The bed is warm, sheets and her favorite duvet covering us. I’m wrapped around her, our lanky legs tangled and my longer body slotted behind her like two spoons in a silverware drawer. Her cold toes are pressed against my leg but I don’t mind, I just want to hold her.
With my arms slung around her, I can feel her breath going in and out, not slow enough for sleep but slow and calm.
“Babe,” I murmur, my voice soft and rough. I press a kiss to her bare shoulder, just the dainty strap from a loose tank is across the skin. Her muscles visibly tense when my lips touch her, reacting to me and I love it so much. I snuggle into her, pressing my face into the crook of her neck. She curls to be closer to me, scooting into my embrace. I remove one arm from around her to shift her hair, sweeping it to the side so her ear is exposed and I languidly press a kiss to the spot behind it and then mouth her earlobe, the diamond stud she had in cold on my tongue.
“Harry,” she play whines, telling me now is not the time to turn this into more. She just wants to be held, cuddle in the dimly lit room. I make a sad noise, like a dog whose toy is withheld. She giggles, curling to hide her face in her arms and the pillows.
I follow, lying half on top of her, my bare torso pressing against her back, and move my head to the same ear as before. But this time, I’m simply whispering sweet nothings, murmuring about us and my love for her. She hums and relaxes even more under me, if that was possible, so content with us.
I press wet kisses to the back of her neck, exposed from how her hair has fallen. She moves to flip under me and I oblige, lifting my weight with my forearms. She is on her back now, one hand cupping my face, smiling at me like I am the sun and she hasn’t seen the light of day in years.
I quickly swoop and press a fleeting kiss to her lips, but she wants more and reigns me in by the nape of my neck, pulling me back down for another.
God I could kiss her for days, divulge myself in the sweet taste of her lips and the perfect way they fit with mine, like to pieces carved from one stone. My hands are on her, caressing the simple curves I love so much.
“Harry,” she whispers against my lips, a shiver passing through both of us with her words. My name is dropped from her lips in such a beautiful way, like she can’t see anything but me, know anything but me. I love it and her so dearly and I try to show her this with my kisses, peppering them to her; her lips, her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. I end up at her stomach, shifting the hem of the her shirt to press one small one to her hipbone and then hug her around the middle, resting my head on her chest to hear her heartbeat.
“I love you,” I tell her, my words of utmost sincerity.
“Wake up,” she responds.
I’m confused, I didn’t fall asleep, does she think I fell asleep when I wrapped my arms around her? But then I notice the world shifting, edges becoming blurry and then it’s all dark.
I blink open my eyes to see the rough, white ceiling of my hotel room, the smell foreign and the mattress different under me than the one I had imagined.
It had all been a dream, she wasn’t here with me. How I longed for it to be true, for me to be back in London with her in my arms. I missed her dearly and my dreams had decided to torture me, bringing out the thing that I wanted most right now but couldn’t have.
I sat up, trying to wash away the flood of emotions I was experiencing with a rub of my eyes. But it didn’t work, the loneliness and longing still there. I bowed my head, succumbing to the how lost I felt without her by my side.
Glancing at the clock, I noted that it was far too early to call her, it’d be just five a.m. in America . I could not even appease myself with the sound of her voice.
I flopped forwards onto the mattress, the sheets puffing around me as I displaced the air, and hoped for the dream to return, it would have to do for now.
