They settle on pasta and a movie. Donna perches herself on the countertop next to him as he starts to dice the onions, mesmerised as usual by steady slide of his knife against the chopping board. It feels… familiar, if not quite normal yet. She watches, he slices, it's good, it's safe. It's what they do. Onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes. With each new vegetable on the board he catches her shifting a little closer, and by the time he's quartering the tomatoes his knuckles are brushing against the fabric of her dress with nearly every movement.
She waits until everything's sizzling quietly in the pan before she makes her move. He feels more than sees the flutter of her fingers at his shoulder, shifting instinctively into the warmth of her grasp as she pulls him into the cradle of her knees.
"Hi," he murmurs, shifting up to press his lips to hers. It's not an angle he's used to: the counter gives her the height advantage, and there's something a little too perfect about the way she tilts his head upwards, slots her mouth over his. She gives, he takes. It's good. It's safe.
Breaking away to catch his breath feels unwarranted — she's oxygen, she's all the air he breathes — but Harvey does eventually force himself to, rendered a little dizzy by the way her tongue keeps skating the seam of his lips.
"Stay close," she whispers. Then her brow furrows, like she hadn't actually meant to say the words out loud.
"Always." Oh, always. He says it, and he means it, pressing the weight of the next three years into the scant syllables. He will not leave her. She has to know this.
When he catches her gaze again, though, she looks devastated. Which, okay. Not the response you usually get for pledging your undying love to a girl.
"Hey," he presses. "What's wrong?"
Very stupid question, he realises, about half a second too late. What's wrong? Except for the prison time. And also the end of the world.
Alarmingly, Donna doesn't even call him out on it. Instead she swallows, hard, fixes her tear-smudged eyes on his with such awful determination that Harvey feels his chest constrict.
"I can't do this to you."
Oh, God. She's trying to fall on her sword. He should've known. He should've known.
"Donna—"
"No, Harvey, listen. I did this. I'm guilty. I can't watch you throw the next three years of your life away all because of mymistake. I won't—" she takes a shuddering breath, cupping his face between trembling hands. She's been rehearsing this since the verdict, and he can tell. The words are too clear-cut, the sentiment too glaring. "I won't let you."
A sacrifice. Her life for his. Harvey finds himself lost for words, equal parts dismantled and horrified that she thinks there's even a chance that he'll listen to this at all.
"I'm not leaving you," he finally manages, through gritted teeth. "I don't know how."
She's shaking her head, melting into him, tears streaming in rivulets down her face. "You have to. You have to. You can't ruin your life for me."
"I'm not leaving you."
"I'll make you."
"I'm not leaving you."
"I'll stop picking up the phone. I won't respond when you visit."
"I'll call every day. I'll visit every week anyway. I'm not leaving you."
"Harvey, please—"
"Donna." She finally pauses, all but gasping for breath as he holds her in his gaze. He doesn't look away, and neither does she, even though her eyes are frantic, pleading, lost. "Stop."
The command is all it takes to wrench the strength from her frame, and all at once she's slumping into him, sobbing something into his shoulder about how he has to leave, he has to.
"I can't do this to you," she hiccups, clutching at his back like a scared animal as he draws her down off the counter, takes her completely into the circle of his arms. "Please. I can't."
"I don't care," he whispers, and he finds that he means it with every fibre in his chest. He'd follow her into the apocalypse. "You're it for me, Donna. You know that. I'm not letting you do this on your own."
"I'm gonna ruin your life," she returns, and oh, no, she doesn't get it.
He thinks: you are my life. He thinks: you're all I've ever had.
"Okay," he murmurs, this portrait of a broken man. "So ruin it."
Harvey feels her trembling grip tighten around his shoulders, and then she's pulling away to look him in the eyes with such vulnerability on her tear-stained face that he almost breaks. He waits for her to say something terrible, something final, waits for her mouth to move around the word no in a tone which allows for no argument.
Instead she kisses him. Hard.
She tastes like tears, like salt, like the sea. The way she moves is so desperate that it becomes graceless, because she's opening her mouth against his before he can even process the kiss in the first place and the moan she lets out within seconds has him clutching the kitchen island for support.
It's hungry, hopeless, devastating. Donna kisses him and kisses him, finds the strength somewhere to push against him until he's backed up all the way into the couch across the room, until he's crashing down into the soft leather with her grinding down into his lap so hard his vision goes white. Way too much, way too soon — it won't be their last time, he knows that, but he also knows that this is going to be over fast unless she stops, fuck, unless she stops making that noise every time her centre brushes over the growing bulge in his pants.
Gentle as he's capable, Harvey presses a palm to her shoulder. Donna responds in kind, pulling away from him with a desperate look on her face, but god her hips are still moving and he wonders for a moment if she's even aware of it happening at all.
"Please," she murmurs, please don't stop, let me have this, "Please. I want this. I want you."
"I know," he gasps, cramming his free hand to her hipbone in a frantic bid to slow her down. "Shit, me too, you just—" oh my god, "you have to—"
In any other situation, he'd be mortally embarrassed. He can't even finish his sentence, can't even find the words to tell her that he's about to come in his pants like a goddamn teenager unless she stops right fucking now. In any other situation she'd smirk at him, palm his crotch and laugh at whatever sound he made, kiss the hunger off his lips and let him take her as slow as he wanted.
Except it's different now. Except he can't finish a sentence but neither can she, and she wants him, she wants him, she's going to prison in three days and she needs this so badly that she almost can't see past the blinding shroud of anguish.
So she holds his gaze. Harvey waits, utterly entranced, now and always, almost fails to notice the way her hands are both travelling south down his chest.
He only clocks the motion once she gets to his belt, hisses at the flash of pressure as she starts to unbuckle it. She doesn't look away once, and the tension alone is almost enough to send him over the goddamn edge, warning lights flashing in his vision as her eyelids flutter slightly at the feeling of him in her palm.
"Tell me you want this," she intones, eyes pleading.
"I want this," he returns. It's almost instant. An emotion flashes across her face, so fast he can't read it, and then she's pulling him free of his trousers and hitching her dress up and holy shit, holy shit.
She doesn't even bother with tugging her underwear all the way down. Harvey thinks he might die. Donna only pulls the dark fabric to the side, watching with a strange fascination as he just stares and stares, then she sinks down onto him and his head falls backwards into the couch cushion and she lets out a noise so obscene that Harvey's eyes slam shut.
"Oh god," she hears him say, his voice already raw.
"Yeah?"
With all the strength left in his spine, Harvey forces his head back up to look at her.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Donna, I'm—"
"Shh. I know." Whether he means to say sorry, or already close, or in love with you, it doesn't matter. What matters is that he's here. They're here. They have tonight.
"Okay," he manages, finally regaining basic motor function and using both hands to draw her face back to his. He slicks his tongue into her mouth straight away and Donna gasps, hips rolling out of habit, but the motion serves as a very prominent reminder of their current position and they both gasp, all but breathing each other in.
It's so good already, somehow — even though she's barely moved, even they're both still fully-goddamn-clothed, even though there's been almost no build up at all. Harvey watches Donna's mouth fall open on a strangled groan, eyes shutting as she keeps moving, rocking back and forth as her fingers scrabble for something to hold onto.
Eventually they find his palms, and she laces their fingers together, draws their interlinked hands up until they're stretched into the cool leather above his head. Harvey's breath catches at the gentle show of control. He could free his hands from hers, it's not meant to be overly restrictive, but he won't, he won't. He's so turned on he can't even think.
She holds him there, her entire body pressed against the length of his, every movement a revolution. Donna builds a steady rhythm, panting against his mouth, and her eyes are still closed but his are open, so open, watching every move she makes.
There's a desolate sort of poetry in the way he takes her in: the drum of pulse at her throat, the gentle swing of her hair, the furrow in her brow that appears every time he lets his hips jerk a little. The freckles at her shoulder, the ridges of her knuckles, the shape of her lips. She's rocking a little faster now, riding him, her forehead falling to press against his chest as she loses herself in the feeling. Harvey kisses the crown of her head, a drowning man, his hands trapped still but yearning more than anything to slide up and down her body, map every gentle curve.
It's union in a way it hasn't been before with them — not since the first night. He fills her so completely and when she starts to flutter around him he feels it, hears the newfound rasp to the breaths she's taking with such clarity that it doesn't seem real.
"Harvey," she gets out, the word trailing off at its end to give way to a shuddering whimper as he finally starts to piston his hips up into her. "Fuck."
She cries out, a delicious, raw sound, when he wrenches one hand free from her grasp and cups it around the back of her neck, tugging her lips back to his. It's hardly even a kiss, just a scant smudging of mouths, hers open and gasping into his with every meeting of their lips. Harvey's eyes finally slam closed again as he fists a trembling hand in her hair.
"Harder," she moans, her body shifting, quivering against him, and they're both holding out for something, both coasting along the edge of release for the same reason. Because they want to remember this. Because, hopelessly, they want this moment to last forever.
Harvey lets go completely, slamming his hips up into hers, desperate, desperate, desperate. He repeats the motion again and again, rolling his pelvis a little to draw out the pleasure, and she's crying out against him, her moans tripping right into the cavern of his mouth, and holy shit he has to give into the pressure right now before he passes out from how fucking good this feels.
Donna whips a hand down from above their heads to circle her own clit, once, twice, and then her fingers brush against his dick where they're joined and oh god holy fucking shit, he's seeing the stars, the moon, the sun. He can't lose her. He can't lose her.
Finally, oh finally, Donna clenches around him, her muscles going taut as she sobs out her release against his lips. Harvey curls his arm across her back, pressing her entire body into his as he thrusts up again for a final time, and then he falls with her through the devastating white-wash of his orgasm, body jerking, vision going blank, brain wiped of any coherent thought beyond her name, her name, her name.
Donna.
second time writing smut ever ?! sorry if it's utterly terrible. we do what we can
reviews are appreciated! last chapter didnt get any LMAOOAOO which is understandable (it was NOT my best) but even still, comments r very motivating so if u wanna see more of this story then pls do let me know xoxox