ghoststyles

[ghoststyles]

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 | 𝟏

➯ HARRY EXPERIENCES THE BIGGEST LOSS OF HIS CAREER BUT HIS BEST FRIEND IS ALWAYS THERE TO SOFTEN THE BLOW. ✰ rugby!harry friends to lovers. minor warnings for somnophilia. heavy descriptions of size kink and harry being bigger than reader. minors dni. 𝑤𝑐 5.2k ッ converted masterlist

Y/N watches from the sidelines, eyes ping-ponging to each side of the pitch as the ball makes its way back and forth, back and forth. Her lungs beg for fresh oxygen that she won’t grant them. France’s full-back pellets the ball high up into the air, straight into the arms of England’s full-back, England’s full-back wallops it back to France’s full-back. Y/N’s skin fucking burns with impatience—could someone just play the ball? Her gaze flits over the broad numbers littering the field… three—grass stains streaking across white—eight, twelve—blood streaming down temples—eleven, nine… Ten. 

Harry hangs back, intense, focused eyes following every movement of the ball; just like Y/N, only with pinpoint accuracy. He’s the decision maker of the team, the fly-half—the player that sets up most of the scores, who guides the play. One of the most important pieces of the puzzle and… he’s frazzled, Y/N can tell. By the slight mania in his widened eyes and the frantic point he stresses towards the other side of the pitch, desperate for his teammates to attack—to get some phases going, some passes—anything other than kick tennis.

France have had the upperhand all game. They’re the favourites, after all, and playing at their home ground—but this is the final game of the Six Nations. This is the win England need to set them up for the World Cup.

And they’re losing. They’ve been losing since the second minute when France scored a try from their own twenty two—their lightning fast winger weaving in and out of all of England’s defence to dive over the line—leaving his electric trail in a bolt behind him.

And now it’s the seventy eighth minute and France are two points ahead. Y/N knows why Harry is signalling so passionately—he is desperate to get the ball further down the opponent’s end of the field. If not to score then to force them to make an error, to give away a penalty. Anything to secure the win in the final two minutes.

She is practically barking orders at the players herself—only quietly under her breath instead of the way she is sure Harry is shouting. Every technique, every tactic—Y/N has observed them all. She knows that the clock ticks twice as fast in the final moments of a game. She knows that Harry’s close to losing control of the match completely—of losing that chance of evening the scoreline—and her heart is beating out of her chest watching it all unfold.

The ball finally makes its way into a player’s hands for more than two seconds. France don’t kick it away; their number nine makes a run for it—determined to end the game with an extra score on the board. He executes a dummy pass, feigning to throw the ball to his teammate and successfully losing England’s own nine that slips in the grass in his attempt to mark. Disarmingly quick for a small player, he gets all the way to the halfway line before being tackled.

And this… this is when everything changes. Y/N shoots up from her seat when he goes down—piled upon by white jerseys desperate to rip the ball right out of his hands. She holds her breath as he stays on the floor, can’t find the ball within the chaos—flits her eyes over to Harry who is standing in formation with the rest of the backs. His mouth moves a million miles a second, expression rampant, arms flailing as he screams at his players.

Just a little longer, just a little longer… “Come on, ref,” Y/N mutters under her breath, “blow the fucking whistle.” She watches the man in red do just that—bring the whistle up to his lips in a rapid motion, throwing his arm up in the air to favour England. 

A penalty. In the final minute. For England.

The stadium goes up in a cacophony of roars. Furious French moans drowned out by the deafening screams of the English. A rivalry as old as time goes down to the wire once again. Y/N’s heart pounds away inside of her ribs—hardly able to process the sight of Harry and his team celebrating—the relieved clenching of his fists.

Waterboys rush onto the pitch, slinging the kicking tee to Harry’s awaiting palms. Time continues to pass—the clock sure to enter the red before he’s made contact with the ball that he meticulously balances at the perfect angle. Y/N has watched Harry perform a thousand kicks and yet nothing will ever quell the gut-churning anxiety she feels during these moments in a match. To witness the mass of eighty thousand people reduced to murmurs as Please respect the kicker appears on every screen in sight. To watch Harry, his routine—because every fly-half has one—the way he eyes up the ball, angles himself, blocks out the world around him to draw that invisible line from the ball to the posts… it's an honour and a damnation.

And Y/N is always nervous to watch him kick, but right now, her body feels as though it might start emanating electricity. Harry’s a near perfect shot. His success rate is one of the highest in the game—past and present—but… This angle is, for lack of a better word, fucked. He’s practically kissing the touchline, ball facing a direction you would not expect to be the correct one. But Harry prepares himself, positioned with the posts nearly behind him, ready to curve it just right.

Then he kicks it—he boots it as all kickers do. And it bends. It curves in the air, slicing through it like soft, melted butter. Y/N goes deathly still—time slows down—she’s only half-aware of the screens showing the clock tick over to red. The ball soars, heading straight for the posts, it glides like it has fucking wings—

And then it collides heavily against the left post and bounces back into play. Straight into French hands.

He’s missed. He’s—missed. Y/N’s exhale comes out as some sort of wet exasperation, hands flying to cover her cheek in pure disbelief. No. The stadium cries out so loudly she can hardly hear herself think. All she can see is Harry. The way he crouches down and pinches the bridge of his nose as France kicks the ball out of play and the referee blows the final whistle.

It’s over. All those weeks, all those games, all that fighting. Just to lose it on the last kick of the game. Y/N can’t believe her eyes. 

“You’ve got this, Harry. You’ve got this. Don’t even worry. Y’the best England have seen since Farrell.”

She betrayed him by encouraging such a statement, she’s sure (despite the fact of it). Maybe it got to him; the pressure. The kind of pressure Y/N hoped would be helpful. The truth being that he is the best player they have right now. He’s breaking records, he’s setting new standards, he is the bright, shining new star. But maybe that’s too much to place on a person’s shoulders. Even on the breadth of Harry’s.

The pitch starts hurtling closer and it’s only then that Y/N processes the speed in which her legs are stampeding towards Harry. She can’t get at all as close as she yearns to be—reaching the edge of the box with an aching chest. Not with anger, not with disappointment. With sadness for her friend, for her best friend. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration, a night of euphoria and drunkenness and laughter.

All Y/N can see is Harry’s sullen face as his teammate hauls him up and slaps him heavily on the back—no gentility from the hardness of a rugby player. The teams shake hands and France take a victory lap around the pitch, celebrating with fans whilst the award podium is set up. All Y/N wants to do is get to Harry but England have to stand there and watch France lift the trophy. She glances at it now with disdain.

It’s always a struggle to find Harry after a match—sometimes he’s got press to do, sometimes he’s being ushered into the changing rooms, sometimes he strolls around the pitch with his team, taking photos with fans. Y/N always waits, always watches with stars in her eyes. Nothing ever quite matches the rapid beat of her heart when she gets to observe him in his element; after a win.

But today they’ve lost. And today, Harry doesn’t linger. He doesn’t even let himself get pulled aside for pitchside interviews—lucky that the captain is hounded first. Y/N can already see the headlines. Styles Sulks After Shattering Six Nations Defeat. His hands clapping for France but the line of his mouth hard and the sheen of his eyes glossed over. She knows the noise all fades into the background for him, his mind is elsewhere—body desperate to join.

Her own knows the feeling; too far away from him to relax as their magnetic forces pull towards one another. Keeping her feet planted firmly on the ground is a hard task, when the only focused object in her vision is the outline of Harry. And as soon as he makes that first step towards the tunnel, she’ll make sure to run through anyone who stands in her way.

Getting to Harry’s hotel room proves harder than it should be. Y/N had wasted her time looking for him anywhere else—of course he wouldn’t have wanted to go to an afterparty. To celebrate what? A crushing loss? France’s pilfering victory? Entering a room as Harry Styles might as well be the equivalent of shitting on a plate and offering it around like some kind of hors d'oeuvres. Charm is usually his specialty but it’s no surprise that he chose to hide himself away as soon as the opportunity arose—to take back what little control he has over today and deny prying eyes passing judgement where he can see them.

She thinks, for a moment, that he’s not going to answer the door and her sympathy nearly bubbles into misguided anger before she alters its path. She is so frantic to reach him that it feels like a waste of time to stand still for even a second. But the soft padding of socked feet against carpet sounds from behind the thick wood, and the click of a lock as the door gives way to reveal the image of a forlorn Harry.

He’s so tall, and so broad, and his personality is larger than life—but right now… Right now, Harry looks small. His shoulders weigh heavy and his posture slumps forward, and despite the fact of his towering height, Y/N doesn’t feel so dwarfed in his presence right now. Neither of them say anything; both waiting for the other to speak up first but neither does. Y/N just stands there… in the hallway, suspended in a moment, looking at Harry with sad eyes as his fingers linger on the door handle.

And then she throws her arms around his hulking shoulders and feels his chest deflate against her own expanding one, as she breathes, “I’m sorry, Harry.”

He doesn’t reply—what is there to say? Nothing positive or optimistic, only bashes to his performance, his ability as a player. Instead, he curls his arms around her back; an immediate solace to breathe in the wash of her scent, the soft of her hair as he buries his nose against her crown. His biceps squeeze around her, compressing the bones in her body with a heavenly kind of weight. Small in his arms but big enough to provide comfort. Always the biggest part of his heart, the place he goes to for relief.

Every exhale against her head bleeds warmly into her scalp, seeping down to her toes and regulating her heartbeat. Weightlessness is a common feeling in the presence of Harry, more often physically than not, as he pulls her off the tips of her toes and carries their embrace to the foot of the hotel bed. The door clicking shut serves as a reminder of the outside world; of time continuing to tick away despite the silence that blankets the room they’re in. Y/N removes her hands from Harry’s nape as he sits down, his own paws lingering on the plush of her hips. His eyes are sad, tired, embarrassed. Y/N doesn’t recognise him like this.

“Kev is gonna kill me,” Harry laughs with exasperation, a hand dragging itself down his face. It’s not often that he finds himself on coach’s bad side—he’s not sure he ever really has. He’s well disciplined, a little too cheeky sometimes, perhaps, but manages to ride the line with ease. He works hard, he trains hard, he respects the game and lives to improve with every new day. (Y/N once joked that Harry would struggle getting on the bad side of a wasp; could charm his way out of a potential sting without breaking a sweat.)

She breathes softly, fingertips carding through freshly washed hair; a shower the only thing he could force himself to do after the loss. “Kevin is not going to kill you. You’re his best player.”

It’s hard not to let his sigh turn into a moan with the way she handles him with such tenderness. There’s no fight, none at all, when he closes his eyes and lets her scratch his scalp. “Not supposed to sulk about it. Got t’get up and move on. Prepare for the next thing.”

A gentle tug at the back of his head, not painful, but stern. He looks up at her figure between his legs. “Harry, you can be upset, it’s okay.”

“Can’t be grumpy tomorrow.”

“Just for tonight then.”

It works. He huffs, “I fuckin’—” falling backwards and pulling Y/N’s body with him. She holds back her affronted squeal, palms landing on either side of his shoulders. “—ruined it for everyone.”

“No you did not.” It’s not fair to berate him but Y/N has never been one to allow self-deprecation. That was reserved for herself, and herself only. Her palm meets his chest lightly as she frowns, “You didn’t ruin anything, are you kidding? You kept that match alive.”

“And then I bottled it! Right at the bloody end.”

Her smile is sad; wishing for thaumaturgy to run through her veins—or the ability to turn back time. “And next time the posts won’t get in the way.”

“Hm. Not funny. Might not even be a next time. I’ll probably get dropped for this.”

“No, you won’t, don’t be silly. If everyone got dropped for a single mistake, you’d have no fucking players left.”

It falls silent for a while, their embrace a steady rising and falling of chests—like a dingy floating down a lazy river. Harry strokes up and down her back, as though she’s the one that needs reassurance. It feels nice all the same. The only thing Y/N can do is let her weight settle atop of his hefty body, trying to breathe as deeply as her lungs can manage in hopes that Harry’s heart will mirror. Of course, she’s kidding herself into believing she is any sort of definition of calm, but her mind hasn’t quite caught up yet. Maybe it’s the humidity that forces the catch of her breath as Harry shifts beneath her—maybe it’s the pollen count. Probably the pollen count.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he murmurs after a moment, mindless hands fidgeting amongst her clothes. The layers she’d meticulously arranged to combat the brandishing winds have untucked themselves from the denim of her jeans. Harry’s fingers slip underneath and brush against the silken skin of her waist. He sighs, speaking once more before Y/N can hum her agreement, “You’re so soft.”

There are unspoken lines in relationships, right? Boundaries, expectations, societal normalities. Y/N has lost count over the years, how often herself and Harry have been mistaken for a couple. It alludes to something deeper than neither of the two have ever addressed. And the line… it’s never been crossed but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been toed upon. The waters aren’t as cold as they’ve been before. Y/N’s cheeks warm with the comfort of hiding in her best friend’s chest. The things he says always make her skin thrum with unbridled energy; there’s just something about the way he wields words that has her feeling special. But she hides it with great effort; yearns to maintain a cooler front, perhaps to match her counterpart and appear a worthy equal beside Harry’s coveted self. Being described as soft isn’t an inherently romantic thing—it’s simply a statement—but Harry hums it so freely, like her softness is the salve for all of his cuts and scrapes. The delicacy of a girl, his girl, it’s enough to plaster over the disappointment of his day, because bigger things matter more.

In moments like these, Y/N could reply with a myriad of things. She sure as hell hears a million and one of them pinging around her head. Maybe she’s cowardly, or maybe she’s sensible—she adopts a jibing approach, “It helps not to roll yourself around a muddy field every day.”

“Charming. We’re not pigs, you little shit.” She makes him laugh, a huffed exhale, but a humoured noise nonetheless. Her lips curl up into his neck and she pretends that he’s happy for just a moment. 

When the lull of silence passes and Harry starts to shuffle beneath her, a sense of panic morphs to desperate distraction—not too dissimilar to the reaction of an overworked mother catching her toddler on the verge of bouncing its wails off the walls like some twisted sort of hyena mimicry—she waves a brightly coloured toy in front of his face, equipped with all kinds of bells and whistles.

His pecs indent with the pads of her fingers as she pushes herself up and plasters on an exaggerated grin that can only preface mischief, wiggling her eyebrows, “Want a massage?” ever the unalluring as her drawl tiptoes into the boundaries of offensively inaccurate Northern, “Hm? Free of charge.”

A blip of relief radiates through Y/N’s chest like the echo of a submarine when the corners of Harry’s mouth twitch upwards; in response to the sudden animation of her movements or the laxation that comes promised with her proposition, she’s not sure. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he hums, neck propped up lazily by the palm of his hand, “They’re all free of charge.”

She runs with this fragment of a game—practically bullies herself into a sprint as she nods, “You should be grateful I’m not charging you by the minute. I studied for years.”

She did study for years, and Harry’s never been more grateful for it—selfishly cashing in all the massages he can get. ��And look—” 

“Roll over—” she hoists her hips up to alleviate her weight, off of his body so he can do as she says and shuffle onto his front.

“—Where you’ve ended up.” It’s a self-deprecating thought, not one to banter or jibe, despite being disguised as such. Holed up in lacklustre Room 143, frittering time away with a subpar athlete. Harry’s lucky she’s here lest he dig himself into an even deeper hole.

“I know…” her sigh is light, completely oblivious to Harry’s thoughts only a mere skull’s width away, “so tragic.”

It’s quiet again after that, the vacant hotel air perforated with an occasional thick exhale from Harry’s pouting mouth as Y/N’s hands work through knots and kinks over the breadth of his back. He tries to fight sleep but she presses in harder, just shy of too hard, just enough to melt the taut into goo. When those breaths start coating themselves in gravel, the air catching on his larynx on its way out, and salaciously undiluted hums turn to feathery grunts—Y/N feels smug when she does that to a person—especially when it’s Harry.

Y/N doesn’t have to ask what he wants when she orders room service. Five years of friendship lends itself to the memorisation of eating habits. He’s tired after the massage, muscles heavy and bones squishy, when her efforts to scoot him towards the headboard proved impossibly strenuous. It’s caught up with him like a wave crashing to the shore—all-consuming; submerging. Harry drowns in it entirely, can barely keep his eyes open long enough to shovel his cheat dinner into his mouth. The TV ends up screening old reruns of Friends. Y/N can tell Harry’s clocked out—mind traversing the depths of his insecurities—and it tugs her lips downwards to know she can’t distract him. Not even acting along to their favourite scene makes the smile reach his eyes. She unfocuses her own just to pretend she’s seeing what he is—the blur of the television, colours melting together in kaleidoscope swirls. Ross’ forlorn Hi pulls her out of it.

She feels bad for projecting; for expecting or hoping him to be okay. Of course, he’s not going to be okay. Okay is waking up on a Monday morning with time to buy yourself a treat for lunch before heading into your dreary office job. Harry’s not even knocking on the door of Oh-Kay. But it’s a useless feeling—to be witnessing misery so candidly with nothing worthwhile to offer as a fix. Then she looks over at him, prompted by a thick rumble, and it all goes quiet inside her head for a moment. He’s asleep—plate resting precariously over his lap. The waves catch up to her too, brows smoothing out to mirror the peace of Harry’s expression, and she knows it's time for bed.

Everything seems so much louder when you’re trying to be quiet. Y/N experiences that tenfold in the en-suite bathroom. Her toothbrush vibrates too hard, the water splashes too violently, the cap of her cleanser is obnoxious when it clicks shut. Harry peeks an eye open when she settles atop the covers once again; rosy notes clinging to the full of her soft cheeks, glowing in the soft vibrance of the bedside lamp she’d leant over his chest to click on. There’s no guilt on his face that might suggest he’s been awake for a while, and the rumble of his voice solidifies Y/N’s panic of disrupting his sleep.

“Sorry,” she winces, adjusting her bare knees on top of the sheets. Harry’s sleepy eyes flit down to the hem of her shorts brushing against the plush of her thighs. Then he shrugs a shoulder and extends his arm, beckoning her forward with a curl of his fingers. “Come on. Need a cuddle.” 

And Y/N falls into him easily—head tucked beneath his chin, open palm smoothing over his heart, just like that—as they both ignore the intimacy of their embrace.

Parisian sunlight doesn’t filter past Y/N’s eyelids when they twitch awake, fluttering open less than elegantly. The stitches of memories sew themselves back together piecemeal—too slowly to find it questionable—the caress of soft pads across the puff of her cheek. She thinks she grunts. 

It’s the moon that shows her. The silhouette of wide shoulders and a sloping neck; the sheer curtain enveloped with gentle pockets of wind that slip through the open window, billowing inwards. It pools across the carpet; cool moonlight, casting an unearthly glow along the bicep that reaches out.

Harry’s thumb brushes the girl’s feathery lashes, ducking beneath her undereye to stroke the skin there. It’s such a gentle awakening that Y/N feels heavy—half awake and half still dreaming—still floating through the clouds of her imagination. Weights tug her eyes shut again.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” a quiet murmur, not quite a whisper, the edges grisly but well-intentioned.

“...What time ‘s it?” The pillow sinks in further, weighted with the nuzzle of a nose and an overt inhale. Seasalt and sandalwood, from a little blue bottle—travel size—bathing the cotton covers and tucking Y/N safely into cushions of secure muscle and warm skin. 

“Not sure, go back t’sleep.”

Just enough of the day before creeps into the periphery of her consciousness, forcing the sleep away with an obvious disgruntled twitch. “Are you okay?”

Harry supplies a hum, noncommittal and faraway—too engrossed in the trail of his thumb against her cheek to provide much more. “What‘re you doing?” She whines, fighting the curl of her mouth with the principle of her pilfered slumber. Each nerve ending he passes over leaves bumps in his wake in an endearing betrayal.

“Don’t move,” he tuts when she wriggles her head some—ticklish. “I was thinking…” and if Y/N were less catatonic she’d quip something predictable to earn an answering pinch, “thinking that I’m really glad you’re here.” It’s a saving grace that her tongue lays heavy behind her lips. Harry’s timbre slicks itself over her, satiny like silk. Sincerity isn’t their forte most of the time. It makes her stiffen, anticipating what comes next. 

“I really love you.” 

The weight behind his words should be more startling—a stumble during an elegant figure skating routine—but it glides over the ice with ease, buttery and smooth. Y/N feels herself slipping under the cotton wool covers of unconsciousness with these words, a tiny smile evidence enough for Harry that she heard him, understood him. What might encourage a pregnant pause in the afternoon light, coaxes her back to sleep in the predawn.

It’s a sentiment untold, bearing new significance in the whisperings between sheets. His hotel room, now a honeymoon suite, perhaps—with promises of romantic views and crisp, white palettes bouncing light from wall to wall. Too much room for a newly wedded couple but grand in gesture and boundless in memory.

Only they’re not even lovers, let alone united in matrimony, and no newfound intimacy comes without question. But it’s two in the morning, or three, or four, and this all feels like some sort of beautiful dream—weightless—venturing beyond imagination. Maybe Y/N is dreaming, maybe she’s conquered the intricacies of lucid dreaming, maybe that’s why it isn’t scary to hear. Because it’s not entirely true. 

But it’s hard to imagine, to fabricate the pressing of lips against the corner of her mouth and the soft plumes of air tickling her cheek. And it’s even harder when those same lips knit themselves over her hairline and a winding forearm pulls her in closer into a grounding embrace. She falls asleep again before her brain can whir up enough to provide conclusion.

Harry sounds different when Y/N wakes up. He feels different too. He’s solid as ever, solid yet yielding around her own softer form, but there are new ridges where she’s never known them to be and skin rocking forwards to kiss curves. 

For a moment, it doesn’t register that this is… unusual. Y/N seems to process it twice. 

Once with a sense of nonchalance. 

Oh, Harry’s humping me in his sleep.

And once with an urgent kind of astonishment.

 Oh. Harry is humping me in his sleep. 

But that realisation doesn’t lend itself to her advantage. It doesn’t make her shoot upwards and scramble away before he realises. Because—sleepiness aside—it feels… it feels really good. His body is warm and his arms are tight around her waist; a security blanket made of bicep and sinewy forearm. But it’s wrong to enjoy him like this, without his permission, without his awareness. 

“Harry. Harry, wake up, you’re—”

“Y/N…” her name falls from his lips like a feather; a confession soft spoken.

“Yes,” but he’s not awake. “Harry,” she digs her fingernails into his wrist, hoping the pinch will stir his slumber but he only ruts into her harder, a groan catching in his throat.

“Baby—” Y/N gasps with his moan, muscles tightening, seizing with panic. The bump in his sweats knocks over the rounds of her bum, sleep shorts thin and easily mussed. She can feel them riding up with each roll that Harry gives and the voice in the back of her head telling her to let him… it only gets louder. 

He’s holding her so tight, entirely safe in his arms, so cardinal, so desired. It wouldn’t be so wrong of her to let him use her body like this. He deserves to feel good. She tells herself it’s not selfish, it’s not impolite of her to feel fulfilled too. There’s no control over what makes her body sing. But Harry seems to be pretty good at it, even in sleep. 

His breath is in her ear; it blankets over the slope of her shoulder, warm and seducing. It feels right to have Harry’s lips tucked against her neck, like it was always supposed to be there. What if the side of her neck never feels warm again. It’s the shift of her hips backwards, mistakenly, that arouses him. 

His body stills and the groans in his throat diminish as realisation dawns. But he’s not hurried, or stuttery in his movements. No, there’s no rush at all. A slight tumble over his words as he wakes up, “Oh sh—shit, m’sorry peaches,” and a stroke across the exposed skin of her stomach when he pulls back, “That’s my bad.” But that’s all he reveals, before untangling himself from the sheets.

Y/N coughs, splutters, over a response, unable to reply with anything that could be considered coherent. Her eyes are fighting to dart down when he stands. That’s my bad. His indifference, Y/N thinks, strikes a chord. But she doesn’t understand. Why her heart pounds harder and her legs squeeze tighter. Is she disappointed or is she disturbed? It’s too early to piece any of her feelings together. Her phone beams seven-forty when she taps the screen.

She rolls over onto her back, dragging her clammy palms over her face as Harry takes himself to the on-suite too casually. Her skin is all hot, roiling waves washing over her and strangling her thudding heart. The ghost of his body still presses against her, the hardness, the softness, all of it. The sounds he was making; new to her ears in all their time knowing one another. No amount of pretending could send her back to sleep now.

The bathroom fan whirs and Y/N can’t decide if she’s grateful or dismayed that she can’t make out any clear sounds. 

When Harry emerges, the dusting of rouge across his cheeks makes Y/N’s stomach flutter, eyes darting around the room to look at anything else. He clears his throat and brushes the back of his index finger under his nose. Y/N might believe he was trying not to laugh if she weren’t so mortified.

And then he actually speaks. He speaks to her and she has to acknowledge him. “I’ve got to get the coach back this mornin’.”

She swallows, “Yeah, mhm, okay.”

“Alright,” A keycard appears between his fingers, and then he places it on the console table, “y’can return this to the front desk f’me?” Y/N nods silently. She doesn’t watch Harry as he gets dressed, or as he shoves things into his bag. She doesn’t even sit up, mouth seemingly stuck open in a gape. “Okay, bye, see you later, stinky.”

“See you—” but the door has already clicked shut, “—later.”

#the tenderness 😩 #I can’t wait for more

[ghoststyles]

Harry Styles for Dazed Magazine

#unpopular opinion #I HATE this photoshoot #they edited his face wayyyyy to much #he doesn’t look normal to me

[ghoststyles]

girlhood is reading 3 fics simultaneously on 3 different apps

#tumblr #Wattpad #Patreon #I’m so picky w Wattpad tho lol

[ghoststyles]

You Should Probably Leave

This one shot is inspired by You Should Probably Leave by Chris Stapleton! Hope you enjoy.

3.4K. Smut. Fingering, oral sex, vaginal sex, degradation, the works. hehehe.

The feeling of the pair of lips gently ghosting down your collar bone sends you back in time. A simpler time. Two college students madly in love, unsure where their lives would take them. 

You smile gently, drinking in the scene around you; a warm fire lit, a nearly empty bottle of red wine, and a pair of strong hands dancing around your post-baby curves. Throwing your head back, you gasp when he nips and sucks at the soft part of your neck. Pawing at his lap, his hard prick creates a noticeable tent in his pants. 

You had a long day. The baby is teething, your nipples are dry and cracked, and you haven’t had an adult conversation in what feels like weeks. It’s been Miss Rachel and Cocomelon until your ears bleed. You’re not sure if it was the wine, but it’s like you’ve been brought back to life. It helps that your husband, an esteemed surgeon, is on his 3rd 24-hour call shift in a two-week span, giving you plenty of time to occupy yourself.

It started off innocent, your friendship with Harry. Your heart stopped when you realized who moved into the house across the street just 6 months ago. The other moms fawned over the new single bachelor in the neighborhood, not realizing it was Harry. Your Harry. Your college boyfriend who you thought you’d run off into the sunset with and travel the world. 

In an effort to establish that you’re a married woman, you brought a fresh plate of cookies to his door, your husband in tow. Harry’s slightly perplexed and shocked look on his face when he opened the front door that day was quickly wiped away when your husband introduced yourselves to him. 

It wasn’t until a few days later when you got Harry alone. Would he act like he has no idea who you are? Or would it be like a single day hasn’t passed since you left him at your college graduation, not knowing about the ring in his pocket as your parents and grandparents celebrated around you?

You were going on different paths in life, after all. Harry was a risk taker; you, on the other hand, are someone who craves routine and discipline. That’s what you repeat to yourself, trying to convince your brain that he’s not the love of your life. Even 6 years later. 

You approach Harry as he is getting his mail one day. Looking around, making sure the nosy moms weren’t around, or your husband isn’t miraculously home from work. 

“Hi, Sunny,” Harry says, swallowing thickly. 

His words send a punch to your gut. The nickname he called you for over 4 years hits the same, even after all this time. Your husband’s terms of endearment don’t hold a candle to this. 

Hesitantly, you cross the street, your arms crossing over your chest to try and slow your beating heart. 

“Hi, neighbor. How’d that happen?”

“Are you the only one allowed to come back and live in their college town?”

Ice cold. You weren’t prepared for that kind of response. 

“Not at all. Just unexpected, I guess.”

“I think it’s my turn to do something unexpected.”

You nod, pursing your lips in anxiety. You turn to go back in your house, feeling defeated. 

“I don’t have social media. I didn’t know you lived here,” he replies gruffly. “If you want to come over for coffee tomorrow morning, you can. I work from home.”

“Okay,” you reply softly, unsure if this is a real invite. Scurrying into the house, you wipe away a small tear that formed in the corner of your eye. Fucking postpartum emotions. 

Your racing thoughts are brought to an end when Harry snakes his hand over your stomach. He moans at the excess skin and fat, knowing you brought a life into this world. Weekly coffee dates between neighbors turned into wine nights when the baby goes down. All unbeknownst to your husband and neighbors. 

He finally slides his hands in your panties, gently swirling your clit, sending your head back on his shoulder. The stress melts off your body when he inserts his middle finger. 

“Mhm, squeeze me, Sunny. Take what you need,” Harry pants in your ear quietly. The baby monitor rests on the side table next to you. 

High-pitched whines escape your mouth as he massages your g-spot gently. The angle isn’t allowing him to speed up his thrusts. You come, loudly, a few minutes later as Harry sponges more kisses on your neck and temple. 

Shifting to your knees, you simultaneously pull his pants down, his boxers following suit. His prick bobs up, smacking him in the stomach. You nearly keel over, excited to have your mouth on him, as if you haven’t been doing this several nights a week when your husband is at work. 

The ruddy tip is dribbling pre come, the perfect lubricant. Since he knows you’re dirty, you spit on him anyway. Harry lets out a mixture of a sigh and whine, desperate to feel your warm mouth on him. You take the plunge, trying to shove as much of him down as you can. It’s hard, but you manage to slightly swipe your nose on the hair at his base. 

He’s a man now. He was back then, too. But he’s a man now. The slight belly; a contrast from his rock hard abs in college. And his face is aged, but in a good way. His stamina remains unchanged. A few more sucks and pumps of his dick and balls sends him spiraling. Ropes of his come hit the back of your throat. You absolutely keen as he grunts and thrusts one last time.

With a pop, you slide your mouth off, looking at him with hazy eyes. You roll to the side, laying your chin on his meaty thigh, just above his tiger tattoo. 

Harry sighs, knowing what comes next.

I know it ain’t all that late but you should probably leave. And I recognize the look in your eyes, yeah, you should probably leave.

You cover up your bare chest with your sweater, pulling your discarded sleep shorts back on.

“He’ll be home soon, and I want to feed the baby one more time before bed. I hope you understand.”

Harry nods, his face unwilling to let on how much your words hurt. He stands, pulling up his pants and boxers, slipping his sweatshirt overhead. 

Harry understood the first time. And the second. And even the third. But, here you both are, months later, entertaining this completely heinous affair. But, he just can’t fucking let you go.

‘Cause I know you, and you know me. And we both know where this is gonna lead

You excused the lingering; the extra kisses. You’ve even let Harry stay in your bed until the minute your husband pulled into the driveway. It’s gone on too long, and you need to set boundaries. But you can’t fucking let him go.

You want me to say that I want you to stay, so you should probably leave

You know it’s wrong. You’re not naive. It’s not even about hurting your husband. The unmitigated amount of guilt that comes from leading Harry on is more than enough to send you straight to hell. 

It was dumb luck, Harry moving in across the street. He had to hear about your new life through mutual college friends for years as hestruggled in relationship after relationship. You went off and married a future doctor. A sure thing. At graduation, Harry scored a job in tech. Sure, the field was new at the time, but it wasn’t like he was taking a major risk. You got cold feet and fled.

Harry leans down to place one more chaste kiss on your lips before he wordlessly slips out the door toward his own house. You stare out the window after him until a shrill cry rings over the baby monitor, catapulting you into your reality.

And it’s hard to resist, just one kiss, then you should probably leave

~

When Harry knocks on your door around 11PM just two nights after the last encounter with an overnight bag in hand, you’re not sure what to say. The baby went down easier tonight, allowing you to feel more relaxed.

“I talked to him yesterday at the gym. He said he’d be on call at the hospital until tomorrow morning.”

You nod, confirming what he’s saying. Your husband kissed you goodbye after a failed attempt at intimacy this morning. You made up some excuse of feeling off, so he jerked himself in the shower while you laid in fetal position, the guilt eating you alive. 

Harry storms past you, immediately heading to your bedroom. The bedroom you share with your husband. The bedroom just down the hall from your sleeping baby. You sigh, closing the front door gently. 

Harry places his bag on the chair in the corner, taking note of the clothing strewn around the room. He’d hate to leave behind an article of his clothing that would expose their secret. Harry pulls his shirt off by the collar, baring his chest to you. 

It never fails to smack the wind out of you. His toned, tattooed abdomen is illuminated by the lamp in the corner. You place your palms on his pecs, leaning in for a hungry kiss. You can tell he doesn’t want to talk tonight. 

“Strip,” He demands in between kisses.

You meet his gaze, giving your best puppy dog eyes. He doesn’t buy it. You peel off your sleep shirt and shorts, leaving yourself in a pair of white panties.

“Face down, ass up, Sunny.”

A shrill whine escapes your frowning mouth. You put up little protest and situate yourself on the bed. It’s tantalizing, the hold he has on you. The history. The lore. The taboo nature of your relationship. If that’s what you can call it.

You crawl onto the bed, ignoring the framed photo from your wedding day on the bedside table. Harry stands at the foot of the bed, admiring your plump ass, a small wet patch forming in the gusset of the panties. 

Harry lightly palms your ass as you jam your head further into the comforter. He squeezes and pulls at the skin, debating where to start. He starts by rubbing his middle and ring fingers over the wet patch.

Increasing the pressure, he leans over you, his lips tickling the shell of your ear, “I’m gonna eat you out, fuck you, fill you up, and we’re gonna keep these panties on. A little treat for when your husband comes home.”

Fuck. 

“Harry, fuck,” you stutter.

He’s now face to face with your backside. You feel one lewd, long, lick up your folds - through your underwear. It’s so, so good. In between licks, you hear him speak again.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” He asks, almost laughing to himself.

You dare not to respond, instead focus on his assault to your pussy. His grip on your thighs is that of the jaws of life, destined to leave marks.

“I’ve been fucking tearing this pussy up for,” he trails off. “Months, now? And your dumb fuck husband still has no idea? Not a clue about our history? How you were mine first? Does he even pay a crumb of attention to you?”

You cry out after a big swipe, the tickling feeling of the damp fabric on your pussy lips driving you wild. You’re holding back big, fat crocodile tears. You’re in this situation because you want to have your cake and eat it, too. 

“Tell me, Sunny. Does he fuck you with the lights off? Or a quickie in the shower? If he’s the love of your life, then why do you have to get attention from me? Hm?”

Fisting the comforter, the tears are now falling rapidly. You choke out a sob and clench your pussy around nothing. 

Again, you don’t answer his questions. Instead, he picks up the pace of his licks, focusing directly on your clit. He knows the left side is more sensitive than the right, so his tongue stays swirling in that direction. 

You come, quickly and loudly, smacking your hand against the bed. Harry chuckles to himself bitterly. Your head is still spinning, but you feel Harry peel back the gusset of the panties and slide the tip of his cock through the folds. 

He still has his pants on, but the buttons are popped open and his cock is sticking out over the band of his underwear. The edge of the lacy fabric touching the sensitive head makes him grunt out a moan. 

“Always so fucking needy. You need me, don’t you, Sunny? Tell me,” he mocks.

“I need you, Harry,” you whimper, your body ready to collapse to the bed. 

“Mm-mm. Tell me who you need right now, Sunny.”

“You, Daddy. I need you,” your wobbly lip makes you sound pathetic. 

He plunges in at your words, both of you gasping at the same time. You’re made for one another; You’re the lock and he’s the key. Even on the best nights with your husband, he gives you a mediocre performance at best. Your thrusts are never timed, and he refuses to talk dirty in your ear. 

“That’s right, Sunny. Good girl,” he mocks you again, his thrusts sending shockwaves throughout your body. You can feel his thumb trace around the edge of your asshole, making you mewl.

Harry leans over you, enveloping his body over yours. His lips ghost your ear again. The tone of his voice is low and sultry.

“Y’know what I think, Sunny girl?” he asks, sucking your earlobe into his mouth. “I bet you wish that sweet little baby in the other room was mine. Bet you wish it was me you walked down the aisle to.”

You gasp, heart stopping at the mention of your baby. Up until this point, you’ve been able to compartmentalize this part of your life. You start to protest, but he slips his right hand around your throat, squeezing gently. 

“Hm? Based on the way you’re squeezing me, I think I’m right,” the smug tone of voice is glaringly obvious. “Think of the life we could’ve had, Sunny. I think about it every day of my fucking life. Would’ve given you the world.”

Like a devil on my shoulder you keep whisperin’ in my ear. And it’s gettin’ kinda hard for me to do the right thing here. I wanna do the right thing, baby

“I know,” you finally choke out. Your conversations during your romps remain light, usually. But, tonight. Tonight feels different. His grip on your throat tightens as you feel him start to slow his thrusts. "Fuck, Harry. I know."

“Thought I’d hit the lottery when you and your husband knocked on my door that day. Thought I’d been given a second chance. Finally have you forever.” 

He’s fully panting at this point, and you’re unsure how he’s even talking. You clench around him, making him moan again. He kisses your neck, sweat freely dripping all over both of you. Instead of burying deep in you, he pulls out slightly as he comes, coating the inside and outside of your pussy, and dripping into the panties. 

It’s lewd, and disgusting. But, it’s everything. 

Harry’s lifts his body from his place on top of you, the slight breeze his shifting caused making you shiver. Harry moves to a half standing position to grab his phone off the bedside table. He snaps a quick photo of the scene in front of him.

You look ethereal. Your perfect, plump ass is complimented by the underwear now doused in his scent and spunk. The contrast of the dry and wet parts of the panties has him wanting to jerk off again. 

Reluctantly, he pulls out, and uses his thumb to snap the fabric back in place. He doubts your husband will even give you the time of day once he’s home. But, it’d be an epic way for your secret to be exposed. 

It’s nearing 1AM, so Harry stands to go into your ensuite to fetch a towel. Now, you’ve fully collapsed into the bed. He gently wipes just enough cum from around your pussy and thighs. He leaves a majority of it for the treasure hunt.

You finally build up the strength and courage to pick up a discarded T-shirt on the floor. At the same time, he’s putting on a fresh pair of boxers from his bag. You can’t bring yourself to meet his eye as you start reeling over the degrading words that came out of his mouth. You have every right to be disgusted by him, but you can’t bring yourself to be. Because he’s not wrong. 

You’d made a mistake. You knew about 6 months into your marriage. You loved your husband. Or maybe the idea of him. You met him when he was 2 years into his surgical residency. The perks and the bragging rights of dating a doctor got to your head. Every date, every argument and every moment of adversity had you wondering what it’d have been like with Harry. 

Life with Harry was easy. You got the best of both worlds; a hot boyfriend and a fun social life. But, when your sister introduced you to a man with a full 8-year plan carved out, you chose the safe option. What a fuck-up that was. 

Harry climbs into the bed next to you, still not saying a word. That’s the thing. With Harry, you don’t have to. Your energies and emotions just work. He gently pulls you down so you’re laying horizontally on your side, and he slots his legs between yours, nuzzling his face in your neck. 

In this moment, everything feels right. 

~

Harry didn’t sleep much. He tried. But, something deep inside him was gnawing at his soul. His eyes were closed the whole night, but he never quite crossed the threshold into sleep. 

He still had all his five senses; the sliver of light from the lamppost outside; the slight white noise coming from the radiator; the smell of your shampoo mixed with the lewd activities of tonight; the feel of your hot skin touching his; and finally, the residual taste of your pussy on his tongue. 

The sun is rising now, signaling the end of your time together.

The sliver of light on your frame has his heart bursting with adoration. It’s true, what he’d said before. He does think about what your future would’ve been like. Your long eyelashes cast shadows on your slightly cherub cheeks. You would’ve made beautiful children. Gone on memorable family trips. And at the end of the day, fucking love each other.

Sun on your skin, 6AM and I been watchin’ you sleep. And honey, I’m so afraid you’re gonna wake up and say that you should probably leave. 

A year ago, Harry thought you’d leave your husband by now. But, as time goes on, his odds of getting you back are getting less and less. His heart is breaking all over again. 

You feel him stir, so you turn over and smile at him. You run your hands up and down his bare chest, feeling every prickly hair. He smiles back at you, not saying a word.

You finally pipe up, a clear, sad tone, “Y’know how much I hate saying this.”

“I should probably leave.”

You nod sadly, placing a kiss on his chest. It’s honestly a miracle the baby hasn’t woken up yet. Harry kisses you, his thumb grabbing your chin. It lasts a few minutes until you pull away. Your husband is due home in less than 45 minutes.

I want you to stay, but you’ll probably say that you should probably leave.

You should probably leave. 

Harry rises to sit at the side of the bed, grabbing his phone. 6:12 AM. You think he’s fiddling with his phone to prolong his stay. His bag is already packed by the door. You smile to yourself, happy to have your lover by your side. He places one last kiss on your forehead.

Before Harry stands, he sends off an email to his realtor, confirming the sale of his house. $15,000 over asking price. It was a private showing, with an agreement that Harry would be out of the house in two weeks. 

He already purchased a home — Approximately 1,326 miles away from this one. Everything is set. His mind is made up.

Harry stands, grabbing his bag. He takes one last look at you as he stands in the doorframe, an unreadable look on his face.

“Bye, Sunny girl.”

#We slept on her <3

[ghoststyles]

THEY’RE BAAAAACKKKKK 🤪

Chapter 11 of TDIAG ٩(◕‿◕)۶

CW for this one: p in v, semi-public sex, alcohol

WC: 9.4K

PREVIOUS PARTS HERE | WATTPAD EDITION | patreon here

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When Isla crumples into her bed, over sheets tucked tight, edges to corner, her sandals are still on her feet, unshed. They dangle over the edge of the mattress. It entirely slips her mind that she was meant to send Harry a text that she’d gotten home.

You’ll text me when you get home. 

Safe and sound. She feels something wedged between her molars — seaweed, maybe, and the bitter tang of unease. A faze that washes over her tongue as she prongs it out from its enamelized prison. She’s safe and sound, sprawled over linen, and somehow the churning behind her ribcage doesn’t simmer away. 

She’d been instructed to send a message, actually. It’d been a command. The first time is an accident, but she begins to wonder if she’s breaking some unspoken, unagreed upon rule when she airs Harry Realtor’s Good morning text the next day, sidling out of bed to haphazardly attempt taming her mane of sleep-mussed hair for the workday. 

She thinks, it must stipple more into a morally ambiguous territory, rather than a simple sex-rule-disappointment thing, when she notices his Everything okay? message a few hours post her lunch break… and opts to silence his notifications entirely. 

She doesn’t know what she’s running from. Seeing his texts surge through the aether and light her LED alive makes a raw panic curdle her bloodstream, but she’s known for weeks that the leather and chains — an alter ego she’d become well accustomed to — was entwined with the seemingly sweet real estate agent, masquerading. 

Metathesiophobia. That’s what it’s called on the internet. A long word for a throbbing affliction. Harry doesn’t text again. Dissecting the root of the discomfort feels like discomfort in and of itself. 

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There’s a thin partition between girl’s-night-woo and stuffing an empty chasm in your chest with agave tequila. It slides down into a cavity that already burns on its own, incinerated muscle in the vale of her décolletage — her own consequences, skin muggy over the surface even under the flits of the fans hanging overhead. Karmic misfortunes. Isla’s skin would sear if he was here, but how the vug between her ribs seethes without his touch. Pay the dues. It’sa tardy bill tucked under a creaky mattress — there’s a smoldering hole burnt through the center, and springs stick from its charred flesh. 

Salut. 

She takes a swig, sets the glass down, and thumbs at the salt on the rim. The charms on the bangle sway. Miryea wiggles her eyebrows. The void sizzles. The recipe: one part unrequited longing, one part margarita. Isla misses cherries and scorching kisses. 

She’s moping. Probably, she should find a nice guy — kind eyes burnished in bar lights, twinkling, one button undone under his collarbones. The kind of grin that could get her, half-lidded, to forget all about that wallowing hole. She should let him buy her a drink, smooth the pads of her fingers over his warm knuckles when he passes her something citrusy and strong. Kiss him like there’s a mask sealed to his eyes, let him skim her incisors with his tongue. She wouldn’t bite. Good girl. Sir for the night. He’d slot between her thighs, but it wouldn’t mend that rotting lacuna — a bandaid, skin glued to flesh over sweaty bed sheets. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” 

Isla looks. Bandaid isn’t talking to her. He’s tow headed, and leant against the bar, one elbow on the soapstone, wedged in the liminal void between the stools. Miryea does that thing she does, then, that slow, charmingly bemused blink — little old me? She never sleeps with them, but she’ll watch them pull their wallets out and pass cash across the bar, then take their drinks with a friendly curl to her mouth. Miryea doesn’t even bring her card to the bar. 

Isla nearly, actually contemplates finally texting him back. 

It’s funny, the way liquor bottles melt to orbs, glinting in the light when she focuses on the broad array behind the bartender, traipsing and bantering, and lets her eyes rest, lids open. I’m sorry. Blue Moscato, bleary, is a glowy Neptune. Her eyes gloss salty. I miss sleeping with you. She blinks and cobalt reshapes. I miss you. Blue Moscato. It’s just a bottle. 

It’s just sex. 

Isla spares another glance. Bandaid’s choice of shirt is eclectic and unbuttoned just enough to showcase the faint dusting of snowy chest hair adorning the space between his swarthy pecs. 

She thinks they start talking, then. Lime has never felt so glum. He buys Miryea a drink. Isla thumbs more of the salt off, just until the tip is tacky with simple syrup.  

“—Hey.”

She twists her chin. Miryea’s cradling a glass of something green in her palm. 

“Let’s head over there.” 

Free drinks. 

There’s a wall behind the wrought iron staircase — tongue and groove cedar climbs behind the railing, paneling in vertical slats to the ceiling. It splits off a secluded booth. 

It’s a Friday night. All she wants is to be bracketed by Harry’s warm, massive biceps. She wants to nip into the sinew of pumped, onyx etched muscle, at the anatomically accurate sketch of the heart there, and she wants to feel the top row of his front teeth latch on the cartilage of her ear in response. She wants to feel the mirthy rumble in his chest against her back before she hears him hum over gristle; this soft, muffled roll grounding with the same energy of bare toes wiggling at the edge of a muddy littoral. Instead, there’s a pending hangover. And anyways, this nightlife does little satiate her nightlife penchants. The gaping hole between her ribs throbs. It’s still sort of burning from the margarita that she holds onto. She imagines it’s unlikely that she’ll find a bandaid big enough to paste over the ache. Probably, she’ll end the night sobbing into her pillow. And maybe Isla needs a good fucking cry. 

She always needs a good fucking cry — that’s the entire basis of her membership, of masks and mean hands prodding at her skin, pinching, twisting, smacking, fill the void. Fill the void. Fill the void. 

He’d wedged into that gap, curling, pried her ribs apart and stuck his hands in. It’s just empty now because she’s pushed him out. 

Isla blinks hopelessly at the little circle of Bandaid’s friends, a plait of lively camaraderie coiled around a steatite tabletop. The stem of the glass nearly splinters in her fist. There’s something pleated into the coterie — it’s got hands the size of baseball mitts with elegant piano fingers and the shading of an anatomical heart on its sleeve. Those colossal hands cushion a lowball glass in a new coat of red. 

Harry’s head is turned to the side. 

He’s loose. Lax. A trio of buttons in linen undone — which is one more than Blond Bandaid. In good spirits, if the blithe smile cresting his pink mouth — in response to something a friend has said — and the serenely planate state of his brow bone is indicative. At least, just up until the point where her silhouette catches in his peripherals, hanging fire like a stunned deer in the middle of a one lane road with headlights veering from behind a thicket. A clangor echoes in the depths of the cavern, bleedy.

Two weeks is enough, apparently, to forget what it feels to be the focus of those eyes. The revelation is enough to punch breath from her lungs. They’re sizzling. 

If her presence is enough to throw him off kilter, he’s absolutely perfected the art of not letting it show. Green roams, but there’s nothing insightful in the breadcrumbs. He regards her in the way a stranger ogles a pretty thing that he’ll never approach from across the room in a fuggy bar — a one-over that loiters on shapely hips from a distance, a piece of patchwork in the quilted night, before the stranger’s eyes retire. It nearly makes her bristle. She’s earned apathy. Her phone is a brick in her pocket. 

Harry looks …well. Suspiciously, which spurs the bristling. Unaffected, nearly. Expecting something different feels selfish, but it doesn’t appear that he’s been moping nearly a fraction of the amount Isla has. Is. He takes a slow slip of clear liquor, and the ice bristles in the glass, clinking as it sloshes, in her favor. 

Bandaid clears his throat. He’s initiating introductions — motioning past an awestruck Isla Cleery. Her counterpart is much more in the element to milk free drinks.

“Miryea.” 

And he lists names, clockwise. Isla doesn’t catch any, doesn’t particularly care to, besides the name she already knows so well. It lives on the tip of her tongue, burning hot, waiting for the opportunity to fly off the muscle at every inconvenient moment when they’re donning masks and fucking. 

Miryea teeters on her heels and waves, chin dipping with the acknowledgement of each man, and Isla only recognizes she’s still ogling Harry when Bandaid motions to her. There’s an awkward pause when his tone wears this dubious edge — an implication that he’s in need of her assistance that’s mottled by her inattention. 

“Isla,” she supplies, mouth melding into that midway forced, polite variation of a smile. Close-lipped, the kind she’d share as a kid at cocktail parties with a parent’s palm pasted over her shoulder. 

Harry’s eyes don’t wander, then. Not even for a second. It’s a peculiar kind of gravity; she to his eyes and his eyes to …her. 

“Isla,” Bandaid parrots, like he’s tasting the emphasis of her name. 

He sticks a hand out. It dwarfs her own in its grasp — she settles into something firm; habitually professional. And then—

Bandaid raises the back of her palm to his mouth for a chaste kiss.

“Sam. Very pleased to meet you.” 

Her eyes skirt. He’s watching, but his features speak nothing. Instead, he brings the glass to his mouth and tips. Seal it with salt. In her peripherals, Harry disengages into conversation. The line rends. 

Sam isn’t inherently a heinous looking guy. In fact, most would deem him conventionally attractive. Sharp, chiseled. Symmetrical, and all that. Attractive on the biological scope, where the sake of attraction depends on indicators of good health. He’s got symmetry, she thinks. And he doesn’t fit Sir.

If Isla had anticipated that girls night would involve tucking into a booth with the source of the gnarled cavity in her chest, she’d have opted for wine coolers over Love Island reruns in the safety of her living room.

She doesn’t quite know how it happens — the way Miryea strays from Sam’s arm to opposing eye candy. This one’s more her type, with dark, close set eyes and a perennial brooding to the shape of his features. She curls up in his corner, batting her lashes as precedent to every word out of his mouth, and as consequence, Sam sets his sights on the only other sweet, pretty thing seamed into the booth. Quiet, hands in her lap with this gaze that roams off in what’s nearly a flighty panorama. 

He tucks his cheek into his palm, and drums the back of a short nail over his tumbler. It clinks. 

“What do you do, Isla?” 

She looks up and blinks like the precipitous glare of the spotlight has stunned her back, tethered from floating in the aether. 

“I’m a paralegal.” 

His eyes crest — almost like intrigue, and sallow lashes sweep when he blinks and stirs, “Paralegal. You’re a …sophisticated woman.” 

Sam plays it nonchalantly. He doesn’t stare at her tits — doesn’t linger in the naked flesh that sunders dark fabric, the bare vale that starts at her neckline and peaks above her navel. He doesn’t even try to look. But she can see it in his face. Like he can be the balm to the wound. Let me in. 

It only takes a second, a fleeting glance to find a different set of eyes. Jade boring from across the soapstone. They’re sharp, flinty like talc. A hide of green snakeskin and fingers perpetually flexing over an invisible, clandestine whip. Or, maybe, the neoprene padding of a leash handle. He’s practically tugging on the phantom of it across the table.

Isla swallows. 

Envy. 

He’s jealous. 

The tick in his jawline, like a vicious maw waiting to bite — the way his thumb smears over the rim of his glass and his forefinger taps the crystalline body. One, two. 

Three. 

The way he pastes his gaze to his drink — a crick in his neck like he’s wryly amused. 

It dawns on her, then. The searing from across the table dissipates any prior nonchalance so suddenly, Isla wonders if she’d been entirely imagining that Harry was ever distant or carefree. He’s stewing over the flame of this show — Sam toeing at the hedging, an islet that bears the imprint of another man’s teeth. He raises the glass to his lips and rolls a mouthful of something bitter and sharp. Contemplating. Isla can’t tell if the grimace that comes after is the result of liquor heating his taste buds or the sight of Sam, half-lidded in flirtation, anticipating her response. 

He spits it like barreled oak turned sour behind his lips, but it’s light. Easy, like jabbing at a friend. A man doesn’t tell a friend not to piss where he pisses with a foaming snarl, after all. 

“She doesn’t want to fuck you.” 

Sam raises his eyebrows, almost stunned by the insert. It flees quickly, though. Stains over with smarmy indignation. The kind from a friend to a friend. His laughter catches on a scoff. 

“Fuck off.” 

Harry is the wingman of the century. 

She sets her three-quarters nursed marg onto the table, jaw set when her gaze splits to the emphatically apathetic shaping of Top Tier Wingman’s features. He runs the tip of his index over the lip of his glass like he’s smug to cockblock. She hopes his choice of company has no interest in spiking her beverage. 

“I’m going to— go. I have to…” Isla settles on nothing, lamely. It sort of miffs her more. 

Her face crinkles as she stands and makes a beeline for a hallway where she knows she’ll find a restroom. It’s a single use, and the blessing of her night comes in the form of no line. Two doors parallel each other, and she slips in through the screeching crack of one, doused by borderline desperation. 

It’s quieter here. Still loud in her head, but quieter. The same sensual track leaks from covert speakers, bumping with bass. Tinny, like it’s played through the other end of a phone — and the high’s worn off, the depths of her buzz quelled by him. It still spumes through her veins, but Harry always was a sort of sobering experience. Except, he made her float. Her lungs feel like they’re sinking, shrinking into the boundless black hole of the cavity. Isla stares back at the madwoman in the mirror and opens the Calm app. 

Breathe. Hold that breath. A knock seeps, stemming from the opposite end of the heavy-set door. Four seconds. She eyes her reflection. There’s a knot of emotion in the pit of her tummy — she thinks her innards are coiling, sloshed with tequila and margarita mix, and it’s a brutally nauseating combination. 

“Occupied.” 

It might feel strange at first, but it’ll feel more natural with practice. Someone raps their knuckles against steel, more purposeful. She sets her phone onto the sink and screws her eyes shut. The guided meditation is still playing when she sniffs, twists at the knob, and tugs open the door, half-expecting to tell a drunk person off for their lack of patience. 

The animation of a sun rocks happily over the LED, riding the blue wave of symbolic inhale, like twisted irony. Hold that breath for four seconds. In her loose-gripped balk at the sight that greets her, Harry slinks through the crack like rain through a gutter. 

Words fail. They’re useless, substanceless things that do little to salve over the chasm when he leans back against the door, slipping it shut under his weight. His arm skulks behind, with little subtlety, and clicks the lock back into place.

Hold. Let it go. 

Isla scrubs a hand over her face and launches another frantic one in the direction of the smartphone, still blaring the script of a mucked up, guided meditation. Harry blinks, sticks a ring-adorned hand into the pocket of his slacks, and unveils a little pin of a key. His eyes are still serpentine — whetted like the scales of a viridian snake, and somehow, they’re softer than they’d been. They flit from her face to her wrist and back. She’s still cuffed in golden love shapes and emblematic adoration cleaved. 

“Do you want this, or are you just opting to get it sawed off?”

That’s— not the conversation started she’d been expecting. Her cheekbones teem with a parabolic warmth. This shame doesn’t feel good. 

“Um. Yeah, I’ll take it. Thank you.” 

She’s guarded the way acreage is girdled by barbed wire, post to post, its razor sharp teeth spearing to a soft touch. Harry notes it in the way she tenses when he prompts, taking a step, “Let me help you.” 

She does stick the joint out in his direction, though, almost hesitantly; at first like a testy child, and then with the energy of a flighty, cornered mammal. Instead of hissing from her corner, there’s silence as her eyes roam everything in the space but his stature. 

“Was the date that bad?” Harry tries, eventually, fingers curling over bone. 

The pin turns in the keyhole. Clicks. Green flickers up, then back to the bangle as he wrests it apart. A crinkle forms between his brows — the void between her ribs expands and falls, as if making room for something breathing in the depths. Hibernating. 

“Because I thought it went well, but if I did anything to offend you and I misunderstood, I’m sorry.”

Her voice would be wet, probably, if she wasn’t still so riled. It comes out quiet, the next thing — under her breath, face tipped down like a kid mid-chastise. 

“What the fuck was that?” 

Despite the weight of the words, her voice is low, almost like a sinner whispering in a confessional. It’s rage soft spoken — the blistering sear. She does her best to curb the tremble in her fingers; his warm digits brush her skin in a way that she hasn’t felt in weeks, and the small contact feels like the nostalgia of diamorphine. He could pry her ribs apart with his hands, traipse over trails of veins wandering in a two-fingered saunter, and still find home. 

Harry pauses. His eyes are sharp again, that bladed edge whittling. He peers up from his handiwork. 

“Pardon?” 

“The— you know what,” Isla looks at him. Really looks at him. “You pretend you don’t even know me, and then you try to— what? Mark your territory?” 

Metamorphose. Something smugly sneering rears, something ugly and viridian, probing out; it starts in the shapes of his brows, crinkling them until they’re reborn in a self-satisfied smoothness. It lingers to his mouth; a flash of teeth. His eyes. 

“He wanted to get his dick wet. Did you wanna help with that, sweetheart?” 

Inhale. Isla blinks. It dissipates, curdling back like an eel that’s met a wall of halite. His face softens, sours, downturned to quarry tile. 

“You stood me up,” Harry reasons, wagging his head in denial, “You did that, not me. Why would I act like we’re anything more when you…” 

Hold that breath for four seconds. It’ll feel strange at first—

“You’re playing games,” Isla argues, hands motioning wildly before raking back through her hair — the bracelet is grasped out in his palm, now, and he’s watching her, expressionless, before the features there twist, “You’re— you— blending the lines, into— into—“

The richness of the insult is practically gilded, Harry thinks wryly. He imagines it entrapped in a tomb of gems. “Games? I’ve always been upfront, darling. You wanna talk about games? 

Isla sets a hand onto the sink, uncuffed, and watches where the bangle is fisted by knuckles that aren’t quite white. Yet. 

“—Like the ones you played — crossing limits with no prior discussion. Kissing me? You want to talk about blending the lines?” 

Her face creases.

“Oh, Christ, Harry. Okay,” she feigns placating, hands motioning as if to counteract the seething spitfire of her cadence, “I’m so sorry I broke the contract—“

“Oh for fuck’s sake, this isn’t about the bloody contract—“

“—Without being your good, little pet and asking permission, first.” 

Isla’s always been like spitfire — a cannon biding, full of soot and char. It’s always been a welcome development; the burn was always a pleasant warmth radiating. Somehow, he’s always felt like the carbon dioxide to her flame. This, though, feels like kerosene, and Harry’s no idea when her pellets grew fangs. 

She watches it in live action — the way his topography alters like colorful emblems sifting through a slot machine. Appalled. Sore. Detached. There’s an impasse in the space between their atoms, slick over the tile like dirty mop water. 

He barely looks her way when he outstretches the bangle and its companioned key, and he sounds like defeat personified when he tells her, eerily calm, “Alright. This is yours.” 

Isla doesn’t take it. Not at first. Harry doesn’t say a word. The words rot in his throat.

“It’s yours,” she counters, instead. 

She’s never seen the man so pacific, not to canon balls kissing his skin, as when he wrenches her loose fist apart with his own fingers. Hands it off like she doesn’t belong in his warm palm. Not any shred of a remnant. 

“Pawn it if you want.” 

Her lungs crackle. The torrid pit hisses as the tip of the blade twists. She slumps against the wall. The bracelet and the pin dangle in a loose grip crossed over her front. She can’t even manage a flimsy smile, and this feels like a poignantly hysterical margin to their chapter. A last page in a poky bar restroom. 

“So. This is it?” 

His mouth is a line — straight and unwavering. It parts to parallel. Seams together. There’s the coppice of an all consuming forest fire in his gaze (something left to smolder) when Harry declares (it’s an answer), “…I never treated you like that.” 

“…You’re right,” Isla says. She ogles her sandals, dipping her chin in agreement.

Harry rests a hand on the knob. He doesn’t swivel the lock. 

“You didn’t. I’m just—“ Isla nods. “You didn’t.” 

Harry gnaws into his cheek, nods back all slow-like. 

“…It was a good date.”

“I’m glad you had a nice time.” It’s not clipped. Just tired. Impartially …adjusted. The chasm heaves, bleeding over. 

The cavity could swallow her whole. She imagines it eating away at her from the inside-out as the door clicks and she peers up to find emptiness as her company; suckling at her marrow and gnawing at soft tissue as the tips of her digits judder over her phone for an uber. Her tongue draws over her lips. Saline mingles with credence. 

“I was scared,” Isla blurts. She’s not nodding anymore — she shakes her head down at the toes of her copper leathered shoes. 

She searches for the words in the gap — a pregnant pause that stifles his patient palm, curled at the door. Her shoulders heave on the nervous breath that her lungs expel, so much so that the words seep out saturated by the tremor. “I was scared— about. Blurring the lines. I was scared because the club is one thing, Peitho is one thing, and… I’m so different. When there’s no masks, there’s… feelings. And, I don’t know.”

The bare shapes of his face soften; the plush of his mouth, the chisel to his jaw. She misses it, still trembling down at her slip-ons like gearing to wrack with sobs; shedding denial. It wades up her vocal chords. Flees its prison. Every word she’s managed to swallow down for a long duration of two weeks bobs gracelessly from the depths. 

“I was wrong. I was so wrong, I’m sorry I did that to you. But I have feelings for you, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and seeing you here—“

He bleeds around her like watercolor smearing through the bounds of predetermined charting — a warm orange weeping into azure; chilled ring bands contouring a warm brush at the crest of her cheekbones. Slinking up her jaw, the pad of a thumb under her eye socket, a forefinger at her scalp, tucking hair. 

“—It’s— it—“

“Hey,” Harry croons, “Hey.”

He doesn’t tell her he hates to see her cry. 

“I’m—“

“Hey. S’alright. It’s okay,” he laves at the palpable symptoms of the wound; her broken visage where a thumb swipes over a crinkle in her brow bone, a lash line globbed with frantic emotion, smearing makiage. 

He scorches her veins with his touch — it spumes through like his warm press is a catalyst for a sweltering wave of dopamine. Words morph as a strawberry mouth ghosts over her cupid’s bow. Okay, it’s alright, hey. She purses her mouth against a thumb sweeping over a wet frown; mouths at it. Chiaroscuro is this — soft pledges, the pad of a thumb grazing a front tooth in the top row. It’s okay. Rolling into the gap until it wrests apart. Hey. Pressing to her taste buds. There's thunder behind her ribcage. He could lick up her pulse point and feel it; probably senses it in the tip of her tongue. A mid-spoken kiss on salt when his thumb meddles out, daubs the edge of her lips, slicks over her cheek with spit. 

He could strum her like a guitar, Isla thinks, crawl up her ribs with his fingers, coddle the column of her throat with his hand and she’d sing the prettiest tune. He knows it; a string snaps when her hands roam up the firmness of his torso. Come here, little thing. You’re already marred by my teeth.

They traipse from the wall, each step slotting toe to toe like puzzle pieces sticking into notches and grooves where they fit, mouths meshed with his broad hands splayed over either side of her skull. Those belong, too. 

“Are we doing this?” Harry sighs against her mouth, stirred heady like he already knows. There’s fingertips toying at his belt buckle. She nods into his grasp, hedonistic when she stuffs the bangle into his pocket. 

And then—

He tells her, “Beg.” 

His eyes are sharp again; the swinging tip of braided kangaroo leather. It wags, ominous; talc skates feature to feature, drinking in the falter the way he’d been sipping on Casamigos.

“I—“

“Beg—” Harry parrots, cool fingertips curling over the nape of her neck, thumb smoothing up at the little space of skin under her ear; a minor affection. Her eyes mingle on his mouth. “—Me to fuck you. Beg like you deserve it.”

Isla swallows. Garbles a plea out, riding the rail of a mewl. The fond graze under her ear mutates, a light scrape with the butt of a blunt nail first and then tenebrose squeezing at her jawline. The cup of his hand draws divots into the flesh of her cheeks, makes something burning slosh in the trench of her belly and claw up her chest when her breath catches. Harry tips his head, and despite the stifling firmness of the motion, the polarity of his tone makes her lashes flutter. Lighter, softer. 

“Come on, pet. Better than that. Convince me.” 

Her mouth parts. She leans into him like his words have given her a headrush, and the brush of his lips to her own will mend and stabilize. He lets her, but he doesn’t meet her in the middle, cocking his head back. The space between them wanes. 

“Please fuck me. Please.”

It’s a poor kind of attempt — wouldn’t pass in the Dungeon where his eyes would skirt, in slits, and shapes of muscle would wallow in the jaundiced light of a single lantern overhead. It works well enough, though, here. 

In a split second, they’ve rearranged. Spun like cards passed counter-clockwise over a table. Eros meets her in the mirror. Unveiled, he basks in a yellowed glow from the light, chin tucked over her shoulder. Isla watches emerald embers caper from the echoes of their profiles, to the side of her face as he eases hair back behind her ear, and back. 

“Look so pretty,” he murmurs, low against her cartilage, and the plume of his breath makes her bones ache. She’s pliant, a marionette in his grip; there’s a rather large hand that fondles over her throat like a meaty collar. The other trails up her torso, skimming at the bare flesh hungry fingertips find. A set of eyes flickers to the mirror. She meshes with them in the reflection. Drowns. “Look at you. All dolled up. Pretty, pretty girl.” 

His grip over her windpipe isn’t harsh — not to the extent she’s felt the same grasp linger there before. Despite that, the headrush from it, like oxygen atoms simmering down from her veins on their poor uptake, spurred by his words, feels like he may as well be carrying her by the neck. 

“Who’d you wear this for?” 

It’s grit out through the cracks of his teeth, a cheek flush to her hair when he smooths his free hand down her tummy and climbs back up to finger at the hem of the plunging vale. “Not for me.” 

Her lashes flutter back at her from the mirror on a heavy inhale. He admires the two of them. A perfect match, lit aflame. His fingers slink and dance over a sliver denuded as he wrenches the valley, between fabric, down her diaphragm wider. 

“Wanted to look all pretty for someone? Some nameless, walking cock?” Harry murmurs, pleased when he sees the twitch in her brows — disagreement — and feels the jut of her chin all the way from the base of her throat where his hand rests, a minute side-to-side. “Hm? Have them fuck you in the bathroom like a dirty whore?”

Her next swallow catches, cornered by his palm in its esophageal prison. 

“Maybe… Sam?” 

“No,” Isla spurns. 

“No?” It’s soft condescension, glazed in it and unconvinced, “But that’s what you want, isn’t it? You kiss me—“

An achy roll welters up her spine, ridging up through her rib cage when he tweaks a budding nipple poking through polyester and linen. 

“—Put your hands all over me, like you’re desperate,” Harry tells her, a smooth baritone of molasses that permeates her eardrum, and his voice grows quieter when he smushes closer, like he’s desperate himself to croon the filth. Nearly grazes the gristle there with his blocky teeth, “Like you’ve wanted to get fucked in the bathroom all along. Did it make you desperate, baby? Missing me?”

His slacks (Italian wool blend) feel grainy against her backside when he shimmies the hem of her dress (bodycon) up and over — just up the side to its lopsided demise, one hip sweltering out bare for a peek of a black thong and the other still clad in a sloping border. Like fibers that shouldn’t coexist with skin, shouldn’t cumber flesh on flesh. He wedges a thumb under the patent string of the thong, tows it back like the digit is a lever, and smooths a plane of four fingers tucked together, bumpy nooks, down the puffy bud of a nipple sticking through fabric. Snaps. Like rubber braced to her wrist, the elastic piece at her hip sends a tremor through her knees. Harry traces the outline of her cunt, over her panties, with a middle finger and wrests back one side of her neckline. Then, the other, to scrape the nail on his thumb over a bare nipple. The reflection that meets her in the mirror is in sordid tatters — partly denuded, a half-dressed doll in his big hands. He toys with its soft skin. 

The hand that’d mounted over her throat meanders to her jaw, jams a thumb in to the edge of her mouth, stretching one corner, gripping bone and snaking over wet teeth. She puffs warmth into his palm; his skin tastes like kismet. 

“Could’ve spent so much time bouncing on my cock by now,” Harry tuts. Sighs. “Open.”

Then — Good girl. His lips smear over the crest of her cheekbone before he turns to the mirror and sloppily burrows a set of three fingers against her tongue so unceremoniously, she nearly gags posthaste, brows pinching and eyes skirting up to the ceiling. He’s a steady plinth — unwavering nonchalance painting his features — when she rocks back in jarred reflex, neck craning. A sloppy sound crawls from the depths. His eyes flicker, chin pivoting from the mirror to the side profile of pliant acceptance, three fingers deep to the hilt of his rings, a micromosaic goldfinch, a pearl nestled by an aerie of gold. He draws them out, sleek with saliva. 

“Good girl,” Harry tells her again, sounding nearly impressed. Almost.  

There’s a tang on her tongue — regalia, ornaments coiling his digits, tequila, and a top coat over sanguine lacquer. A nakedly ruddy streak of skin by her mouth, where the foundation has blotched away, catches her eye when she folds over the sink with a hand at her nape, a muck of kohl beneath her eye sockets. Isla wonders what the real aftermath will look like. The hand smooths down the shuddery hills of her spine, then prises her dress to rest over the dimples etched into the small of her back. 

The plush of her thighs splays against chilled ceramic. He spreads her apart until she’s practically on display under the flimsy set of strings she’s deemed underwear, nearly everything intimate peeking for its lewd debut, and crushes a handful of flesh until it’s milky under the tips of his (still wet) fingers. Heat flares between her thighs at the bite. 

“What did you miss more, sweetheart…” Harry beckons, blunt cerise clawing into her skin as her brows pleat.

He drags the pad of his forefinger down the stream of tenebrose linen, where her littlest hole spasms at the pressure in passing. 

“…Having your clit played with—“ he toys at the seam of her gusset, pries it off just enough to feel the bare warmth of the bud pulsing under his singular tap. 

She thaws into the sink like tap water spouting when he pulls her panties back over and mingles, prodding a cotton-coated thumb against the rim of her cunt. “Or getting fucked?”

Her arteries thrum with fire. 

“Only enough time for one or the other,” he encourages, eyebrows climbing in the mirror — it feels like a ploy.

Isla’s brows crimp when she answers; he’s still fondling in monstrous callous, and she’s sure her skin will be branded with little crescents at the nip of his blunt, carmine-polished fingernails — sharp borders to a warm handprint over flesh. 

“Two-for-one?” She rocks forward and back, squinty, “…Package deal?” 

Harry hums. It’s mirthy; a paradox to the cruel linger of his touch before he peels off (eyeing the white imprint of bloodrush), and smacks in the same area. Isla tips forward, eyes screwing.

“Package deal…” Harry murmurs under his breath, smoothing over florid skin, sight flickering like a light. 

“You can multitask,” Isla reasons, and she muzzles a squeal with the roll of her lips when he pinches. 

Nothing’s new, Harry finds. It’s pleasant, like the kiss of cement to the wheels of an aircraft, or the view of blue aether and the plume of its clouds. Your feet will always find the same ground, soles shackled by gravity, and you’ll always rediscover the same sky in the roll of the sun. A pillow pasted to the same spot of a couch when the lock clinks open and you regress from a trip abroad. The pith of familiarity. 

“…Getting fucked,” Isla admits, soft like a sinner whispering secrets in a confessional. 

He meets her gaze in the reflection. She’s still squirming, a little, but it’s different now; little juts in response to an absent-minded, featherlight rake of his fingertips over the same area he’d tattooed with his palm. Harry wriggles her panties to the side. She chews into her bottom lip, watching the mirror, all the way up until the precipice; he prods, sweeping a fingertip from her entrance to the hood of her clit, and slick tails it. 

“Then you’ll get fucked.” 

It’s marinated in the pit of her tummy, this sultry ache that teems from her inner thighs to her core and snakes up her midsection, stuffy, and hot. Wanting. Isla watches a backdrop of tile and meaty arms clad by linen work as the teeth of a zipper sunder apart and a button nudges through its slit. She simmers in that familiar broil when his leaky tip probes, slides and aligns. 

Harry feeds his cock into her with little warning, stretching the rim taut, and draws a soft sound that sounds nearly lodged back by her tonsils in volume. 

It’s a pleasant ache, familiar, emphasized by the poignant emptiness of two weeks; a chasm, bristling at her ribcage, born from that emptiness, starved. It aches enough for her jaw to tense as he eases in, sharply watchful in the mirror. Nirvana crackles up his spine — the bliss of this tight squeeze. 

“That’s it, baby,” he soothes, petting at her hip, flickering between watching her sloppy hole split apart over him and her own visage, tension reflecting straight ahead. 

And then—

He’s in to the hilt before she knows, a squelching heat that envelops to his base, nuzzled skin to skin. Isla doesn’t have the same view, but it’s lewd, this welcome sting that bores to her marrow, a deep pressure where he’s tunneled and stuffed his fat cock — the sight of his jaw pornographically unhinged on a soundless groan as he retreats a couple of inches, slick, wet, and nudges back in. Isla hangs her head. 

“Eyes up, Isla,” Harry demands.  

The weight of her name, as his cock bullies into her, prompts her to raise her chin and hone ahead like no other encouragement. Soft dialogue, something with a keen pierce, Isla, Isla, Isla — she’s never heard it before as he’d slotted in between her sticky thighs. She rocks back for more — more, more, more. 

He’s already threadbare in composure. Worn out by the blade of sordid impulse pressing at sutures. He’s being nice to her, petting at her hips, easing in like the spongy warmth doesn’t get his cock throbbing and weepy. Like the lustrous claws of temptation don’t curdle up the blood in his veins, coaxing to sink in and pound — it’s expertise in exercising self-restraint, this genial pace he’s set, inch by inch. 

And this greedy, greedy little thing grinds back against him, unsatiated and ungrateful. 

Then it registers. 

She’s still greedy, so he swats at her from behind (revels in her squeak), but smooths up under bunched fabric after to scrape at bare skin with the pads of his fingers. 

“Oh, you liked that, did you?” Harry cooes, burrowing in til the globes of her ass kiss the stems of his laurels — her pretty mouth pries open into a nirvanic o. “Hearing your name, stuffed full of my cock?”

He prompts, when there’s no response, “Answer me, Isla,” and drags a few inches out and pummels back into her sopping cunt hard. 

“Yes.” 

A whisper. A whine. Confession. 

He sets a pace when her irises are all loose in their sockets, climbing up behind her lids and a fluttery lash line. Drills in something mean, a cruel tempo that rocks her, skin smacking on skin. A resounding coalescence of flesh meeting flesh and vulgar squelches as Harry batters in, bouncing off the walls of a narrow single use restroom. 

She makes little sounds. Little oohs and unphs that he pounds out of her, partly spurred by the laxness of alcohol tiding her blood stream, and partly the way he mercilessly spears her over his shaft. 

Harry folds over her, cups a palm to her curved pout and smushes, hissing, “Be fucking quiet.” 

And still, he doesn’t stop rocking into her, little nudges that frantically jut up against spongy walls and scrape at the spots, deep inside, that she can’t reach on her own. Isla keens into his fingers. 

He stops. 

Only for a moment, posturing up behind her and dragging out all the way until only his tip kisses her rim, breaching only a tad, and then plunges in all the way hard. Brutishly, in a way that fosters a blunt kind of pang she feels to the depths of her joins, snaking plica and curves of bone. Grinding away. 

“You’re going to apologize,” Harry tells her slowly, nudging out, inch by inch, fraction by fraction, pausing midway to bask in the desperate pulse of her sloppy cunt. Don’t go. It ticks the left corner of his mouth up, has him tipping his face up to the ceiling. Smooths out the way he pets her, a clean slate, composed and sharp when their eyes clash in the mirror. 

Harry’s always had it. Lingering in the lull, kissing at the atmosphere between their atoms — a steely character in nonchalant hues. The kind that wordlessly controlled. He pistons in with a jab of his hips, and again, and again. 

He prompts, enunciated, with a pink mouth highlighting the syllables, “I’m sorry—“

A pummel forward and fingers curling over her shoulder — a notch for leverage. It’s a welcome pressure, like the hard kind that dispels a knot long ago lodged in muscle.

“I—I’m sorry—“

“I’m sorry for disrespecting your time—“ 

It’s strained. Vehement and pent. Porcelain digs into her pelvis, and it hurts when he grinds her into it, harder and harder with the momentum of his hips, like rocking forward over a boulder. 

“I’m sorry for—“ the breathy reprise melds with a high, soft sound that creaks from the back of her throat. 

It doesn’t matter — the vista of her ass bouncing over his cock, or maybe her lashline saturating in the mirror… some part of it all has him gnashing his teeth and doubling down. 

“Pardon?” 

Her eyes loll. 

“I’m sorry for disrespecting your— your time,” Isla manages, bobbing over the empty basin. 

“I’m sorry for disrespecting you,“ Harry prompts. It hitches on a soft breath, the kind that’s commonplace when her spongy walls are squeezing, but the flinty snakeskin doesn’t taper. It bores in the mirror, smoldering like viriscent bonfires dancing in his sockets. 

Something spalls. Isla hangs her head, pulsing helplessly over his cock when he bottoms out. Her clit throbs. The words catch in this wet limbo at the back of her throat, churning, either to be swallowed or spit back up. A soft sob climbs from the back of her tongue. 

In return, the hand that’d clawed into her shoulder melts. It’s still there; a gravity that keeps her fettered to porcelain, and epoxy resin, and slick cock between her thighs.

“Alright?” — something that spills out through pants, strained, and at first, it doesn’t even register that he’s asking a question. He’s checking in. Her fingers scrape over the escutcheon. 

It should feel pathetic — it does, when she responds to the sputter, like a slow roll over the brake pedal, in his pace with a low whine and a haphazard roll backwards, if it even counts as that. The nudge doesn’t earn her the same blissful stretch as when he pounds, but it gets him just that much deeper. Just enough to feel him burrow where he belongs. It spumes through every major artery — shame, and it spills into the crest of her cheekbones, ruddy and coated with mascara. He bottoms out— like, really bottoms out. The bleary reflection of a cinch tightens between her brows when he sloppily coils her hair into a makeshift pony over his knuckles, in almost immediate response, and yanks, craning her neck back. 

“Stay still,” Harry hisses. It’s dominion through the cracks of his teeth. Augury, promise, something wound tight. Submit. Her scalp tingles with a familiar sting. “I asked you a question.” 

There’s still hair wrung over one fist when the other hand cradles her throat. The chill of his rings bites. “…If you don’t answer, I’ll stop.” 

“I’m— keep— yes,” she whimpers, agreeing with her chin in juts that makes the throb at the crown of her head radiate.

A fizzle seeps from the unseal of her lips. He lures her head back harder just to sponge a kiss to her temple, another to the wet corner of her eyes. Tastes salt when he pulls off and licks out his mouth. His fingers unweave. 

“…I’m sorry for disrespecting you.”

She only meets green in the mirror for a moment before he angles his hips and sets a nasty tempo with his thrusts, like he fucking hates her, bracketing her hips with his meaty palms, tongue tucked to the backs of his teeth. 

“Yeah, you fucking are.” 

It’s an anchor; this brutality. These fingers sunk into her skin and muscle with iron, the way he spits filth, eyebrows pinched, with little hiccups of breathy grunts and groans splintering his speech. Like clandestine gyves fettering her to the cold press of the sink, his hard grip, her own body. 

She does look the part of a proper, dirty whore getting fucked in a public bathroom of some bar, just like he’d earlier suggested. A strand of frizzy hair dangles over her face — stitches gone loose where skin meets a hairline — swaying with every harsh plunge of his hips. Her eyes are watery, glazed by rapture, a conglomeration of chemicals surging through her bloodstream, coaxed by each and every hard pump from behind. What little residue of ink that’d slicked her lashes lingers in clumps and muddles onto the skin beneath, smoked in sullied smudges. Whore stares back in the mirror; clustered, sopping lashes, a ruddy-tipped nose, the shape of a mouth smeared and wide, tethered between holding his gaze and seeping back behind her skull. A doll that makes noise at the brush of a button when he folds over and his fingers slip between her legs to bully her clit. 

Someone knocks. 

“Be a good girl,” Harry huffs, face creased with fervor as his hips snap and his digits roll frantically sloppy circles over the bud, “and tell them that we’re occupied.” 

All Isla can manage, as he pinches between her legs and pummels in, is a wordless hum through a sealed pink pout, features twisting helplessly; a crinkle to her nose, a downturn at the edges of her mouth. 

“You wanna cum?” Harry sputters to a grind, something that rolls wall to wall and pins, fingers slotting to her clit in a V that runs slick and doesn’t quite hone where she needs it. He murmurs against the shell of her ear, “Hm? S’that what you want?” 

She takes a moment, maybe to process that he’s slowed his priorly cruel rhythm into something crueler, and as his balls grind against her clit, settle over a rigid V, Isla whines and nudges back against him in protest. Then, there’s fingers digging into a lovehandle, sharply, gone altogether as her head is wrangled ahead.

“Fucking look at me. You wanna cum?” 

Her eyes blink open. There’s something feral pasted to her back in the reflection. 

“Tell them we’re busy. Tell them we’re busy, or I'll stop.” 

Another knock from the door paralleling their shapes; antsy knuckles snapping over steel. Slowly, Isla nods. Starts. 

“It’s—“

Harry pulls off and out, snapping his hips forward with little warning. It jolts her into the body of the basin and stifles all progress of semblance. Before her eyes roll back into her skull, she manages to catch the vista of him, devilish, mouth curling in wicked ploy. Isla groans loud enough for the entire hallway to hear. 

“Occupied,” he slams his fist against the door. One knock back for two; no more follow. His eyes veer ahead, “Get yourself off. Want you gushing over me.” 

Her fingers reach her clit with wild hunger, parroting the filthy shapes he’d drawn into her flesh as he plunges in to the hilt, out to head, back — hungry, hungry, hungry. He chases it, the hot squeeze of her pussy tensing over every ridge of a vein, every millimeter he offers. How can he not, to such a sweet embrace? He could strum her like a guitar, his taut string to pluck by a fingertip. She tenses, scrabbling at the sink with one spasming hand, the other drawn where the tips of her digits can brush where they mesh. 

“Oh, fuck— please— can I—?”

Habit. Something he’s nailed into her, time after time, crushed through flesh. Please’s and Thank you’s, Can I’s and May I’s. And now, the sinew has healed around it; this new norm. It furrows in between his pecs, this nasty satisfaction. His. 

“Go on,” he spurs, tempo haywire as she jolts over the sink, like every muscle is washed in electricity, and throbs over his cock. He makes her watch; the way she tips, his fingers tangled in her hair and angling. 

And he chases it harder. Bounding. A precipice in the depths, between her legs. The tide rises, coils up in tsunami from between his laurels. His mouth shapes a gruff garble of her name when he spills, pulsing, burrowing in as far as he can get. 

“Shit,” Harry breathes.

Her head sways and sags when he lets go of her hair, shuddering over the sink and panting. When Harry tucks his way out of her, she clenches like she misses him again. Don’t go. Stay. A little rivulet in cream leaks out, and he brushes it back inside with the pad of a forefinger. 

“Hold it,” Harry demands, but it’s soft, like hands brushing her hair back. He pulls her gusset back over, pleased. 

She’s still shuddering and folded over the sink when Harry tucks himself back into his slacks, petting at the small of her back. He buckles up, pressing the fronts of firm thighs to the naked backs of her own, a sort of grounding to the foundation before he has the opportunity to stroke his hands all over her in gentle respite. 

“Feeling full?” he teases. Strokes his fingertips over her underwear, where the fabric’s begun to grow wet from his release. Isla rocks back in response. Like asking for more, like asking for anchoring. Pull the ship back to the shoreline. 

Harry rolls the dress that he’d bunched up back over her curves, smoothing and sorting her out. That’s what happens now; smoothing the crinkles with a warm press like a plugged iron. It starts at her waist, in the cinch, where he combs his hands up her sides to fondle at the ribcage and the bit of flesh there, and then meanders up her shoulders, thumbing at her nape. 

“Good?” Harry mumbles. There’s a twitch in his mouth at the way she rolls her neck, still silent over the basin, and nods. 

Good sex or good manhandling over her shoulders, thumbs drawing circles beside the vertebrae under her nape, Isla’s unsure. Good…

“M’proud of you,” he tells her. 

It’s a sudden compliment — shatters the silence and has her deltoids and traps stiffening under his palms. It’s like he senses it, probably feels it under his fingers. Isla imagines his brow bone furrowing as she raises her head to look back at him. 

“For what?” 

“For being honest with yourself.” 

She braces against the sink and unfolds into his back, twisting into the caress that climbs up the side of her throat. Harry doesn’t kiss on her, almost like he’s afraid, pending in limbo from the typical. He does drag up over the crest of her cheekbone, though. She eyes the onyx thumb pad that retires. 

“How fucked is my makeup?” 

“Pretty fucked, pet,” Harry tells her, rolling his lips into his mouth as if to muzzle back the beginnings of dimpled grin (she feels she’s been starved of for ages). 

“Fuck.” 

She swivels to catch a glimpse of the madwoman — now, makiage dismembered — in the mirror, but pivots back into the warm press of his hand over the fleshy margin of her cheek when he prompts by unceremoniously grasping at the bones in her jaw. He culls a paper towel, wets it with a flick over the faucet, and runs it over under a socket to catch smudges. Aftercare, in a manner. Something stirs on his face — trickles as a huff of laughter. 

“Fuck,” Harry echoes, sponging over warm, smeared skin, more, more, and then— “I don’t know that I can save this, Isla.” 

She peers into the mirror. 

“Jesus Christ, what did you do to me?” 

“—Not that much,” Harry reasons, the frame of his arms serving as chocks for her to the basin. He plants his hands on either side from behind, and then raises one to roam up her tummy as she wipes, ruddy skin streaking in patchwork, “…Not even close to the usual."

A balmy heat murmurs through her at the implication and throbs when he tucks his chin over her trapezius, partly shrouded by her hair, and hums, “This is a sexy dress, by the way. Did I tell you that?” 

Isla leans into him. It’s the closest to normalcy she’s felt in the last two weeks. It tapers when she sets the sopped paper at the edge of the sink, scared to ask (splinter the rapture of soles on eggshells, crowding land mines). 

“…What now?”

Harry shifts. His palm no longer strokes over her stomach, but rests on the basin behind her own. Brushes at her wrist with the tip of his pinky when he declares, “I want to see you.” 

Isla doesn’t twist back to face him, or look into the reflection ahead. 

“See me …how?” 

“See you like this. I wanna see Isla.” 

There’s that foggy murk behind her skull, that smog that dazes words, all too familiarly. Harry breathes behind her. 

“What are you doing tomorrow?” 

“I was planning to mope.” 

It’s simple. He rocks up behind her, and she imagines a close-lipped smile curling his mouth. 

“Any way you can find a couple of hours somewhere in that busy schedule to see me?” 

Isla blinks and meets him in the mirror. 

“Like a… date?”

“Like a date.” 

She keeps the hand with the towel on ceramic. Lets the mucky wad go to let him wheedle his palm over her own and slot his fingers in the webbed gaps. 

Harry tacks on, “If you’re comfortable with that.”

She wants to turn into his embrace, nuzzle into the broad expanse of his chest and scope the shapes of his features with her fingertips; the slope of his nose, the upturned corner of plush pink below. Ghost over a cupid’s bow. She tilts her head and squeezes over his digits. 

“And what… now?”

“Now, now?”

“Now, now.”

“Now… we,” fingers notch firmer into those gaps — the crevices between her digits longing for his touch the way the oozing cavity in her chest has pined, “—go out there, and you… sit there, look pretty. Pretend you didn’t just get fucked.” 

He swaths her wrist with the bangle; a missing limb, nearly — a piece of her that’d been rived with something the size of a thimble. A piece of him. 

Nobody says a word when they return to the booth. A kind of acceptance — knowing. A sort of respectful retreat in the sideline of Sam’s eyes when he skims and retires. Miryea talks with her eyebrows. Later. It’s even quieter when Isla slips into the nook under his arm, and then something flourishes in the lull. Normalcy. Stable footing. The conversation kicks back up.  

She’s wet between her thighs. Not a pulsating warmth that yearns, but a sticky film of his cum that’s sullied her, tucked up in her underwear. It weeps out over the course of the night. She crosses her legs. Uncrosses them. It seeps, and his hand roams down the small of her back. She coddled by the leather cushion of a booth and him. It purrs in the depths of her chest; something satiated and warm. 

He coils into the chasm with an outstretched offering; a manhattan stacked with a mountain of cherries.

[ghoststyles]

we’re a one brain cell operation today

#I closed at the restaurant and now I’m in the office ����🙂🙂🙂🙂 #I’m SHLEEPY

[ghoststyles]

& my man, thank you to my man

[ghoststyles]

The Chiefs’ kicker can CHOKE bro

#I’m absolutely raging over that commencement speech

[ghoststyles]

Harry Styles | Don't Worry Darling

#The only man that could make me a trad wife

[ghoststyles]

Harry at the airport in Miami - September 27

#my Super Bowl #this day made me a woman™️

[ghoststyles]

soooo what are the streets saying ab Tayrry

#I’m bummed #they’re cute and he needs someone low key #but as time goes on it makes me side eye him LMAO 👀 #like what is the issue with commitment my dude ?

[ghoststyles]

I just got an intense craving for Nutter Butters omg

[ghoststyles]

good afternoon, I’m in disbelief that 19 year old Harry was real and I lived through it

[ghoststyles]

Harry. Styles.

[ghoststyles]

Out of pure curiosity and fun!

#Webkinz #poptropica #club penguin #girlsgogames #cool math games

[ghoststyles]

Harry performing at the iHeart Radio Secret Session in NYC - February 29 (📸: Thomas Falcone)

#rockstar bf

[ghoststyles]

Harry Styles Emulates Folk-Rock Heroes at Intimate Los Angeles Gig.