little closer.
The seatbelt signal dinged, the small icon illuminating above our heads. Nobody made any move to obey it. Not even Harry, who simply gripped the back of the chair beside him, his knuckles turning white as the jet began to roll down the tarmac. Where it was going to get the room to take off, I had no idea, but I definitely was not about to voice that concern – especially not in front of Harry.
"Are you hurt?" Zayn asked, looking right at me.
"No–"
"She hit her head," Harry said. "And she's got a cut on her arm."
I turned toward him, a little angrily. "What? No, I don't–" Harry didn't let me finish, instead he gently grabbed my arm and pulled it between the two of us. Sure enough, my dress was ripped and there was a sizeable gash along my skin. His eyes were on mine when he reached up, running a knuckle over the side of my forehead before drawing it back to let me see that it was covered in fresh blood.
"You wouldn't have noticed," he murmured softly, cleaning his finger off on his shirt – which was a tattered mess all on its own.
"Oh," I said quietly, a little embarrassed. "I didn't realize."
Zayn just shook his head, offering me a weak smile. "You should go get cleaned up then." He looked at Harry, trying his best to stay calm and drew in a shaky breath, "We'll... talk after everyone's rested a bit. About what to do next."
The silence that followed was normally where someone would have apologized. In this case, that someone was Harry. He should have apologized to Zayn for acting without thinking, for killing all of Temarran's men and just about blowing the deal and getting us all killed. But as per Harry fashion, he didn't say anything. Just stayed silent.
"Are you hurt?" Morgan asked and I realized her attention was now on Harry as well. She grabbed ahold of Zayn's wrist, tugging him toward her before snaking an arm around his waist. He visibly relaxed in her hold.
He shook his head and though all of us could clearly see the areas in which his shirt had been ripped and he was bleeding, nobody said anything. Everyone knew enough not to. I had a feeling that Morgan was talking about more than just physical damage anyway. She just sighed and rolled her eyes, jerking her chin toward the door behind him.
"Get some rest," she muttered, eyeing me specifically. "Both of you."
Harry leaned down until his mouth brushed the top of my wig, murmuring, "Let's go." His hand still hovered behind my back, not outright touching me anymore, but providing enough support that he was able to guide me to the room in the back of the plane. Everyone burst into hushed conversation the second the two of us closed the door, secluding ourselves.
The room was barely bigger than a closet, able to fit only a bed in the middle, which was neatly made up the same as one you find in a hotel. There were three windows adorning each wall, all thankfully shuttered, meaning most of the space was dark. Dark enough that I held a hand in front of me as I walked forward, trying to figure out where Harry had gone, only to see a light flick on a few feet away.
It was a bathroom, I realized when I got closer. Harry was already inside and wetting a few cloths in the sink as I arrived in the doorway. Where the bedroom was a little small, the bathroom was much bigger in comparison. Big compared to regular plane bathroom standards, that is. Even with a full-sized shower, toilet and sink, there was enough space for the two of us to comfortably stand inside with a few feet of distance between us.
Harry's entire attitude had shifted since we'd gotten into the jet. He'd been quiet, closed off. I wasn't sure if maybe it was to do with Zayn getting on him about what he'd done or because of something else, but that same, annoying part of me from earlier was nagging loudly in my head that it was because of me. That he was mad because I'd fucked up.
"Come here," Harry's voice pulled me from my thoughts. It wasn't until I looked up at him that I realized he was standing there expectantly. Waiting for me. I took a few careful steps forward, only to let out a small yelp when he suddenly grabbed hold of my waist and lifted me onto the counter.
His face revealed nothing as he carefully dipped a finger into the hem of my dress, pulling it down to reveal the cut I'd gotten on my arm. The most I got was a sharp inhale through his nose before he suddenly tore the sleeve off completely, the sound reverberating through the small space, while he grabbed one of the wet cloths from beside him.
"Does this hurt?" He asked quietly, not even looking at me. He gently dragged the towel over my arm. I shook my head, so he continued on. He worked in silence until the wound was clean, to which he started scrubbing at some dirt and dried blood on my shoulder and then my collarbone, trailing all the way up to my neck.
He dropped the dirtied towel in the sink moments later, wincing when the plane shook a fraction beneath us. But he said nothing, only grabbed another clean cloth. His fingers, which I now realized were clean themselves, lifted my chin toward him so that he could assess the mark on my forehead. Gently, he ran the pad of his thumb over it, his eyes flicking down to mine only momentarily before shooting back up.
"Let me know if this hurts," he said softly, carefully beginning to clean up the wound. For a split second, I was brought back to the first time we'd met. When he was doing my tattoo and had managed to switch from cold and cruel to soft, almost gentle in a matter of moments. It unnerved me how easily he'd been able to do it.
At first, I thought it had been him wanting to come off that way. That he wanted people to be scared of him, that he wanted to hurt other people simply because he could. But now, looking at him as he so carefully worked away to patch me back up, I realized it hadn't been a front to scare away other people but rather to keep himself safe. Like he couldn't fathom being nice to someone in case they turned out to be the one to stab him in the back.
A defence mechanism.
"Thank you," I said quietly when he lowered the towel, dropping yet another soiled one in the sink. He still wouldn't meet my eye. "Do you, um," my gaze flitted up and down the length of him, "want me to help you clean yours?"
Harry was quick to shake his head. "I'm fine, River–"
"Until you get an infection," I shot back, glancing at his back when he turned to collect all of the cloths. "You won't be able to reach some of those yourself."
He straightened up, considering my words for a few seconds before letting out a sharp sigh. "I'll be fine–"
"You won't be." I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. "Don't be fucking stupid about this, Harry. You of all people should know what happens if let an open wound sit for too long."
For a long while, Harry said nothing. His jaw was set, and he was facing the sink, a foot away from where I still sat on the counter. Finally, he dropped the towels back into the sink, glancing once toward the ceiling before cursing under his breath and muttering, "I... Fine. Yeah, fine."
I hadn't actually expected him to agree. The surprise must have been evident on my face because Harry glanced briefly at me, hesitating before pulling his shirt over his head. He balled the material in his hands, tossing it out into the bedroom. This time, he allowed his eyes to meet mine, only concern left in them now.
"I know," I said quietly, refusing to let him voice his unspoken thoughts. "I'll be careful not to touch you any more than I have to, I promise."
And then I was spreading my legs, ushering him forward to stand between them.
Harry's entire body was stiff. His skin was taut, his tattoos gleaming and glistening in the light – partially from the blood still trickling from some of his cuts, partially because he just seemed to glow. I always forgot how pretty he was, how godlike his features were, until I saw him like this. So unrestrained, vulnerable.
I grabbed one of the clean, damp towels still sitting beside me, hating the way a pit in my stomach formed when Harry flinched as I brought it close to him. All at once, I realized what I was making him do. How many lines I was forcing him to cross, ones that I had no doubt he wanted to stay far, far away from.
"We don't..." I shook my head, trying to shimmy away. "We don't have to do this, Harry. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking in forcing you to do this. Seriously. I can just look them over once you've cleaned them–"
Harry grabbed my waist, preventing me from shimmying any further. He dragged me back forward, sliding one hand up to grab my wrist – the one holding the towel.
"It's okay," he said, though his voice was strained. "Just do it, River."
I didn't allow myself to overthink it, instead just reached forward to the first cut on his collarbone, ever-so-carefully running the towel over it. Harry said nothing, but his body stiffened further, and his hands tightened around my waist. He began to draw his thumb back and forth over my hip, clearly in an attempt to distract himself.
Distraction. Right. I could do that.
"What happened when you went back into the bar?" I blurted, careful not to look at his face because I wasn't sure I could deal with yet another sting of rejection when he wouldn't look back. "You were gone for a long time."
The towel dragged over his left swallow tattoo, clearing away the blood in its wake. A shudder worked its way through me. He was covered in blood, I realized with rising panic. I hadn't realized how much until he'd been this close, given that it had dried so dark it blended in with the ink on his skin.
"I just dealt with the problem," was the only response Harry offered. His words were clipped.
"Okay," I swallowed, nodding slowly, urging him to gently turn so I could work on his shoulders. "Did you get hit at all? Like should we be worried about a possible concussion or internal bleeding?"
"River, I'm fine," Harry shot back, wincing when I cleaned out some of the blood from a cut on his neck – one that looked like it had dried and opened back up within the past few minutes. I doubted there was any antiseptic, but continually cleaning and applying pressure was probably the best we were going to get until we landed.
"Right," I muttered, "You're fine."
Harry said nothing but I could feel his head tilt forward just a bit to look at me. Quietly, he asked, "What?"
I chewed on my inner cheek, shaking my head. "Nothing."
Surprisingly, this – him thinking something was wrong with me – seemed to have distracted him enough that he'd relaxed. He was no longer tense or stiff, his shoulders dropping and his chest rising and falling with more even breaths. Part of it relieved me, that he had found something other than me cleaning him up to dwell on.
"Riv," Harry said softly. "What's up?"
"I just..." I pulled away, letting both the cloth and my hands drop into my lap before looking up at him. "Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?"
Harry's brows twitched together. "What? What are you talking about?"
"I don't know," I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut for a few seconds to compose myself. "Ever since the drop you've been so... distant. You won't talk to me. You'll barely even look at me." A bit sarcastically, I went on, "I mean, I know we haven't exactly had the chance these past couple of hours to sit down and catch up but the most you've seemed to even look in my direction was back when we were running from Temarran's men. And then once we got on the plane, you shut down again. Is it because I fucked up the deal? And attacked him–"
"No," Harry looked at me like I was insane. "No, god – fuck, no. You did nothing wrong. You didn't fuck up the deal at all."
"Then why are you being like this?" I shot back, my voice escalating a fraction. "Why can you not even look at me?"
"I am," Harry tried to reason. "I am looking at you. I'm not acting any differently–"
"You are."
"I'm not fucking trying to," he was beginning to get a little aggravated, but he still hadn't let go of my waist. "I'm just..." Harry clenched his jaw, tipping his head toward the ceiling before blurting, "It's because I fucked it up. It's because everything would have been fine, we could have just gone home after the drop and left it all alone, but I had to go and ruin it all."
His admission surprised me a bit. I closed my mouth, mulling over his words for a few seconds. "So you're upset because you went after Temarran's men?"
"I'm upset," Harry went on through gritted teeth, "because I had no reason to do that in the first place. I'm upset because the only fucking reason I went and killed him, the only reason why I killed them all, was because he had threatened to kill you."
Everything seemed to pause for a moment. The chaos of the day, the noise in my head, the incessant ramble of thoughts that I hadn't seemed to have been able to turn off. Harry seemed no better, his expression the most open and vulnerable than I'd ever seen it – like he couldn't believe himself that he'd just admitted that.
"And then, after I'd gone and done that, I realized all I'd done was put everyone in danger anyway," he looked like he was trying to keep his anger at bay, "That you, everyone else, is hurt because of me." He shook his head, reaching up to trace his thumb over my cut. "That's why I couldn't look at you. It made me fucking sick to think that I'd hurt you. None of this would have happened if I'd just fucking thought before I acted.
"Let me get this straight," I blew out a long breath and leaned back, bracing my hands on the counter to assess him. "You killed close to 30 men because one of them threatened to kill me?"
Harry ran his tongue over his teeth, looking extremely annoyed. "I don't want to fucking hear it if you're going to yell at me too. I don't know why I did it, okay? I was just... fucking seeing red. I clocked out for a bit when it was going on. I was probably just really pissed too about Damien going behind our back."
"I'm not mad," I shook my head. Mad wasn't the right word for it. I wasn't sure what I was feeling about it yet, but that same rush of adrenaline was back, and it no longer had to do with the drop, the events at the bar or even the chase on the way back. It had to do with him. "I'm just selfishly glad you aren't mad at me like I thought you were."
"You did everything right," Harry's voice had lowered. "Everything. Exactly like I taught you."
I arched a brow, cocking my head to the side. "Yeah?"
Harry nodded, looking my face up and down. "Yeah."
"Well," I brought my hands back into my lap. "I'm fine. Let me start by saying that. You didn't hurt me. It wasn't your fault." Harry winced at my words, but I barrelled on, "I'm fine. I promise you."
"You aren't fine–"
"I am," I assured him gently but with enough firmness to my tone that I got my point across. "Really." Reaching forward, I grabbed ahold of Harry's wrist and placed his hand flat on my chest. "Do you feel that? It's my heartbeat. I'm alive." I brought my free hand up, holding it inches from his own chest, braving a glance at him before gently, to the point where I was barely even touching him, placed it on his own bare chest. "We're both fine."
"We're both fine," he repeated, eyes locked on my own.
"You know what I want you to do now?" I asked innocently, angling my head to the side.
Harry swallowed hard, not even daring to blink. "What?"
"I want you to show me just how good I was today," I said softly. "I want you to tell me every single thing that I did right. Every single thing that went right, so we can stop fucking focusing on all of the shit that went wrong."
"River," Harry's expression seemed pained like he was torn between an unspoken alternative. He sucked in a breath, "I... You're hurt. You should rest."
"I'm not fucking hurt," I repeated. "And I think that you should shut up and fuck me."
"It's the adrenaline from today," Harry countered, though his hand had inched its way up to my neck. "You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying," the words came out with a little bite to them – annoyance. "This day, overall, has been shit. And I just..." Part of my façade cracked just a bit, "I want something good to come out of it. Please."
For a long, long minute Harry just stared at me. Until finally, he sighed and asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," I reiterated, shuffling myself a little closer to him. "Please, for the love of God, will you just shut up and fuck me? I broke a man's nose and arm today. I'm not afraid to do it again–"
Harry's hand snaked up to close around my throat, his fingers digging into my airway. With his thumb, he forcefully tipped my chin up to face him. "I think you should watch that fucking mouth of yours," he pulled out my bottom lip, "before I put it to work."
"Put it to work?" I asked with a breathy laugh. "Coming from the guy who's currently afraid to touch me. I'd like to see you fucking try."
"You know," Harry's voice was eerily calm as he leaned in, dragging his nose up the length of my neck. Against my skin, he murmured, "You're fucking lucky you did so well today or else you'd really regret saying that."
"Why?" I countered, tipping my head back and fisting a hand in his hair. My legs were still wrapped loosely around his waist. "Does this mean you're going to go easy on me?"
Harry huffed a chuckle, nipping gently at my earlobe before taking the entire thing in his mouth and biting down hard. "Not anymore," he pulled back suddenly, assessing me with a gaze that set me on fire. With a feigned frown, he cooed, "Pretty little thing. It's a shame I'm going to have to ruin you."
Before I had a chance to react, Harry reached down to lift me up, wordlessly demanding that I wrap my legs tighter around him and hold on so that he could take the two of us out into the bedroom. My dress had already ridden up to my waist, the material bunched at my navel, leaving me in only my garters and heels below. Harry was at the bed in two seconds, his mouth still firmly attached to the skin of my neck, my jaw, my collarbone – just about anywhere he could reach while we made our way over. He dropped me down onto the mattress with enough force that I gripped onto the comforter to steady myself.
Wait... I glanced to my bunched-up fists before looking back at him.
Harry furrowed his brows, suddenly looking concerned. "What?"
"We've never fucked on a bed before," I blurted, scrambling to sit up.
The notion only seemed to partially phase Harry. His voice was still low when he asked, "Did you not want to?"
"I never said that," I shook my head. "I was just making an observation."
Harry's face morphed into a sickly-sweet grin. He leaned down, bracing a fist on the bed beside me, his other hand reaching up to grab my shoulder. "Observation noted," he said darkly and then suddenly shoved me down hard onto my back, inching forward to hover over top of me. "Now sit back and fucking behave."
The synthetic purple hair of my wig bunched at my shoulders and it was only then that I realized I was still wearing it. I'd been so caught up in everything else that I'd forgotten to take it off. On instinct, I reached up to yank it off only for Harry to catch my wrist before I had the chance. "Nuh-uh," he tutted, pinning my hand to my chest. "Did I say you could take that off?"
Something inside me soared at the expression on his face, at the way he looked just about ready to fucking devour me. With a stuttering heartbeat, I just shook my head, barely able to move with his body right above me on the bed. "No, you didn't."
"That's right," he said gently – mockingly. "I didn't. And tonight, Riv? Tonight, you fucking listen to me. Do you understand?"
I was nodding before I even really knew what I was agreeing to, mumbling out a breathy, "I understand."
"Yeah?" He looked absolutely sick with lust in that very moment. "Let's see if you do." His thumb lifted to wedge its way between my lips. "Open your fucking mouth." Even if I hadn't done it myself, he would have, the pad of his finger parting my teeth eagerly. Seconds later, he leaned forward and spit right into the back of my throat, before jamming my jaw shut again. "That's it. Good girl. Swallow."
I did, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. Harry groaned softly, his lashes fluttering, a grin spreading across his face. My back arched from the bed with a small groan, my chest eager to meet his, eager for him to do just about anything. Harry's hand slid to my neck, blunt fingernails digging into my skin as he yanked me up a few inches – enough that he could close the distance between us.
The kiss was anything but gentle. It was a clash of tongues, teeth and breath. Harry caught every noise I made in his mouth; his fingers pressed so tightly into my airway that my head spun. It eddied every last thought, dizzying me, giving me only the option to think of him – focus on nothing but him. Harry's lips parted and he bit down hard on my lower lip, pulling it back with a small groan, his eyes rolling to the back of his head when I bucked my hips upwards, a whimper crawling its way out from the back of my throat.
"You were so good today," he mumbled, driving his mouth a little to the left, trailing it down my jaw, to my neck. He dragged his tongue down my throat, over my collarbone. "So fucking good. But this outfit. Jesus, this fucking outfit just about put me in my grave."
"And here I thought you hated it," I managed breathlessly with a laugh, throwing my head back a bit.
"The last fucking thing," Harry said roughly, moving until he was looking at me again, "on my mind was hate. Do you want to know how I felt when I first saw you in this? What I wanted to do to you?"
"Tell me," I answered, hating that he still had me pinned down.
"When I saw you in this stupid fucking outfit," Harry went on, his pupils dilating as he looked me once over, "I wanted to fuck you stupid. Until you couldn't walk afterwards. Until I knew for certain you wouldn't be able to leave that fucking hotel room and that I would be the only one who'd seen it." He clenched his jaw, pulling me up by my neck into a seated position, a knee braced between my thigh on the edge of the mattress. He reached down, unsheathing the knife still attached to my leg, "But now here you are. Sitting here so fucking pretty, ready to let me do whatever I fucking want to you in this outfit. Like my own personal little fucktoy. Am I right, Riv?"
"Use me," I responded, tipping my head up to look at him. "Please. I'm yours."
Harry only smirked, running his tongue along his inner cheek. "That's right, pretty girl. You're fucking mine." He leaned forward, placing the tip of the knife at the bottom of my dress – right along the hem. "Not the man's from yesterday at the convenience store," he forcefully dragged the blade up a fraction, the dress beginning to tear down the middle, "Not those men on the street who were calling after you," he inched the blade higher until it was right below my bra, splitting my dress with every movement, "Not the men who couldn't keep their fucking eyes off you today in this little thing," with a final thrust, he ripped the dress clean in two, "You're mine."
My heart hammered in my chest. I could feel it ringing in my ears. The blade was just below my jaw now and Harry tucked it gently under my chin, lifting me up to face him. "Say it," he whispered lowly – predatorily. "Fucking say it again."
"I'm yours," I said aloud, surprised to realize I was thoroughly enjoying this. "To use as you want."
This seemed to please Harry because he dropped the knife, replacing it with his hand instead. He grabbed me by the jaw, his rings digging deep into my skin, the feeling reverberating through my whole fucking body. He looked me up and down, leaning forward once to kiss me – deeply and roughly – before murmuring against my lips, "Don't be scared, sweet thing. I like to reward things that are mine. And you did so well today," he gave me another kiss, "did exactly what I taught you."
He helped me out of the remains of my dress, tossing it to the side before laying me back down. My entire body felt like it was on fire and I was practically buzzing out of my skin, desperate for him to touch me. To do something.
"Please," I whined, writhing a bit on the mattress. I was left only now in my bra, the garter belts, the attached socks, heels and this stupid fucking purple wig. Harry drew back, his mouth parting as he looked me once over, which didn't at all help the mounting desire currently burning within me. "Please," I said again. "Please touch me, Harry. Do something."
Harry inched himself back, grabbing my ankle and lifting it up from the bed. He dragged his fingers along the lace sock, before hooking his finger in one of the garter straps. Before I had a chance to react, he pulled it back and let it snap against my skin. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, hips instinctively jerking forward at the feeling.
"Hurt a bit?" He asked with mock sincerity, drawing his palm over my skin that he'd just assaulted. He snapped the one on my other thigh without giving me the opportunity to answer. "Had to even it out," he murmured with a smirk, leaning forward to catch my bottom lip between his teeth momentarily before he released it, the two of us panting into one another's mouths until he kissed me with a groan.
"I fucking love these," he said, drawing himself back, his palms smoothing over my thighs. He jerked me forward, hooking one of my ankles over his shoulder. He hadn't even fucking taken off my heels yet and I had half a mind to ask him if he was even going to before his fingers worked their way up to between my legs, distracting me, and started drawing themselves up and down the length of my underwear. It was hard to suppress my whimper. "Look at you," his mouth was parted, and he was looking, somewhat awestruck, at the material covering me. "You've made a mess of yourself and I haven't even touched you yet. Soaked yourself right through these fucking things," His chillingly calm tone was enough to just about put me over the edge. Harry began running his fingers up and down. "Was it all me?" he asked huskily, the corner of his mouth drawing up. "Or was it the adrenaline from today? Did it turn you on, River, doing that drop today? Knowing you had control over millions of dollars? Knowing it was you we were all depending on?"
When I didn't immediately say anything, Harry brought his lips to the shell of my ear, where he softly murmured, "You can tell me. It's okay. Your secret is safe with me."
"Yes," I blurted, feeling my face heat. "It did turn me on."
"There it is," Harry's voice was a low snarl in my ear. He pulled back, but not before sucking at a small bit of skin on my neck. "Did it turn you on feeling that powerful?" Harry didn't wait for my response before softly saying, "I'll tell you a little secret of my own. Everyone else in that fucking place was just as turned on as me watching you break that fucking prick in half. They all wanted to fuck you just as much as I did."
"But nobody else gets to," I responded breathily, throwing my head back when Harry moved the material of my underwear to the side, his fingers brushing over my clit. My next words were strained, but he was spurring me on to finish my thought – I knew it, so I continued, "You're the only one who gets to fuck me now."
"That's fucking right," Harry ground out and suddenly pushed two fingers inside of me without warning, causing me to cry out. The pleasure, the feeling of fullness, had me dizzy. He began a lazy rhythm in and out of me, his palm circling my clit. "I'm the only one who gets to fuck you."
I bit down hard on my lip to keep from making any noise, that small, small part of my brain that was still sane and not completely encapsulated by him reminding me that just outside the door was everyone else. And that if I was too loud, they'd hear me.
"Harry," I whispered, letting my head fall forward until it was rested against his shoulder. He barely even reacted, just worked his hand a bit harder, his hair brushing against my cheek when he leaned down to trail his mouth up my neck. My leg had started to ache from being held over his shoulder for so long but it almost made the feeling just that much stronger. "Please," I whined, trying to keep my voice low.
"That's it," he cooed, pulling back just enough to nip at the skin of my leg rested beside his head. "Such a little slut, making a mess all over my hand like this. Are you gonna be good and make an even bigger mess? Gonna cum all over my fingers like I ask you to?"
I nodded, the world spinning at the action. Even I couldn't believe how close I already was, the combination of his fingers, his palm, the varying speed matched with his voice was enough to just about destroy me. My leg was trembling at his shoulder and Harry, seeming to notice this, paused only briefly to grab my calf tightly, holding me steady.
"Yes, oh god," my breathing had lost all rhythm, my chest rising and falling at an uneven pace. "Please, don't stop."
Harry continued with his relentless movements between my legs, occasionally leaning in to kiss me, to drag his lips over my neck, to suck on my skin hard enough that I knew there were going to be marks in the morning, but mainly kept his eyes on my face. Watching me, seeing how I became undone under his touch. My eyes fluttered shut and I felt myself beginning to clench around him, especially when he curled his fingers inside of me, a multitude of sighs and moans falling from my lips – all of which I tried to keep the volume down on.
My orgasm hit me hard, the world around me blurring and spinning, cracking into a million pieces only to reform seconds later. I bit down hard on my lip, enough to draw blood I was sure, and I momentarily felt like I wasn't going to be able to tamp down the noise, to keep myself quiet, but Harry was suddenly there – his mouth on mine, catching any noise that might have otherwise slipped. He let me drop my leg onto the mattress, his calloused hand cupping my face and lifting me toward him, his fingers slowing to a halt inside of me before pulling out completely.
"I love seeing you like this," Harry pulled back, resting his forehead against mine. "So desperate, so needy for me." He gave me another chaste kiss, barely giving me any time to recover, before muttering, "Now get on your knees and turn around to face the headboard."
Something about his tone had me shimmying out from under him the same moment he pulled away from the mattress, fumbling with his belt buckle. Swallowing hard, feeling that eager excitement thrumming through my veins once more, I tore my underwear off my legs and spun around on my knees, facing the headboard. All at once, I felt both exposed and completely at ease, ready for whatever was going to come next.
Harry appeared all too quickly, the mattress groaning as he made his way behind me until his chest was flush against my back. He grabbed a fistful of the wig, yanking me backwards, and I was surprised it didn't fly right off at the ferocity of it. "Do you trust me?" He murmured in my ear, his tongue darting out to trail down my neck.
"I do," the answer was immediate this time. Maybe it was because I was turned on to the point of going insane or maybe it was because I genuinely did trust him, but no alarm bells rung in my head this time. "I do trust you."
"Good," Harry was grinning now. A terrifying sort of grin that had me wondering what he was going to do until suddenly his belt materialized beside my head. For a split second, my heart jumped into my throat, and I glanced up at him to see that his expression had gotten somewhat serious now as he said, "I'm going to put this around your neck, okay?"
I stared at the belt. And then stared at him.
Harry angled his head to the side. "We don't have to–"
"Put it on," I cut in, realizing my body was trembling not with fear but with desire. "Put the belt around my neck, Harry."
He wasted no time, dropping his hand from the hair he currently had fisted in his palm and straightened me back up. The leather felt thick and foreign when he wrapped it around my throat, but my body refused to let me feel any panic, only building anticipation.
"I'll make sure you're able to breathe enough not to pass out," Harry murmured against my neck, placing a number of gentle kisses down my back. He tightened the belt before his next words, a small choked noise leaving the back of my throat. It wasn't tight enough that I couldn't breathe, but enough that I felt the adrenaline from knowing he had so much control over me. "And if you need out but feel like you can't tell me to stop, grab my hand and squeeze okay?"
"Okay," I nodded, the action alone feeling foreign given the object around my neck. "Got it."
I could hear Harry's grin as he spoke his next words against my skin, "That's a good girl. My dirty little fucking slut." And then he pulled on the belt again, not to tighten up, but to pull my head back so he could kiss me and murmur, "You might want to hold on." He'd barely given me enough time to brace my hands on the headboard, trying to focus on all of the new feelings of euphoria coursing through me, when I felt him line himself up behind me. He pushed in only slightly, the two of us gasping in sync. "I'm gonna fuck you until you can't remember your own name. Is that what you want?"
"Yes," my word was breathless. "Please, Harry. Fuck me," I tried to shove my hips back, but he held me steady with a low groan, refusing to move.
"You drove me insane today," he pulled me back a fraction again, his chest still right up against my back. He lowered his voice, brushing his lips once more over my neck, "Do you want to know a secret?"
"Harry," I whined, still careful to keep my voice low. "Please, just–"
Harry tightened the belt once before loosening it, an excited thrill coursing through me. "I asked you a question, Riv."
"I want to know," I finally said, despite the way I was currently aching. It was a miracle I'd gotten the words out at all. "Tell me the secret."
"I don't regret it," Harry whispered against my skin, causing goosebumps to pepper in the wake of his mouth. "I don't fucking regret for one second killing all of those men because of you and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
He didn't give me the luxury of a response before he forcefully rolled his hips forward, driving into me. My hands tightened around the headboard, grateful I had something to hold onto, and I heard Harry moan, his head coming to rest on the back of my neck.
"Fucking hell," he ground out, managing to keep himself still for a few moments. "So fucking good. You feel so fucking good." He loosened the belt a bit when he pulled back, allowing me to drop my own head, before he was snapping back into me, driving me forward with a gasp.
"Oh, god," I whimpered, trying and failing to keep myself quiet. Harry had mentioned on the way here that the bedroom was soundproof so I guess we were putting that theory to the fucking test. Harry slowly dragged himself out again before thrusting back in, hard and deep, making the bed rock against the plane wall.
"Incredible," he breathed. "You're fucking incredible. You were fucking incredible today and you were incredible now."
Harry's hips started to pick up a little more pace, the both of us moaning with each thrust, thrusts that were hard enough to leave marks in the morning, but I didn't quite care. Not when it felt this fucking good. Harry's hand was still wrapped around the belt and after setting a rhythm that he was satisfied with, he tightened it around my neck, enough that I couldn't breathe for a few seconds – the feeling more euphoric than I'd ever realized – before loosening it and muttering in my ear, "How does it feel? Tell me how it feels."
"So good," I stuttered out, "So fucking good."
"Such a good girl," Harry cooed, working his way in and out of me. "Being so good for me. Taking me so well." He paused for a split second, ramming into me with such force that I lurched toward the wall, having to brace a hand flat to hold me steady.
"Don't," I managed, "Please don't stop."
Harry was in the middle of turning my head so that he could kiss me, parting my lips with his tongue, before jamming it into my mouth with a groan. "Is this what you want?" He asked against my mouth. "You want to be fucked hard like this?"
"Yes," I managed at the same moment that his lips landed on my jaw, feeling him yank the belt so that I was a little closer to in order for him to nip at the part of my exposed skin that wasn't currently covered. "Harder. Go harder."
Harry's head snapped up, our noses almost brushed against one another, before he jerked me forward, running a hand down the length of my back. He smoothed his palm over my ass cheek, pulling it back briefly before bringing it down hard on my skin, the smack echoing around the small room. He massaged the area briefly, leaning to kiss my waist, before doing it again.
"As you wish," he muttered, pulling his hips back before slamming into me again.
The pace he set next was merciless, so hard and so intense that I could barely catch my breath – not that I would have been able to anyway given the belt around my neck that he tightened every so often, before loosening it enough to let me breathe, but not before that euphoric pressure built in my head. It was insane, the feeling more intense than any other time we fucked, and when he dipped his free hand down to below my legs – beginning to circle at my clit, I was genuinely worried I was going to have to be checked into the hospital the next day for brain damage. Because that was how it felt. He was absolutely destroying me.
"Just a little more," Harry grunted in my ear, his fingers working mercilessly at my clit in tune with his thrusts, "Just a little more for me, pretty girl, I know you can fucking take it."
"Oh, god, Harry," I could barely get words out now. The world was spinning.
Right when I was sure I was there, right as I was readying for my second orgasm of the fucking night to tear through me, Harry suddenly yanked his hand away and pulled out – causing me to let out a small gasp of anguish.
I turned to look at him. "What are you–"
But Harry was already working to unloop the belt from around my neck, dropping it to the floor and silencing my words. He spun me around, shoving me onto my back and yanked me down until he was hovering over top of me, a roguish grin on his face.
"Figured I'd change it up a bit," he quipped, leaning forward to kiss me. And then he was lining himself back up between my legs, helping me to hook a calf around his waist, before drilling himself forward. I cried out, my head falling back, the same moment that Harry grabbed my jaw and yanked me back down to look at him. "Yeah? Feels good right there?" I nodded, my eyes fluttering shut, unable to form words anymore, just about ready to explode when he reached back down toward my clit. Harry picked up his pace again, our hips snapping against one another.
"Fuck," I couldn't help it when I fisted my hand in his hair. "Feels so fucking good. 'M gonna cum."
"You're gonna cum for me?" He asked breathily, dragging his lips back up my neck – gentle this time when dealing with the skin where he'd wrapped the belt around. "Cum for me, Riv. Let me see you."
I opened my eyes, figuring that was what he meant, only to watch him reach up to grab a handful of the wig on my head – which he promptly yanked right off my head. My real hair fell free, bunching around my shoulders, and for a split second I felt a little embarrassed, worried he hadn't meant to do that or that it was breaking this little fantasy of his only to feel myself just about explode when his eyes landed directly on mine and he muttered, "There you are, pretty girl."
And then he was kissing me, smoothing his hand over my head, tossing the wig somewhere off to the side.
I came moments later, my mouth still on his, every part of me shaking and trembling beneath him. Harry's pace had slowed, but was steady, still working in and out of me. My back arched, eager to be as close to him as possible, while the world around me spun. Everything tilted on its axis, everything felt a million times more vibrant, I felt like I could quite literally do anything. And it was at that moment, when Harry's own orgasm worked his way through him, that I realized this was it. This was the adrenaline, the drug, that high I'd been chasing.
And I wasn't sure I ever wanted to let it fucking go.
His lips found mine again, our bodies fusing together, and for a few brief seconds, everything was still. Finally, when things started up again, when the world began to spin once more, Harry went slack and pulled out of me, the two of us panting. He rolled over onto his back, careful to maintain a few inches between us but had one arm still draped around my shoulders, something I didn't even realize he'd done until his fingers started stroking gentle patterns over my skin.
He looked over at me, his hair sticking to his forehead, a lazy grin on his face. "How do you feel? Are you okay?"
"I feel," I began, propping myself up on an elbow, my face spreading into a smile of my own, "like we just found out a great way to distract you from your fear of planes."
Harry laughed. Like literally laughed. His entire face lit up and his eyes screwed almost completely shut. The sight alone was enough to stutter my heartbeat and for some reason, I found myself wishing there was some way I could keep that image maintained in my head forever – if only because I knew there was a vulnerability to it and it was a side of himself he surely hadn't shown to anyone but me. Harry lifted himself a little off the bed, grabbing the pillow beneath his head, before chucking it in my direction. "Fuck you," he grinned with a roll of his eyes and then got up from the bed, extending a hand in my direction. "Let's clean you up."
--
a/n:
bye this was 15k words lmao anywayyyy!!!! peep the new cover made by my bff @deathlythrilled whom i literally love to death. she is incredible. this is a psa for you all to go read moonstruck<3 and to take care of yourselves! drink water, fuel your body and get enough rest. i love you!!!! xo thank you so so so so so much for reading!
- v