Un-Tying the Knot {h.s.}

Chapter 53*

"Room service!"

I jump back immediately as a strange voice hollers from inside the room. I don't trust myself to look back as I turn to run inside, secretly thankful for the interruption.

Harry watches me as I go, mesmerized by the slight jiggle of my ass as I disappear behind the curtained view from the terrace. He tries to shake his head clear of the thoughts in his mind, but he's dazed and feels slightly wobbly. He really can't remember the last time he was this affected by a woman.

Sex always affected him in some way, but this was so much more powerful than anything he had ever experienced. No matter how many times he tried to push it away, he couldn't. He couldn't stop being acutely aware of the curves of my body, the smell of my skin, nor the want — the magnetic pull in his belly that made him want to do naughty, inappropriate things to me.

His mind wanders briefly, reminiscing to when my legs wrapped around his waist, fingers in his hair — which quickly spirals off into his own secret fantasy. Me, bent over the desk, straddling him in the hot tub, on my back in his plush California King bed. He jerks his head to the side, trying to wrench the images from his brain.

He can't think this way.
He has to control himself.

Eleanor's face briefly floats into his mind, and the duality of his guilt chokes him, sickened by the fact that he's fantasizing so easily about another woman — and ashamed that in order to quell the guilt of his previous indiscretions, he so easily bent me into positions of his likening — cheapening it, making it dirty and meaningless.

I wasn't meaningless to him.

"I got rosé because I wasn't sure what you wanted," I call, re-appearing shortly after. My eyes are surveying the bottle, a wine glass in my hand as I do so. I didn't realize that I interrupted him or his thoughts.

I shake my head a little, now that my hair is beginning to dry now, turning slightly frizzy in the process. I wished desperately that I had a hair-tie, yet he can't help but take in the sight curiously, longing to run his hands through it more than anything.

"That's fine," he says, pulling his mined back to focus. He drops his towel on one of the chairs before climbing the stairs to the hot tub, surveying the little deck surrounding it.

It was quite well crafted for being in the middle of New York City in a high rise. The deck was a nice addition, making it quite accommodating for a large group of people. Not that he knew what that was like anymore.

I'm tipping the pink liquid into the lone glass when I hear a hiss from his direction. I nearly drop the fragile object, mind instantly taken back to the stairwell when he hissed in my ear when he slid inside of me, his body pulling pleasure from my body I had never experienced before. It's all I can do to fight against the memory.

We are over that part of our lives.
It was a mistake.

Since it wasn't going to happen again, there was no use in torturing myself over the remembrance of his skin against mine, or the feeling of his mouth pressed so delicately in sync with mirrored action. Instead, I shift slightly, setting the now filled glass next to him on the deck.

"Here you go," I offer softly, holding out the glass for him.

When my eyes flick to him, I find him submerged up to his slightly freckled shoulders. His hands are waving underneath the bubbles, his eyes watching them amusedly. I can't help but smile at how innocent he is sometimes.

He would make the cutest kids.
Stop it, Olivia.

"Oh, thanks," he offers, pulling a dripping hand out of the water to grab the glass. His fingers brush mine, shockingly so, as he takes the wine. The heat tinges through my veins at the unexpected contact while he swirls the liquid in his glass, carefully taking his time before finally taking a sip.