Key
(set in 7.06)
She's come to return his key, come to admit the lie she told him that night when he dropped the bombshell on her she hadn't allowed herself to see coming.
She holds it up between her fingers, dangling it back and forth, thinking it feels oddly like a symbol of surrender.
"What's that?"
"Something I should have given back to you a long time ago," she answers him, sliding it down onto his desk. "It's the key to your apartment."
"I don't understand," he says, confusion rippling on his face and she can't help thinking how typically Harvey it is of him to question why she would return something so personal, now that he was in a relationship.
"I didn't know about you and Paula, Harvey and I kept it from you." She winces at the truth, feeling sickness spreading out through her body. She hates that she lied, almost as much as she hated hearing what he told her. "And I don't want to keep it from you, because I'm happy for you." She forces a smile on her face, hopes it's convincing, and tries not to focus on the fact that she's replacing one lie with another.
"Donna," he goes to stop her but she needs to say the rest of what she rehearsed. She needs to add a few more bricks to the wall that's always been between them to help convince herself that the hazy one day maybe option she always felt existed just out of her reach is gone for good.
"I said I wanted more and I got what I wanted." She piles on another lie. She loves being COO, but deep down she knows it's not really the more she was asking for that night. Guilt niggles at her to try and add a little truth, so she continues. "But when you told me about the two of you, for a second there…."
"Donna," he says more forcefully, interrupting her. He stands now, moving around his desk to where she is. She catches the way his eyes run up her legs, long and bare under her admittedly short dress. It shouldn't affect her so much but it does, making goosebumps dance along her spine. Irritation flashing through also, because quite frankly he shouldn't be staring at her like that when he has another woman waiting for him at home.
He picks the key up off his desk and deposits it back into her hand, closing her fingers securely around it.
"It's your key, I want you to keep it." His voice is low and firm, his words insistent. His hand is still on hers, making her shiver. She can feel the warmth of his skin burning into hers and she focuses on repeating her new mantra in her head. He's not mine, he's not mine.
But he's still holding her hand, when they never touch, and he's looking at her like she is his and god when will she ever be free of this spell that he's cast over her.
"Donna," he says, the word gruff and broken, caught in his throat. It's her name but it always means more when he says it like this. It's a question, an answer, a cry for help.
She tries to pull her hand free because this moment has gone in a direction she didn't expect and she can't stay here with his fingers on her and his eyes on her, when he isn't hers. She came here to return his key, a symbolic end to whatever it was that used to be between them and can't be any more.
He doesn't let her pull her hand free.
"Donna," he says again, and she knows can't run even if she wants to. She's trapped in his orbit and maybe he's not hers, but she's his. And always will be.
She meets his gaze, stares into those deep brown penetrating eyes she's been avoiding, surrendering herself to him as she whispers his name. She doesn't know what is happening here, what he is thinking in this moment, but she lets him decide the next step.
And then his lips are on hers, hungry and demanding, his tongue seeking entrance. She parts her lips, opens herself to him, let's him claim what has always been his.
As his hands run up her legs and under the short hem of her skirt she wonders if maybe this was what she'd been hoping for all along when she decided to wear this particular dress today. She thought she'd chosen it as armour, needing the confidence boost it gave her knowing how good her legs looked wearing it. But maybe a small, much less graceful part of her, chose it as temptation as well, as a 'here's what you're missing out on' smack in the face.
His hands are on her ass, fingers pressing into her flesh as he pulls her into him, their bodies melding together, his lips never leaving hers.
She's lost. Drowning in need and desire and the taste of him. It's wrong, they can't do this, she needs to stop them because regret and hurt and anger is all that will come of this. But fuck, she can't. And perhaps even more strongly, she doesn't want to.
Her hands come to his jacket, tugging hard, yanking the fabric from his shoulders. He shrugs, letting it fall free to the floor. She moves on to his tie, as Harvey's lips leave hers for the first time, tracking a path across her cheek and down her neck, teeth nipping and tongue soothing.
He nudges her backwards, their movements clumsy, until her thighs press against the edge of his desk. She drags her nails up his back, pulling him in close to her, pushing out every last bit of space between them. His hands disappear under her dress once more, fingers brush over damp lace and she whimpers. She's almost embarrassed by how wet and hot and needy she already is, except she can feel the heavy weight of Harvey's own arousal rubbing against her thigh.
His thumb lands on her clit and she groans, loudly, and she can once more feel the weight of all the reasons why they shouldn't be doing this crushing down on her. Paula, her rule, Harvey's family history, the fact they're on clear display in his glass walled office should anyone walk by.
Then Harvey sighs her name into the curve of her neck, and it's soft and powerful all at once, like he can't believe he's touching her again. She hears no regret, no hesitation in his tone and she breathes in his conviction. Lets it sink into her veins and run in her bloodstream.
Maybe this isn't wrong after all. Maybe this is perfectly astoundingly right, and they're both only just realising it now.
So she doesn't stop him when he hooks his fingers into the band of her panties, doesn't stop him when he drags them down her legs and tosses them to the floor. And he doesn't stop her when she reaches for the buckle of his pants, pulling down the zipper and slipping her hands into his boxers, stroking his heated solid flesh.
"Fuck Donna," he groans against her throat, before recapturing her lips with his. His teeth tug on her swollen bottom lip as her hand pumps him slowly and then she pushes his underwear down just enough to free him.
She guides him to her centre, as he braces his hands on her thighs, pushing them apart. He pauses at her entrance, stilling for just a moment before thrusting forward, burying himself to the hilt deep inside her. She gasps and claws at his shoulders as he peppers kisses along her jawbone and breathes curses into her ear.
He's so big inside her and even though she's had first hand experience before his length and girth still shock her. She pants around his size, feeling full and stretched as he rocks himself into her. Harvey guides her legs up and she hooks her heels over his hips. He pulls back, sliding out and then slams back in again, and fuck it feels amazing, balancing on a tightrope between pleasure and pain and she shouldn't be this far gone already but she is.
He picks up the pace, thrusting fast and rough inside her, and she's once more vividly aware of the fact she's sprawled on his desk in the middle of the office. But she can't bring herself to care. Harvey moving inside her again after all these years, his hands on her breasts and his lips on her neck, it's overwhelming. He's lit an inferno inside her and the world could come crashing down around them and she'd still be right here, pressing her body into his and revelling in the feel of him sliding inside her.
She's shaking and trembling, teetering on the edge in a matter of minutes, and she can tell he's right there with her. He moves a hand between their bodies, grinding his thumb against her clit, once, twice, and then she's falling apart, mewling and whimpering, unable to control the sounds falling from her lips. Harvey grunts her name in her ear as he comes, buried inside her, their bodies wrapped so tightly around each other she feels like they're no longer separate beings. They're one.
But with the insatiable need between them sated (only temporarily she knows) reality starts to seep down over her. Harvey's still pressed inside her, his hands brushing gently along her spine, his lips moving against her skin and she knows he's still lost in the moment. Knows the cold hard truth of what they've just done, the rules they've just broken will shake him to his foundation.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, feeling tears sting at the corner of her eyes. "I shouldn't have let that happen."
Her heart is cracking apart, splitting in two, never to be repaired. Because she realised, as Harvey pummelled himself into her on his desk, that she didn't just love him, she was in love with him. She realised that she always would be. But of all the rules, of all the beliefs that Harvey holds in his heart, adultery is the one that can never be forgiven.
They'll never recover from this.
His fingers close around her chin, tilting her face up to meet his.
"We shouldn't have done this," she says again, and she's surprised to see hurt flash in his irises.
"Why not?"
She can't say the word out loud. Can't say another woman's name while he's still buried inside her.
"Donna," he says slowly, reaching a hand up to brush away her tears. "I broke up with her last night."
She feels the world fall out from under her, and she's certain she would have tumbled to the floor had he not been holding her so tightly.
"The second I told you about us I realised my mistake. She's not the person I'm meant to be with." His lips move against hers as he says the words that change everything.
"You are."