DOUBLE UPDATE!
make sure to read 75 before this one.
and TRIGGER WARNING: brief mention of child abuse.
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" a little scared of being someone you're scared to love "
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aurora astor.
And finally, it's quiet.
The silence envelops my entire body, compressing against every inch of my skin to dull the adrenaline lingering in my veins.
My fingertips toy with his own, ensuring he remains close behind, seeping his thick cologne and remedying warmth through my skin just as his breathing still calms from earlier.
I slip the keys from his trembling, ring-clad hands to unlock the door myself, prying the door back open to the stillness of his midnight-coated loft.
He intertwines our fingers further, stepping in behind me while his eyes sweep around the space to ensure it's all in place.
And the rattle of the door shutting into place pierced the noise through our own engulfing placidity while I set his carabiner clipped keys into the ceramic bowl on the countertop.
He curls me into his right side, looping our twined hands over my head to rest over my shoulder while he groans a bit at the stiffness in his left arm.
I melt into his warmth, listening to my throbbing heels lacerate against the wood beneath my feet as his own boots tread beside me. With delicate, tender kisses to my scalp while we ascend the stairs at our own unhurried pace.
And our feet hit the platform, guiding the two of us into the serenity of the bathroom. While leaving the door a crack open, I leave the lights at a mellow dim before slipping from his side to drop the bloodied switchblade into the pit of the sink — the blade I only took out of protection before I left without him earlier which nearly feels like days ago with the timeline in disorder.
I noticed him place his gun on the marble countertop while I carefully shrug his suit jacket off my shoulders — every inch of me seems to just hurt.
Tracing my eyes over my figure, skin spattered in dried blood while my makeup smudges across my features. Then, my eyes drag over in the mirror reflecting our rough appearances back at us, settling my eyes on him while he grips the edge of the counter in weariness while he stares over at me.
The fabric pools on the tiles spilling across the floors, "let me see the wound," I instruct him while I pry open his cabinetry to grasp the antiseptic soap, rubbing alcohol, and a plethora of sterile gauze. My voice furrows a crease between his eyebrows while his gaze seeps into my soul.
He just subtly shakes his head, "'m alright, babe," his raw voice whispers to skitter the sound through the hollow of this compact space.
"Don't fucking try that bullshit with me, Harry, take your shirt off and sit down," I snap at him, noticing his sulking eyes widen a bit at my stern tone.
He vexedly huffs in his own stubbornness while he groans at the buttons on his dress shirt, wandering over to the tub while he fidgets to gradually reveal more and more of his skin.
He heavily sighs while he kicks off his scarlet boots to add to the scattered mess of clothing on the floor. He expels a pent-up breath as he settles onto the edge of the tub beside the sink side with his thighs comfortably spread and his ink on full display in simply his black dress pants with the intricate embroidery on the sides.
I close out the space between us, aiding him to slide his injured arm out of the dress shirt to reveal the smother of blood dripping down the ink on his left arm.
"Well, shit," he airily curses under his breath, and I smack the side of his head for a blatantly obvious comment in my own distress at the sight of the wound. He grits out a groan at me through his pain, "ouch! What the fuck was that for–"
"Idiot," I carefully draw his arm into the sink, gushing the water from the faucet over his stained, untouched skin to begin watching the crimson swirl against the stark white of the sink.
"We're going to Mia tomorrow, okay?" I mumble under my breath as he sighs under his breath, adamant about never receiving help of his own.
I reach for the antiseptic soap, desperate to clean just the about 3-inch, give or take, graze across his toned tricep. He props his other elbow up on the counter, supporting the weight of his chin on his ring-clad fist while he stares down at my gentle fingers rubbing away the dried blood coated over his ink.
The suds begin to lather into a fragrance-free foam against his skin above the wound, allowing the water to cascade the soap into the wound to clean out the various dirt from the fabric of his shirt, the urban biome, and hell, even the bullet itself.
"Fuck's sake," his fingers shield his rugged face, scrunching from the immense pain flooding his arm to twist my belly into knots from simply perceiving him in pain.
"I know, 'm sorry," I quietly murmur, cleaning it to the best of my ability before tearing open gauze to spare before applying pressure to the wound.
"Good god, Ace," he brutally curses under his breath, cutting the profanity through the hollow of his bathroom while the stark crimson instantly blooms through the white gauze as I clean it.
I grab more, soaking it in the protuberant rubbing alcohol solution stinging my nose. I sniffle softly at the burning aroma wafting through the air, scrunching my nose in distaste before replacing the blood-soaked, clean gauze with the rubbing alcohol to which he roughly groans with his beet-red face still shielded from me.
"Almost done," I assure him, involuntarily dipping my head down to layer one, two, and three soft-hearted kisses into his disheveled, chocolate-colored curls at the top of his head.
Incessantly cursing at me through his own agitated pain, I dab at the graze gunshot wound before drawing the dull, scarlet-stained gauze back from his wounded skin.
I tear open more gauze, layering the fresh dressing over his wound before wrapping it around the entirety of his bicep over and over until it's set into place.
"You still alive over there, right?" I gently poke at the visible flesh on his cheek, toying with him a little to get something out of him other than the awful pain to finally reveal his crimson-painted cheeks as he heavily blinks up at me.
"Just barely, baby," that familiar dimple caves into his cheek with his wicked smile up at me.
Those green eyes flicker downwards towards his freshly-dressed wound while I eventually smile to myself at this sarcastic antics, cleaning up the mess of medical supplies laid out on the counter.
While I wander around while I perceive the sound of water gushing into the porcelain tub, tossing out the used gauze before thoroughly washing my hands.
And my throat closes a little while I regard the stark contrast of red swirl in the translucence of the water spilling from the sink faucet, rubbing at my skin furiously in an attempt to rid it all before I spiral further downwards.
Awareness spills through my back as my eyes drag upwards into the mirror, recognizing Harry's arms snaking around my waist as the tub begins to fill to subdue the deafening silence. And the steaming lavender scent clings to the air, easing out the tension aching my scalp.
His head dips down, tickling my bare skin with his rugged curls while his lips connect with the protruding bone on my shoulder. His hands encase my own, carefully scrubbing up and past my wrist to the rest of the blood off my skin while discerning the blood from my own irritated skin from the panic.
"C'mere, love, let's take a bath," he whispers, drawling his raspy voice across my skin already littered with goosebumps while he slips away to shut the water off once the mounds of bubbles have reached the top.
I hum softly, attempting to draw away from him to draw my torn dress off my body. I don't manage to get myself far while he steadies my hips to guide my ass into the edge of the counter.
His figure daunts over me, his olive skin etched in my favorite pieces of art which I've memorized, seeing as though they're hung highest in my own art gallery. He grabs a clean towel, drying off my hands before using the excess water to carefully wipe at the blood on my exposed breastbone in this dress meant only for him.
And the thought consumes me like a wildfire, forcing my eyes upwards towards the ceiling while I bite the inside of my cheek as he sets the towel to the side.
The chipped nail polish of his red-painted fingertips toy with the lacing ties up the midline of the bodice, "this alright?" He murmurs while I hum softly, my curious eyes regarding him tug at the loose string to loosen the top of the dress a bit more before his breath shudders as his fingertips tuck under my thin straps to draw them off my shoulders.
The material loosens, inching downwards before the entire dress slips from my hips to pool at my onyx heels laced up and around my ankles. Utterly bare for him, I willingly grant him the most intimate of passages into my own vulnerability.
And all that simply lays on me is the pink, lace panties, solely meant just for the perfect night we had planned — the kind of night in which its domino effect would have eased directly into the confession I've been memorizing for days.
His eyebrow twitches upwards at the color himself, the fucker smirking as he sinks to his knees before me with his searing fingertips dragging down the curves of my sides until they find sanctuary on my hips. And my breath never fails to hitch at the sight of his submissively hooded eyes peering upwards, dripping in desire for no one else but me.
"Angel," he breathes into my skin, exuding the warmth through my body and towards the center of my core while he drags his velvet lips over the waistband of my underwear.
His warm breath scatters across my skin. "God, Ace, I wanted ... I wanted to worship every bit of you tonight, you know?" He murmurs through his own, healing kisses to my lower belly in a mess of fluttering butterflies and liquid heat. "I just wanted to take my time teasing you, have you makin' a mess all over me, and fuckin' you until you were screaming for me ... but it seems we can't catch a fucking break," his words loosen from his chest in utter exhaustion.
I just huff at his bluntly filthy words, unable to resist himself as he stares up at my body before him in awe, of sorts. Ignoring the obvious heat between my thighs, our fatigue overpowers the overwhelming need to be as intimate as I possibly could with him.
A weak smile creeps onto my face, "Rain check?" I cup his chin with delicate fingertips. He mumbles definitely, he departs with a tender kiss to my hip bone before reaching to unlace my heels.
Easing out the throbbing pain seeping deep into my heels, I sigh in relief while the coolness of the tile subsides the pain from running all damn night in those.
He stands upright once more, allowing me to aid him unbutton his pants. I hook my thumbs into the sides of the layers of fabric as he slides his pack of marlboro reds out of his pocket with his pink lighter to rest on the corner of the marble counter.
My eyes flicker upwards towards my favorite shade, shadowed in the dim lighting surrounding us. A smile lingers on my lips, "you looked very handsome tonight, you know? Don't think I had time to tell you."
A wicked smirk carves into the fucker's ruggedly beautiful face as I dip my head towards his chest, sponging a tender kiss over his thrumming heart with the faint ink that overlays there.
Nudging the fabric of his pants and boxers down, he steps out of his clothes to leave himself bare before me while I maneuver out of my underwear, leaving the fabric of our dress clothes spread across the floor.
He takes my hand into his, guiding us to the inviting tub of bubbles while he steps in first to nearly reverb his moan through the dense silence once he submerges and settles himself on the end of the tub.
He lifts our intertwined hands in his good arm, guiding me into the steaming heat of the lavender water until I submerge with the bubbles meeting my collarbones with an ecstasy-induced sigh.
He lays his injured arm along the edge of the tub, curling his healthy arm around my waist to cradle me into a ball, sideways into his own lap to which I can only melt into his warmth. My fingertips toy with his gold cross under the water, bobbing from our recent entrance into the comfort of the tub.
He sighs heavily beneath the side of my head tucked against his shoulder. His lips drag over my scalp while the ends of my hair meet the bathwater, caring about nothing more than his presence so intimately against mine.
His fingertips splash as they emerge from his tracing shapes on my hip beneath the soapy water, weaving into my scalp to nearly sting tears to my eyes at the sensation of his gentle touch.
"Take your time, but I need you to tell me everything, baby," he murmurs against my slick skin from the steam wafting from the water.
I wearily sigh under my breath, staring down at the abyss of bubbles encasing us together. "I need a fucking cigarette," my voice rasps to which a light, trickling chuckle escapes from his raspberry lifts.
He groans while reaching up towards the sink with his injured arm, offering me the opportunity to scold him as he rummages for a singular white stick.
He shuts me up by placing the lethal device between my parted lips to clamp around, reaching back upwards for his lighter with a sigh as he retrieves it.
I narrow my gaze at him, smirking as he rolls the spark wheel to ignite a hot flame to burn the potent smoke rolling down my throat. My hand slips from the lavender water, dripping as he sighs to settle back comfortably while the thick smoke blends into the lavender air.
He dips his head down, granted, I bring the lipstick-stained filter to his lips to hollow out his sharp cheekbones with a deep, reverbing hum spilling against my side. I draw it back, watching his head roll back against the rim of the bathtub to expel the tobacco smoke before his jaded eyes readjust on mine.
My mind reels as his head tilts to the side, peering into my soul as he searches for more answers. I rub at my temple with a harsh puff of a sigh, "I went to Jules' place, just drank a bit of wine and she helped me get ready ... for tonight," I swallow thickly as his eyes intently trace the expressions meeting my face, listening as no one has before.
"I left around 6:15, I think, I didn't wanna get caught in traffic downtown ... and headed down a few blocks to catch a cab ... but I had my headphones on, didn't notice the car trailing behind me down the street. It was too late, I got grabbed from the back, then they had that chemical over my mouth and I just blacked out." I wearily admit to which his face pales further than it already is from the blood loss.
The blank stretches of time creep like ghosts through the corridors of my mind, and I desperately consume another thick drag of the cigarette to remedy the thoughts.
His fingertips pinch the bridge of his nose as the muscle in his jaw harshly jumps with his sharp exhale, "fuck, go on." He grits out despite the obvious anger flooding his jade eyes, dropping the back of his head back against the rim of the tub to guide his blunted gaze back into mine.
Loosening the smoke from my lungs, I melt further into the cradle of his presence while I bite the inside of my cheek out of habit.
"I just woke up alone in this pitch-black dark room, and it was really cold," I vividly recount, unable to meet his gaze any longer at the memories crawling across my skin — forcing my psyche to disprove them just to live in a reality where those hours didn't happen.
While uninterrupted by any other form of life, the sensory deprivation was horrifying in itself. At one point I could have sworn the walls talked.
And it was terrifying to simply sit there with just myself and the voices in my head convincing me at one point that maybe this world would be better without me. It would all stop.
"Did that son of a bitch fucking touch you?" He refers to Moore, but in all honesty, the gang member's name was simply a whisper amongst the men holding me hostage — as if he merely controlled all of it, refusing to truly get his hands dirty.
"No," I shake my head, staring down at the bubbles while sucking in a deep drag to remember the blur of the escape plan.
As the smoke drifts from my lips, his eyes trace the fueling smoke dissipating into the air. "I took your switchblade with me because I didn't have anything else, it was just sitting on the nightstand ... And so after I managed to find the door, I just waited there until someone opened the door. I–I ... I ..." my voice stumbles over the horrifying sights embedded in my mind.
"I stabbed him in the neck, there was so much goddamn blood everywhere," I murmur in annoyance while his grip splays to cup the back of my head, guiding my eyes upwards towards his curiously calm eyes.
"He didn't touch you?" He pries for more vivid details.
The corners of my lips turn upwards around the filter of my cigarette, consuming more of the lethality. "Not before I got him," I arrogantly smile.
"Good girl," to which he relievingly grins, beaming in pride. He subtly shakes his head but his gaze peers down towards the bruise on the corner of my lip that proves otherwise.
Reliving the thick smoke from my lungs, it spills away from us while I hum softly at the words trickling down to my gut. "I ran, and the place was a goddamn maze but there were like ... four of them, maybe," I mumble as I huff in my own defeat to being outnumbered but that familiar crease forms between his eyebrows while his bottom lip pouts in attentiveness to my words.
"One of them got me, the other hit me square in the mouth ..." I casually shrug to which he hisses at the thought, cautiously lifting his injured hand to cup my chin ever-so-delicately before carefully prodding at the skin with his thumb.
I grumble at him toying with the bruise but he holds my chin steady, unrelenting his examination of the hit. "He was weak as shit," I offer a smile to which he huffs. Tilting his head towards mine, he layers a firm kiss over the swelling mark as if seeping more of his healing antidote into my skin.
Just barely meeting the corner of my lips, a soothing sigh exuding from my mouth to tickle against his freshly-shaven skin. His hoarse hum reverbs into my skin, dragging his mouth towards mine to instinctually part my lips while my body shifts into his own.
My cigarette-clad hand dangles over the edge of the tub, tilting my head while we just share the same, thick tobacco smoke and air between the two of us. Every desperate breath that dissipates from my lips seems to be his own greedy form of oxygen, grazing his plush lips against mine as he shakes his head slightly as if in disbelief still.
"Did you really think I stood you up?" The question lingers in apprehension, seeping into the minuscule space between us while he raggedly breathes against my lips.
"I tried so hard to convince myself that so I didn't lose it thinking otherwise," he admits to which a certain relief collapses in the tension in my chest while the dense air seemingly washes over us in the same heartbeat.
"I try so damn hard, Ace ..." his voice whispers against my lips as if simultaneously convincing himself otherwise despite the way our hearts seem to beat for each other at this very moment.
I carefully slide my thigh over his lap, straddling his hips while my deeply-heaving chest presses up against the smooth planes of the chest as the lavender water sloshes around us.
My forehead meets his, dangerously close as we consume each other's air to merely breathe for one another. "Then stop trying, Harry ... 'm here, 'm yours–" I needily breathe out, attempting to grasp the fabricated truth out of his own mouth to convince myself that this is real but my words are only swallowed by the warmth of his mouth against my own.
"Fuck," he painfully sighs into my lips between the passionate way kisses me, "I can't lose you again."
My heart splinters at his words, his fears mirroring my own as I can only deepen the kiss itself while smoothing my freehand up from his chest to cup the side of his jaw.
My wet thumb drags across his defined jaw while our mouths intimately find a leisurely sanctuary in each other, my eyebrows drawing together at my own rehearsed confession tickling my lips. As my lips seal again and again to his sweet, satin lips my mind ebbs into his own endless oblivion.
Please, my mind seems to cry out. Please, love me the way I love you.
You're all I ever want love to be.
Instead, I draw back just as his lips attempt to catch my own but instead, he sighs in restraint. Reality clears like gray skies after a never-ending storm once my eyes blink open, reaching the abyss of moss-green within his eyes peering into my soul.
I roll my lips into my mouth while his remain parted for a moment as if to say something further but instead, they clamp shut while his eyes trace across my face.
"Fucking hell," he roughly sighs with his hued eyes deadset on me, simply staring at his eyes lacquered as they were earlier. I see the look in his eyes and I'm biting my tongue. "I can't fucking lose you." He repeats.
For now, he'd just be the love of my life inside my head.
I reach over, putting out the cigarette on the cool marble countertop to clean later before sinking back towards the gravitational pull tethering us.
In truth, "I'm not going anywhere," I simply sigh, melting back into him while curling into the cradle between his thighs with my head nuzzled into his neck.
My fingertips drag across his skin, gliding over the smooth skin's crevices and ridges of his inked muscle but noticing the sporadic scar out of place to such beauty he holds.
And my fingertips focus on a certain scar that I've taken notice of before, the faded pink blurred beneath the cloudy lavender water engulfing us in comfort but it stretches for what seems like miles across his precious skin.
"My dad," he answers that questions circling the drains of my mind to only tighten my stomach into more knots than when we were racing down the highway.
His breathing trembles a bit as he heavily exhales beneath my head, hoping to rid the crowding thoughts viscerally swarming his mind with a tender kiss to the junction between his prominently inked tattoos.
"All of these?" My hoarse voice wearily mumbles to every scar hidden beneath the disguise of his patchworks of dark, raven ink and even on full-display across his back.
I glance upwards, noticing his adam's apple bob as he harshly swallows down the brutal reality with a deep, reverberating hum against my ear. "Yeah," he whispers to scatter his raw, accented voice through the hollow of the bathroom, "depends on what was closest to him ... sometimes it was a belt or his hands, maybe even an empty beer bottle," he casually murmurs despite the obvious agony laced into his voice, as if peering back through a mirror to his past.
His eyes dip down to my silence, my lips parted yet instead he just smiles at me in a childish way that he never could when he was little. His fingertips continue toying with my hair, humming softly as if reading my mind's saddening thoughts.
"I wish I knew you all my life, baby, I wish I could have protected you then because I would have ..." I wearily murmur while his warming smile despite the hell's he's been through only curls around me just as his arms are right now.
"I have no doubt, my love," his head dips down to hide those eyes from me as he speaks into my hair.
My eyes widen, shattering my heart with his very words sinking to the pit of my stomach as I begin to rebuttal the words saturating the hollow of my gut.
"Hell, it feels like I've known you my whole life either way, Ace," he mumbles against my scalp to curl a lingering smile on my cheeks and easing into the kind of security I searched for years for.
My fingertips trace the fading 'A' initial I've carved into his shoulder, "that one doesn't count." I can practically perceive the smirk in his voice alone to which I chuckle lightly through my nose.
"You never told me, you know?" I mumble to earn a lost hum from his lips as I peer upwards to discover his adorably confused eyes. "You never told me why you call me Ace," I question in genuine curiosity to spark a vibrant smile on his cheeks, blooming with crimson and his infamous dimple.
"Because of my mum," he speaks of the topic that's always gone untouched. "She used to call me Ace when I was little. Every time I managed to just fucking do something right, she'd call me that and it just stuck ... And that night when I first saw you in the ring, that's the only thing that came to mind and it stuck too, I guess."
Honestly, fuck him for being so damn hard not to love.
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we were so close! damnit!
we're getting so close to the end. i'm sad and excited </3
love,
h.