Chapter 7 - Harry #2
Another breath, another heartbeat in my throat. His fingers inches from my skin as we locked eyes and he made me weak for him again.
“Harry!” A gentle voice called out from the front of the building to my right, slicing through my reverie. I flinched and whipped my head around, the moment shattering around us. Life burst back into focus, though my body still pulsed with awareness of him.
As soon as I saw Natasha waving me over, my face split into a grin.
Not just because she was saving me. It was because she cared about whether I was comfortable.
And my feelings for her were real, not some fantasy I conjured because I had to listen to her have sex with other people every night.
It was because I actually wanted to be with her.
I bit my lip, my cheeks flushing as she smiled at me from across the courtyard. It was supposed to be embarrassing; according to my parents, a man wasn't supposed to blush and fumble, but I liked it. It showed how I really felt about her.
“Who’s that?” Dom asked as he turned and spotted her. She was at least thirty metres away, which was still enough for me to return her smile.
“Ah, Natasha?” I asked, looking back at him. “She's my girlfriend,” I said happily.
She was the best remedy for Dom.
Her full lips and sweetheart face, deep brown eyes filled with compassion and love that always made me soften.
And she was short enough that she fit under my arm naturally.
We'd been on the edge of something since the beginning of the semester.
It was so new and exciting, and it was hard for us to stop drifting off into our own world whenever we were together.
Natasha laughed with the small group of friends around her, grinning as they teased her while she said her goodbyes. She clutched her textbook to her chest, biting her lip as she walked across the grass towards us.
She brought out lightness in me, not the desperate lust that plagued me when I let myself feel how much I craved Dom.
I glanced at him, and my heart clenched at his look, the same one he gave me a month ago when I woke up in his room.
Disappointment grabbed me, the heavy shame which always whispered at the back of my mind taking hold. I didn't want to confront that feeling anymore. I’d been so scared of it because it was another sign I wasn't good enough. Not just for him, but for anyone.
But I'd talked myself through it, forcing myself to grow stronger from it. Dom's answer to that question was why I pushed myself to ask Natasha to be my girlfriend last week, to really try something with someone who liked me for me. I didn't want to be with someone who saw me as an accomplishment.
My name and money didn't mean anything to her. But the only reason I asked her out was because of the way Dom's eyes danced over my body whenever I talked to him.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, hoping he might explain why his pupils narrowed, his lips pressed tightly together while he looked at her.
His chest rose, and the sheer weight of the energy flowing from him caught me off guard. It made me want to reach out, stroke his arm, and murmur to him softly so he would relax.
“Dom?” I said, hoping to shake him out of whatever was happening.
His gaze snapped back to mine, and he sucked in another deep breath. “I have to go to class,” I said.
“Right, yeah, of course. I'll see you for coffee later?”
I eased as Dom returned to his normal self. Or, at least, I thought he had. He was more serious than usual, but I couldn't say I even knew him well enough for that.
I nodded, still cringed over how eager I’d sounded. “Text me where. I don't mind,” I said. He’d managed to coax my phone number out of me on his third day of following me around.
There was a pause as we watched each other, but I couldn't handle his intensity. I didn't want him to see me falter.
He tutted, like he'd realised something, or he was just annoyed. “You just want to be with me that badly, don’t you?” he said hoarsely.
I froze at his words. Normally, his phrases came with wicked smirks or a quick wink. Not a hard stare that banished away my shame and woke something entirely different, but the force that called me to him.
“I have to go,” I said quietly, the tension still weighing heavily between us.
“Alright,” he replied with a harsh puff of air through his nose. His bottom lip dropped, as if he were about to say something important, but he seemed to decide against it. “Hey, Harry. Don’t forget about me, eh?” he said, still not breaking his gaze.
“I won’t. Four pm, right?”
He gave me a wan smile. “Yeah, four. Perfect.”
Guilt I couldn’t explain curled through me at the strangeness suddenly brewing between us. I numbly held up a hand in an awkward wave as he stepped away from me. “Bye, Dom,” I said, sounding as strange as I felt.
I couldn't tell what to make of the moment. I was sure, like last month, it was going to follow me around and jump into my mind when I least expected it.
“Harry! Come on!” Natasha called me again with a laugh.
My heart picked up as I turned, leaving Dom behind. I could feel his eyes boring into my back as I walked away. But it was okay; we sorted it out. Something told me I wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily. And part of me didn't want to.