Harry Styles Imagines Book 2

where the heart is

“That was only supposed to be a one time thing.”

Harry’s words are spoken between heavy breaths and bitten lips, loose between his teeth yet tight in his expression because it really was supposed to be a one time thing, but he can’t show her how relieved he is that it no longer isn’t.

Y/n looks over at him lying naked beside her, covered in a thin layer of sweat, eyes casted toward the ceiling as he tries to catch his breath. It’s been two months since she’d last seen him like this, and in this very way did they agree that no matter where the night took them or what they started feeling for each other, they could never end up here again.

But what they shared was unforgettable, an impossibly perfect mistake neither one of them have stopped thinking about since it happened. What they felt was different, what they did was different, and no matter how much the two of them tried to chase those feelings again, nothing ever amounted to them.

Their bodies ached and quaked and begged for it, so much so that the longer they resisted their temptations, the stronger they became. It had gotten to a point where neither could enjoy the simple pleasures in life, their withdrawals cascaded with forced smiles and indifferent laughter, wanting so much more than what they were getting. So they knew they would end up here again — off their moral compass and on each other like that’s the only place they needed to be.

And quite truthfully, it was.

“You say that as if you weren’t the one that asked me to come over.”

And it’s true. It was him that instigated their being alone despite all the risks that come with it. Because even when everything they want and feel and do together stem from illicit attraction, he can’t deny the wild, uncontainable connection they have together. They always find their way back to each other — whether it be through late night text messages or desperate, lonely phone calls. The two have hardly stopped speaking.

He likes her. And he hates how much he likes her, but the liking is so much stronger than the hating and so whenever he thinks about her, it spirals out of control and he can’t talk himself out of it. He’s never found a good enough reason to keep himself away from her.

She is dangerously, disastrously irresistible to him. He’d only met her once and that was all it took for him to be completely and totally captivated by her — every lonely and empty aspect of his life now sparkling graciously under her charm, her magic touch lingering on his skin even after she’s left.

So of course he knew how the night would end, he just can’t imagine what kind of man it would make him if he were to admit it.

He turns over so that he’s facing her, expression void to disguise emotion, eyes neglecting hers to blind her from what he’s truly feeling. But he fiddles with the corner of her pillow, so close to her face it makes her wonder if that’s what he truly wanted to touch. And if it is, she wants it just as much as he does.

“I don’t want to make you the bad guy.” He whispers, as if he were in pain. It upsets her that he’d ever blame himself for this. “I just can’t stop wanting what I want.”

This would be so much easier if he could.

But she doesn’t want him to. She doesn’t want him to stop wanting this with her, doesn’t want to have to give this up for the sake of a marriage doomed to end, because being here with Harry now feels more real than the past twenty-five years she’s lived in this world of pretend and hoaxed make-believes.

This is what it’s supposed to feel like. This is the feeling everybody searches for, the feeling that everybody chases after before they even know what it is. This is the feeling she thought she once had for her fiancé, but unexpectedly found in Harry all those months ago. She just wants him to feel this way, too.