If love were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as something he could sink his teeth into. Tasting of cherry pie filling, gooey and sugary, tacky and habit-forming. Amorphous and pink in shape and color; covered in soft, squishy and billowing spikes that curl on the ends. The tips of each plume would fade into a transparent flamingo color that quivers when he taps it with the pad of his finger, the entire shapeless entity sighing and thawing as he cradles it in the palms of his hands. It would have an incredibly sturdy center; a quickly swirling cloud trapped inside of a glass marble, the nebula of the love-object creating an obscure scaffolding to keep the entire cryptic phenomenon in place.
If pain were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as his morning wood.
It only takes one single flash of recall for Harry to remember where he is upon waking; that life-changing moment when your body crashed into the passenger door of his pink van, his hands disappearing inside of your sweater, your lips shaping a silent rendition of his name as soon as your palms touched his bare stomach. His eyes peel open followed by the rest of the evening gradually flickering to life, like the switch of a heavy lever that activates a hundred staggered, struggling overhead stage lights one-by-one to illuminate a dark theatre.
The supple first kiss, the feverish second kiss, skin and sighs and moans and tongues and fingers and grins so wide that making out is futile but that's perfectly okay because fuck, you are so, so sexy and you have no fucking idea.
Mint. Virginal. Sweet. Chrome. Hot as fuck. Cherry.
He's won you over. And he can still hardly fucking believe it.
Harry doesn't even bother to take in his surroundings. He doesn't need to. He's an addict and he can feel his fix right beside him, curled up in one of his favorite button-down shirts, your hair spread out across your pillow and a thousand more layers of secrets to peel back. And the single promise that he makes to himself this morning is that he will unearth at least one, something that he can fixate on and obsess over in the spare seconds today where his mind wanders from his catcher's lock on the trapeze to the magnificent clasp you have on his haunted heart.
His hands swipe down his face as if to revive his muscles, his eyes focusing on the stucco ceiling of your bedroom to sketch imaginary rabbits and dragons in the painted molding. He guides one hand further, down his chest and stomach, straight past the elastic of his underwear for a swipe across his drippy slit and a quick adjustment to his aching length, his teeth bitten into his bottom lip to stifle any whimpers of arousal.
He rolls onto his side to survey your sleeping form curled on your side away from him; your waist dipping inward and your hip swelling outward, the curve of your ass, the blink of smooth skin peeking out from your mint green bloomers. He traces his fingertips down your side before tossing his arm across your stomach to tuck your slack body into his, shaping a fitted cocoon against your back and threading your legs together into a close, loving knot. A soft moan skids out of his scratchy throat at the comforting warmth, the impression of your figure coming to life and melting with his, a heaping forkful of fluffy, spellbound pancakes and yearning maple syrup dripping from the corners of his lips.
Harry was hoping that the gravity of your violently shaken worlds would make more sense through the process of his dreams, but everything still feels so inconceivable that he's certain he's stepped into an alternate universe. For a moment, he fears that you'll recoil and change your mind when you're met with the rippling tide of daybreak, but then he remembers the effort that you went through to prepare yourself for your date. Hair down, just for him. Trousers, a hue of cotton candy pink, just for him. Those two salacious embroidered cherries nestled right in between your sacred tits, just for him. The warm declarative metal of his ruby ring bundled onto your finger, the way it felt swiveling down his chest. Just for him.
A tenderly husky, instinctive line that nearly strikes him straight back to unconsciousness for eternity, "mmm... Harry?" And a soft sigh, a tickle of your fingertips across his forearm that melts every weak organ and vein and nerve ending that composes him, "missed your sunbeams."
The pads of his fingers draw undulating circles across the span of your ribcage, his heart aching and his breath casting hot air against the shell of your ear, "missed me? Mmm..." He brushes your hair aside and sucks on your neck, his words hitching in his throat when you sleepily swivel your hips against his throbbing center, "Christ- 'cause I was sleepin'? Shit, mmm... fuck." His palm spreads across your stomach to keep you pinned against him as he rocks forward into your peachy ass, the soft contour only making him thicker, "you're so sweet. I missed you, too." He props himself up onto his elbow and rolls you onto your back, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip when he gazes at your sleepy face and your breathing chest, his eyelids drooping in adoration, "hi, baby. Que pasta?"
You swear his eyes are so pretty that you must have imagined them. Two lush meadows framed by long dark lashes, the thunderstorm of devotion compelling them to flourish.
He doesn't skip a beat before he's slipping your lips together and sealing them in a supple kiss to swallow your giggling reply to his purposely doltish question, bursts of electricity shocking both of your stomachs when you bury your fingers into his hair and roll him on top of you for another taste of his luring weight. He kicks the twisted sheets apart before tossing them over your bodies and your heads, wanting nothing more than your hush-hush love spell to soldier on through the inevitable sunrise. His curls tickle when his kisses meander down your neck and plunge into the dip of your collarbone, his tongue slinking out for a kitten lick in the same moment that his palm squeezes your breast.
Your hips roll together, your palms smoothing down his back as you exhale a pant into the humid space of your sheltered love nest, "it's so early. Are you going surfing?"
It hurts to think of him leaving you in this moment, that revered and romantic instant just before the sun has peeked out over the apex of the Santa Monica Mountains, but that can't possibly be healthy. You know him well enough to understand his routines and habits, and you haven't been together long enough to form a type of attachment where you would expect him to choose spending time with you over his favorite meditative hobbies and necessary energy releases. All of his big meals and even bigger thoughts have to burn off somehow. Unless of course you found yourself willing to provide some action for him in the interim.
"Fuckin' kiddin' me? When I could ride your sweet wave instead?" He whispers against your lips, "wipe me out, babe." Your satisfied giggle is drowned by another kiss as Harry breathes in deeply through his nose to manage the arousal kicking around in his guts. His inevitable laugh mixes with yours as your teeth click together, his eyes crinkling at the edges to intensify his smile, "hang ten, Cherrytits."
He catches your playful swat before it can land, threading your fingers and pressing them down into the sheets. He laces your other hand together and slowly slides your arms above your head and into your pillows, his stomach flipping and flipping at the ease in which you allow him to guide you. And when you're fully stretched out below him, your back arching and your nipples perked, the ring that he gifted you pressing into his knuckles, his cock jumps and it forces him to swallow a thick lump to keep himself from rutting forward into your center.
Just for him.
Your core throbs at his action and how much being in this position reminds you of practicing with him, except now the lines between professionalism and sex are heavily blurred. Maybe this is what he'd been feeling all this time and why he never wanted to keep his hands on you for a second longer than he had to, with untamed and peculiar lust running through his veins. You tug on your hands for freedom but it only causes him to tighten his grip and honestly, you don't mind. In fact, you rather like it and you surprise yourself when you relax into his coercion. It feels so good to be subdued by someone you're beginning to blindly and wholly trust, "do you always wake this early?"
Harry shudders when your feet smooth down his bristly calves, "yep. Can't help it, it's in my blood and my muscles." He dips forward to deliver his supplemental phrase in a low rattle like a rain stick flipped upside to lavish you with worship, his thumbs polishing circles into your skin to cushion his dominance, "kinda like you. My regimen." He locks your lips together again, his tongue poking out for a quick flick and then a slow, succulent caress coupled with a slushy thrum, "lunch nap helps. You'll zonk out with me today, mm?"
The fantasy of dozing with him in the shade on the beach, with the droning roar of the ocean just beyond your toes is enough to make you wish you could rub your legs together for alleviation if only his hips weren't lodged between them, "yes, without a doubt." He turns your hands loose and trails down your arms, your fingernails lazily meandering up his back with the newfound independence, "did you dream?"
Kisses and licks and teeth dotting and wetting your neck and chest as he stalks south, "yeah."
Your breathing picks up when he ducks lower to dote on your stomach next, "what about?"
"Mmm?" His tongue sinks into your belly button, your core a melted, gooey glob of honeycomb when he punctuates his affection with a bunch of adjectives that you suppose is meant to be his answer, "spikey, squishy, pink loveball puff."
If sensuality were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as honey-coated, foraged cherries dipped in a thick layer of taboo femininity. Provocative tits hidden by lily white with decorative cherries in the heart, the sweet dip of a belly button just a skip away, a scattered legacy of purple love bites etched by his own teeth into the silkiest, petal-soft forbidden nooks of skin.
You laugh at his remark and decide it's probably best not to question his nonsense as he kisses further down your stomach, the heat of his breath washing over your center before he careens down your legs and to your toes, finally slipping off the edge of the bed to tread towards your humble record collection.
It seems as if there is music within ten feet of him, he can't help but play it.
The sound of his nails lazily dragging across his chest and stomach make you wish they were yours instead, his back muscles flexing in the shadows of dawn and his skin appearing just as smooth as you know it feels. His tattoos carry the embodiment of sin but you know they were born from a heartbeat that thumps glitter, his fingers sinking into his hair to push his curls from his face as he scrutinizes your musical selection.
"Your mouth is a heart."
He peers over his shoulder at your cozy figure from his crouched position in front of your crate of records, already missing the warmth of your body but needing to fill the space with even another ounce of you before you're both thrown into the reality of the circus in just a couple hours' time, "groovy. Tryin' to make me croak?"
"Just trying to get you to come back."
Harry holds a single finger up into the air as if to request your patience, "Nina Simone, Peggy Lee... Françoise Hardy, Jacqueline Taieb. Ria Bartok. What's all this? I didn't know you were into this. This is gnarly as fuck. How come you never told me? Where'd you find out about it?"
"The French records? You've never asked. I just found them in a record shop back home and bought one because I thought the girls on the covers were pretty. I ended up liking it a lot, so I went back and bought all of them. My parents couldn't translate it, so they couldn't forbid it."
A single eyebrow perks along his forehead in contemplation as the worn, buttery spines of the record sleeves pass underneath his fingertips. It's intriguing that there's always been a spark of disobedience inside of you, no matter how benign and insignificant and he loves the thought of you discovering something new and distinctive just for the hell of it. He supposes he's just hacked into the secret he promised himself, but now that he's had one, he just wants a hundred more. He imagines you lying on your bed in your underwear and writing in a diary or whatever the fuck you did in your spare time before he tumbled into your life, smooth French poppy jazz crackling through your speakers and filling the room around you. The whole fantasy of you browsing albums and swaying alone to cool, poised records in your bedroom is so fucking sexy and you have no idea, "do you speak any French?"
"My accent is terrible, but I learned in school."
Harry flips one of your records onto your turntable and expertly flicks a few knobs to turn it on quietly, "yeah? Teach me some. Tell me a secret."
Whether he realizes it or not, he's providing you with a sanctuary to be intimate when you'd normally shy away from it and as soon as you free your teeth from their hold on your lip, you're placidly muttering with pink-tinged cheeks, "j'aimerais vraiment que tu reviennes au lit et que tu m'embrasses maintenant."
"Oh, fuckin' et voilà! Je parle aussi Français, ma cerise d'amour. Tes désirs sont des ordres."
You slap your palms over your face, your groan blooming into embarrassed laughter at how easily he tricked you into sensual honesty, "Harry!"
The bed dips with the weight of his advancing body, his palms gliding up your shins and thighs before the tips of his fingers plunge below the hem of your bloomers, "silence, vient ici que jet e flatte la chatte."
You groan into the sweaty skin of your sheltering hands, "oh my god- what are you saying?" He pries your hands away from your face and sucks on your bottom lip before sealing your lips in the kiss you had unwittingly demanded. His grin is huge and obnoxious, his nose wrinkling in colossal humor at your adorable distress when you mumble against his mouth, "I didn't know you'd understand me."
"There were lots of French performers in my last circus. I'm worldly as fuck, babe. Don't act so surprised. Now, s'il te plait aime moi." His mouth hovers over yours, his breath candied and coy as he cocks his head to the side, "tes levres sont comes des cerises et j'ai envie de sucré."
"Je vais. Je fais."
"Good girl."
You close your eyes and imagine each stamp of his lips leaving behind a distinct, bubble gum heart-shaped smudge, imperfectly perfect crackles and lines, a hollow spot in the center of the pout-stain where the tip of his tongue had snuck out to dampen your skin. Your core pulses and flutters when he finds the spot where your ribcage intersects and nudges his nose against the embroidered cherries on your bra, your breathing picking up just enough to alert him to your body's reception.
It's quiet, subtle, discrete. So discrete that most men in their furor would miss it. But not Harry, your physical cues have been living inside of him much longer than he consciously remembers. The repressed memory of your body language far precedes any spoken word and he envisions that they show themselves when he is in a deep sleep; those little splices of dreams in between dreams that bear no recognition in waking life, but simply glint before blackening into oblivion once again. A forgotten caress down your leg, a wayward grip of your wrist, the dizzy clinch of your hands, a lapsed brush of your hair. All before they're stolen away and whisked back into the universe by something much weightier. The last gasp of breath from a dying fire, the final croak of the bravest bullfrog at dawn. Sometimes things just move too quickly for us to appreciate.
Harry watches your head fall back when he unbuttons his silky shirt that you've slept in. He sweeps the sides apart to reveal stretches and stretches of bare skin, the pop of your ribcage when you suck in a gasp of air, before leaving another kiss and dragging his tongue down to your belly button. The moan that funnels through the pucker of your lips startles the both of you, Harry's cock pulsating in tandem with your pith as he pinches your hips, "mmm..." His hum rattles your bones and sends another shockwave through your tight, furtive muscles and you want more but you don't know of what exactly or how to ask, especially with the sobriety of daylight threatening to penetrate your curtains, "you like that, Cherry baby?"
You're afraid to tell him how good it feels for some reason, as if that much vulnerability would leave you susceptible to his will or force unprepared self-reflection upon you. It's impossible to explain really; that pesky fear of the unknown and that impenetrable wall of self-protection that seems dangerous to let anyone through. Whether it's because you're worried about getting hurt or concerned about what you would both find in the very center of your guts or consumed with trepidation for your own uninhibited rawness, it all comes down to fear. That filthy liar. When had her voice gotten so loud? It seemed to have happened when you weren't looking and maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's time to peel your eyes to new colors and perk your ears to higher-pitched sounds.
Harry displays every single one of his innermost burdens that he owns on an ornately carved tray, balancing it gracefully on the top of his head for the world to see and asking everyone to take a glimpse. All of those eyes seem to only aid in shrinking his weaknesses, as if everyone watching had laser beams to zap the power from his transparency and make him stronger by simply saying, "us too. And thank you."
He's wildly unapologetic for both his shortcomings and his strengths and that type of self-acceptance is a quality that most of us can only dream of.
You know that he honors and respects your boundaries, kind of, at least enough to have waited until now to rip the bandage off of your sex life that began with a single stolen kiss over creamy milkshakes. You were correct to assume that once you started kissing you would never stop, and now you're curious as to how being beside him in a professional setting for ten hours a day will play out, with the looming secret of your affair hanging over both of your heads and violently wringing your hearts. Perhaps instead of smoke breaks you'll find yourselves in dark corners and private dance studios and dressing rooms, pilfered kisses and slinking fingers, imploring whispers and rascally secrets. And honestly, you can't think of anything more exciting.
"Yes-"
His teeth catch the cup of your bra and start to slowly peel the fabric away for a glimpse of what you've been diligently hiding from him, mumbling a demure sentiment of "and what's under here, mm?" Your hand darts up to halt his exploration, a groan sprouting through clenched teeth and a handsome smile, "c'mon. Lemme get a load of your tits. Just one?" He points to your left breast before circling his mouth with his fingertips, "this one? Please? She's practically beggin' me. I'll be so nice to her."
Kind of.
"I think... we're going to be late if we don't-"
"I think that's an excuse. Say what you mean, yeah? Just see what it feels like to be raw. I'll hear you."
You try to peel your eyes away from his fierce stare, his fingertips tracing the strap of your bra, his tongue leeching out to wet his lips. You've never experienced this level of intimacy before and although it feels inexplicably natural with Harry regardless of how much he intimidates you, you still wish that you had just the tiniest sliver of recklessness to match him, "okay... it feels like you're prying me open. And I want you to, it's just-"
"Fast?"
"Um... powerful?"
"I feel that too, babe. My heart is beatin' so fuckin' fast. Kiss me. I'll be like one of your mysterious French records. You won't be able to translate every single word, but it doesn't matter because once you open it and play with it and see how much you like it, you'll want all of 'em."
Either way you're gonna grow a little bit.
Your fingers coil around the chain dangling from his neck to tug him into a close hover, your lips slotting with his in appreciation of his unrelenting faith and tenacity to help you flourish. Both for your sake and for his, "smooth."
Harry chuckles against your lips, "cheers." He kisses you once more before muttering, "you'll show me when you're ready." He figures that since you're feeling too vulnerable to bear yourself, it might be easier and less sinister for you to simply see unfolding lust on another person. Validating almost. Yes, intimacy can be scary and yes, it can be the best fucking thing in the entire world and he only wants you to feel good every second of every day.
The word lascivious comes to mind, but Harry doesn't see it as a negative aspect of his personality. He wasn't born with a big dick, perfect hands and a brain pumping geysers of testosterone to farm corn.
His middle and ring fingers tap against your bottom lip, peeling it back a bit to glide them onto your tongue and into your mouth. Lightning rushes to his stomach when you intuitively obey without a hiccup, sucking on his knuckles and then freeing his hand to allow him to drag his wet fingers down your neck. The rhythm of his blood surging to his cock matches your dulcet panting, the wet trail on your chest pulling a shiver up your spine, "Harry... we should-"
"Don't give a fuck, babe." He ducks to catch a hunk of your skin between his teeth, nibbling gently on your throat before swirling his tongue there. He breathes out a request through fumes of discomfort sighed from his tailpipe, "touch me?"
"...where?"
He weaves your fingers together and presses them against his wildly beating heart, allowing you to feel the flapping wings of love as his gaze sears into yours. He guides your joined hands on a path down his heated chest and stomach, slowing his trajectory when your fingertips brush over his happy trail and skid against the waistband of his briefs. You can feel the pressure of his roused length straining against the fabric, the humidity and restlessness vibrating with abandonment just an inch away, "here. 'Mm hurtin'. Just a touch."
The mingling of shaky breaths through the tense pause feels like enough friction to set the bed on fire.
You want him. You want to show him that you want him and this feels a lot less menacing than exposing yourself. And with a sharp intake of air and a complete cessation of your heartbeat, you decide in a split second to lower your hand and cup his thickness over the fabric of his briefs, your fingers wrapping around him to feel the suction of how hard and agitated he is. Once you've got your hands on him, your curiosity blooms and takes charge, your fingertips slinking into the elastic of his underwear for apprehensive further discovery laced with sheer bravery.
Just for him.
Harry cries out and hunches over, his forehead dropping to your collarbone and his hips rolling forward into your palm, a moan piercing the sex-potent air, "Cherr- Jesus Christ-"
The effect you have on him causes your core to clench and drip into your panties and when your thumb swipes over his slippery, silky tip, you can feel a single spot of moisture wicking into his briefs as well, "Harry..."
"Fuck. Stop. You gotta stop or this is gonna get real fuckin' heavy."
You pull your hand away as if his underwear were filled with burning coals, "was that okay-"
Harry grips your throat and your jaw with one large hand, growling a single response of "fuck yes" before sponging a fat kiss to your mouth and then pulling back to his haunches. His hair is a savage, frenzied mess, his lips as dark as blood and his pupils blown and you swear you can see a ghostly sheen of sweat begging to burst through his pores. He drags his blunt nails down your stomach before clinging to the waist of your bloomers as if he were trying to keep his hands in check, "I- I'll be right back."
You imagine that you look just the same and he does, and your only accessible reaction is simply a nod of your head.
Harry untangles himself from your sheets, stumbling from your bed and through the darkness of the hallway to lock himself in your unlit, pink bathroom. The imprinted memory of your hand innocently exploring him is still fresh in his mind when he dips his palm into his briefs and wraps his fingers around his throbbing length, his back meeting the door for balance. He can't believe how fucking easy it was for you to unravel him to that degree, as if you were some goddamn sex sorceress who has cast a spell on every living cell in his body, turning each life-bearing ring into a palpitating heart with a single caress.
He tries to keep his panting to a suffocating minimum as he strokes in frantic upward sweeps, his body hunching forward and the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he digs his fingers into the porcelain sink. He imagines your mouth brushing over his, the breeze of his nose over your breast, the heat of your center when your hips lock together. The way you're slowly unfolding yourself for him; an inch of skin here, a private secret there. Your lips suctioning around his fingers and your tongue swirling across his knuckles.
Just for him.
The phantom echo of your sweet, fruity resonance within his hazy skull. Your sweet, innocently aroused breaths.
Harry.
He hisses a curse, a whisper of your name in retort and spits into the palm of his hand. He flips his wrist to stroke his tip, his thumb gathering a dollop of precome to spread it down his thickness. His tongue mentally plays a game of connect-the-dots to each one of the love bites he'd left on your body like a field of hidden Easter eggs, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip so roughly that it loses its color. His hips move in tandem with his stride, his stomach tossing and everything tingling, his tummy quivering as his muscles tense and seek deliverance.
So many hectic, flashing, filthy fucking images like a projector spinning off of its reel: his lips puckering around your nipple, two of his fingers disappearing into your soaking wet cunt, you straddling his lap and bouncing on his dick, moans and cries and whimpers and sobs, ten fingernails scratching red lines down his back.
Harry.
But all it takes to send him careening over the edge is a lone fantasy of his tongue compressing against your bundle of nerves through the heat of your virginal panties, your back arching to press your folds against his mouth, a single muffled sob absorbed into his rigid bicep when streaks of sizzling white pass below his eyelids.
His lips and teeth form your name once again, swaddling three silent syllables and three gratifying, thrumming consonants, his passion leaving his body with buckling knees and his eyes pinched shut to feel each residual, succulent vibration that racks his spine.
As his breathing slows and his skeleton reforms, he finds himself wishing more than anything that he could have shared that with you, but he knows it's too soon without the necessity of asking. When the time comes and you're ready, the intimacy is going to be a thousand times more intense, his hips rocking into your fist as you turn his guts inside out and unleash a technicolor beast that he's not sure if he's even met before.
But the last thing he expects to find when he pries his eyelids open now is the sobering sight of his release dripping from the beak of the swan faucet that hovers into your pink sink.
"Holy... shit." Harry's sharp cackle bounces off each of the four walls of the small, tiled room when he discovers the humor in his lingering, melodramatic hysteria, "fuckin' winner."
It's not exactly his most prideful moment as he cleans your sink with a wad of toilet paper before washing his hands, using the moisture from his fingers to smooth his hair away from his forehead to gather some semblance of dignity. He returns to you with ruddy cheeks and glistening skin, his eyes falling on your body and the sight of your bare legs twisted among your sheets has his dick fattening up in his briefs again.
"What was so funny?"
"Danglin' swan spunk."
You roll onto your stomach and squash your face into one of your pillows to watch him slowly approach, but you have absolutely no idea how adorable you look, "what?"
Harry shakes his head to avoid further explanation and swipes his pack of Crush cigarettes from your vanity, his weight sinking the mattress beside you as the match breathes coral clouds of smoke to life in his palms. Dawn has filled your bedroom with greyscale tones, making it appear as if the only color in the bedroom were the cotton candy wisps that curl around your lover's perfect profile. You're still reeling from the revolutionary nerve that you'd mustered to wander into his briefs that way and you're wondering if it was as emotional for him as it was for you, considering his history with women, but you're too nervous to ask. Instead you interrupt his atypical tranquility by smoothing your hand down his thigh to gather his attention, both of your eyes crinkling at the corners when your gazes fall on one another.
His hand sneaks under your shirt and glides up your back, "It's a fuckin' miracle I didn't just keel over to my death. Mm'completely tattered. Do you have any idea how sexy you are?" He tuts when you shake your head, flicking his chin up into the air in a beckoning nod. You toe the line and straddle his lap, realizing all at once that you want to be near him and constantly touching him just as much as he's been dreaming of for quite some time now, "mmm... Cherry on top." His palm hugs your curve then squeezes your ass tightly, a pink plume of smoke exhaled toward the ceiling before he sucks on your lip with the taste of cotton candy leeching from his tongue.
The urgency from his kiss is absent, replaced by burning, languid euphoria, "let's do that again, Honeyslick." He grips your hand and half-heartedly attempts to navigate you back to his center, chuckling when you tug it away and tap his shoulder in a gentle scold, "I think you dipped your hands in love potion or somethin'."
Your gentle defense is slowly losing efficacy the more you repeat it. You know it and he knows it, "you're going to make us late-"
"Yeah, you keep sayin' that, but I do not give a single flyin' fuck."
You pluck the cigarette from his fingers and swallow a steaming heap of melted sugar. His heavenly, swirling cloud seeps to the back of your throat, leaving you with the burning wonder of his mysterious intoxication, "wouldn't it be suspicious if we both showed up late?"
Harry groans at the ridiculously sexual sight of you smoking and rests his forehead on your collarbone, "but, Cherry-"
"Harry."
Slow, sensual kisses traipse up your throat, mixed with irresistible begging, "but I didn't get enough quality time with you. Please. Everybody needs a bit of oblivion, yeah?" He's grateful he's clued you in about the situation at the circus, because now at least someone with brains is making sure his behavior is in check. But that doesn't stop him from pushing boundaries, something that he's always been pretty gifted at no matter how formidable it is for the other person involved, "I think I'm corruptin' you."
"I think I don't mind."
"Stop. I'm gonna come in my pants." The look you give him is a lot like the one he's received from his mother and several teachers throughout his adolescence, except it's much cuter on your face, "I don't wanna go to work. I won't be able to kiss you whenever I want and it's gonna be fuckin' torture. How am I supposed to look at you and pretend like this never happened?"
"Supernatural willpower."
"I'd like to see you try an' make me leave this bed." His eyebrows shoot up along his forehead when your stomach squeaks with an angry signal of hunger, "oh no. You need some grindage, babe. Can you cook?"
"Mildly. Can you?"
"Mildly. How about some of your famous eggs and toast?"
It dawns on you that whenever the two of you sleep together that he won't need to ask you what you've eaten for breakfast. For some reason, that realization drops like a heavy, weighted blanket and you already miss that depleted aspect of your relationship. You suppose that is just part of grappling with change even if the change is justified and joyful, "this means that you won't have to ask me what I've had for breakfast anymore, doesn't it?"
Harry pouts out his bottom lip at your endearing observation, "sweet Cherry..."
You stroke his lip before sealing it in a kiss, "I'll miss it."
"Relationships change, Honey bee. Which would you rather have, a breakfast inquiry or breakfast in bed with your sex hunk?"
Your giggle rings through his ears and you don't think you could ever possibly tire of how his explanations and rationale always strike with profound truth, "the sex hunk one."
"Bonne fille."
.
There's a huge palm tree about two or three blocks away from the theatre, one in which Harry has lovingly dubbed "Banana Split" since you both agreed that you would need a location to separate from in order to stagger your arrivals to work and remain inconspicuous with your affair. He pinned you up against the scratchy bark, endlessly griping about the ghostly pains in his chest as he attempted to unbutton your little sleeveless blouse. He lifted your hand into the air and sponged a kiss to your palm, nudging the band of his ring wrapped around your finger and murmuring a cautionary sentiment of, "might wanna hide this, yeah?"
The concept of physically removing something from your body didn't sit well with you, as if it were some type of metaphor for the rocky start to your romance. On again, off again; Harry's possessive hunk of precious stone the deciding factor to whether or not this relationship was authentic. But you knew deep down that you were calling the shots as much as he was. You knew deep down that he didn't need to symbolize the depth of his feelings for you. You knew deep down that you may as well swallow the ring whole and allow it to strangle your heart in a whittled clasp. Hiding your relationship at work has never been an option and you recognized that whether or not Harry needed to vocalize it, but you suppose the secrecy perfectly falls in line with the feelings you and Harry have always had for each other. Obscure, subliminal, mysterious. Until now, at least.
You wish you were back in your bed or at least pinned against Banana Split right now, instead of striding angrily towards Tex and his impolite group of friends.
It's just minutes before you're meant to wrap up for the day and practice felt more successful than ever. It's almost as if the sexual tension between you and Harry has heightened both of your six senses, crossing thresholds of appropriate hand placement and grips, your bodies coiling around one another in utmost comfort as if you were two swans on a placid lake threading your necks to bear your secret love for all to see. To most, your rehearsal seems nothing more than flawless performance. But you and Harry know that if no one were watching you'd be behaving very similarly, except stripped down to your underwear with wicked hands and naughty grins, his teeth nipping at the tender skin of your stomach. His fingertips curving an arch into your back in exactly the same manner, your legs lacing with his in exactly the same manner. Whether a dance in the air or a dance in the sheets, your pantomime is nothing short of showstopping.
Aside from your cuddled-up nap on the beach, Harry stole you away from the whirlwind of practice exactly three times. Once behind a clothing rack for a simple kiss, the second time was in a dark janitor's closet with a single lightbulb swaying overhead, his hands fumbling with your bodysuit for a taste of forbidden skin. By the time the third rendezvous rolled around, it had escalated behind the standing screen in your dressing room, Harry falling to his knees to drag your skin-tight warm ups to your shins, his mouth attaching to the delicate skin of your inner thigh for a rough suck that resulted in a deep, purple bruise to add to your collection. He rose to his feet just a moment later with eyes as black as coal, his fingers dipping into his sweatpants when he shamelessly broadcasted, "call the morgue. We've got a stiff one, Cherry pie."
As soon as Harry declared that he was running off for a shower, you took it upon yourself to confront Tex about his sneaky set-up and whether he had planned on admitting his indiscretion regarding Riff to his best friend. He promised you that he would tell Harry but you haven't heard a peep, and it feels a lot like dishonor to continue traipsing through your freshly established relationship with such a heavy lie hanging over your head.
Before you even have a chance to open your mouth, Tex is grinning at you with a presumptuous air around him, his greeting exhaled behind a brassy cloud of green smoke, "what's poppin', Clyde?"
"Don't call me that. I need to talk to you for a minute."
"Whatever you need to say to me you can say it right here."
It feels as though all of his friend's eyes fall on you and you hate that he's put you on the spot this way, but if he can do it then you suppose you can as well, "fine. Have you told Harry about your conspiracy with Riff-"
Tex barks at you to keep your mouth shut before glancing over both of his shoulders, his fingers gripping around your bicep to drag you away from any snooping ears, "Jesus, you have such a big mouth."
"You literally told me to-"
"No, I haven't told him yet. But I will, alright? When the time is right."
Tex knows that when this information leaks, it'll likely be the demise of their friendship. Harry is loyal to his convictions of both hate and love and Tex should have known better than to directly involve you with something so deceitful, considering your staunch prude values and that irritating characteristic of never being able to let anything go. But he felt like he was completely wrung out and brought to his wit's end with Harry's incessant digressive speech; the way he worships you and fawns over every word you say, the way he practically trips over his own two feet to chase you from a room. Harry was a much better friend before the shackling anchor of his new ball-and-chain, back when he would spend all of his time and share all of his distinctive thoughts with the boys. Back when he was the ringleader of their crew with his sunbeams streaking across their insensitive, clingy vines to cut a path of strategy and logic whenever it was lacking. Which was often.
You can't let Tex know exactly why this information is so pertinent to you, so instead you keep your voice down and point out the obvious in the hope that it resonates with him, "Harry deserves to know. It directly effects your friendship and our working partnership. You know that the truth always has a way of leaking out and I would hate for it to be exposed crudely and inappropriately. What if it was revealed right before a performance and he had to go do his job with all of that anger inside of him? You're putting our jobs, his safety and my safety at risk. This is your doing and you have to fix it." You cross your arms over your chest in a gesture of guardianship as you reclaim your threat from your earlier conversation, "you tell him or I tell him. I'm giving you until next weekend, three days after we return to the stage. You don't get to play god. You're not smart enough."
If you weren't a woman, Tex would have slapped you right across the mouth by now.
Harry can feel the tension from all the way across the room, his wet locks sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck as he stampedes towards you like a white knight cloaked in pink smoke. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on, but he can tell by the way you're gesturing with a red lollipop in hand and nervously rambling that Tex is making you uncomfortable. He doesn't like that Tex is making you feel this way, but he also doesn't understand what you could be discussing that makes you so anxious.
He locks eyes with Tex first, the angry frown that severs his normally beautiful features forcing Tex to shush you without a second thought. Harry catches it because he catches everything and when he's standing directly beside you and noticing that you need to be consoled, it burns a hole in his heart that he's not able to touch you in this moment, "what's the buzz?"
You suck your words back inside of your throat along with your lollipop, your gaze falling to your feet as you allow Tex to handle this awkward situation. As far as you're concerned, it's all his doing anyway.
Tex decides that the best way to navigate the confrontation is to pretend that it isn't happening. Instead he unleashes an invitation that he knows will jam a splinter between you and Harry, "hey man. Wanna head to Hound Dogs and pick up some burners? I'll buy you some Pearls. Been awhile."
Your stomach vacuums shut with unprecedented queasiness.
Harry knows two things for certain: he knows that he wants to Banana Split right this very instant, but he also knows that you asked him to proceed as usual with his friendship so that Tex wouldn't suspect any further developments in your relationship. So, he does what most men do in tricky circumstances and defaults to idiocy, "sure. Rad."
There's either way too much gravity in this room or not nearly enough.
You somehow manage to mumble a parting phrase to both of them before dashing off to your dressing room, your hand cupping your mouth to hold back either frustrated tears or churning vomit, Nettie's warnings about stepping lightly through this liaison slowly filling your mind like a heralding fog.
Don't you have amnesia too.
Could it be that he's finally gotten what he's wanted and quickly lost interest? Like a cat that stalks a toy mouse for hours or even days, his fascination cheapened once he'd gotten his teeth and his claws thoroughly sunken into you?
Luckily Harry doesn't give you very much time to stew in the mess of your own introspection, because in less than a full minute he's storming into the room and throwing the lock closed on the knob behind him, "Cherry-" His face and his heart twist in anguish when he finds you with your hand pressed to your stomach as if to quell the ache there, "baby, I was just-"
It's almost as if the past handful of weeks, Chubby's, Temptations, dozens of sunflowers, this morning and the following hours of practice didn't even happen and you absolutely despise how easily everything has slipped away from you, "this is going to be harder than I thought."
Harry marches across the room and cups your neck before tugging on your hands to keep your regard glued to him, "say what? Cherry! I'm savin' face. This is what you wanted. There's no fucking way I'd pick up a burner. You have to believe me-"
"You're going to hang out all night and not mention once that we're together? Even if he asks? You're going to turn away women with his prying eyes on you without a reason? It doesn't seem possible."
"It's fuckin' possible because there's no way in hell I'm gonna mess this up." Harry feels absolutely sick with distress, but a single requited kiss helps soften the boiling of his insides, "just an hour or two to keep him off my back and then I'll swing by your place, yeah? Promise. You know I'd never hurt you like that, right?" His eyes dart back and forth across your face as he attempts to read the thoughts swirling in your brain, "...right?"
It seems that there's more mistrust between you than you had originally realized. You hate it and you want it to end, you don't want to keep punishing him for his history with women, his history with callousness. He's different now and he shouldn't have to keep proving himself to assuage the lingering suffering that only survives in your own memory.
Harry lowers his voice to a whisper when you don't respond, but the seriousness of his passion is still curled around each word, "fuck! It's been one day. One. Fuckin' less than one. You need to give this shit more time before you decide it's too hard. You're not a pansy, Cherry. And I'm not a lightweight. We're doin' this shit right, so just mellow out. You're trippin' out for no reason-"
"There's a major reason-"
"Get real. Don't ruin this before it's even started. It's too good. It feels way too fuckin' good and you know it. You knew exactly what it meant with us gettin' involved, so don't just blank out every killer thing that's happened between us whenever somethin' uncomfortable happens. 'Cause it's gonna keep happening." He gestures between your chests, "we're gravy, so just be cool and don't allow shit to get wedged between us. I'm not gonna flap my gums and I'm not gonna even look at another woman. You have to trust me. You have to. Or we're fucked."
You shake your head and drop your face into your palms, his truth seeping through your veins to patch up each little hole of uncertainty. You're disappointed in how effortlessly you backslid and the power in which one negative interaction can negate a hundred positive ones, "I'm sorry. I feel so stupid. You're right. I'll try harder."
Harry peels your hands away from your face to peer into your discouraged eyes, "you feel remorseful."
In more ways than one, "I do."
"Damn it. Don't. It's gonna eat you alive. Swallow that shit and focus on you, me, the trapeze bar, your bed, fuckin' lollipops. All the shit you love. Everything else can get bent."
You cup his cheeks and kiss his lips, his fingers threading through your hair to keep you close when he presses your foreheads together and taps the end of his nose against yours, "we make each other feel powerful, remember? You said it yourself this morning."
"I know. I won't forget."
He kisses you again and sucks your tongue into his mouth, massaging in passionate sweeps before drawing back with a soft gasp, "I'll be at your place by ten. I fuckin' swear on my granny's grave. If I'm not, feel free to hunt me down and castrate me. You've got me the balls anyway. How could you fuckin' forget that? Don't forget me."
The imprint that Harry is leaving on you will last a lifetime. That much you're completely certain about, "I'll make sure my knives are sharpened."
Thank you bambismiths for the exquisite French translations and FatBottomedGirls for the pink smoke! Team work makes the dream work.
I'm gonna go back and answer some of your comments from the last couple chapters. I'm sorry I've dropped the ball on that. Life is tough, kids. I hope you know that I read every single one, though.
I hope things are going well for all of you. Kisses. Missed you. Love you. See you soon!
Xx B