Winter Night Traveler

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When Harry came downstairs half an hour later, he was freshly shaved. He looked alert and vital in the sweats Louis had provided. The pants were indeed a bit short, but the shirt fit perfectly, a little tight but not enough to be uncomfortable.

Louis normally would have eaten cereal, but with his visitor there, he was cooking a traditional bacon and eggs breakfast. Harry came up behind him as he stood at the island, turning bacon with a fork, and wrapped his arms around Louis's thin waist. Harry kissed the back of his neck and rested his head between Louis's shoulder blades. "I don't know which smells best, the coffee, the bacon, or you."

"Wow, I'm impressed. I must really smell good, if I rank up there with coffee and bacon."

Louis felt Harry grin, felt warm lips dropping tiny kisses along his back. "Fuck the bacon and the coffee; I would much rather devour you." Harry's tone was both teasing and serious, sensual, and a wave of heat that had nothing to do with the embarrassment that swept over Louis. With his knees suddenly weak, Louis had no choice but to lean back into Harry's strong arms. He had a serious swelling in the groin area, and Louis couldn't help rolling his hips and rubbing his ass against it.

"I think we need to go back to bed." There was no teasing at all in his voice this time.

"Now?"

"Now." Harry reached around Louis and turned off the cook top.

--

Ten minutes later, Louis was naked, breathless, and trembling on the verge of climax. He was on all fours in the middle of his king-sized bed, and Harry was behind him, driving into him with his tongue. No matter how many times Louis protested, tried to pull their bodies closer together, Harry would swat his hands away and continue on with reckless abandon.

Eventually, Louis surrendered, gave himself over to the absolute madness of his body and his soul. His hips arched up and back to meet Harry's tongue time and time again until the tension broke and his body shuddered with completion. Only when Louis's limbs went limp did Harry move upward, bathing Louis's back with his heat, and penetrating him with one smooth thrust that took him all the way in.

Louis inhaled deeply, having already forgotten how completely Harry filled him and the intensity of their union. He began a gentle back and forth motion between their bodies and Louis could not stop the flood of tears that broke from his eyes.

--

Afterward, while Louis was in the bathroom, Harry finished dressing– again– and called out, "I'll go down and start breakfast again."

"I'll be there in a minute." Louis still felt incredibly weak-kneed, and yet somehow relieved. He stared at his face in the mirror, his blue eyes wild and blown. It had to be some kind of mistake, a cosmic joke without the punch-line. A stranger who wanders in on a storm? The idea was straight out of a cheesy romance novel and yet here he was, staring at himself in the mirror, while said stranger was downstairs making breakfast. Chastising himself for over-thinking, and for not enjoying the moment while it lasted, Louis pulled it together and headed downstairs.

The first ten minutes of breakfast were eerily quiet. Louis couldn't make his eyes meet Harry's, and for the first time the man seemed distant and unapproachable. There was another five minutes of silence before Louis couldn't take it any longer and his voice cut into the air.

"You said you were going to meet up with friends?" Harry nodded, but didn't offer any further details.

"Yep, me and a couple of my friends do this every year."

"Have you ever been to US before?"

"One other time, but that trip was all business and no pleasure. I was tryna make it as a stand up comedian. Needless to say, that didn't quite work out." Harry hesitated a moment then grabbed Louis's hand that was resting on the table. "I'm glad I gave the US another chance, except for the almost freezing to death part. Had I stayed home and hadn't crashed the truck, I never would have met you– and Tinkerbell of course."

The dog, lying on the floor between their chairs in obvious hopes of doubling his chances of catching a stray tidbit, perked up when he heard his name.

"Table scraps aren't good for you," Louis said. "Besides, you've already eaten." Tink didn't look discouraged and Harry laughed. "So, since the stand up comedy didn't work out, what do you do for a living now?"

"I've been a professional photographer for almost six years." His mouth quirked with amusement. "For the record, I'm twenty-five, I'm a fairly heavy drinker and occasional smoker, but I've tried to quit it down. And single for the last two and a half years."

Louis put down his fork, mouth open in a surprised expression. "I wasn't–"

"Yes you were, and it's okay. I wanted to know more about you, too; I just wasn't sure where to start."

"You can ask me anything."

Harry's mouth worked itself into that sensual grin. "What kind of underwear do you usually wear?"

Determined to display his own charisma, Louis reached out and traced just the tips of his fingers over the soft skin of Harry's wrist. "None at all, if my outfit will allow it."

Harry smiled and placed a sweet kiss on Louis's lips. "So, Louis Tomlinson, when conditions are back to normal, will you go out for dinner with me?"

"I don't know," Louis said, a deliberately coy look on his face. "A date? I don't think I'm ready for that."

Harry chuckled and started to answer, but a sunbeam fell across their conjoined hands. Startled, they both looked at the light, then out the window. The wind had stopped blowing, and patches of blue sky were visible.

"I'll be damned," he said, getting up to walk over to the window to look out. "I thought the storm would last longer than this."

"So did I," Louis said, his disappointment more intense than he wanted to show. The clearing weather meant Harry would be leaving sooner than he had anticipated, but did that necessarily mean they would never see each other again?

Louis went over to the window too, and gasped when he saw the amount of snow. The familiar terrain was completely transformed, disguised by drifts of snow that appeared to level out the landscape. The wind had piled snow to window level on the porch.

"It'll take a while to clear the roads." Harry walked to the door and opened it. The frigidity of the air seemed to suck the warmth from the room. "Holy fuck!" He slammed the door. "The temperature has to be below minus ten. No chance of any of this melting."

Refusing to let himself dwell on the thought of Harry leaving, Louis busied himself with chores around the house. Harry helped him gather the clothes that had been set to dry on the railing and take them to the laundry room for a proper washing, then he braved the outside cold long enough to gather more fire wood.

After Harry brought in the last load of wood and stacked it near the fireplace, he grabbed his coat. "I'm going to clear off the steps."

"That can wait until the weather's warmer."

"Now that the wind isn't blowing, it's bearable for a few minutes, and that's all it'll take to clear the steps." With that, he buttoned his heavy coat and stepped outside.

Louis watched the door close and felt a part of his insides grow cold. Of course, it had all been too good to be true, and he had known that from the beginning. Still, that hadn't prevented him from wishing, from hoping that what he had with Harry was real and not just an illusion created by the unusual circumstances.