Meeting Him Again

Waking Up

Harriet fell into my arms. Luckily, I didn't drop her.

"Are you drunk?" I asked.

"Nah, I just... Tripped over something." She stood upright, supporting her own weight. "Sorry about that."

I dusted myself and then her off in turn. Her eyes narrowed and she swallowed.

"There is something that I wouldn't mind doing, though," she said in a voice that she hadn't exercised on me yet. I frowned, slightly uneasy as the feelings that only Harold had been able to evoke started churning in me once more, sending a shiver down my spine and a clenching in my gut.

Harriet twisted her finger around one of the belt loops in my jeans and used the other hand to guide me by the shoulder backwards until my back hit the wall.

"Okay?" she asked, lessening the pressure she held against me; I understood what she meant: I could pull out at any moment.

My garbage body was too busy buzzing with chemicals for me to be able to string a sentence together, so I just nodded.

Harriet resumed the pressure holding me to the wall, smiling to herself. She removed her hand from my waist and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from whimpering at the loss of her contact, so starved of it I'd felt. Luckily for me, she wasn't quite done yet either, snaking her hand up my side before wrapping her fingers around the back of my neck. My heart rate quickened, unsure if this was going to end up a choking thing, but she simply tilted my head to the side slightly to get better access to my shoulder. I felt all of my breath leave my chest every time her lips came into contact with my skin, sending pulses through me that reached every nerve in my body with each loving caress.

She trailed from just below my ear to the very edge of my shoulder and back up again, taking her time to engrain it into my mind that she was still as mine as I was hers; I lay my head back against the wall, closing my eyes and grabbing her waist to hold her closer to me in one hand and grabbing a fistful of the fabric of her shirt in the other. I held her so closely that I felt her toned stomach flex underneath my knuckles.

I was still slightly high off the endorphins of having Harriet so close to me so when her kisses drove further north on my body it took me a moment to adjust. Every time she touched a new area of my skin with hers - brushing an arm against mine or when I dragged my fingers as gently as I could across her face to keep her hair out of her eyes - a new firework was set off inside me, building into explosive emotion I was gonna have to let out somehow. She gently trailed up and over my jawline, dragging her slightly open mouth over it, before reaching the corner of my own and stopping. She swallowed, sealing her lips, and let go of me entirely. If it wasn't for my possessive handful of shirt, she could have pulled away completely, and it's not to say that she didn't make an attempt. She stood with her head bowed and arms limp by her sides, no signs of the passion that burnt through her sharp green eyes just a moment before.

"Talk to me," I said, draping the arm that had been around her waist over her shoulder before letting go of the fist balled around shirt so she couldn't escape. I lifted up her chin with two fingers, not forcing her to look me in the eye but implying that eye contact would be preferable. She gazed blankly at the wall beside my ear, eyes sharpening and meeting mine for a fraction of an instant before flicking away again.

"I'm still processing," she mumbled. Tentatively, she let her eyes meet mine again, but then dropped them to my mouth and slowly raised a hand to run her fingers over the quivering skin of my lips. "God, you're beautiful..."

I dropped my hand to her neck, just resting it there whilst she talked. She took a small step towards me again.  "You looked so perfect, so biblical, I lost all my self control and forgot that I'm supposed to behave. Now, though, I... I-"

"Hey," I murmmered, stepping forward and closer to her. "You don't have to be all buttoned-up. Married, remember? Don't feel pressured to do anything you don't want to do, okay?" I rested my forehead against hers. "We can spend as long as you like on you. 'As long as you like' includes no time at all."

Unexpectedly from the present conversation, Harriet leant foreward and let her mouth connect with mine. She threw me back the distance I'd gained, pushing my shoulder blades into the wall. All of the emotion that had been building up inside of me was set off, launching me into space, sending my head spinning - or maybe that was the lack of air.

But it wasn't just me that was feeling everything - through the kiss, I could feel tears rolling down my face, and they weren't mine. Harriet pulled away sharply and moved into a different room.