Chapter 1: Poolside Reckoning and Rough Redemption
The water was cool, a shock against my skin that still wasn’t enough to numb anything. Above me, a sliver of moon cut through the hazy night sky, and the surface of the rooftop pool rippled like crushed silver. My purple hair fanned out around my head, the chlorine-sting a familiar burn in my nostrils. I floated on my back, staring up, trying to empty my mind of the week’s silence.Seven days of radio silence from him. Seven days of me checking my phone like a fucking idiot, my heart doing a pathetic little jump every time it buzzed—only for it to be a spam email or my mom.
I heard the door to the roof bang open, but I didn’t move.Heavy footsteps on the concrete deck. I knew that walk.“Nikki.”
Harry’s voice was rough, like he’d been running. Or yelling.I kept my eyes on the moon, pretending I was somewhere else, someone else. A girl who didn’t let a guy who treated her like a late-night booty call live rent-free in her head.A splash, huge and violent, shattered the quiet. Water washed over my face. Before I could even gasp, hands were on me—large, strong hands gripping my waist, hauling me through the water.My back hit the rough tile edge of the pool. He was there, fully clothed, his stupid fraternity jacket soaked and heavy, his chest pressing against mine. Droplets clung to his dark eyelashes, his emerald eyes wide and frantic under the pool lights.
“Look at me,” he demanded, his breath hot against my cheek.I finally looked. His jaw was clenched tight, that sharp, perfect jawline I’d traced with my fingers in the dark.He looked… scared.It was a look I’d never seen on him before. Harry Styles was never scared.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the words bursting out of him.“I’m a fuckin’ coward, Nikki. I didn’t answer because I don’t know what to say. Because you make me feel things I don’t have a fucking playbook for.”
I laughed, a brittle, hollow sound that echoed off the empty walls. “Feel things?Harry, you don’t feel things.You fuck things. There’s a difference.”
He flinched.Actually flinched. His hands tightened on my hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft curve I’d always been self-conscious about. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?What am I, then? A convenient hole when you’re bored?A cuddle-buddy for your post-game laziness?” My voice cracked. I hated it.“Just say it.It’s fine. I’d rather know.”
He shook his head, water flying from his curls.“No.You’re not. You’re… fuck.” He leaned his forehead against mine, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “I’m terrified of how much I want you.All the time.Not just at night. In the fucking library, in the cafeteria, when I’m supposed to be studying. I see your name on my phone and my chest gets tight.That’s never happened to me. Not once.”
The confession hung between us, raw and terrifyingly honest.My breath hitched. I wanted to believe him.God, I wanted to.Before I could find words, he moved. In one swift motion, he hoisted me out of the water and onto the cool concrete deck. My bare skin met the rough surface, a shock after the pool’s embrace. He levered himself up, his soaked jeans dark and heavy, and he didn’t hesitate.
He pushed my thighs apart, his gaze locked on mine, desperate and hungry. He knelt between my legs, his hands sliding under my ass to pull me toward the edge of the pool, toward him. The night air was humid, but it was nothing compared to the heat coming off him.
“Harry—” I started, a weak protest.“Shut up,” he murmured, but it wasn’t cruel. It was a plea.“Just let me… let me do this.”
His head dipped. His mouth, that stupid, perfect mouth, found the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. He kissed a path upward, his stubble scraping, making me shudder. And then his tongue was on me, a hot, wet stripe through my folds.I cried out, my hands flying to his soaked hair, fisting in his curls.
He didn’t start slow.There was no gentle exploration. It was like he was starving, and I was a feast. He ate me out with a desperate, punishing rhythm, his tongue circling my clit before diving deep inside me, fucking me with it. The obscene, wet sounds were loud in the quiet night, mingling with my choked-off moans.
“Oh, god,” I whimpered, my back arching off the concrete.
He groaned against me, the vibration sending a bolt of pure lightning up my spine. One of his hands came up to press down on my lower belly, holding me in place, while the other stayed gripped on my ass, fingers digging in. His tongue focused on my clit, flicking fast and hard, then sucking it into his mouth.
The coil in my stomach wound tighter, unbearably tight. The heat was everywhere, a pooling, aching need.His mouth was relentless, a perfect, filthy torture. I was babbling, begging, saying his name over and over like a prayer.
When I came, it ripped through me violently. My legs locked around his head, my hips bucking against his face as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me. He didn’t let up, drinking every shudder, every spasm, swallowing my release until I was trembling and oversensitive, pushing weakly at his shoulders.
He finally pulled back, his lips glistening, his breathing ragged. He looked up at me, his green eyes dark and wide with something like awe, and something like fear. He slowly climbed over me, caging me with his arms, his wet clothes dripping onto my skin.
We just stared at each other, the only sound our ragged breaths and the soft lapping of the pool water. He cupped my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone.“See?” he whispered, his voice wrecked. “That’s what you do to me.”
He kissed me, and I could taste myself on his tongue—sharp, musky, intimate.It should have felt degrading.It didn’t. It felt like a claim. His hands fumbled with the button on his soaked jeans, shoving them down his hips just enough.His cock sprang free, thick and hard in his fist.
“I need to be inside you,” he breathed against my lips, his voice raw. “Right fucking now.”
I didn’t say yes.I didn’t say no. My body answered for me, my hips tilting up, my legs wrapping around his back, pulling him in. He didn’t ask permission. He guided himself to my entrance, the head pressing against me, slick with my own wetness and the pool water. Then he pushed, a slow, burning invasion that made us both gasp.
He was big, and I was tight, and for a second he just stayed there, buried to the hilt, his forehead resting on my shoulder, his breath shuddering. “Fuck, Nikki,” he groaned.“So fucking good.”
Then he moved.
His thrusts were hard, desperate, each one driving the air from my lungs. The concrete was rough against my back, his soaked shirt was cold where it pressed against my chest, but the place where we were joined was molten. He set a brutal pace, fucking me with a singular focus, his hips slapping against my thighs. The sound was obscene, wet skin on skin, mixing with our ragged breaths and the distant hum of the pool filter.
“You feel that?” he grunted, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in, making me cry out.“That’s all you. This is all you.”
His words unraveled me more than the friction. I clawed at his back, feeling the ridges of his tattoos under his damp shirt. My orgasm built again, faster this time, a tighter, higher coil.He felt it, saw it on my face.
“Come on, baby,” he urged, his thrusts becoming jagged, less controlled.“Come for me. Let me feel you.”
He shifted his angle, hitting a spot deep inside that made my vision whiten at the edges.I came with a shattered scream, my inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses. He cursed, a guttural, beautiful sound, and followed me over the edge, his body stiffening, his release pumping into me, hot and deep.
He collapsed on top of me, a dead weight of wet fabric and spent muscle.His heart hammered against my breast. We lay there for long minutes, sticky and cooling under the moon, his softening cock still inside me.
Finally, he rolled off, lying on his back beside me. He reached for my hand, lacing our fingers together on the damp concrete.We stared at the sky.
“I’m sorry I ignored you,” he said quietly, the post-coital clarity sharpening his voice. “It was a shit thing to do.”
“Yeah. It was.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.“The talking part. The… feeling part.”
I turned my head to look at him.His profile was cut from marble in the low light. “So learn.”
He squeezed my hand.“I want to.” He sat up, running his other hand through his wrecked curls. He grabbed his discarded jeans, pulling his phone from the sodden pocket. It was ruined, water beading under the cracked screen.He pressed the power button.Nothing. Then, a faint, ghostly flicker. A string of garbled characters glowed for a second before the screen died completely.
LFDBFKKK BFVLBFH LB;;BGTR';LGRT":GTR:FRE
“What the hell was that?” I murmured, sitting up.
He frowned at the dead device.“Nothing. Just glitchy garbage.” He tossed the phone aside with a wet slap. But his eyes stayed on it a second too long, the shadow from earlier returning to his green irises.He looked back at me, forcing a softer expression. “Come on. Let’s get you dry.” He stood, pulling me up, his hands gentle now on my arms. But the image of those chaotic letters burned in my mind, a stark, nonsensical scratch across the fragile intimacy of the night.He wrapped his soaked frat jacket around my shoulders. The wool was heavy and cold, smelling of chlorine and his cologne. “I’ll walk you home,” he said, his thumb stroking my cheek.
I nodded, letting him lead me away from the water, the cryptic code already settling like a secret between us, a dark smudge on the edge of whatever this was becoming.
The damp wool of his jacket chafed against my bare shoulders as we walked. The campus was quiet, just the distant thump of a party a few streets over and the crunch of our footsteps on the gravel path. He held my hand, his grip firm, like I might disappear if he let go. I kept seeing those letters.LFDBFKKK.They pulsed behind my eyes like a migraine aura.
My dorm lobby was empty, just the hum of the vending machines and the too-bright fluorescent lights making our wet clothes look pathetic. At the elevator, he finally let go of my hand to push the button.The silence between us was heavy, loaded with everything we’d done and said.
“So,” I said, staring at the scratched metal doors.“So,” he echoed.
The elevator arrived with a dull ping.We got in. The moment the doors closed, he pushed me against the wall, his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that tasted like chlorine and desperation. His hands slid under the jacket, palms rough on my bare hips. I could feel him, hard again against my thigh.The raw need from the pool hadn’t been sated; it had just been rewired.
“My room,” I breathed against his lips when the elevator jerked to a stop on my floor.
We stumbled down the hall, a tangle of wet limbs and hungry mouths. I fumbled with the key, my hands shaking. He took it from me, unlocked the door, and kicked it shut behind us.My single dorm room felt suddenly tiny with him in it. The fairy lights over my bed, the sociology textbooks stacked on the desk, my stuffed owl from childhood—it all looked so innocent, so foreign to the man dripping on my rug.
He peeled the soaked jacket from my shoulders.It landed with a wet thud. His eyes devoured me, standing there in just my bikini bottoms.“You’re so fucking beautiful, Nikki. It pisses me off.”
Before I could answer, he turned me around, his arm wrapping around my waist to pull my back against his chest. His other hand came up, fingers threading into my damp purple curls, and he tilted my head to the side. His mouth found the sensitive spot beneath my ear, biting down just enough to make me gasp.“Harry,” I whispered.
“Shh.” His hands moved to my breasts, squeezing, thumbs circling my nipples until they were tight, aching points. He knew my body better than I did.He’d mapped every fucking inch of it in the dark.
He spun me back around and pushed me down onto the bed.My cheap mattress groaned. He stood over me, stripping off his ruined shirt. Water had made the ink of his tattoos bloom—the serpent, the roman numerals, all of it a blurry, beautiful mess across the defined planes of his stomach and chest.He unbuttoned his jeans, shoved them down, and kicked them away. His cock stood thick and urgent, curving slightly upward.He didn’t join me. He just looked, his gaze a physical weight. “Tell me you want it.”
“I want it.”
“Say it clearly.”
“I want you to fuck me, Harry.”
A predatory smile touched his lips. He knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed, grabbed my ankles, and dragged me toward him until my ass was on the edge.He pushed my knees apart, spreading me wide open for him. He didn’t use his mouth this time. He just leaned forward, his tip nudging my entrance, swollen and slippery already.He pushed inside with one long, slow, brutal stroke. My back arched off the bed, a choked moan tearing from my throat. He filled me completely, a stretching, burning fullness that stole my breath.
“Eyes on me,” he commanded, his voice low and gritty.I forced my gaze to his. His green eyes were dark, pupils blown, holding a universe of conflict.He started to move. A deep, grinding rhythm that wasn’t about pleasure, but possession.Each thrust was a punctuation mark.Mine.Mine.Mine. The bedframe knocked against the wall in a steady, metronomic beat. He gripped my thighs, his fingers digging in, holding me open, taking everything.
“You make me crazy,” he grunted, his rhythm faltering, losing its calculated control. “This isn’t… this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
“How is it supposed to be?” I gasped, meeting his thrusts, my nails scraping the sheets.“Easy.Simple. Fun.” He drove into me harder, his hips slapping against my skin. “This isn’t any of that.”
“No,” I cried out, the pressure building, coiling impossibly tight. “It’s not.”
He leaned over me, bracing himself on his arms, our faces inches apart. Sweat dripped from his temple onto my cheek. His thrusts became shorter, faster, a frantic race.I could feel his heart hammering through his chest. I could see the panic in his eyes, the thrilling, terrifying loss of control. He was free-falling, and he was taking me with him.“Nikki,” he begged, the word raw and broken. “Nikki, I’m—”
I came. It shattered me, a silent, screaming climax that locked my body rigid.The convulsions of my cunt around him tipped him over the edge. He swore, a harsh, guttural sound, and buried himself deep, pumping his release into me in hot, helpless pulses.He collapsed on top of me, his full weight pressing me into the mattress. We lay there, ruined, breathing in jagged syncopation. The only sound was the drip of water from his hair onto my pillow.After a long time, he rolled off. He lay on his back beside me, staring at my ceiling. I curled onto my side, facing away from him, the physical emptiness immediate and shocking.I heard him sit up. Felt the shift of the mattress.He touched my shoulder, his fingers surprisingly gentle.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice quiet.I didn’t turn. “Okay.”
He dressed in silence—the wet jeans, the bare chest.I heard him pick up his dead phone from the floor. He hesitated by the door.
“I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a question.It was a statement he was willing into truth.“Sure,” I whispered to the wall.
The door opened, then clicked shut.The silence of my room was absolute, heavier than before. I slowly turned onto my back.The sheets were damp and smelled of sex and pool water. My body ached in the best and worst ways.My phone buzzed on my nightstand. A jolt of stupid hope shot through me.I grabbed it.It wasn’t Harry. It was my roommate, Chloe: You alive?Heard Styles was looking for you.
I typed back, my thumbs clumsy.Alive.Talk tomorrow.I put the phone down. My eyes landed on the one smudge of evidence on the floor—a partial footprint from his wet sneaker, already fading on the industrial carpet. And beside it, almost invisible, was his frat jacket, a soaked, abandoned heap where he’d dropped it.He’d left it behind.
I got up, my legs shaky.I picked up the jacket.It was heavy. As I lifted it, something fell from the inner pocket and hit the floor with a plastic clack.
Not his phone.A different phone.A cheap, burnished-black burner phone.
It lit up in my hand, vibrating.An unknown number flashed on the screen. A text message preview appeared, stark and white against the dark background.The transfer didn’t go through.The cipher was wrong. Clean it up.We can’t afford another mistake like last semester.
Then, a second message, incoming as I stared:
And what the hell does ‘LFDBFKKK’ mean? Is that from you?., ,