Inherent

Besides Harry, one of the few things that totally distract me from every sad aspect of my life is graphic design. Whenever I sit down and create something unique and pretty from the depths of my otherwise disjointed, sad mind, I take on this almost meditative calm.

There’s just something soothing—or perhaps numbing—effect when I focus all of my brain power on design. It might be perhaps the only time I ever really let go of my too-conscious mind all in the cause to let my creativity flow, to design something that will hopefully in the end be appreciated by both me and my clients.

Even if it’s just something as tedious as putting together website codes for graphics I’ve already designed so that they display how I envision them, I lose myself in the constant clicks of my laptop’s keyboard and the rearranging of the code. I decided to at least try and get it finished without Alex’s help, so I for certain have my work cut out for me. With everything else going on, I don’t have the time or the effort to put forth in dealing with Alex and his attitude.

Yesterday’s incident and the scathing glare he directed to Harry after the kiss hasn’t been forgotten. Not by any means—I’ve just been trying my best to forget about it, because I don’t need the stress of trying to figure out what’s wrong with him.

After I got back from lunch yesterday and Harry left without another word of confrontation to my old friend, Alex had the nerve to look smug. For that, I hate him more. I didn’t speak to him until he came down to the basement where I was transferring textbooks again to cancel our plans to do Lou’s website tonight.

That’s totally fine by me, it is. More than fine. The less trouble I have to deal with, the better. Without the stress of school I should be able to relax, but now it feels like the exact opposite. For most of what’s wrong, though, I only have myself to blame.

But while I’m in my bedroom, clicking away at my laptop and totally lost in the website, I don’t stop to think about any of that. I’m immersed in my work, so it’s no huge surprise that I don’t hear the quiet click of the front door when it both opens and closes.

Or the knock, for that matter.

“You need to keep your door locked,” a deep, unimpressed voice calls to my hunched form at my desk. A gasp of air is sucked in through my mouth and my hand flies to my chest as I whip around to get a look at my uninvited guest. I widen my eyes at the leather-adorned length of a man stood unimpressed and in my doorway.

“Jesus, Harry,” I say breathlessly, disoriented and my heart beating a mile a minute while I still clutch my chest. I can feel it beat furiously against my hand and through the thin fabric of my t-shirt. If I hadn’t started taking my medication again, the outcome of such a surprise could be disastrous.

From standing so suddenly after I spent nearly two hours in the chair since Vivian left, I receive a killer head rush and I have to squint to make out Harry’s form. Thankfully I only sway for a short moment before I right myself. “You scared me!” I stammer accusingly, and only now do I truly take in the sight of his lithe form leaned against the frame of my door.

He’s wearing the leather jacket, the brown one which I’d never admit aloud I love (but I do) along with a pair of dark wash fitted jeans and his hefty brown boots. Even while I just got the fright of my life, I can’t help but to acknowledge that Harry himself is utterly mouth-watering. It’s so, so inappropriate, but my mind is all too quick to stray to the conversation I had earlier in the day with Vivian.

His eyes resemble dark effervescent marbles while he stares me down, expressionless, as if he’s waiting for some sort of explanation. I hardly understood what he said, after he snuck up on me. How long did he spend there, in my doorway, without me knowing? When all he does is step into my room, I watch with embarrassment as he takes in everything from the family pictures adorning the top of my dresser, bunches of books scattered about, to Caleb’s hockey jersey hung on the wall. I suddenly feel very self-conscious at the thought of Harry being in my bedroom, especially with that’s plaguing my mind.

“That’s why you should lock your door,” he grounds out, though his lips twitch when he takes note of how I unconsciously step backward from his advances. Despite the humor he might find in my startled flightiness, he remains serious. “It isn’t safe, Julia. Not even out here in the suburbs. Don’t take any chances.”

The strength and force in which he speaks causes me to feel uneasy. It’s just another of his mysteries, like the care he took before we went to the Uptown to ensure I locked the doors. Maybe he’s just paranoid. Regardless, I try not to think too long about why Harry has decided to dwell on something as simple as an unlocked door. More than likely, it’s only another example of how I tend to overthink things. Harry’s protective; I know he’s looking out for my best interests.

I hold my hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay,” I agree, hoping to sound calm to try and ease his worries.

Leaving the door unlocked is a habit I developed years ago when I was a young teenager and Caleb was just starting to get into trouble. Back then Grandma had tried the tough love approach and kicked him out of the house in an effort to set him straight, but my conscience always got the better of me. I hated going against Grandma back then, because I knew she also didn’t want my impressionable teenaged self exposed to Caleb’s worsened habits. But a lot of the time he had nowhere to go and liked to sneak in late at night to crash on the couch. I’d go out, after Grandma fell asleep, and unlock the door in case he wanted to come home.

I’d been afraid he would get hurt or killed if he was forced to sleep on the streets, though ultimately I don’t think there’s anything anyone could have done for him. For a long time I wondered and still guilt myself over enabling him, that maybe if I let Grandma try her way he could have gotten better, but the reality is that Caleb didn’t want anything else. Not even peace of mind for his little sister.

Even though he’s gone, I still keep the door unlocked.

As if realizing how tense he’s become, Harry sighs and runs a hand through his messy quiff. I blink out of my reverie, and when he looks at me again his eyes have lost that indecipherable heat that previously worried me. With a smirk, he takes one last glance around my bedroom. I know it’s a far cry from his beautiful apartment, but’s it’s still my home and I refuse to feel anything less than proud.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel a little immature about the few band posters I left up, though. When Harry focuses on me in his most unnerving of ways, my cheeks heat even further and I forget all about the scare he gave me or how he feels comfortable enough to barge into my house. I don’t even think to ask why he’s here. My face is flaming and I scramble for something to say, something to chase away the silence.

“I… I got the flowers, and…”

When I think about the necklace my mind turns to a contorted mess. The mended heart, which holds more meaning to me than he could possibly ever know. The heart with our initials on the back, underneath the fissure that has broken the heart in half and then been fixed. As soon as I bring up his gifts his eyes turn downward, straying from my eyes to my chest, and after he licks his lips I can’t help but to react even though I know he’s only searching for the necklace.

I haven’t missed the way his body is angled toward mine or how there’s only perhaps a foot of distance slotted between us. It’s always like this, even when things are unsure and I don’t know what to make of him.

“Did Leana deliver all of it? There’s something else I got you.” For the first time ever, Harry has the decency to look bashful and just a smidge nervous. If I wasn’t so thrown off by everything that’s happened over the past couple of days, I might have tried to reassure him. Now I have no idea what to do.

Straight away I know what he’s referring to… and unfortunately, it isn’t the cake pops.

“Yes, yes.” It seems the memory of unwrapping the necklace earlier in the day with Vivian finally triggers my body to set in motion, and I feel as if I glide over my carpeted bedroom floor in a dazed motion. “I want to talk to you about that.”

As I brush past Harry, I’m sure to keep a healthy distance from his always searching hands. Not because I want to, of course. If I wanted to throw away all of my inhibitions I’d have flung myself straight into his arms, and I’d never let him go.

But my inhibitions remain intact, and I think about how Vivian can go screw herself for planting such seeds for disaster in my mind while I hastily make my way out to the kitchen where I stashed the little blue box far out of my sight. After a while it hurt to look at it and to be aware of all the reasons why what I have with Harry should never have gone this far, so I placed it behind the bread next to the toaster.

I fish it out, feeling foolish for putting in such a place now that I have Harry following my every move, but thankfully I have it in my grasp right as he ambles around the corner, looking totally comfortable despite the silent tension I know exists between us.

With a sharp inhale and a numb crater forming deep in my chest, I hold the box out for Harry to take. He raises a questioning eyebrow, still disconcertingly quiet, and makes no move to take it. I feel the blood begin to drain from my outstretched arm, but I refuse to back down. No, quite the opposite; I muster the last of my nerve.

“I can’t accept this.”

His eyes harden again and he straightens his relaxed, slightly hunched posture, turning rigid.

“Why not?” He demands roughly. “You don’t like it?”

“No! No,” I hurry, for once my voice is much louder than his—while he sure conveys his agitation, he manages to keep an eerie calm that I find a little alarming. I don’t like it when Harry is like this, otherwise unreadable, though I suspect he’s brimming with hurt and anger. Once again, I try as best I can to steel myself.

When he closes some of the gap between us with a long, purposeful stride, I all but fling myself backward until my spine presses almost painfully into the edge of the kitchen counter. As always Harry catches the nervous movement, but the hard look in his eyes doesn’t dissipate any. In fact, my reaction only seems to egg him on even further.

He comes so close I’m forced to retract my arm and hold the box against my chest. I stifle a flurry of shallow panicked breathing, looking up at him with what hopefully resembles something along the lines of a little confidence. But that’s very hard to do when he’s like this, for once his anger just barely concealed, and I’m as meek as ever. His jaw ticks in annoyance when I hesitate to voice what’s wrong. “It’s—it’s not that. It’s beautiful, Harry. I just…”

“You just what?” He presses in a low rumble. Any other time the sound of it would cause my toes to curl in suppressed pleasure. Now, I don’t know what to make of Harry or his reaction. His penetrating green irises capture me, render me unequivocally mute, and all I can do is stare up at him dumbly until he pries the box from my grasp while his eyes never stray from mine.

“Tell me,” he rasps after he’s twisted the chain of the necklace around his fingers. I focus on the pendant which seems to shrink in his large hand, becoming much more delicate than I remember it being. “Tell me why you can’t accept this.”

I can see quite clearly that Harry’s becoming fed up with my actions. From all but running away from him at Lou’s, avoiding his messages and calls, and then our small but still very real argument yesterday, it’s obvious that Harry is on his last leg of patience. Though I have yet to witness him snap, and I might not have any idea what to expect when he does… I definitely don’t want to see firsthand.

“I…” My voice cracks, wavers and betrays me so easily with just one vowel, and the words jam up in my throat when Harry presses himself closer so our torsos touch. I try to create some distance by leaning my backside even further into the counter, but Harry only narrows his eyes and follows my movement, leaning forward and bracing a hand on the edge of the counter so it brushes against my side. In this position I feel every part of him, and I can already sense that my body is starting to overheat.

Since my thoughts and voice have abandoned me, I bring forth an unfathomable amount of courage to reach up and twist the pendant around in his grip so its back faces his line of sight. Like always, I ignore the electrical impulses I feel when our fingers brush.

Steady as ever, his eyes travel coolly over the pendant and its inscription before he looks back to me, impassive yet intense. I feel faint. “I don’t see a problem here.”

I can’t believe his boldness. Was he born with unlimited confidence? Sometimes I think he was, and while usually attractive there are times like now when I find it incredibly intimidating. How he can remain so sure under pressure like what I’m putting on him is a mystery to me, and I suspect it always will be. Here I am, I can’t even think to ask Harry a single question or voice the confusion plaguing my mind. I can’t even ask about what we have between us or what it could be, and he goes and does this.

He has nerve, I’ll give him that. It’s admirable.

“The inscription,” I mumble, but it falls flat. Meaningless in comparison to the weight of my poorly constructed statement, posed more as a timid question. Even so, it takes a lot for me to admit even that much aloud—my insecurities. Unable to meet his intense stare any longer, I look down to focus on the fibers of his plain white t-shirt poking through his jacket.

He lets go of the counter to tilt my chin up, the movement deceptively gentle even though I can feel the frustration coming off him in waves of heat, like a furnace ready to explode. He studies my face for a long moment, and I have no idea what he’s looking for.

“What about it?” The seemingly innocent question is what it takes for me to unravel; with newfound strength I bring my hands up against his chest to push him away. And he does back up, though he doesn’t stumble from all the force I tried to exert like I sort of expected. I don’t know if I’m relieved to have not hurt him or even more frustrated.

“What about it? Harry, you haven’t mentioned once what this is between us, or what you want it to be. This whole time I’ve been so freaking confused. And then, after I become even more confused after yesterday, you give me that,” I point an accusing finger to the pendant still held securely in his hand. He doesn’t follow the action or back down any, and it serves to rile me up even further. “Which only confuses me more!”

The whole time through my outburst, Harry remains remarkably silent, as if satisfied that he’s finally broken down one of my last barriers and gotten me to spill my feelings. But he doesn’t stay silent for long—or far away. I lose my faux confidence when he stalks forward again, refusing to budge even after I try to push him away, and soon we end up back in the same position with me feeling dwarfed while he presses my up against the cupboard. Determination and a resolute, passionate anger dance in his eyes, as bright as I’m sure my eyes are with my uncharacteristically exposed emotion.

“I didn’t need to say anything, Julia, because this past month has been one of the best I have ever experience… and,” he says, sharp and stern, and it’s impossible to supress my shiver when he runs his fingertips down the length of my arm. “I know you feel it too.”

Of course I do—I felt it from the very first touch at the book signing. I felt it as soon as I saw him that very day during the presentation, when he saved me from Jameson’s ridicule and dropped me a flirtatious wink. I feel all of it, but up until now I’ve denied the possibility. The possibility that Harry means much more to me than I could ever put words to.

Despite Harry’s apparent anger, he gives me a soft smile as soon as he catches my reaction to his feather light touch. Even the slightest contact causes goose bumps to erupt down my arm, and it’s as if he drinks in the sight. The proof that yes, I do feel it too.

“That’s not the point,” I squeak out, unsure now what to do with the confrontation I unwittingly incited, all while my heart swells in my chest to a warm, impossible degree. “I was so confused. And you know I’m not good with…”

“Good with that?” He asks. I was forced to break off into a stammer when I feel his breath, hot against my neck, after he leans down to push my hair to the side. As he speaks his mouth tantalizingly brushes against the shell of my ear. I have to reach back, stifling a gasp, to brace myself against the counter in an effort not to collapse altogether. My hand accidentally ghosts over his before I find purchase, while I grip onto his shoulder for more support in a hazy desperation.

If he thinks he can ask me questions and I’m capable of an intelligent response after he does something like that, so innocent yet so not, Harry highly overestimates me. I can’t comprehend anything else but Harry and how he bombards every part of my heart, mind, soul, and being, and every single one of my senses. Right now I can’t even remember what happened to get us here or even that I don’t want my necklace, still clutched by the arm I’m holding onto. All I want is him, and he hasn’t even kissed me yet.

“This.” It’s all I can piece together, and it seems that Harry presses his torso into mine even more when I finally am able to produce a shaky, one worded reply through his subdued assault. He chuckles lightly, and then I close my eyes in fascination and shock when I feel his teeth graze down the length of my ear before nipping gently at my earlobe.

Jesus. He must be trying to kill me. My breath hitches and my grip on his broad shoulder tightens.

“I’m afraid I’m not following,” he continues to play along, seemingly content and in perfect control now that he has me where he wants me—totally speechless. I know what he’s doing; vaguely in the back of my mind I’ve pieced it together. He’s showing me, proving to me that there really isn’t any confusion between us and what we are, because I feel it and I know now, too. For a second I marvel over the fact that his voice doesn’t waver over a single syllable while I can’t even think straight. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s on your mind, sweetheart.”

Harry really must be crazy if he thinks he can get any amount of rational speech out of me when he’s busy pressing a line of hot, wet kisses down the side of my neck, leading away from my ear and allowing the cold air to make my skin even more sensitive in his path.

“Just—answer me, Harry,” I finally say in desperation, simultaneously fascinated and afraid of the sensations he manages to stir within me. I push lightly at his shoulder in hopes that he might let up for a moment so I can gather my wits, and even then he still doesn’t stop. As best I can, I ignore his mouth still pressing to my neck and how unnervingly good it feels to try and sort out my thoughts. “Tell me what we are. Are you serious about this, or are you just playing with me?”

Abruptly, Harry’s lips pause in their sensual trail to the hollow at the base of my throat and he rears back to look at me in dismay. I only see the shock rattle his features for a split second, however, before he sets his jaw in determination.

“You must be blind if you can’t see it, Jules. I want you.” His arm snakes around my waist and tightens, as if to solidify his statement as fact in my mind. Not once does the intensity within his eyes lessen, and I stare up at him totally enraptured.

I’ve made him angry because of my denial—that much is clear. Nonetheless, I ignore my better judgement and shake my head at the man still pressed impossibly close and looming over my much smaller form. No, I can’t allow myself to believe that Harry wants me… or rather, that he would want me if he knew better. His frustration increases tenfold at this, and his arm around my waist constricts even further.

“How the hell can you not see how much I want you? I’m sure I’ve demonstrated it, several times now,” he says gruffly. “I told you, Julia. I told you from the start, you can’t drive me away that easily. This isn’t some joke to me; I’m not an idiot boy. It was never a game.”

His closeness, his booming deep voice that overpowers any sound I could ever produce, and how he refuses to let me go is all so totally overwhelming, yet I don’t look away from him for even a single moment.

“Fuck.” His harsh curse causes me to flinch. Only now does Harry close his eyes, nostrils flaring and a manifestation of his anger on his cheeks through a red, heated tint. His brows knit together while he tries to gain control over himself. After he delivers a deep groan, he runs a frustrated hand down his face before he opens his eyes.

The depths that greet me are still just as intense, but thankfully no longer quite as frightening. Even so, I brace myself for what he has to say, because I know he isn’t done. There’s no way he can hold such emotion in without voicing it—he isn’t like me in that way. “I want you. Whatever doubts are running through that mind of yours, get rid of them now. Because they’re pointless, Jules, and this is the last time I’m going to address the issue of what we are.”

Annoyance and incredulity still colors his sharp tone, and I stare up at him in utter shock. I know he’s as straightforward as they come, I know that if I asked even once before now he would have been honest with me, and we could have avoided such a heated confrontation. The conviction, the pure confidence and passion he conveys is my ultimate undoing. It doesn’t even matter that he’s admitted all this to me while so angry; he means every word of it.

He wants me. I test the phrase in my mind, and it sounds so undeniably right that I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without realizing it myself.

Harry wouldn’t have stuck around after that Sunday when I dragged him through the city to show him all my grief, he wouldn’t have stayed after I collapsed into him and had an ‘attack’. And he definitely wouldn’t have stayed after he saw my list, after he saw how pathetic I am in my very own eyes. Now his commitment and care seems so obvious to me, I wonder how I went this long making myself believe otherwise. I realize that maybe it was a guilt thing, that I convinced myself that Harry is as bad of a person as I am for keeping things from him.

But if this was all a game to him like I suggested, he wouldn’t have held me and kissed me with such tenderness I could never have imagined come from him. He wouldn’t have forced me into dancing on the stage of the Uptown, and he wouldn’t be so patient with me when it comes to all things intimate.

He wouldn’t have given a shit about my list, and he wouldn’t bother to cross off a single item from it. In a single instant I come to realize all of this, and a plethora of confliction overcomes my already frenzied thoughts. Just from Harry’s honesty I’m tempted to do the right thing. To tell him about my heart. About everything. But do I really want to ruin the moment, throw away all the progress we’ve made? I want to be sure that he’s sure, that he really means what he says even though I can see it in his eyes as clear as day.

With nothing else to say and still rattled by his passionate declaration, I start to become a little uneasy with the physical position he’s put me in, so I nervously glance away—which isn’t a very smart decision, because he huffs as soon as I break the eye contact.

“You still haven’t answered my question.” I have no idea why my voice only chooses now to cooperate, and why the hell I didn’t filter out such a thought before it could be voiced.

He smirks suddenly, the anger seemingly replaced with another passion altogether. A thrill runs through me at the sight of his returned smirk.

“Well then,” he says quietly, always willing to play along. “Let me make it clear.”

In a sudden, almost rough movement, Harry grabs me by the hip and jerks me around so I face the cupboard. I gasp as soon as he lays a hand on me, and have to brace myself against the counter to keep balance through the surprise. The shock of his assertive behaviour is nothing compared to the jolt I receive when I feel him press against my backside, the feeling foreign and perplexing, and I remain stiff in such a vulnerable arrangement. My breathing remains shallow and laboured, waiting to see how on earth Harry plans to make it clear like this.

I hear his light laugh in my ear at my startled jump, and after he presses a kiss to my exposed neck his fingers ghost over my skin along with the cold metal of the pendant’s chain.

So caught up in every single gentle, lingering caress, my thoughts halt and my brain refuses to work through all of these foreign feelings. All I think and feel is Harry until I hear the click of the chain’s clasp at the back of my neck and a shiver runs through me when he collects my hair and pulls it out from underneath the chain.

The gentleness in which he uses now is a stark contrast to when he pushed me around to face the counter, and I’m thrown for another loop while my held breath forces its way from my lungs in a shaky flurry.

Harry releases a long, strained breath too, and I only comprehend now that I could take his meaning of ‘I want you’ several different ways. I don’t know why I’ve yet to notice the growing hardness pressed into the small of my back through the roughness of Harry’s jeans. Maybe I simply blocked it out, every other time we’ve been in similar compromising positions, to keep a little of my innocence intact. But I sure as hell feel him now, and Vivian would have a freaking field day if she could hear my thoughts as I process this all in the span of a single heated second. She’d laugh like she always does at my idiocy.

“There,” he rasps, thankfully successful in breaking my awkward train of thought. “It’s official.”

Just as quick and easily as he manipulated my body at his will into such a precarious position, he turns me back around. This time, however, his movements are a little more controlled. I can tell that he might be conscious of what I just figured out myself, too, and that maybe he shouldn’t go so far. I’m still caught off guard at the quick action, however, and my hand flies to my heart in an effort to soothe its startled rhythm. Instead I find the smooth, cool wood of the pendant in the center of my chest, and I take a sudden comfort in it just being there.

In Harry having put it there.

It’s official.

But I don’t have the time to think—Harry only allows me the scarce moment to look down to the pendant and then back up to him. This new look in his eyes is much wilder than the tamed one I just witnessed, fueled by a barely controlled, feral desire. I feel it too, just like he said, and it scares me so much I can’t even bring myself to look away, to break this spell.

Within seconds we both react with equal fervour; Harry blindly reaches behind me to swipe everything on the counter aside. Bills and letters flutter to the floor, but neither of us pay them any mind as Harry grips the back of my thighs and lifts me up onto the space he just cleared. I hook my hand around his neck so I don’t fall, shocked by all of his sudden rough actions, and my other hand holds onto his tensed shoulder again. Now we’re nearly eye level with each other, and after nudging my legs open he steps between them to bring us closer together. He gives me a second to acclimate to the new arrangement, both of us heaving as if we just ran a marathon.

As if my body has gone on auto pilot, I lean forward while my eyelashes flutter in anticipation and I tug uselessly on his shoulder, and that’s all the permission Harry needs.

All from one shared passionate, heady look, we lock into the most intense kiss we’ve shared yet. Totally unlike any other, this one starts off demanding, rough from both sides with Harry’s fingers tangling into my hair at the back of my head and pressing me closer while my legs clench around his waist. I’ve denied this for so long it was beginning to hurt, and now Harry’s made it official, and there’s no way I can possibly help myself. Against mine, Harry’s soft lips are demanding that I share in the passion I haven’t yet allowed myself to fully feel, and I can’t help but to oblige. My lips meet his with an equalled force, working against his in a heated synchronization and then Harry is dipping his tongue teasingly into my mouth.

I haven’t felt anything near as intense since our night at the Uptown, and this feels like so much more. Every other time this is as far as I’ve ever allowed myself to go; I certainly can’t say I’m accustomed to the rush of intense feelings or the demand of Harry’s lips as they lay claim over my own, but there’s no denying how he makes me feel. I want his kiss, I want his hands on me, and I want to touch him. I want this.

So when Harry pulls away and I lean my head back against the wall, us both panting and our hands still desperate, I assume this is as far as we’ll go. There’s this hinting need for more, but I don’t want to explore it—at least I don’t think so. But Harry seizes the opportunity, his mouth assaulting my exposed neck with a crushing force.

“Oh,” I all but whimper as my legs wrap around him after I feel the scrape of his teeth against my collarbone. His reverberating groan and tight grip on my thigh tells me I’ve done the right thing, as clueless as I may be, and I gasp at the tendrils of pleasure Harry’s mouth sends slamming into my system. I clutch desperately to him, trying to bring him even closer even though we’re already tangled in each other, to feel more of him.

It’s an all new aching, red-hot need, and Harry senses my reaction as soon as it occurs. In search of more of my flesh, his fingers dip beneath my t-shirt and set my already flushed skin afire. His lips remain attached to my neck, pulling the sensitive flesh into his mouth and sucking to create a mark. The powerful feeling elicits another gasp from me, which strangles into a soft whimper.

“Harry,” I breathe, and it’s only now I realize I’ve fisted the curls at the back of his head seconds after I’ve done it. The sound of my voice is shocking. It’s low, gasping, wanton.

“Fuck, Jules,” he speaks roughly against my neck, the action of lightly pulling on his hair drawing him even closer. He presses his hips into mine, and his hands become frantic, searching in a desperation I’ve never before experienced. A hot trail of long fingers runs under the hem of my shirt and across my torso, feathery light with an urgency that’s so addictive I can’t think of a single reason to stop, absolutely caught up in Harry and his mouth and hands that there isn’t a single thought in my muddled mind that doesn’t involve the seductive man before me.

My breathing turns laboured, heaving, and while my heart is surely racing I don’t even take a moment to acknowledge any possible risk. Harry’s own heavy pants in my ear stir within me another rush of intense pleasure. In a sensual, simmering path Harry traces along the waistband of my jeans. The intimate contact shocks me somewhat, but it’s a pleasurable sort of shock that for once I succumb to.

Nothing can bring me out of Harry’s induced trance until I feel him pushing my shirt up even further, his lips attacking my own once again in a staggering lock, and I feel his slightly calloused fingers brush against my breast above the cup of my bra. I instantly flinch at such foreign contact—I don’t know why I didn’t expect it, but it serves to pull me from the heat of the moment as quick as I gave into it. Reality comes plummeting back, setting me with a heavy heart and a guilt ridden conscience.

Harry doesn’t notice my subtle reaction, too busy pressing kisses to my jaw after he leaves my mouth after I become unresponsive, enveloping my breast in his large, hot hand.

“Harry.” My hands shake something awful when I disentangle my fingers from his mop of hair and release my tight grasp on his shirt. I use them instead to push at his tensed shoulders. The action causes him to withdraw his hand from my chest, but I’m staggered when Harry thrusts his hips against mine and groans hungrily into my ear, all while both of his hands grip my backside and push me into him even further.

“Harry,” I wobble again pathetically, heart now pounding in a worrisome way when I come to realize just how far this has progressed. The rough denim of Harry’s jeans scrapes against my bare lower stomach, and if it weren’t for his tight hold on me I’m sure I would collapse backward onto the countertop.

“Too much,” I gasp out, but it leaves my mouth in nothing more than an incomprehensible whimper.

Fear courses through me for an irrational second—the fear that perhaps Harry has gotten a little carried away and maybe he doesn’t even hear me. The truth to the matter is that if he wanted to, he could easily overpower me. The idea of my strength being any match for his is laughable… when I push against his chest, he moves perhaps an inch. I can hear my pulse like the constant, heavy beat of a bass drum, pounding in my ears at a petrifying rhythm.

“Stop, Harry,” I plead one last time, overtaken now by anxiety and guilt. Maybe Harry hears the shaky shrillness, the desperation in my voice, or even that I’ve forced my voice to work louder than a mere whine, but Harry’s hands halt in their resumed roaming and exploration of my torso, his mouth pausing at my neck just below my ear.

With a ginger touch, Harry pulls my shirt down and smooths it out. I breathe heavily, my eyes squeezed shut and stinging with tears though not from how far this has gone or that I had gotten nervous. Turned tense for a totally different reason, Harry seems to come back to reality just as quickly as I have, and finally he stands straight but angles his face so there’s hardly any distance between us. He braces his hands back on the kitchen counter, as if in another effort to control himself. Our foreheads nearly touch, and for a long moment all that can be heard is our staggered breathing.

“You need to speak up,” he says, and it comes out in a hoarse, gruff rasp. There’s remorse in his tone, however, and I know he blames himself for what happened. I pluck up the courage to open my eyes and they meet his, which have darkened to a deep, mossy shade of green, though I take reassurance in his steady eye contact, in his restraint.

His eyes travel down to my torso and hips which he only just grabbed roughly, tenderness softening his sharp, handsome features. He looks back up to me, the both of us still unsteady.

“I could have hurt you…” he hesitates. “Did I?”

“No, no. I’m fine. Sorry.” At my frantic apology, Harry’s shoulders lose some of their tension, and then they heave with his soft boyish laugh. Much to my shock, he nuzzles his head back into the crook of my neck.

He finds this funny? Well, I suppose that’s the best reaction I can hope for. At least he isn’t annoyed that I stopped things before they went into totally uncharted territory. A small smile pricks at my own lips, which feel slightly swollen from the intensity of his kisses, and I blink back the stupid tears with force. I stare straight ahead while I hold Harry around the waist, determined not to ruin this moment for him too. I shake my head in dismay, unbelieving even still at the position we’re in.

“You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” He asks, raising his head to stare into my now clear eyes. My still hazy mind travels straight to our hips, still pressed together, and a heated blush engulfs my face.

“Actually,” I challenge, feeling suddenly shy at this new level of intimacy now that I’ve had a little time to cool. “I think I have a fair idea.”

Harry rears back and raises his eyebrows in momentary surprise, and then he breaks out into another one of his heart-warming grins—the kind that makes his dimples pop and causes me to totally melt. He keeps me close even as he steps back and helps me down from the counter, steadying me at the waist when I stumble a little. At the sight of his easygoing calm, my heart finally slows its ruthless beat, and only now do I breathe a little easier.

Scattered at our feet are all the papers and envelopes Harry tossed to the floor in the heat of the moment, and he shakes his head almost disbelievingly as he stoops to collect them. I flush in an instant, embarrassed by a couple of the sheets marked ‘past due’ and scramble to take them from Harry, but he’s already seen them.

Thankfully, though, he decides not to comment. Maybe he can see that I’ve already endured enough embarrassment to last me a lifetime in just this one day, but he wordlessly places his pile back on the counter to where I laid mine face down.

While I can’t look at him after he’s caught sight of one of the worries I refuse to talk about, he sighs softly and reaches up to ghost his fingers over the chain of my necklace. I still haven’t forgotten the reassuring weight that rests on my chest, right above my similarly broken heart.

His focus turns solemn right as he grasps my hand. “Have we got everything sorted now?”

Then it’s as if my desire clouded mind is cleared in a single second and I remember the reason why Harry came over in the first place, the reason why I brought him in the kitchen. Why the necklace is even in existence. I remember, now, and I hate myself.

Tell him, my guilty conscience all but wails. But then all the ‘what ifs’ frighten me to silence and I’ve never felt so absolutely torn. Harry notices, as if he expected that things haven’t been totally worked out between us. I haven’t ever told anyone, about my heart—Vivian found out when we were young teenagers after Grandma asked if I took my medication… this was back when Grandma still remembered things like that. And of course, she told Vivian after I asked her to, because I was too chicken even back then.

How do I even go about saying it? Do I just blurt it out like, ‘hey… I have this thing with my heart that I can’t control, and if I’m not careful it could seriously hurt me’? No, no. That sounds terrible. My palms begin to sweat and I suddenly feel sick. I nervously break eye contact with Harry.

“I notice, you know,” Harry begins quietly, tucking my hair back from my face after I bow my head in shame. His touch has gone back to being gentle and delicate, as if I might break under his hold. “There’s always something holding you back. I wish you’d tell me what it is, Jules.”

Unable to stand it any longer, I lean forward and bury my face into his firm chest. As selfish as it is, I need him close; I need his support while I think through such agonizing, hard realities. Harry instantly wraps his arms around me, crushing me to him in a secure, comforting embrace. I don’t ever want to let him go, not after all the promises we made to each other and the progress that’s been had. Except for the guilt I’ve felt over keeping my heart from him, I’ve been happy since I met Harry. Happy. The realization only overcomes me even further with sorrow.

For the first time ever, I wind my arms around Harry too and I squeeze him, I hold him as if he’ll disappear into thin air when I am inevitably forced to let him go.

I can’t say it—I can’t spring free the words from my fragile, broken heart. I want to, though. I want to throw it all out just to get it over with and then Harry can get mad at me and leave. I can almost imagine how he won’t even be able to look at me after I tell the truth, not through the revulsion I know he’ll feel.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize, soft and whimpered. Harry sighs against me, as if he can physically feel my pain.

“Don’t apologize.” The force he uses is surprising, but I don’t push him away and tell him to just stop trying already.

“Give me something, Jules,” he says, sounding as desperate and pained as I feel. And it’s my entire fault. “I hate seeing you like this, knowing I can’t do anything to help. Tell me.”

“It isn’t something you can fix, Harry,” I mumble out, while really I want to say ‘you can’t fix me’. But he’s right; I can’t let this cycle repeat itself any longer. If I let this keep going, the guilt will only continue to fester again until I break down and Harry has to bear witness to me in this state another time. I can’t put him through the pain of that any longer. I have to tell him, at least on some level. “But… it is something I should tell you. I just—I can’t.”

Stifling a hard, dry sob, I think about every single reason Harry needs to know and why he won’t stick around when he does find out. I think about how much I’ll miss him, how far I’ve come in the past month because of him. To calm my fitful, racing heart I focus on the pendant that he gave me. I focus on its stitched crack and our initials engraved into the back. I focus on Harry’s own heartbeat, which I can hear easily with my ear pressed against his chest still. It’s steady and strong, as if he has the strength to carry the weight of my pain too.

And I calm. All thanks to Harry—it is truly a marvel, how all I have to do is close my eyes and realize the beauty and the strength in the man before me, and how much comfort I take just from his proximity, from his warm hands locked around my waist.

“It’s just so hard,” I whisper after another moment, realizing that Harry is waiting for me to continue. It’s so quiet I’m surprised he hears me at all.

“Why can’t you tell me?” He prods gently, unmoving and in no hurry to release me. Perhaps, like in every other instance, he senses I’m at my breaking point.

A certain amount of weight has been lifted from my much too heavy heart just at telling him this much, relieved that Harry at least knows now I’m keeping something from him. But it isn’t enough. I wish I had the courage to tell him point blank, state it as fact in a confidence I’ve never before possessed, but I’m too scared, too sad, too dependent on Harry. Too much of a coward.

“You’re afraid,” he concludes, pulling back to study my distraught expression. A slight frown mars his pink lumps, eyebrows still knitted in confused concern. He talks almost as quietly as I do and slowly, as if he’s afraid to upset me any further. All I can do is nod in silent, overwhelmed confirmation, unable to look away from his searching olive eyes. He comes to a conclusion. “And you’re not ready.”

How does he seem to know how I feel right in the very moment I feel it, and the exact words to say? It’s uncanny, how attuned to each other we are. Not just one sided, the tension I feel from Harry is almost palpable, and I can tell that me holding this back from him, from being so visibly hurt and sad while all he can do is stand by and watch, it hurts him too. And I don’t want to hurt Harry—that was never my intention. From the start, I wanted him to leave this messed up situation of ours unscathed.

Every day that passes, it seems like it’s going to be harder and harder to accomplish. Hell, now it’s impossible.

“What are you afraid of?” He asks, and I can tell he doesn’t really expect anything more out of me. He’s right to make such an assumption, too, because if it were any other time with any other person, I’d have shut down long ago. This is Harry, though. I can’t do that to him. Not again.

His question stirs a deep-seated panic I feel every time I think about what will happen once he finds out, so I feel as if I have to voice my fear. Finally, for better or worse. If it weren’t for the necklace, I never would have considered saying this to Harry. But he’s made it clear. It’s official.

We’re official. Holy crap. I stare hard at the swallow tattoo peeking out from the collar of his button up shirt, swallowing hard. “I’m afraid… that you’ll leave.”

For a split second, Harry’s features harden in disbelief before his jaw slackens and his eyes lose their hard edge. The whirlwind of emotions is nerve wracking and almost frightening to watch. I wait in anticipation for his reaction.

“Then I’ll prove to you,” he declares confidently, his voice back to full volume. “I’ll prove to you, Julia, that nothing you could possibly say to me could make me leave.”

Notes

Hello again :) What do you think? I have to tell you that this is all a new experience for me to write. I've never written a full-blown romance like this before and I'm kind of clueless when it comes to scenes like in this chapter. So of course, I'm super nervous about posting this! I hope I didn't do too bad.

Anyway, I think this might be the longest chapter yet! Wow.

Thank you guys so much for the comments on the last chapter! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. :)