Clouds

Chapter 1: The Rain-Soaked Confession

The music from the Sigma Chi house thumped through the soggy ground, a distant heartbeat syncing with the rain hammering the observatory’s cracked dome. Up here, the world was rust and wind. I hugged my knees to my chest, the damp chill of the metal roof seeping through my jeans. My hair, a stupid cascade of blue-to-purple curls, was plastered to my neck and cheeks.

A flashlight beam cut through the downpour, wild and unsteady, followed by the sound of scraping shoes and a muttered curse.

“Nikki? Jesus, are you up here?”

Of course it was him. It was always him.

Harry Styles hauled himself over the ledge, soaked. His white shirt was transparent, stuck to every line of his torso, and his usually perfect curls were a dark, dripping mess. He looked like a shipwreck survivor. A gorgeous, infuriating one.

“Go away, Harry.”

“Not a chance.” He shuffled across the slippery copper, moving with a careful, athletic grace until he was beside me under the scant shelter of the broken dome frame. “Hanna said you bolted. Said you looked… I don’t know. Not okay.”

“Hanna should mind her business.”

“She is her business.” He settled next to me, not touching, but close enough that I felt the heat coming off him, a stark contrast to the cool air. “What happened?”

“Nothing. The party was loud. Liam and Spencer were fighting again. Niall was doing keg stands to impress Hanna, which is pathetic. Zayn and Emily were being too perfect. It was all just… a lot.” I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance, but my voice cracked. “I needed air that didn’t smell like cheap beer and regret.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating his profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his lips. For a second, he looked like a statue carved from something permanent.

“You’ve been avoiding me all week,” he said, not looking at me.

“I haven’t.”

“You have. Since the library. Since I asked you about your anthology paper.”

Thunder rolled, long and low, vibrating in the metal beneath us. I focused on the quad below, where the floodlights turned the sheeting rain into falling strands of gold.

“I don’t want to talk about my paper.”

“Then let’s talk about why you ran.”

“I didn’t run. I relocated. It’s a free country.”

“Nikki.” His voice dropped, a quiet rumble that competed with the storm. “Look at me.”

I didn’t want to. Looking at Harry Styles was a dangerous habit. It always had been. But I turned my head, and his eyes were right there, green and earnest and focused completely on me, seeing past every defense I’d spent years building.

“I know about the transfer application,” he said.

The breath left my lungs. “How?”

“Aria saw the email confirmation on your laptop when you were getting coffee. She told Louis, who, shockingly, can’t keep a secret to save his life.” He ran a wet hand through his hair. “UCLA? Really?”

“It’s a good program for literary criticism.”

“It’s two thousand miles away.”

“That’s generally the point.”

He flinched, just a tiny tightening around his eyes. The rain dripped from his hair down his temple, tracing a path over his cheekbone. I had a stupid, fleeting thought about following it with my finger.

“Is this because of me?” he asked.

“You’re so arrogant.”

“Am I wrong?”

I laughed, a short, hollow sound. “The world does not revolve around you, Styles. Not everything is about the star soccer player and his infinite charm.”

“I never said it was.” He leaned in, his voice fierce now, fighting to be heard over the wind. “But this feels like a retreat. And the only thing you’ve ever retreated from is feeling something you don’t want to feel.”

“You don’t know what I feel.”

“I know you watched clouds with me on the football field after homecoming our senior year. You were upset about some guy—that tool with the stupid car—and I just laid there with you for two hours. We didn’t even talk that much. We just watched the sky change.” He paused, his throat working. “I know you bring me coffee before my early practices, even though you pretend you were just ‘in the area.’ I know you laugh at my stupid jokes when no one else does. I know you, Nikki. Probably better than I know anyone.”

My heart was a frantic, trapped thing in my chest. “That’s just being friends. That’s what we are.”

“It hasn’t been just friends for me since that night on the field.” The words hung between us, naked and fragile. “I’ve been in love with you since we were seventeen. Every cloud we watched was a promise I was too scared to make out loud.”

The storm seemed to pause, the world holding its breath. The rain softened to a hush.

“Harry…” My voice was a whisper.

“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me I’m confused, or that it’s the party talking, or that I’ll feel different tomorrow. I’ve had five years of tomorrows to figure this out. I’m not confused. I’m terrified, because you’re about to vanish, and I can’t let you go without telling you that you’re it for me. You always have been.”

He was close now. I could see the individual water droplets on his eyelashes, smell the rain on his skin mixed with his stupid, familiar cologne. Every cell in my body was screaming, a riot of fear and want.

“I don’t do serious,” I managed, the mantra weak even to my own ears. “You know that. After everything…”

“I know what he did. I know he broke something in you.” His hand came up, hesitant, and he brushed a soaked curl from my cheek. His touch was electric and warm. “But I am not him. Let me prove it. Let me in.”

My walls, meticulously constructed brick by brick over years, didn’t shatter. They dissolved, washed away by the rain and the raw honesty in his eyes. There was no grand resistance, no final stand. There was just him, and the truth, and the sudden, staggering understanding that I was tired of hiding from this.

I didn’t answer with words. I closed the scant distance between us.

The kiss was not gentle. It was rain and desperation and five years of longing unleashed. His lips were cold at first, then impossibly warm. His hand cradled the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my wet hair, holding me to him like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world. I tasted the storm on his mouth, and the unique flavor that was just him.

I kissed him back with everything I had, my fists clutching his soaked shirt, pulling him closer. The thunder cracked directly overhead, but I barely heard it. All I felt was the frantic hammer of his heart against mine, a rhythm that matched my own, a drumbeat saying finally, finally, finally.

When we broke apart, gasping, our foreheads pressed together, the world came back in fragments—the sound of the rain, the distant pulse of music, the cool metal under my palms.

His breath fanned across my lips. “So,” he whispered, a faint, shaky grin tugging at his mouth. “What now?”

I looked at him, at this boy I’d known forever who suddenly felt entirely new, and I saw my own uncertainty reflected in his eyes, mixed with a blazing hope.

“I don’t know,” I said, and for the first time, that unknown felt thrilling, not terrifying.

“Good,” he breathed, and his mouth found mine again. This kiss was different—less desperate, more sure. A claiming. His tongue swept into my mouth, hot and searching, and a low sound vibrated in his throat. My back met the cold, wet copper of the dome’s support beam, but I didn’t feel the chill. Every nerve was on fire, lit up by the hard press of his body against mine.

His hands moved from my face, skating down my neck, over my shoulders. They hesitated at the hem of my sweater, his thumbs brushing the strip of bare skin above my jeans. A question.

“Yes,” I whispered against his lips, the word swallowed by another kiss.

He peeled the soaked fabric up and over my head. The air hit my skin, raising goosebumps, but then his palms were on my ribs, warming me, moving up to cup me through the lace of my bra. He broke the kiss to look down, his eyes dark, almost black in the storm-light.

“Fuck, Nikki. You’re so beautiful it hurts.”

He bent his head, his mouth hot and wet through the lace, sucking my nipple into a tight, aching point. I cried out, my head thumping back against the metal. The vibration of the thunder mingled with the one building deep in my core. His fingers made quick work of the front clasp. The bra fell away and his mouth was on me again, skin to skin, his tongue circling, teeth grazing. I tangled my hands in his hair, holding him there, arching into the delicious friction.

I shoved at his shirt, needing to feel him. He pulled it off in one ragged motion. His chest was smooth and hard, defined from years of sport, and I ran my hands over it, learning the shape of him. The rain sheeted down, tracing the lines of his abdomen, pooling in the divot of his navel.

He fumbled with the button of my jeans, his fingers slick with rain. “These are a fucking problem,” he growled, and the crude urgency in his voice sent a fresh wave of liquid heat between my legs.

“Then solve it.”

He yanked them down, taking my panties with them in a single rough pull. The cold air was a shock, then a secondary thrill as he looked at me, completely bare and exposed to the storm and his hungry gaze. He swore again, reverently, pushing my thighs apart with his knees.

His own jeans were tented, straining. He popped the button, shoved them and his boxers down just enough to free himself. I looked. He was thick and hard, the head flushed and dripping. My mouth went dry.

He didn’t enter me. Not yet. He leaned over me, one hand braced by my head, the other gripping his length, rubbing the tip through my wetness, gathering it, spreading it. The sensation was maddening. I was throbbing, completely open, every pass of him over my clit a jolt of pure need.

“Harry, please.”

“Please what?” His voice was rough. “Tell me.”

“I need you inside me. Now.”

That broke his control. He positioned himself, notched his head at my entrance, and pushed in with a single, slow, devastating stroke. I gasped, my nails digging into his shoulders. He was big, stretching me perfectly, filling an emptiness I’d pretended wasn’t there.

“Oh god,” I choked out.

“Look at me.” His eyes locked on mine, his face a mask of intense concentration. “You feel that? That’s me. That’s always been me.”

He began to move, a deep, rocking rhythm that had my toes curling. Each thrust was measured, deliberate, hitting a spot that made stars burst behind my eyelids. The metal beneath us creaked in time. The rain lashed our heated skin. He slid a hand between us, his thumb finding my clit, circling with just the right pressure.

“Come for me, Nikki. Let go. I’ve got you.”

It built too fast, a coil tightening to its breaking point. My climax tore through me, violent and shocking, a silent scream ripped from my throat as my body clamped around him, milking his length. He watched me unravel, his thrusts growing ragged, losing their rhythm.

“I’m not… I can’t…” he gritted out, and then he was coming too, his orgasm punching a raw, broken groan from his chest. He pulsed deep inside me, his whole body shuddering, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.

We stayed like that, locked together, breathing in ragged sync as the rain began to ease. The storm was passing. The frantic energy softened to a steady, gentle patter. The reality of what we’d just done—out in the open, reckless, raw—settled over me like a blanket.

He finally slipped out of me, a sensitive, intimate aftermath. He didn’t pull away. He gathered me against him, our damp, cooling skin sticking together. He kissed my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.

My jeans and sweater were a soggy heap. He helped me dress, his hands tender now, lingering. We sat back down, legs dangling over the edge of the roof. The quad was quiet, just the hiss of wet asphalt.

He laced his fingers with mine. “So. UCLA.”

I let out a shaky breath. “It’s just an application.”

“But you sent it.”

“I did.”

He was quiet for a long moment, watching the water drip from the broken gutter. “If you go, I go. I’ll transfer. Their soccer program is decent.”

I stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” He looked at me, and the certainty in his eyes was terrifying. It was a future, mapped out in a single glance. “Where you are is my home. That’s the whole point of what I just said. What we just did.”

I had no words. The grand, defiant plan of running away—from him, from my past, from the risk of this exact thing—lay in ruins at my feet. It was replaced by something more solid, and infinitely more frightening.

Down in the quad, a figure stumbled out of the Sigma Chi house. Even from here, I recognized Louis’s lanky frame, holding Aria’s hand as they ran laughing through the puddles. A normal fragment of the night, continuing on, oblivious to the fault line that had just shifted in my universe.

Harry squeezed my hand. “We should get down. You’re shivering.”

I was. But not from the cold. From the sheer, seismic aftershock of letting someone in. The unknown wasn’t out there on some West Coast campus anymore. It was right here, in the grip of our joined hands, in the taste of him still on my lips. It was thrilling. And it was just beginning.

The climb down was a clumsy, silent negotiation of wet rungs and trembling limbs. My body felt used and rewritten, every muscle loose, every nerve still buzzing with the ghost of his touch. He went first, his hands always there to guide my feet to the next step, his grip firm on my waist when I finally jumped the last few feet to the soggy grass.

We didn’t speak. The world had softened to a post-storm hush, broken only by the drip-drip from the oak trees and a final rumble of thunder far to the east. The Sigma Chi house still bled light and sound, but it felt distant, like a memory from another life.

“My place,” he said, his voice rough. It wasn’t a question.

I just nodded. Walking across campus felt like moving through a dream. My clothes were still damp, clinging to me in a way that felt obscene, a constant reminder. He kept his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side, our steps falling into sync. Every few paces, he’d press his lips to my temple, a silent, possessive punctuation.

His fraternity house was quieter, the party having migrated or died. We slipped in through a side door and took the back stairs two at a time, his hand in mine pulling me upward. His room was at the end of the hall—typical guy chaos, soccer gear mixed with textbooks, but clean. It smelled like him, like fabric softener and that cologne.

The door clicked shut, and the lock engaged with a final, quiet snick.

The silence in here was profound, thick with everything unsaid. The frenzy from the roof was gone, replaced by a heavy, aching tension. We stood facing each other in the dim light from his desk lamp.

“So,” he said.

“So.”

He reached out and hooked a finger under the strap of my sweater, which had dried stiff and crusty with rainwater. “These need to come off. You’ll get sick.”

I let him undress me. This time, it was slow. There was no storm to hide in, no chaotic noise to drown out the sound of our breathing. Each piece of clothing he peeled away felt like a layer of armor being removed. His touches were deliberate, almost reverent. When I was bare, he just looked, his eyes travelling over my curves with a hunger that made my skin heat all over again.

“Your turn,” I whispered.

He obeyed, stripping off his own ruined clothes until he was just as exposed. The light played over the cut of his hips, the hard line of his thigh. He was still half-hard, and seeing him like that, so openly wanting, sent a fresh curl of desire deep in my belly.

He closed the distance, but instead of kissing me, he wrapped his arms around me and just held me, his skin shockingly warm against mine. His face was buried in my neck. I could feel his heartbeat, still fast.

“I meant it all, Nikki,” he murmured into my skin, his breath hot. “Every fucking word.”

“I know.” And I did. The sex on the roof had been a confession in itself, a language more honest than any words. This, now, was the terrifying aftermath.

He leaned back, cradling my face. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m scared shitless.” The admission fell out, raw and honest.

A faint smile touched his lips. “Good. Me too.”

Then he kissed me, and it was different from the rooftop. It was deep and searching and unbearably sweet. It tasted like a beginning. My back met the cool wall next to his bed, and he pressed into me, the full length of his body aligning with mine. His erection, now fully hard, nestled against my stomach.

He walked me backward until my knees hit the edge of his mattress. I fell onto it, and he came down over me, bracing himself on his elbows. He kissed my jaw, my throat, the valley between my breasts.

“I want to taste you again,” he said, his voice a dark promise. “All of you. Without the damn rain.”

He slid down my body, his lips and hands mapping a torturous path. When his mouth closed over my nipple, sucking hard, I arched off the bed with a sharp cry. His hand slid down my stomach, through my curls, his fingers delving into the wet heat he found there.

“So fucking ready for me,” he groaned against my breast. “Always so ready.”

He shifted lower, pushing my thighs apart with an insistent pressure. His breath fanned over my core, and I trembled. Then his tongue was on me, a flat, slow lick from bottom to top that made my whole body jolt.

“Harry!”

He didn’t answer with words. He ate me like a man starved, his tongue fucking into me, circling my clit, sucking the sensitive flesh into his mouth. He used his fingers, too, first one, then two, crooking them inside me, hitting a spot that made me see white. The sounds were filthy, wet and obscene in the quiet room, and the heat in my belly coiled tighter, tighter.

“I’m gonna… you have to stop or I’m gonna come…”

He didn’t stop. He redoubled his efforts, his tongue a relentless, perfect pressure. The orgasm ripped through me, a silent, breathless explosion that clenched around his fingers and left me shaking. He gentled his touch, lapping at me softly as I floated back down, every muscle liquified.

Before I could even catch my breath, he was moving up my body, his weight settling between my legs. He was throbbing against my inner thigh, leaving a slick trail. His eyes were wild, his lips glistening.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

I forced my eyes open, my vision hazy.

He guided himself to my entrance, the head pushing against me, stretching me open once more. He didn’t thrust. He held there, a breath away from being inside, his whole body tense with restraint. “Whose is this?”

The question was raw, primal. It should have felt possessive, maybe even offensive. But in that moment, with my body humming and my heart cracked open, it felt like the only truth that mattered.

“Yours,” I breathed. “It’s yours.”

With a groan that came from his soul, he sank into me, filling me in one long, slow, complete stroke. We both cried out. It felt deeper this time, more profound. Connected.

He set a rhythm that was relentless and deep, each drive of his hips pushing a choked sound from my throat. The bedframe knocked a steady beat against the wall. He folded one of my legs up, changing the angle, and the next thrust hit so deep a sob caught in my chest.

“You feel that?” he gritted out, his sweat dripping onto my collarbone. “That’s where you belong. Right here. Taking every inch of me.”

I could only gasp, my nails scoring down his back. The friction was building again, a new, tighter coil. He was everywhere, his scent, his taste, the crushing weight of him, the delicious stretch. I was completely possessed.

“Come with me,” he begged, his pace faltering, losing its control. “Come on my cock, Nikki. Let me feel you.”

He slid a hand between us, his thumb finding my oversensitive clit. Three rough circles were all it took. My second climax detonated, a sharper, more internal convulsion that clenched around him like a vise. He shouted, his own control shattering. He drove into me two, three more times, then buried himself to the hilt as he came, a hot, pulsing flood that triggered smaller, aftershock quakes in my own body.

He collapsed, his weight crushing me into the mattress, our sweat-slick skin sealing us together. The only sounds were our ragged breaths and the frantic hammer of our hearts, slowly easing into a synchronized rhythm.

A long time passed. The room cooled. He shifted slightly, rolling to his side but keeping me tucked against him, one leg thrown over mine, an arm banded across my waist. As if I might try to escape.

“The application,” he said into my hair, his voice drowsy.

“It’s just paper.”

“But you wanted to go.”

I was silent, tracing the lines of his tattoos with a fingertip. “I wanted not to be afraid. I thought distance was the only way.”

“And now?”

I looked up at the ceiling, at the faint crack running across the plaster. “Now I think I might be more afraid of what happens if I stay.”

He tightened his hold. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

It was a promise, huge and fragile. I believed him. And that was the most terrifying part of all. Outside, a car door slammed. Someone laughed in the hallway. The real world was still there, waiting. But for now, in the dark warmth of his bed, with the taste of him still on my tongue and the feel of him still between my thighs, the only thing that felt real was the terrifying, exhilarating freefall of choosing to stay.