REWRITE

THIS IS MY SKIN

(and it's thick. this is not your skin - yet you are still under it.)

sometimes i just survive

sometimes i stand on the rooftop of my existence

arms stretched out

begging for more

– 10 –

CHAPTER RATED M FOR EXPLICIT CONSENSUAL SEXUAL CONTENT.

Tommy Conlon was a dangerous man, and Harley knew he could destroy her. Saltwater and ash, he was an oblivion she was happy to fall into, again and again. She was not made for sainthood, sin like dirt under her fingernails, damnation a dress too tight, but my god, he tasted like salvation. Each kiss he laid against her flesh burned like hellfire, fingers leaving bruises in their wake as he held her, held her like she was his, and my god, she was, she was, she was.

Control was something Harley wore like war paint; each move calculated, each part of her pristine. She found pride in knowing that people only knew what she wanted them to know, saw what she wanted them to see. It was something she had been confident to utilise in this wicked dance she had found herself engaged in - and, well. Where the fuck was that control now? She had given it up, given every penny of it away the moment that Tommy had touched her and the most painful part of it was that she didn't care at all. Let him have it, let him have all of it, if only he would have her, too. Have her and have her, and have her again until the world came crashing down, sulphur and acid rain into the pit of her used soul.

Oh, but she wasn't alone here. Her hands held Tommy's head, fingers knotted in his hair as he sucked her nipple, bra and dress lying discarded on the floor, his teeth grazing just enough to make her gasp his name, a prayer, a magnificat, and she revelled in the sensation of being so equally vulnerable and safe in the same moment - she knew that was him, that was everything Tommy was, and made her be.

"Tommy, please," she begged, and he brought his head up to snare her mouth, lips swollen from his attentions, and she moved her hands down to his bare back, drawing her nails hard across the inked skin. Tommy hissed into her mouth and kissed her harder, shifting so that his erection pressed against her hip. The friction made him dizzy and Harley huffed a strained laugh and dripped a hand past his waistband to tease him, touch featherlight against his underwear.

It was Tommy's turn to moan, a short, unexpected sound at the back of his throat and Harley knew that he was as lost as she was, consuming and consumed. She laughed again, hanging on the edges of delirium, and took him in her hand, enjoying the way he bucked, muscles going taught as he held himself still above her, eyes closed. Watching his face, she gently ran her thumb over the tip before sliding her hand up his thickness to the base and back down again. Unable to hold himself aloft any longer, he buried his face into her shoulder and groaned, his teeth nipping against her skin as she laughed a little, withdrawing her hand.

"Cheater," he grumbled in her ear before moving down, occasionally dropping a heavy kiss against her sternum, her breast, her stomach, the hem of her panties, the last piece of clothing she had on. Leaving them on for the moment, he pressed his tongue against the patch of dampness, tasting the slight saltiness of her arousal and prompting a sharp intake of breath.

Pleased he was back in control for the time being, Tommy began to gently bite at the inside of her thigh, making Harley shift and fidget, her hands laid flat against the bedsheets. He took his time, focused on each thigh for a long while before he began to slowly peel off her underwear. Harley made a low whining noise at his slowness and he shot her a dark smirk before running his nose across the small tangle of dark hair, tongue darting out to taste her folds, painfully languid.

"You're so wet," he teased, glancing up at her.

"Fuck, Tommy, please!" she exclaimed, placing one hand on his head to guide him back down, and Tommy laughed at her eagerness.

"Okay, baby," he conceded and buried his tongue deep into her cunt. Harley cried out, throwing her head back onto his pillow as he sucked on her clit, eating her like a ripe peach. It didn't take long for the intimacy, the pleasure to take her, and when she told him in chopped gasps that she was coming, he didn't stop. He might have said something but she couldn't hear him, could only feel the vibrations in his throat as she hit a crescendo that took like her a wave, rearing up and crashing down. As she lay there, spent, Tommy lift his head, licking his lips like he had just sampled his favourite wine, his eyes as dark as the sky outside, and when he kissed her, she tasted herself.

He pulled back, and Harley could only watch, rendered mute, as he shed his underwear, grabbing a condom from his nightstand and put it on, throwing the packet over his shoulder with a flourish that had her giggling. Though the last throws of her orgasm were still there, leaving her feeling tingly and malleable, she was desperate for this to happen. When Tommy positioned himself between her legs, his rough hands holding her hips steady and slightly aloft, Harley gripped the bedsheets, already feeling breathless.

"You ready, babe?" Tommy asked, a bead of sweat running down his forehead from the sheer effort of staying still, waiting for Harley to give her go ahead. Sensing this, Harley smiled - my god, she will raze me to ground - and nodded.

"Please," she whispered, and it was enough. Tommy pressed into her slickness, gauged her reaction, then pushed in as far as he could go. Harley arched up with a cry and Tommy closed his eyes at the blazing heat that enveloped him, held him tight. Try as he might, he couldn't stop himself and he started to thrust, deep and hard; Harley spread her legs wide and rocked her hips to match his pace, moaning each time they met, pulsing and burning and hot.

Wanting to taste her again, Tommy bent over, adjusting his hold on her hips, one arm moving to brace over her head as they rocked together, the bed banging loud against the wall with each thrust. Harley pulled his hair as Tommy bit her neck, and everything around them, between them, inside them transcended into electricity that crackled and warped, the whole universe focused inside one crappy apartment bedroom.

Together they climbed and Tommy whispered hot, wet commands in her ear, come for me, come for me baby, and she did, he did, collapsing into themselves over and over until they could do but nothing but lie there, panting and slick with sweat. Neither of them spoke for a while, Tommy lying with his face pressed into Harley's neck, one arm thrown over her waist. The echoes of their cries and moans had faded, leaving a heavy silence in which echoed the drum of their heartbeats; he felt as if he had been drowning at sea, only to wash up at her feet.

He thought maybe he should say something but couldn't think of the right thing to break the silence so instead he shifted to the side of her, giving her space - except Harley, eyes closed, grumbled a little and tried to tug him back to her. He shushed her and gently pulled her over to him so that she was draped across his chest. She murmured something unintelligible and tucked her face turned into the crook of his shoulder before relaxing completely, already asleep. Quite unable to help himself, Tommy smiled up at the ceiling, holding her tight.

"You're safe," he promised in a whisper. He could hear birds beginning to chirp outside his window, the sky already paling. Then, with Harley dreaming and the world waking, Tommy slept.

It was the sunshine, not a nightmare, that woke Tommy. He stirred and tried to use his arm to block the light only to find it pinned; disorientated, he blinked through gritty eyes to peer down at the warm weight tucked against him. It was then that the events of the night before came rushing back and all he could do was stare.

The sunlight did nothing to disturb Harley; no, she basked in it. Cast aflame in gold, her hair was a wild crown about the face she had turned into the light, unafraid. During the night she had thrown one arm above her head, crooked a leg at the knee, her body twisted enough that the sheets had slipped down to rest on her hips. Tommy's fingers twitched as he imagined tracing the golden lines that stitched across her bare breasts and rib cage which gently rose and fell under his gaze. He wondered if he would taste the sunlight on her skin: he wondered whether it would burn.

It was as if the world had been condensed down into the space inside his bedroom, these four walls that were lit ablaze with the haze of the morning. Tommy felt caught in this inbetween state, neither asleep nor truly awake and he would think that he was dreaming but he had never dreamed like this before. There was the touch of serenity about her, the sanctity of art and he was suddenly gripped with the fear that should he touch her, his fingers would stain her flesh.

His mother had raised him on tales of heroes who would fight the good fight, who would stand when all else would falter, and as a boy he would run around the yard, wielding sticks like swords, playing the hero. There was a moral to every story, a reminder to keep the faith, to carry on even when all seemed lost.

A handful of deaths later and he knew better: there was no such thing as a good fight. In real life, fights always ended the same way: blood always got spilled.

Tommy shook his head, ran his free hand across his eyes. He knew that was true, he knew it… except for those moments. Those moments in which he would read her his story and Harley would read back the same words but this time it would have one of those morals, like she was plucking a dying flower from his hand and placing it in water to heal.

Watching her now, so still as she slept, Tommy thought of his mother. Every Sunday his Ma would enter Church and even on the greyest of days, she would find the one ray of sunlight in the whole place and in it she would pray, her shaking hands clasped around her rosary so tight her fingers would go white. Please God, she would whisper. Tommy never asked her what she was praying for, and when she stopped praying, he stopped too. In the wake of her absence, he had never sought out the sun.

It seemed to have found him all the same.

Before he could lose himself further in the liminal space of his thoughts, Harley stirred then, sunlight dappled in the hollow of her collarbone as she stretched out on his sheets. Tommy squinted, almost repelled by the brightness of her. He knew her tragedy and it was unsettling to know that their stories could be the same except she was the rosary, and he was the bloodied fist that clenched it.

This chapter was rewritten on 26 April 2017. This quote in this chapter is from the book Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak.

xo