roses so red [harry lewis]

stop and smell the roses

CHAPTER 16: stop and smell the roses

What does one do when they awaken beside the wrong person, naked and cold and eyes groggy, and suddenly aware that goosebumps meant... pointy nipples? 

Rosalie grabbed at the blankets that were resting loosely across her side and tucked it tightly around her shoulders. Her folded arms pressed into her bare chest, so that she could feel every inch of her skin safely hidden away. Naked was vulnerable.

Rosalie wasn't sure she did vulnerable.

"Morning," Harry groaned, his voice thick like it never got used this early, like he was only speaking now this early in the day because she was there.

"Hey," Rosalie answered, then squeezed her eyes shut. Think, you idiot, think.

"Hi." Harry's voice answered, muffled by the pillow he'd rolled to bury his face in. His shoulders tensed, neck strained, face lifted ever so slightly so that one half-open eye could peer over at Rosalie. Her head was already resting on the pillow beside him, the fold of the cover hiding half of her nose from view. She had freckles on the tip of her nose, like tiny speckles from sunburns.

Rosalie opened her mouth and her breath sounded wheezy as she tried to get something else out. To fill the momentary silence as she clambered for something to say, Rosalie cleared her throat and quickly said, "Hello."

This time his laugh was louder, the smile on his face full even if she could only see half of it. His warm arm crept across the cool space between them on the mattress until his fingers touched her side and his hand slid across, hesitantly pulling them closer together so that his face was buried beneath hers. His breath came out hot, fanning across her neck, and almost as quickly as Harry had tucked himself into her, his breathing got slower and slower until she knew he'd fallen back asleep. 

Harry was not the right guy, was he? Nobody's love story started out with mutual distaste quite like theirs did. The stories that glued couples together until they were old and had two generations to remember them didn't have to struggle across a tumultuous breakup, they met at the market and knew each others' coffee order by heart and their friends always knew they were meant to be.

Could Rosalie even go out to their friends, separate or mutual, and comfortably say that they were grafting? Could she look at him and hold him and title him like she had with Callum, would that ever be a comfortable and regular thing she could feel?

"You're thinking," Harry mumbled, his mouth making her skin shiver as he spoke into her collar. He shrugged his head deeper into the warm crook of Rosalie's neck, his hair tickling her cheek. "Knock it off."

"Excuse you." Rosalie snorted, her eyes blinking as she twitched away from the tickle of his unruly hair.

"It's too early for that. Cuddle with me now, think about things later." Harry instructed, his voice groggy but the sudden tickle of his eyelashes on her neck indicated that he was blinking his eyes awake.

Rosalie obliged, because she only thought like this when she was anxious, and being here, naked, with all of her skin feeling all of Harry's skin, made her anxious. It calmed her, actually, made her feel warm and safe, but that calmness was what scared the living daylights out of her.

Her arms wrapped around Harry's middle, hands curling up to wrap around the soft curl of his shoulders. His arms tightened around her middle, hands hugging around to her belly so she could feel the tingling nervousness in her stomach. She didn't remember falling asleep like this, but she knew that it had happened quickly as soon as she found herself awake again.

"Morning." Harry said again, his cheek pressing into the side of her forehead where he'd shifted in their sleep. As he spoke, his jaw moved against her head and she could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest against hers.

Rosalie blinked and tilted her chin up, snuggling her body more cozily against his and resting her chin on his chest to watch his face. "Good morning."

Harry leaned his head down, his smile was lazy and sleepy and dopey and his eyes still were too tired to open again, even now hours later. He bumped his nose against Rosalie's, smiling crookedly at her.

She let out a breath that lightened her chest, her lips lifting back at him, her eyes falling shut lightly. Rosalie bumped her nose back against his. Harry chuckled.

He leaned down just a bit more so he could kiss her, his arms hugging her with a bit more pressure to his bare chest. She tightened her arm around him, wrapping it around his neck and letting her hand rest over his collarbone.

Harry pulled back so that his lips were so close to hers she could still feel them. His feet flexed in his socks and rubbed up and down on her ankles, tucked between his legs where they tangled up under the covers. Rosalie kissed him again, breathing in and then out as she released the tension and just breathed easily.

They kissed for a while. They probably would stay in all day in the bed, if they could, but instead Rosalie settled for just a few hours. She texted Freya to push off filming an hour, and Harry fired a few messages back and forth with the lads which told her he'd likely pulled some strings of his own so he could stay in.

First, they kissed. It was slow and their hands just touched all of the warm skin that they could, just to feel and to be near. They cuddled and dozed. Then, Rosalie had wrapped a soft blanket around herself tightly, so it closed up her shoulders and hung to the floor and was like a giant furry robe around her body. She tiptoed quickly across the cold wood floors in her bare feet, down the hall and to the kitchen, then back with a big cup of water and two half-toasted frozen waffles in between her fingers.

They ate the waffles on top of the sheets, dropping them on top of the blankets when they turned out to be hot and steamy on the inside. When Harry saw that Rosalie had some lint on her eyelashes, he flicked it with the tip of his finger so it tickled and made her hide his chest. When she came back out to finish her waffle, Harry did it again so she'd cuddle him again.

He kissed her fingertips, all ten of them. She held his face in her hands, her palms on his cheeks as she kissed his lips. They'd both peek their eyes open sometimes, just to see the other so they could grin as they kissed some more. Rosalie ran her fingers over his scalp. Harry massaged his thumbs into her neck as he held her against his heart.

They touched, and kissed, and hid under the covers, and told stupid stories about the castles they'd built out of pillows and sheets, and the time Rosalie got stuck in her duvet cover, and how Harry used to roll out of bed in his sleep, and then Rosalie had grabbed him up tightly and wrapped her legs around him and pulled him to the middle of the bed to keep him safe.

"I just want to sleep and cuddle and speak to you," Harry said against Rosalie's lips, "and fuck." He joked after he'd pressed a kiss on her.

"Mmmm." Rosalie hummed against his chin, her fingers tugging on his hair. "I know, Harry, I've noticed since you pitched a tent this morning." She laughed back, opening one eye so she could see the blush on his cheeks.

"Piss off."

"Okay," Rosalie breathed back.

Harry's hand tightened around her. "Don't."

"I won't."

"Okay."

"Alright."