Dacre is so fucking hot.
HARRY
"So, do you often visit LA?" he asked, smirking at the woman across from him. His fingers curled around the glass of scotch and he sat further back into his leather couch in the expensive bar.
The woman, a millionaire's unfaithful wife, blushed at him, absolutely taken by his outer appearance. He had to admit she was gorgeous too, red painted lips, pearl necklace, blond hair in a dapple bun at the back of her head. Her long legs were crossed and she held herself rather well, obviously loving the rich life she had wormed her way into.
Too bad he was going to fuck her for a little bit and then steal her rich husband's money. How so? The phone in her handbag, Chloe needed it – for blackmail. It wasn't the usual job, but Harry liked it nonetheless.
She sipped her cocktail and let out a little shy laugh, obviously flirting, "I come here sometimes with the girls, it's not as wild as Vegas- which is where everybody likes to go for a good time- but, it's close, and relaxing."
"You come for a good time?" Harry said, deliberately coating his voice with interest and lust to woo her. He smirked, watching her bite her lip flirtily and nod.
It was pathetic really, he barely met her an hour ago, 'accidently' knocking her drink off the table, a simple 'oh sorry, let me buy you another one' and he had her eating out of the palm of his hand.
He smirked at her, leaning forward as she watched his every move, entranced.
"A good time? I can give that to you, darling," he whispered hotly. She smirked and bit her lip.
"Your place or mine?"
Harry smirked, "Yours."
..
He lay in silence, Lara's, as he finally remembered her name, arms curled around his torso, snuggled into his chest. He lay wide awake, suddenly feeling like Harry in When Harry met Sally.
What was it with women and cuddling after sex?
He'd counted the cracks in the ceiling...twice. It had been ten minutes, and in the first two she had fallen asleep.
The sex wasn't even good either, she screamed like a banshee. Harry guessed her husband, whom she 'forgot' to mention, had plenty of mistresses to make up for his shitty young wife. The only good moments came first when they stumbled into the room and he got her clothing off, as she didn't notice he unclasped the pearl bracelet and necklace from her skin and slip them into his pocket, and secondly when he managed to clasp his hand over her loud mouth and release, ignoring the fact that she wasn't finished.
Yet now he was paying the price by enduring her bony arms clinging to him.
After twenty minutes he was absolutely bored, and slowly managed to replace his torso with a spare pillow, leaving the woman to sleep as he slipped on his black boxers, pants, shoes and dress shirt and quickly found her handbag.
He grabbed the phone, and then checked her wallet, grabbing the cash and smirking to himself. He knew she'd never find him, nor could she go to her husband and claim she'd been robbed, not when that phone was missing. He took the other jewelry on the table and then prepared to leave, checking his hair in the mirror and slipping a piece of gum into his mouth.
He walked to the bedside, stirring Lara. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"I have to leave now, darling, work calls me," he whispered, pretending it was a huge sacrifice. She sat up, pulling the sheets around her naked body and smirking at him.
She fluttered her lashes, and ran a hand down his arm, "Will I see you again?"
Harry smirked, shaking his head as her smile slowing dropped into a look of confusion. "Probably never again. Goodbye, Mrs Tabult."
She gasped and he turned to leave just as the door opened and in walked an older man, seemingly in his late forties.
"Honey, I have business in LA so I thought I'd visit- what the fuck!"
Harry smirked. Winking at the man and pulling his dress jacket on as he strode towards the door.
"You whore!" Mr Tabult screamed, and she screamed as well, pleading with him to listen to her. Harry smirked, straightening his jacket and leaving the couple to fight.
He almost skipped down the hallway, his fingers played with the jewelry in his pockets, as well as the phone holding the information Chloe wanted like a child wanting candy.
Whistling to himself, he pushed the elevator button and waited. A particularly loud scream echoed from the bedroom and he turned around.
Just as a gunshot sounded and the woman's screams ceased.
Harry's eyes widened in shock.
He woke alone, the gunshot ringing in his ears.
Why he dreamt of that time he did not, and he frowned at the ceiling in confusion. The sheets were pulled low to his waist, the other side of the bed was a mess, the sheet thrown and twisted, and the pillow on the floor. Yet the mattress still held a little warmth.
"Are you awake?"
Harry looked up from the bed, his eyes capturing the figure sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. The large European window was open above her head and the cool autumn air blew in and filled the room. With a glowing cigarette butt in hand, she was but a shadow in the night.
She looked like a freshly-fucked angel.
And he felt like a freshly-fucked demon.
"What's the time?" he asked softly, rubbing his eyes as he sat up, the sheet bunching at his waist.
"About three am, I think."
He groaned, looking at the roof, he frowns, "And you couldn't sleep?"
She blew out some smoke, Harry watched it curl upwards through the window.
"Nah."
She stood up, leaning on the window sill in the small amount of moon light, skillfully blowing smoke rings into the air.
"Where's the smokes?" Harry asked, squinting his eyes to look on the bedside tables for a packet.
Elena stared out the window, mumbling, "I've got the last one." Harry groaned dramatically, tossing himself into the pillows and lazily watching Elena smoke. The butt was still very long, so she had only just started smoking it.
"C'mere," he mumbled, indicating for her to come to him with his finger, she looked over her shoulder and followed his command, kneeling on the side of the bed until he grabbed her waist, pulling her to straddle his legs as he lazed against the headboard. His hand comfortably rested on her thigh underneath her dressing gown as she looked at him with hooded eyes and continued smoking in such a desirable way.
"Inhale," he told her, watching her movements closely, she kept eye contact as she brought the killer stick to her mouth and took a long drag. He smirked and leaned forward, pushing his lips against hers as she gently blew the toxins into his mouth. She leaned over him, tapping the cigarette on the rim of an ashtray beside them as she kept their mouths together.
Softly, they detached, and Elena again took a drag, Harry smirked lazily at the pretty sight of her sitting on him in nothing but a white dressing gown with her dark hair messy from lying down. She was addictive.
"What happened to Mike's mother?" she asked, seemingly distracted as she gazed toward where a cool breeze was echoing through the window.
Harry sighed, "childbirth."
Elena looked at him, "with Mike?"
Harry shook his head, lifting his hand up to brush a tickle on the tip of his nose, "Nah, two years after Mike, the baby was stillborn. It wasn't Louis' either," he whispered. He gently took the cigarette from her outstretched fingers and took a final drag, leaning his head back and clenching his jaw in contentment, watching Elena smirk and lean forward, capturing the smoke from his mouth as he put the finished butt out in the ash tray. Elena shut her eyes and breathed deeply, inviting the smoke into her lungs as Harry watched her in wonder.
Opening her eyes, she gazed out the window in deep thought, her jaw clenched.
"Why do you ask?" he whispered in a soft tone, "you're not going to marry Louis now are you?" he joked, trying to lighten the mood, yet something in his gut wriggled uncomfortably at the thought of it.
Elena smirked and shook her head. Deep down, Harry was relieved?
"Nah," she laughed softly and turned her gaze back to him, "all that commitment shit isn't for me."
Harry chuckled, the strange feeling resided, "We're very much the same person."
She smirked, "good." She leaned forward, her lips brushing his ear, "we can still screw though."
He playfully bit her ear in reply and she squeaked, backing away from him as he smirked, watching her frown and stick her tongue out. He grasped her ass, pushing her off of him gently as he stood from the bed in only his boxers. Elena lay back on her own pillow, her legs in front of her and her eyes followed him lazily. He grabbed the pair of plaid pajama bottoms from earlier and smirked at the memory of pulling them off of the woman before him as he pulled them on. Finding a hair tie on the table, he pulled his long hair into a bun and walked to the liquor cabinet, picked a bottle of red wine and one of vodka. Wordlessly he held them both up to Elena, who had turned the bedside light on.
"Wine."
He nodded, placing the vodka back and searching for glasses. He sighed when all he could find was two tea cups with saucers. He grabbed the cups and threw one at Elena, who caught it with ease and pulled a confused face.
She chuckled, "Classy."
Harry returned to the bed, sitting cross-legged on its surface as he opened the wine and poured it into each of their tea cups. They sipped in silence, both casually gazing out the window, where the wind blew and traffic honked below their second floor room. Harry found himself looking at the woman before him, noticing the bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, she looked sickly.
"Do you have nightmares?" he asked suddenly. She turned her head.
"Why do you ask?" she mumbled, her tone undetectable. Monotone.
Harry sipped his wine, "because you can't sleep. In fact, I can see you haven't slept properly in a while."
She shrugged, thumbing the tea cup handle and watching the drink swirl against the white china, leaving a red residue that quickly sunk back into the depths. "Yeah, nightmares, memories. I even had sleep paralysis a few years back. All that stuff."
Harry nodded, he had the same problems, "what keeps you up at night?" he asked, testing his limits, he didn't wish to make her snap like she had when they danced. She looked at him with a hardened expression, but nonetheless took a breath and began to speak.
"My parents, my brother's...cancer, my sister and my ex-boyfriend, sometimes my income issues, sometimes it's nothing in particular, just some fear that decides to haunt me in my sleep."
Harry nodded, "Chloe haunts me."
There was a moment of silence and Elena looked up at him, a frown on her face, finally she whispers, "Did you love her?"
Harry was taken aback at her question. Had he been asked that before jail, then he would have said yes without hesitation, but now, he fucking hated her and realised he never loved her, simply idolized her.
Harry shook his head, refilling his wine, "Hell no. I didn't love her."
Elena still frowned, "then what did she do to you?"
Harry brought the cup down from his lips, frowning as he looked at a spot on the bed.
"She..." he frowned, where did he start?
Elena watched him silently, letting him ponder his answer as he ran his finger over the rim of his mug in thought. He sighed, "I met her when I was seventeen, at a bus stop. She had just turned twenty and looked like any ordinary girl. We spent two weeks together, sharing hotel rooms and whatever. And then it- she- changed, suddenly we were surrounded by gunfire and she was forcing me to do her dirty jobs," Elena watched him as he stared at his mug, picking his words, "I murdered a man for her, how sick is that? She held me at gunpoint and told me she'd kill me if I didn't kill him."
His voice broke at this, and he even felt his eyes tearing up slightly. It was true, he did not like what he had done, perhaps he looked tough and born for the life of crime. But did he actually want it? No. Did he embrace it? Now? He had no choice.
Elena leaned forward, grabbing the bottle from his hand and refilling her mug, the room was quiet except for the soft trickle of liquid and the distant traffic. Her dark hair fell forward and her tired eyes flicked back up to Harry as he watched her quietly. Harry was growing used to constantly staring at her.
"You don't like who you are now, do you?" she asked, sipping the wine as she settled herself back against her pillow, hazel eyes glowing.
Harry frowned, "No...I do. What do you mean by that?"
She shrugged, "you hate who she made you become."
Harry scoffed, "I didn't particularly like who I was before I met her, either."
"Why?"
"Because all I did was drugs, had sex, and punched people."
Elena nodded, her eyes were wide and watching him lazily with a blazon curiousity. Her questions were confusing, yet he found himself not afraid to answer them.
And it wasn't because of the wine.
"When was the last time you liked who you were?" she whispered, her lips parted and fringe falling in her face. Harry shifted uncomfortably, now they were getting to a point he didn't wish to talk about. He took a large gulp of wine.
"When I was with my mum."
Instead of inquiring further, Elena simply nodded and mumbled a small, "you're lucky." Harry nodded slowly.
"How so?"
"Because I thought I liked who I was for a while, and then I realised the people around me didn't like me, and that ruined it all. I wasn't strong enough to stand my ground."
Harry didn't know how to reply to that, and instead he poured the last of the wine into his cup and then rolled the bottle towards the direction of the liquor cabinet, watching it move soundlessly on the carpet until a small clunk sounded when it hit the wooden leg of the target.
Elena sighed, a soft smile on her face as she watched him.
"Is it to do with what you said earlier?" he asked, she frowned, trying to remember, "In the corridor you said you 'had nobody and nobody would miss you.'" Elena nodded.
"I suppose," she mumbled, "It's just that people I loved turned out to despise me, and it got to the point where it was very fucked up." Harry remembered her words from days ago.
"Fool's gold?"
Elena nodded sadly.
"Have you ever been cheated on?" she whispered, looking at him solemnly, her eyes glowing in the light from the bedside lamp.
Harry shook his head, "I've never been in a proper relationship, Love. I just fuck."
She scoffed, her voice cold, yet holding a figment of truth, "that's the way to go."
Harry chuckled, agreeing with her. Love scared him, yet he wasn't going to admit that, to anyone. "What happened?" he wondered aloud, watching her.
She exhaled loudly, "I fell in love with a guy, a quiet boy- much like me; shy and bookish," Harry raised his eyebrows, wondering how a stripper could be shy. Elena rolled her eyes at him, "and it turns out he was screwing my- fucking- sister, at the same time as he was with me."
Harry raised his brows, Elena simply nodded. "Damn," he mumbled in surprise.
"I had always had a bad relationship with her," Elena smiled sadly. "She got pregnant, they're married now. Living in Alaska."
She sighed, brushing her hair from her face. Besides the sad smile on her face, her story didn't seem to faze her. Yet Harry suspected it was a mask.
"So that's it," Elena continued, as if to conclude her story, "I ran away- there was nothing for me- and I changed. Dropped out of my courses, got a job as a burlesque dancer and vowed never to fall in love again."
"I won't betray you," he whispered, remembering her fear from their conversation earlier.
She smiled, offering her teacup to him, "Here's to shitty pasts."
Harry smiled, clinking their cups and mirroring Elena, taking a sip of his wine and finishing it.
"Here's to shitty pasts," he whispered.
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Wattup ma babes, here's a newbie! Not so much a filler but just a little bit of important bonding and stuff. Hope it's hot and enjoyable!
Until next time, much love! Elyse x