Carter avoids Harry for as long as she can, but she's so hooked on sex that it isn't an easy task. That, and she's becoming increasingly aware of what he's doing and that he's doing it on purpose.
She's pissed and needy and she decides to pay him a surprise visit two days before she leaves. Yes, it breaks client confidentiality but she doesn't give a damn. He's been to her place plenty of times and she can go to his if she damn well wants to.
The pavement crunches beneath her feet and she hugs her jacket closer to her body, the wind's a little too much for her today. Harry doesn't live in the nicest area of the city, but it doesn't matter really because hers isn't much better.
However, she's incredibly concerned when the address that she has matches up to a very abandoned looking warehouse. There's no possible way that he lives in there...he can't...can he?
Carter sighs, shakes her head, shoves the small piece of paper in her pocket, and deliberately makes her way to the small gate on the side. Everything looks so dilapidated and creepy and she just can't believe that it's possible for someone to be living inside.
The metal gate creaks loudly as she pushes it open and she cringes at the sound. If anyone does happen to live inside, they certainly heard that. She's positive that someone could hear it all the way down the block.
Carter pauses for a good moment or two to see if anyone will come out. No one does and she makes the decision to make her way over to the door. Once she approaches the faded and battered door, she can faintly hear music, it's beat a dull thrum in her ears but loud on the interior of the building. That explains why no one came out when she opened the incredibly loud gate.
She's beyond curious now, her hand resting on the cold metal of the knob as she hesitates. What if this isn't really his address? What if she read it wrong or wrote it down incorrectly?
Fuck it. She's going in and it doesn't matter if she's wrong or not because she has a bone to pick with Harry and, if not Harry, then with whoever's inside the creepy ass warehouse.
Carter practically flings the door open. Harry's sitting on a stool, hunched over as he paints something very intricate on an already half-filled canvas. He hears the door hit the wall and he hits the off button for the stereo to stop the music before he turns to face her.
She's already seen too much though.
His eyes are wide, but hers are wider. All around the room she sees her face, from sketches to paintings, she's everywhere and they're all so beautifully executed. But, fuck, it's her.
"What the f-"
Harry's up and where she's standing in only a moment. "I can explain, I-"
"No. No, you can't explain because I came here to yell at you and, damn it, that's what I'm going to do! I know what you've been doing, okay. I know. Don't even try to tell me that you haven't because I know that you have, you stupid bastard! You can't trick people and have them reveal themselves to you like that! Do you not know the fucking meaning of self-expression? God damn it! And now this!? What the fuck is all of this? Are you fucking crazy!?"
He has so many ways to explain, but he doesn't want to use his words and he can't use his art. So, he kisses her like he did that day when she was yelling at him outside of her shop.
Carter shoves him away, only to pull him back and kiss him in the same manner. He's such an asshole and she's such an idiot, but she doesn't want to stop herself because she's refused to let herself do these things for so long and her want overpowers her will.
"Carter, I-"
"Shut up and fuck me."
She's kissing him again, but this time it feels real, not like how they kiss before and during sex, but actual, genuine kisses.
Carter's pissed off and she makes that clear with her harsh kisses, but she's also lonely and Harry can feel the slight desperation and the need for someone that lingers beneath her actions.
Harry doesn't feel bad about what he did because he gave her the chance to be human again and it's wonderful. But he does feel bad for upsetting her, even though he knew that it was going to happen from the start.
So, he apologizes between heavy kisses. "I'm," kiss, "sorry."
Carter tells him to shut up. He obliges until he realizes how terrible downstairs is for sex and tells her to jump. She figures it out pretty quickly and jumps like he's asked, her legs wrapping around his torso and his hands holding her up by the backs of her thighs. He carries her upstairs and drops her on the mattress that sits on the floor, pushed against the back wall.
She hates that she's enjoying this, that she's enjoying him, but she's leaving in a few days anyway and he soothes her anger even though he was the one to cause it in the first place. She finally feels relieved. It's stressful to keep away from things like this—things that she wants all the time—and to constantly put on a front so that no one really knows how to hurt her or who she is.
Their clothes are off and strewn about in only a few moments, her hands are in his hair and pulling on the strands harshly as his hips meet hers. His lips are hot as they press against her skin, leaving fresh marks in their favorite areas and further inflaming her skin.
His body is even better and she hates to leave those marks down his back, but she can't help herself because he makes her feel heavenly and she can't ignore her body's impulses.
Her hips ache from how harshly his continue to meet hers, but the pain is nothing compared to the bliss that comes with it.
Carter finds him quite beautiful with his hair falling in his face, damp from all of the exertion, his eyes a darker shade of green and how they're either half closed or closed completely with each deliberate thrust that he makes, and the way that his lips part slightly, even if he isn't making a sound. She hasn't noticed it too much before now because she was focused on the experience and she knew that she'd like him more than she wanted to if she looked. But right now she can't help but to look and, damn, he really is something to look at.
Harry notices her gaze and kisses her again and she forgets all about her original dissent when he hits her sensitive spot and has her unraveling beneath him.
It doesn't take much longer for him to reach his climax and soon they're lying beside one another, their legs tangled at the end of the bed and their chests rising and falling heavily as they catch their breath.
"Just tell me why."
Harry shifts so that he's facing her and resting his weight on his elbow. His green eyes scan her curiously and his face contorts with confusion, "What do you mean, why?"
Carter sighs and runs her fingers along his arm. He's built up a nice amount of muscle since he'd gotten clean and she really enjoys it because it's neither too much nor too little.
"Why have you continued to pursue me and try to find out who I am beneath the façade even though I want nothing more than to push you away?"
Harry takes her hand in his and stops her motion, lacing their fingers together. The action is small and very simple in its nature, but it carries enough meaning to make her feel something that she can't ignore: the comfort of another human being.
He kisses the top of her hand and smiles softly because he knows that she won't push him away right now.
"Because I was like that once and I wasn't happy. Everyone needs someone even if they don't think that they do, it's only a matter of who's willing to try." He shrugs lightly, his smile shy, "I wanted to try for you, even if it got me nowhere."
Carter doesn't smile, instead she frowns. "The last person that said something like that to me is the one that made me this way, you know."
Harry gently squeezes her hand, "Will you tell me why?"
She releases his hand and turns so that she's resting on her side and facing the opposite wall. "No."
Harry moves closer, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close to him. "Why not?"
Once more she sighs. She still doesn't get why he's being so persistent, why he wants to know her instead of all of the other women out there that he could have, that would actually want him without making him put forth so much effort. She also doesn't want to tell him the story of how her heart was shattered. She hasn't even told Pandora yet.
"Why me out of all of the women that you could easily have?"
Harry sighs because she's being difficult and distant again. "Easy isn't what I want. Life isn't easy and neither is love."
Carter frowns, "I wish someone had told me that when I was younger."
His soft lips meet with the skin on her shoulder and she closes her eyes as he mumbles, "What happened to you that made you want to shut yourself down mentally and emotionally and shut out everyone that tries to help you? You refuse to open up and be yourself, to let someone love you or care about you. Who did that to you, Carter?"
He knows that pressing her is the only way to get answers at this point. If he doesn't, she'll throw the defensive walls up in a heartbeat. She's already angry with him for having her figured out so well for a stranger.
She knows that he's still doing it, trying to unlock her secrets, but a part of her really wants to tell him and that part of her outweighs the lingering heartbreak. "I was engaged to a man three years ago. He was my high school sweetheart and I really thought that he was the one. I felt it—or, I guess I thought that I did because it was easy and I always thought that's how love was supposed to work.
"He made me happy. We'd been living together for just about two years when he proposed and I thought that everything was okay, that everything was perfect. But I learned that nothing's ever that way—perfect, I mean—because there's always an imperfection somewhere.
"Sometime around the time that we were supposed to get married, he came home late and anxious. He worked late often, so I didn't really question it because it had become a normal routine. I thought that maybe he had a bad day or something typical, you know?
"He told me to sit down and I did because he was frantic and I didn't want to make it worse or anything. Plus, what was sitting down really going to do to me?
"I watched him calmly and worriedly as he paced the room, placing his hands on his head, moving little things around, and even pulling at his clothes as if they were suffocating him. It was very worrisome, but I didn't know what to do or what was going on, so I watched.
"Finally he said it. The five words that I was never expecting to hear from the man that told me that I was his entire world and asked me to marry him: I'm breaking up with you.
"I stared at him blankly for so long that he got fidgety and kept asking me to say something, anything at all. At first I didn't cry and I didn't get angry. I simply felt what was happening inside my chest, everything falling and caving in on itself, crumbling to dust and leaving me empty.
"Then I asked him why. Just one word was all it took for everything to really sink in for the both of us. He'd been seeing a woman he met at the bar for well over a year and he said that he loved her and not me. He told me that I'd become his friend and he couldn't see me as a lover anymore, apparently, and he wanted his ring back.
"I took the ring off and left it on the counter and left without a single word or possession except for what was in my purse." Carter stops briefly to wipe her eyes. She didn't want to show him this side of her and she's not going to cry while finishing this. She's not.
"I didn't start crying until I checked into a hotel far away from him. I sat propped up against the door and cried for most of the night. He was, essentially, all that I had and I was supposed to be what he had, but he hadn't wanted me the way that he should have for the longest time and he just tried to push through it instead of just ending it when it started.
"I really thought that he was mine and that I was his, but it was never that way and he just let me believe it because he didn't have it in him to walk away when it started. Then, when I picked myself up he came back. He said that he was wrong, that he changed his mind and that he'd always loved me—that he still did.
"I let that stupidson-of-a-bitch walk right back into my heart and he cheated on me again. Fivetimes to be exact. Five different women. I told myself that I was going to quitthis fucked up game called love and focus on the career that I'd started formyself instead. I wasn't going to be so vulnerable and I haven't been since."