ARABELLA • Alex Turner

THIRTY

TW: Sexual content.
Another fluffy one, apologies for the long wait!
If you want to skip ahead, smut finishes after the line break (-). As always, feel free to ask for a chapter summary if you are uncomfortable reading 🫶🏼

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     Arabella woke up the next morning to feather-light kisses being peppered all over her nose and forehead. The warm feeling that such sweet touches evoked, along with the sandpapery brush of stubble against her cheeks, almost made up for the pain in her head.

   As delicious as those cosmos were, she regretted every single one.

   The groan she let out at the vice-like tension in her skull earned her an amused huff of laughter to the face. Cracking her eyelids open, she found Alex in all his soft, quiet calmness, nose only a few inches from hers.

   "Mornin'."

   The word was heavy with sleep, the depth of it reverberating from his chest in a gentle rumble. He had a naturally deep voice, but in the mornings it was always lower; deliciously gravelly and thick as honey.

   Arabella hummed and scrubbed away her bleary vision with the backs of both hands. "Mornin' baby."

Alex smiled, watching with delicate consideration as her brain bridged the gap between sleep and wakefulness, before kissing her again, this time on the lips. Sensing an unusual desperation in the weight of his touch, Arabella quirked an eyebrow.

"You okay?" She whispered once they detached, sliding a hand up his bicep.

Alex was normally pretty touchy in the mornings, full of warmth and intimacy, but in the white-gold light of the new day surrounding them, there was an indiscernible edge to his demeanour.

He nodded and nestled imperceptibly closer, burying his face in her neck. Her eyelids fluttered closed and her breath hitched in her throat when she felt his lips beneath her jawline.

"J's wish you could see how gorgeous y'are." He spoke against her pulse point, dotting kisses all the way back up from her neck to her face. "Didn't like seeing you upset."

   Arabella inhaled at the muffled words. Despite knowing that Alex really did love her and wanted to be with her, her brain still had the annoying tendency to overthink everything. Meeting Alexa the night before, while wholesome, had also been one of those rare moments in which she hadn't felt pretty enough or kind enough or strong enough to deserve such a loving boyfriend.

   She should have known that sweet, smart Alex would pick up on just how much the negative thoughts were bugging her. As clichéd as it sounded, he always seemed to know how she was feeling before she even knew herself.

   "C'mere my darling." He continued to pepper kisses over every inch of skin he could reach. "Let me show you how much I adore you."

   The whispered words went straight to Arabella's core. She hated being insecure, but Alex always knew just what to say to make her feel better about herself. His unwavering belief in her; in her beauty and her soul and her spirit, was what she clung to on days when she forgot what it was like to feel pretty.

   His kisses became more fervent, lighting her nerves on fire with every hot breath and teasing little nip. He settled on top of her and she spread her thighs to accommodate him, his body a familiar weight pinning her to the mattress.