The day of the Paulsen-Kessler wedding arrives and although Donna appears happy on the outside, she can't fight off the unease that settles low in her abdomen. Telling her that she has rushed things. Let her anger at Harvey - or more so at his timing - influence her decision to set a date.
She had convinced Thomas that they're both at a certain age now, and they know they want to be together, so what's the point in waiting? It's the inevitable step after engagement anyway.
And now, she's walking down the aisle, her father on her right, dozens and dozens of familiar and not-so-familiar faces turning back to grin at her and admire the lacy gown that trails behind her as she steps in time with the music.
The actress inside her grits her teeth and dons an award worthy smile as she scans the rows of seats from behind her veil. Only looking out for one face. And not the face of her groom stood opposite her, beaming with pride as she gets closer and closer.
She can't feel him in the crowd.
They all too quickly make it to the top. Jim gives her away with a loving kiss on the cheek and in an uncontrollable blur, she's standing opposite her husband-to-be.
Veil down, she's thankful he can't really see her face right now because she's sure she isn't masking her nerves all that well anymore. She can't see him clearly either, but she's more concentrated on the crowd out of the corner of her eye anyway.
Where the hell is he?
It's a short ceremony. The way they both wanted. She hardly registers his voice, a faint, familiar murmur as he utters his vows. Everything is happening too fast. She feels like she might actually blackout before they can even finish. But she pushes through.
All too soon, it's her turn to speak and she can barely hear the words coming out of her own mouth as her ears burn, muffling everything. Her mind is completely elsewhere, feeling miles out of her body. As if she's looking down on it all rather than physically experiencing it for herself.
She distinctly hears the officiant ask if anyone has any objections, though. She waits for Harvey's voice to cut through the room. But he's really not here. To save her. To fight for her one last time.
It's her own fault. She pushed him away after his confession the night of her engagement party. She didn't give him an answer - which was an answer in itself. And now she has come to her senses. And desperately needs him to remember his. Just one more time.
She feels firm, gentle hands next. Taking her left one and sliding the ring onto her finger, before she does the same. Almost involuntarily. Watching it all unfold in front of her eyes, without having a say in what her body was doing. Puppet on strings. And she had to perform. It was too late for cold feet now. There would be no understudy.
Before she knows it, they're pronounced. Man and wife. Till death do them part.
Shit. She really let it happen.
She thinks she might actually burst into tears. This can't be a dream. It could only qualify as a nightmare.
It's okay, she convinces herself with her next shaky breath. It's for the better. He will make her happy. And any doubt will settle once this is all over.
But as her vision clears, so does her storm of thought.
She focuses on him through the veil. His smile is too big. His hands oddly comforting as they reach towards her, pinching the edges of the masking material and exposing her face to him.
Her heart begins to thaw out, pumping warmth back into her veins.
He's here. Grinning at her like she's making him the happiest man in the world just for saying I do.
You may now kiss the bride.
Harvey leans in as fingers and palms slide down her arms to her waist, wrapping around her as if they never intended on letting go. A sensational feeling replacing the sheer dread that led up to it. His lips take hers like there's nobody watching and she opens her mouth for him as her arms cross around his neck. Digits gently, yet hungrily combing through his strands, then caressing his skin. Kissing him just like she had really wanted to that night in her office.
She expels a relieved breath, mouths grazing still. "You really meant it."
"I told you I want you, Donna," Harvey mumbles against her plumped, numbing lips. Both shamelessly smiling into each other.
Until she feels him stiffen, his smile disappearing against her skin, pulling back. "But you waited too long." And when he lets go, everything turns cold again.
She opens her eyes to see the wrong smile, the wrong face. The wrong man.
One she's just married herself to.
Images of such an unwanted future forces Donna to wake in a panic, sweating and suffocating with his slumbering affection before she wriggles free from the arms that will never belong around her like his do.
She sits up and gazes back through the morning darkness to see a stranger sleeping soundly in her bed. A stranger she had fitted into her life to fill an expanding void that was hollowing out her heart. A stranger whom she never introduced to coffee with vanilla. A stranger whose ties she never fixed. A stranger whose love never felt as whole as shitty Thai nights, can opener rituals, or Del Posto dates.
A stranger she had just agreed to spend the rest of her life with.
And the more she thinks of it, the more she wonders if that was a cry for help.
A cry for him.
Friday night turns to Sunday evening. Harvey and Donna haven't seen each other since the party. She worked from home on Saturday. He was both relieved and disheartened not to see her in the office all day. He wanted to talk about it, to know how she took it, and what she plans to do with his confession. Before too many cobwebs build and they lose sight of each other again. But he was also petrified that she didn't want him back in that way. Still is. His gut tells him that she does, that he saw it in her reaction the other night. But then they parted ways, and she hasn't reached out.
He has come to realise that he's missed so many things over the years. So many signals. He doesn't want to miss any more. But he feels as though he's made himself as clear as he possibly could to someone who's engaged to another. The next move is hers to make.
He's sitting down with his first scotch of the night, the electric fire illuminating his contours as he relaxes in the dim room. Thinking of her. His eyes veer towards his record player then. A growing need for something that would make him feel anything other than this numbing nothingness.
His feelings for her ways been the largest inconvenience in his life. And yet, unlike most other hindrances, he could never bring himself to discard of them - not that he had control over them anyway. So with him they remained. She remained. And he grew to like it more and more over time; the feeling that loving someone without expecting anything in return provided him. Until moments like these cropped up. Where the fear of losing her, or the fact of having lost her, drowns out all else.
He places his tumbler on the coffee table with a sharp clink as glass meets glass. Sighing, he gets up to turn on some of his Dad's music when a forceful knock at the door demands his attention instead.
Misery might love company, but he doesn't want any. He frowns, no idea who it could be, more than tempted to ignore it. But that's not his style. Except when it's his personal life knocking, then he'll gladly lock himself away.
Inhaling the breath he'd need to carry himself down the hall, he starts making steps, reaching the end and grumpily swinging the door wide open. His unenthused expression turning to one of peak interest when he's met with his unexpected visitor.
"Donna," he says in light awe.
Her face isn't telling him a thing and she wants to get straight to the point, ensuring not to let her eyes slip to that bit of exposed chest under his white, buttoned down shirt.
"Can I come in?"
She'd never asked that before. Never had to. She'd always just shown up, come in, and made herself at home - or was already there when he arrived. Something he loved more than he'd ever let on.
"Of course."
He's caught in a daze, completely inert, her heightening brows reminding him that he actually needs to step out of the way in order for her request to be granted. He eventually snaps out of thought - or lack there of - scratching the back of his head as he gestures her inside.
She's without a coat and carries no bag as she cautiously struts her way into his apartment, the loose skirt of her black dress smacking against the backs of her knees. He wonders if she left in a hurry. She's not dressed for a New York winter evening. Not that he's complaining - not with the way the fabric clings to her flawless figure. But she must be cold.
If he'd have the nerve to ask, she'd say no. The adrenaline keeping her body adequately warm.
Harvey closes the door and forces himself to follow, dreading what's going to come out of her mouth as she turns on the spot to face him once she makes it to the edge of his kitchen island, nails resting on the marble.
But nothing does.
Sensing that it's not going to be that type of confrontation, he slowly lets the ball roll, gesturing towards his decanter in the far corner, "Can I pour you a drink?"
"No thanks, don't need one." She sits herself down on his stool, head tilting lightly, examining his cards without showing any of hers.
Harvey nods awkwardly. Doesn't know how to stand, where to look, or what to think.
He decides on tall, her unrelenting eyes, and the worst.
"But we.. need to finish that conversation you started the other night."
"I agree."
"For once.." she scoffs, unsure why she's being so standoffish. Probably nerves, and nature to self-protect.
Harvey shoots her a look for being snarky without the need. Umber eyes telling her that he's not going to argue back, doesn't have the energy, nor the want. She picks up on it, and it seems to put her at ease as he lands at the opposite side of the island, just an arm's reach between them.
"What do you wanna know?" He's no longer scared to ask, but is more than afraid of what she might answer.
She takes in a deep breath, a fearful fearlessness about her.
"Are you saying you want everything?" she questions as calmly as possible, hands on her lap, putting her most perfected performance skills to use in the hopes that he wouldn't see through her brave front. "With me?"
Hands losing his pockets, he rests them on the edge of the island for support, an apprehensive smirk forming. "You're really not wasting any time, huh?"
He's oddly comfortable with the eye contact. She's less so.
"Haven't we done enough of that?"
Donna watches his eyes fall to the space between them. "More than enough.."
"So.." Her chest rises as she speaks, before it deflates again. "What you said to me the other night… did you mean it?"
He cocks his head back up immediately, shoulders raising, face in frown and completely offended. "Of course I meant it. What did you think I-"
She has to force herself not to roll her eyes. "You'd had a few to drink, Harvey. And we both know jealousy makes you do stupid things."
Stephen Huntley flashes through both of their minds at the exact same time. She's done with using bothered. He was damn well turning green with envy and they both know it.
He could call her out for kissing him when he was with Paula, but he's not feeling tempted, or brave enough to poke the beast. Besides, how could her actions have been motivated by jealousy when she didn't even feel anything? But then, would she really be here if she didn't?
"I don't think it was stupid." He straightens up, face solemn but tone so proud she thinks she might chuckle. Until he continues. "And for the record, I'd never felt more sober in my entire life than I did when I was admitting how I felt to you."
She swallows back a sudden lump in her trachea that she thinks is her heart. This side to him would take some getting used to.
Shuffling on her seat and avoiding his eyes, she clears her throat before looking back up at him, trying to keep her top lip tight so it doesn't waver. "How long have you felt this way about me?"
There's something so refreshingly nerve-wracking in the air using such words about one another, with one another.
"I told you, I-"
"Yeah, that you realised you've always wanted me.." Donna cuts in, completely unwilling to let them go in circles any longer. "But when did always begin?" she asks, genuinely curious, completely oblivious. "And what does want mean… to you?"
She knows what she wants it to mean, what she thinks it means. But she still needs to know how he means it.
"Donna.."
Her trained Harvey eye notices his signature ways return - cagey and guarded whenever it comes to emotional expression.
"I need to know, Harvey." Her tone is firm, uncompromising. He can tell it's now or never but…
She's fucking engaged.
He hears her sigh with exasperation before he senses her standing to leave.
"If you won't even tell me how you-"
"I can't!" he cries out in frustration, having her gape up at him in surprise.
His dark, distending pupils slowly mark her face and body before he turns himself away, as if half afraid he'd lunge at her across the counter right then and there. He feels his eyes prick, probably becoming red, and definitely angered, disturbed by the neglect of now irrepressible emotions.
She watches his back bend with burden as he hunches over the opposite countertop, knuckles digging into icy marble.
"It wouldn't be right.." he mumbles with low, shallow breath.
Donna smiles sadly and glances down at her ring finger with guilt. She had a feeling that her being with Thomas affected him from the very beginning. Of course he made no effort to tell her as much so she ignored it until it went away. Or until he got better at hiding it. But just as the sun can never stay down for long, this blaze was bound to rise again.
Watering eyes trail back up to his fatigued form, still facing away from her while he faces his demons. Telling her the ins and outs of his love for her would have him cross all sorts of self-prohibited infidelity lines. Friday had been taxing enough for him. Knowing another man, who'd never done a thing wrong to him, was in the same building the very moment he made a play for his girlfriend.
But it's different, with her. She's Donna. How could he not try? She might be another man's fiancé, but she's his.. everything.
He hears her heels against the hard flooring a few seconds later, gently clicking their way towards him as she rounds the island.
His left side warms with her presence. He doesn't look up yet. His knuckles turn white under the pressure, then he relaxes his fists.
Donna releases a subdued sigh, their shared exhaustion wearing her down. Years of concealed pain seeming so pointless now. She wants to see him smile again. Needs to. Partly so she can too. But mostly because she misses it.
"Harvey," he hears her whisper at his shoulder.
His spine twitches under her unexpected touch. Her flat palm tenderly kissing his upper back, smoothly rubbing circles as she gazes up at him, desperate for him to look at her. So she can show him.
But he doesn't dare. If he so much as glances at her right now, he'll have no hope of avoiding the same path as his mother.
She lowers her head to hide her shy smile from the corner of his vision, knowing damn well why he was avoiding locking eyes. The thought alone enough to have her blush.
His jaw grates with a rapidly relenting resistance when her left hand lands on his bicep next, fingers wrapping around the muscle in a soothing caress.
"Donna…" he grumbles, deep, eyes forced shut and groin simmering with the sudden contact.
He feels her warm breath against him, swears it was a small, silent laugh. The fact that she's teasing him like this only frustrates him more, yet he can't pull himself away. Her touch too torturously sublime. He imagines this must be how drug addicts feel.
Her left hands slides all the way down his contracted muscle, then forearm, meeting the exposed flesh after his elbow, her skin on his forcing hairs to stand tall, communicating with goosebumps all over his body.
"Harvey…" he hears again, dare he say in a sultry tone. Her palm is sliding over his, and before long, she's wedging her slender digits between his firm ones as they each lay flat over the counter. "Open your eyes."
Her anticipating stare flickers over his face as she waits for him to comply. When he does, her thumb strokes his own. She watches his gaze meet their conjoined hands. Her hand, to be more specific.
"Notice anything?" she asks sweetly, in her gentlest tone that neither are aware is just for him.
It takes him a second, but no more.
No ring.
His brows crease and he straightens. He lifts his hand to get a better look at hers. Silently studying her sculpture. Beginning to feel as though life just knocked on his door again.
She watches a timid smile crack at the corner of his mouth, making her heart come alive the same way it did when she kissed him. "I guess I was sick of all the lies too."
Then he looks at her, and just like that things shift. And he's pulling away, forcing himself out of her grip.
Her arms drop to her sides, a pang in her chest.
How was that his next move?
He starts getting anxious, pacing, fingers roaming through his hair.
"Harvey, what's the matter…" she asks slowly.
"Promise me something," he blurts, finally looking back at her, stepping closer, hands desperate to touch, but holding back.
"Depends wha-"
"Promise me this is what you really want." And you're not just pitying me, he finishes telepathically. "That I haven't ruined your chance of happiness."
Donna closes her eyes with an exhale, relieved it's just that. Something she can easily confirm. And that he's not trying to run away once things got a bit too real. Again.
She smiles, lips pressing together to tamper down a grin. With a lascivious smirk, she fills the gap between them, hands on his waist before her right slides upwards and stills just under his ribcage.
"I want you, Harvey. You're my more. Always have been, always will be."
She says it so simply, so matter-of-factly, that he wonders how he ever believed anything else to be true.
Donna watches as the most relieved smile she's ever seen starts to form and she can't help but reflect it. She feels the rest of it next, pressing against her lips as starved hands grasp her neck and pull her closer to deepen the embrace. Her fingers pull at his shirt and skin as her need for him builds, humming into their kiss, breathing hot against him, standing on her toes to reach that little bit more of him just before she pulls her head back, bodies still molded, her eyes saturated with lust as she beams up at his adorably confused face.
"You still haven't answered my questions.."
"Isn't this your answer?" His thumb slowly swipes her bottom lip, his own pair having spread some gloss around her mouth, now raw.
"This is a kiss," she teases.
"Donna.."
"Harvey.."
He exhales, cocking his head with a smirk. Stubborn to the bone. One of the many reasons he loves her so much.
"Always.. began the night I met you."
He leans in and kisses her, making her laugh and break contact once again as she waits for the rest of her answers, his answers.
He tastes her neck, intentionally getting her as hot and bothered as possible. If she was going to force this out of him, knowing what he's like with this sort of shit, he was going to make her pay for it. Even if it was all pleasure at the end of the day.
"Want.. means love."
He pulls back from her jugular so he can get a good look at her, and her reaction. He grins with boyish satisfaction when he sees he's left her speechless. She feels his hands under her ass next as he spontaneously picks her up and firmly plants her on the island, before he pins back a stray lock of honey hair behind her ear.
"And this is how."
Donna moans when she finally feels the response to love me how against her mouth, this time bruising, telling her everything she ever wondered with lips, teeth and tongue. She widens for him, desperately needing to taste more of him after all the words he's just uttered.
He pulls her against his groin. He knows she can feel his dick twitch under her clothed centre as her limbs hug his hips with an endearing possessiveness. Her thumbs under his ears, fingers tasting his neck and scalp, she eagerly reciprocates, slowly rocking against him before she tugs his lower lip between her teeth, kissing it with tongue until she relaxes, ravenous, hooded eyes telling him to get her naked, now.
She hasn't seen him look so smug in forever and she realises just how much she's missed that big idiot grin. Doesn't know how she ever tried to replace it because it's clear to her now that it cannot be duplicated. No smile looks like his. No smile feels like his. But more so, no smile makes her smile quite like his.
Open mouthed and breathy, they meet for another kiss, one hand exploring up her spine, stopping at the nape of her neck before slowly sliding her zipper back down with it until he reaches the mark just above her ass. She shivers as the air bites her flesh, but knows it's just because it's him who's undressing her.
He feels her hands in his hair as skilled lips redden the skin down her neck, ceasing at her collar bone before teeth find the strap of her dress and pull it down her shoulder, his hand working the other one. Legs tightening further around him, she releases a sigh of pure arousal, wriggling her arms out of her dress as he helps both straps off of her arms, awakening goosebumps the entire way down. He abruptly pulls the material down to her waist, jet black eyes met with ivory flesh and voluptuous breast, begging to be freed of her bra. Her come-hither eyes summoning his hands to do the same. One palm kneading her breast, thumb flicking the nipple under the fabric as the other unhooks it from behind, soon discarding it across the floor without a second thought.
"Christ," he grumbles lowly, and she observes his eyes darkening in the dim light they share, his tone so enthralled by her physique that she feels herself slicken even more so.
She doesn't even have time to utter a witty comment before he's fervently sucking her nipple, massaging the other in the space between his thumb and index so intensely she starts to grind against him again, bending to the tension building in her groin, her clit beating as he stimulates her, forcing her head to drop back, one hand around his neck, one palm planted on the counter for support as he leans into her while he works for combined gratification, his heated breath whispering sweet nothings - seductive everythings - along her chest and neck, using their position to orally explore her upper body until he's kissing her gaped mouth again. Her brows heightening with amplified need each time he tweaks her flesh between his digits, his other thumb drawing circles on her waist, triggering muscles to dance under his intended touch.
Suddenly, Harvey slows down his movements and waits for her lustrous eyes to flutter open so he can look at her as he thumbs her erect nipple some more. After she does, he glides his left hand down her hip, then thigh, raking back up along the smooth flesh beneath her dress as his indenting fingers flush her pale skin pink.
He lightens his grip on her breast, sharing eye contact still as that hand gently grasps her waist to steady her while his other hand slips between her legs, teasingly caressing warm flesh over her soiled thong.
"Don't say it," she warns, squirming under the contact.
Harvey smirks, watches her close her eyes as he purposefully strokes his thumb over her covered clit, making it throb louder, almost unbearably. One set of fingers squeezing his bicep, the other latching to the side of his neck, she inhales with a gasp that he feels in his groin when his hand ventures under the material. Strong digits moving diligently down her dripping folds until his thumb meets her swollen centre.
"Do I even need to?"
When she goes to roll her eyes he presses her where it matters most and she lets out a small whimper, pulling her face closer to his, noses grazing as she recalls the last time she felt such orgasmic ministrations.
"It's been a long.. fourteen years," she pants at the memory.
He immediately makes her sigh against his parted lips as his fingers massage her nether ones, stalling a second at her entrance before pupils connect and he slips two inward, leaving his fingerprints inside her core for the first time in far too long, padding her flesh as they curl against her, hitting her internal trigger over and over, simultaneously pressuring her exposed centre with each slick brush of his thumb.
After a few thrusts, he adds a third finger, "Thirteen and a half," grunting against her mouth when she inhales sharply at his smartass correction.
Struggling to catch her breath, forehead now lightly decorated with sweat, she still can't resist teasing him back. "Are you gonna make me come or what?"
"Only all night," he replies with a fervent kiss - and without missing a beat.
Donna whines. Harvey tugs on her bottom lip, numbing the flesh, fingers writhing inside of her on repeat, fucking her senseless as their sound resonates the room, and them. She jerks against him without control, riding the hand that was bringing her closer to climax with each zealous caress.
Her next sound is lodged in her throat as she nears culmination. Electric waves ripping through her core before she comes over his palm, contracting around his fingers still working inside her, steering her towards the ultimate ecstasy, unstable legs eventually loosening their grip around him as she rides out her orgasm under a coital daze.
He gently soothes her tender centre a while longer before he pulls out, leaving her tingling, trailing his lubricated hand down the side of her thigh, kissing her softly, feeling her press herself up against his restricted erection, already missing him inside of her.
She kisses back lazily before regaining her senses, sending her most satisfied smirk his way as she nips her lower lip and smiles into him, arms around his neck and shoulders, vehemently cementing them together. She feels large hands rubbing her thighs, squeezing her ass. Smiling into him and mumbling something about it being his turn, her fingers tip-toe down his chest, hand stroking his hardness on the way down before cupping his crotch, eliciting a low growl from him as he buries his head in the crook of her neck before he's kissing it, lightly nipping her pulsing skin.
When he hears his zipper being pulled down, he lovingly grips her hand and shakes his head, eyes smiling into hers. He could fill her right then and there, but they've waited long enough. He figures he can wait another few steps until he can lay her down like she deserves.
Without warning, he swoops her off the counter, her hands joining around his neck at the surprise action, limbs crossing over his ass as he walks them somewhere she's never been.
"Kitchen not good enough for you?"
He hears her nerves beneath the facetious facade, but they're the good kind.
"I need a bed for what I wanna do with you next."
That shuts her up, makes her smile. He likes that.
He walks them over the threshold and she watches his grin broaden as he playfully throws her down over his linen with a thud. Her eyes have never looked darker, no green to be seen as devilish hazel beams up at him. He lowers himself on top of her, bodies clashing, lips smashing. She quickly works the remaining buttons, but it's still not quick enough for his incredibly palpable need.
"Just rip it," he mutters into her mouth, rocking on top of her, into her, feeling her grin at the thought of it as his hand works her breast once again.
It only turns her on even more, knowing how particular he is about his attire yet still wanting her to rip the shirt clean off his body. And she isn't about to protest.
The rest of his buttons pop, bouncing onto the bed and floor, hungry hands immediately sweeping over skin and muscle, raking abs before gliding over shoulders and guiding him out of the fabric, naked chests meeting with their next kiss.
His pants are on the floor soon after, followed by her dress after he sweeps the rest of it off her body, then their underwear. Total exposure, well past the point of no return - thank God.
Eyes and fingers run up her naked length with less haste, taking her in as much as he wished he'd done the last time. His young, eager self more focused on showing her a good time than stopping to think about how much of a good time she was showing him.
His erection grazes her hip as he lies against her side, hand stopping right under her breast, thumb stroking her nipple before his eyes find her awaiting ones. "You've never looked more beautiful."
He notices her breath hitch, her blinking slow. But he can tell by the way she schools her reaction that she's thinking of a clever reply, out of habit mostly. But there's a hint of insecurity there too.
The word suddenly feels meaningful for the first time in her life.
"Careful there," she smirks, thumb gently greeting the moles over his brow as she scans them before her eyes fall on his, her wavering tone not matching her steady composure. "You might fall in love with me."
He decides in that moment that he needs to say it. Mostly because she clearly needs to hear it. So she can finally stop masking her feelings. But also because he needs to hear it out loud too, before he goes crazy keeping it to himself any longer.
"Donna.. I've been falling in love with you ever since the night I met you."
She tilts her head an inch, mouth bending as she tampers down the endless array of emotions bubbling under a bashful grin. One that means all the more to him considering she's never the timorous type. Making it all feel supremely saccharine, like silently spoken confirmation that with him, it's different.
"Good."
The way she said it told him that she really meant me too.
"Good."
He seals his final confession with a shy smiling kiss and she pulls him directly on top of her, spreading her legs to accommodate him. His adventurous lips trail down her jaw when she wraps her fingers around his hardened girth, turning sentiment to stimulus as she strokes out the last of his arousal. He grunts at the firm grip and nips her ear lobe, the pad of her thumb wet as she swipes it over the head of his cock, smearing precome down his shaft, now throbbing under her tenacious touch. He jerks into her hand, his tip tapping against her lower abdomen with each movement, until he's more than ready and neither feel like waiting another goddamn second. The mutual trust they've always shared cancelling out the need for conversations about pills and protection.
Besides, they both wanted it to be raw.
He takes the reins - his cock - teasing her clit with an inward smirk as he glides it down her wet, pulsating flesh. Taking pleasure as she moans with heavy lids, fingers digging into each bicep, noses kissing and lips searching before he buries himself inside her with an overdue sigh, evoking a gasp that morphs into a whine courtesy of his full length and width stretching her walls, and destroying any last doubt in her mind that this was always destined.
He deepens himself further inside the slicker she becomes, slipping in and out with the surging promise of synchronous climax. A withering heat burning through her core with each rhythmic motion. Sensing their peak, he links his right hand with her left, squeezing her tight while pressing the back of her palm into his pillow, using the bond to strengthen his final, and most crucial thrusts. The bed suddenly seems less sturdy as their bodies smack together on repeat, light sweat forming, wild sounds escaping.
His free hand comes between them then, rubbing circles around her bundle of nerves as she jerks into him.
"Donna.."
"Harv-" she whimpers, mouth hanging open with him panting over her, never finishing his name as her orgasm courses through her veins, vigorously spasming hips having him spill into her in no time at all.
He collapses on top of her, nuzzling into flaming hair and flushed skin.
She's lazily running fingers through his hair, head resting on her speckled chest, quickly rising and falling as she regains her breath with his stellar, spent body laying over her, and inside her, softer now. A pair of hands still joined, clammy with intimate need.
"That was…"
"Completely worth the wait," he finishes, kissing the flesh above her breast.
"Something like that."
He eventually begins to shuffle on top of her, eyes meeting hers with a satisfied stare before he kisses her, top lip between both of his. When he breaks, his lashes flicker over her infatuated features, before he mindfully pulls out, falling down beside her, reeling her closer with a kiss on the temple and pressing his stomach into her back.
He still holds her hand as they mold together again, thumb stroking her fingers but eyes only focused on one in particular. Now free of what once confined him to a life of loneliness no matter who would have replaced her someday. Not like anybody actually could. But he would have had to move on.
She feels her palm breathe again when he lets go to reach over and grab some tissues from his night stand, tending to her with such affection and comfort that she wonders if he's like this with all the women.
He isn't. And she damn well knows it - deep down at least.
"Such a gent," she purrs as he finishes, pulling her against him like before, left hand catching hers, chin resting between her shoulder and neck. She feels his softened length rest against her ass as a glorious ache between her legs begins to rise.
"Apparently so, tonight." He purposely let her know that it's just her, lips tending to a cluster of golden freckles on her shoulder as she caresses him back with her cheek.
"And tomorrow night, I hope."
His soft laugh reverberates through her skin until it hits her heart. "Every night, Donna."
"And who says I want you every night?"
"You did."
"And when was that?" She turns her head back to him, frowning with a crooked smile.
"Two minutes ago when I was making you come."
"Jesus Christ," she chuckles, shaking with laughter.
"I believe it was Harv," he mimics.
He feels a light walk against his bicep, knowing she loves it really. He squeezes her tight and they take a break from the teasing, just enjoying the sound, and the feeling of the other breathing in sync with them.
"Every night sounds good," she mumbles, sleepy eyes watching the tips of his fingers gently waltzing over the back of her palm.
"Sounds perfect."
Lulling minutes pass and he's still transfixed by her hand, naked again, no more dazzling diamond taunting him with bleak reminders of a soulmate-less existence.
She feels his burgeoning smile against her skin, but can't see it. Doesn't know what is causing it exactly. Too content, and too dazed still to wonder about specifics. So she's unaware it's because he knows he gets to be the one to put the next, and last, ring on her finger.
As they get comfortable under his sheets, he feels like himself again. Strong again. The type of love he has for her used to feel impossibly overwhelming, debilitating even. Because he had nowhere to put it all those years, nobody he could truly focus it on. So it smothered him. But now he has finally found a place for it. The most obvious place.
Her.
.
.
.
thanks for reading! :) and here's to hoping Thomas (TCM) actually fucks off as soon as possible in 8b!
love riding this wave with you all, we got this.
x