Icarus | Z.M.

51 | Bath

Victoria Tomlinson

Waking up beside Zayn was something I would never get used to.

It seemed neither of us had moved at all last night. My head was still resting on his chest, my cheek warm against his skin, his arm was still around me, my leg slotted between his, our bodies tangled together.

Initially I panicked, it was my first reaction to pull away from him, get as far away as possible to pretend none of that had happened and we hadn't slept so intimately.

Nothing about whatever we were doing was intimate.

It was just fucking.

Just fucking.

But I couldn't panic, I didn't want to panic when I woke to the feeling of Zayn running his fingers through my hair, toying with the ends for a small moment before running his fingers from the roots to the ends again. That was intimate. And that was a feeling I wished to stay, I never wanted to move, I never wanted to pull away from him. I never wanted him to stop.

My nostrils were filled with only his scent when I inhaled deeply, nuzzling into him more. It was deliberate but I lied to myself and thought it wasn't deliberate. But he was so warm, laying here just asking for me to get closer it felt.

He had to be awake since he was toying with my hair, but I had no idea how long he had been awake for, or how long I had been asleep. It wouldn't surprise me if I had slept all through the morning and most of the afternoon, I felt like I could nod off again and sleep for another ten hours if I wanted to.

Part of me was scared to let him know I was awake, I felt like I wasn't supposed to know he was running his fingers through my hair, if I woke up he would stop.

I hated how much I wanted to soak up this feeling, being with him, how he was holding me and making me feel so warm. Every day I could feel myself becoming more and more addicted to it, I craved it. And when I wasn't with him, it was all I wanted and all I thought about.

But, I couldn't want it. I had to stop. This was his job, he knew me because of work, I could not want him. But I did. And it wasn't fair. What if Harry was right last week on the plane? As much as it pained me to think about, what if I couldn't trust Zayn. He had been horrible to me when we first met. What if this was all some game, some trick to get me to trust him? What if he did plan to use this against me and I was falling right into his trap? He knew he wasn't supposed to be doing this and how bad the consequences could be so why did he want to do anything with me in the first place. He could easily get anyone else. There had to be another reason he was fucking me, kissing me, doing whatever this was.

"Hey," the sound of his voice, the morning rasp pulled me right out of my thoughts. The voice that made all those negative thoughts disappear because I couldn't focus on anything else other than the way he sounded when he first woke up. "Morning."

I kept my eyes closed and didn't move from him. I let myself enjoy the fact he hadn't stopped playing with my hair even though I was awake. I sounded nervous, and half asleep when I responded. "Hi,"

Zayn's hand closed around my shoulder after he dropped my hair. He held me, shimmied out from beneath me until he had a view of my face, and he lay beside me. Our faces on the same pillow with a small distance between us. It was clear he hadn't been awake for long, his eyelids were hooded with tiredness, and he still had a few marks from the pillow on his cheeks. There was a part of me that wanted to run my thumb across the mark, I had no idea why. But I didn't, I kept my arms and fists closed against my chest.

He said nothing but gave me a soft smile, reaching with his hand to run his finger across my forehead, brushing a few pieces off hair off my face to tuck them behind my ear.