Chapter 5: The Morning After
I woke to stripes of mean, yellow sunlight cutting through the blinds. My body recognized the unfamiliarity first—the ache in my shoulders, the deep, pleasant throb between my legs, the foreign weight pinning my hip.
Harry’s arm was a solid band around my waist, his hand splayed possessively over my stomach. His breath was a warm, even tickle against the back of my neck. He was still deeply asleep, his body a furnace against my back.
And he was hard. A thick, insistent pressure nestled against the curve of my ass, even in sleep.
I tried to shift, to put an inch of sane daylight between us. The second I moved, his arm tightened. He made a low, groaning sound into my hair and pulled me flush against him, that hard length now a definite, waking presence. A sleepy, rough grumble vibrated against my skin. “No you don’t.”
“Harry,” I whispered. My voice was morning-ravaged, scraped raw from last night’s silenced screams.
“Shhh.” His lips found the sensitive spot beneath my ear. He kissed it, a soft, closed-mouth press that was somehow more intimate than anything from the night before. “Morning.”
His hand, the one on my stomach, began to move. It slid down, over the thatch of curls, his fingers slipping effortlessly through the slickness he found there. I jolted. I was still wet, swollen, an open book from his relentless reading hours before.
He groaned, a raw, hungry sound. “Fuck. You’re still so fuckin’ wet for me.” His fingers explored, circling my clit with a lazy, knowing pressure that made my hips jerk back against him. “Dreamed about this. Waking up like this.”
He rolled me onto my back before I could form a thought. The morning light fell directly on his face, highlighting the sleep in the corners of his eyes, the dark stubble shadowing his jaw. He looked wrecked and beautiful, his hair a wild, curly halo. His gaze, heavy-lidded and dark, scanned my face like he was memorizing it.
“I want to taste you,” he said, his voice hoarse. Not a question. A statement of intent. “I wanna start every day with my mouth on you.”
He didn’t wait for permission. He kissed me, a deep, languid kiss that tasted of sleep and whiskey and me. Then he slid down the bed, his shoulders pushing my thighs apart without ceremony.
The air was cool on my exposed skin. He looked at me, his green eyes black with hunger, and then he bent his head.
His tongue was a flat, hot stroke through my folds. It was different than last night—slower, more thorough, almost devotional. He lapped at me like I was something precious, sucking gently at my clit before flicking it with the very tip of his tongue. He buried his face in me, his nose nudging against my slick flesh, his stubble scraping deliciously on my inner thighs.
“You taste like heaven,” he muttered against me, the words a humid vibration. “Fuck. Like mine.”
My hands fisted in the sheets. The pleasure was a slow, deep build, a coil of heat tightening low in my belly. Last night was a frantic, pounding symphony. This was a deliberate, worshipful sonata. He took his time, licking and sucking, exploring every fold, drinking me in. He slid two fingers inside me, curling them, and my back arched off the mattress.
“Yes, right there,” I breathed, any pretense of quiet gone. The house was silent, the party a ghost.
He added a third finger, stretching me, filling me as his mouth worked my clit with a ruthless, focused rhythm. The dual sensations were overwhelming. I could hear the wet, filthy sounds of his mouth on me, of his fingers pushing in and out. My breath came in short, sharp gasps.
“You gonna come for me, Nikki?” His voice was muffled, ragged. “Come on my tongue. Let me feel it.”
His command, growled against my most sensitive flesh, was the trigger. The coil snapped. Pleasure detonated, a rolling, shuddering wave that ripped a cry from my throat. I convulsed around his fingers, my vision whiting out at the edges, my heels digging into the mattress as I rode it out. He didn’t let up, his tongue fluttering, drawing every last spasm from me until I was a trembling, oversensitive mess.
He crawled back up my body, his mouth glistening. He kissed me, letting me taste myself on his lips, his tongue. It was obscene. It was perfect.
“Now,” he said, aligning his hips with mine. The broad head of his cock nudged at my entrance, slick from his mouth and my release. He held himself there, teasing, his eyes locked on mine. “Look at me.”
I did. His gaze was unwavering, intense, stripping me bare in the morning light.
He pushed in. It was a slow, breathtaking invasion, a filled ache that made us both gasp. He sank in to the hilt, burying himself inside me, and stopped, letting my body clench and adjust around his girth. He was so deep, so impossibly full.
“Christ,” he whispered, his forehead dropping to mine. “You feel… you ruin me. You know that? You ruin me for anyone else.”
He began to move. A lazy, deep rocking of his hips, each slow withdrawal and relentless return stroking a place inside me that made my toes curl. He braced himself on one elbow, his other hand between us, his thumb finding my swollen clit again, circling in time with his thrusts.
The pace was agonizing, perfect. It wasn’t about frenzy. It was about feeling every inch, every shift, every heartbeat. He kept his eyes open, watching every flicker of feeling on my face.
“Tell me,” he breathed, his thrusts deepening. “Tell me this is different.”
It was. God, it was. The raw possession of last night was still there, but layered over with something else, something tender and terrifying. It felt real. It felt like a promise I was too scared to believe.
“It’s different,” I choked out.
He kissed me, swallowing my words. His rhythm became more urgent, his control fraying. The bed began to squeak in a steady, protesting rhythm. His thumb pressed harder on my clit, the pressure a bright, electric counterpoint to the deep, grinding drag of his cock.
“I’m close,” I gasped, the second climax building, sharper and faster than the first. “Harry, I’m—”
“Come with me,” he demanded, his voice strangled. “Let go. Come on.”
He slammed into me, once, twice, a third time, and something shattered. My orgasm ripped through me, a silent, convulsive thing that clamped down on him like a vise. A ragged shout tore from his throat as he followed me over, his body buckling as he spilled deep inside me in hot, pulsing waves. He collapsed on top of me, his full weight pressing me into the mattress, his face buried in the crook of my neck. We were a tangled, sweating, spent mess, stuck together.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of our ragged breathing slowly calming. The smell of sex and sweat and sunlight filled the room. He was still inside me, softening. I didn’t want him to move.
Finally, he shifted, pulling out. The loss was physical, emotional. He rolled onto his back beside me, one arm thrown over his eyes. The morning light played over the taut muscles of his stomach, the trail of dark hair leading down.
Silence. Not the good kind.
The high receded, leaving the bleak, flat plain of reality. The peeling poster. The empty whiskey bottle. The laptop on his desk, a sleek black rectangle holding God knows what. The ghost of Kendall’s perfume was gone, burned away by us, but the memory of it was a stain on the air.
My phone, buried in the pocket of my discarded dress on the floor, buzzed. Then buzzed again. Aria. Or Hanna. Demanding to know where I was, if I was alive, if I’d done something stupid.
I had.
Harry’s hand found mine on the sheet between us. He laced our fingers together, his grip tight. He still hadn’t looked at me.
“Nikki,” he said, his voice rough.
“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than I intended.
He turned his head then, removing his arm from his eyes. He looked young, and scared, and so fucking unsure. The confident swagger was ashes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say something you’ll regret. Don’t make this into something it’s not.”
He flinched like I’d slapped him. He let go of my hand. “You think that’s what this was? Something I’d regret?”
“I think it’s Monday morning,” I said, sitting up, pulling the sheet around me. The physical distance felt crucial. “I think I have a Lit Theory lecture in two hours. I think you have practice.” I gestured vaguely at the room, the frat house.