daylightmidnights

[daylightmidnights]

Um. I'm sorry, what?!!! What the fuck did you do Miss Olivia?? Do you plan on killing us? This is INSANE. Crazy, absolutely crazy. I'm shaking. I can't breath properly. The whole fic was crazy. Every paragraph is crazy. Then you ended it there? How dare you!!!! Why would you do that!!???; I can't wait for the next chapter. I think I'd die. So good so good soooooooooo fucking good

Did she hear him right? 

“Huh?” 

“Do you like feeling out of control of your body?” Oh, so she had definitely heard him right. 

“I mean like. . .like I guess it depends on the context?” Her mind is whirling, spinning wildly, flinging around, knocked off its axis, and careening like a piece of rock flying through space. Why did she say that — why did he ask that?

Harry laughed – it’s a real thing; something she’d only briefly heard a couple of times when they were out with each other last week. This one doesn’t last very long, but it truly is a gleeful sound, as he shakes his head quietly to himself, “Depends on the context, huh?” He repeated, and Y/N didn’t think she’d ever seen him so amused. It makes something twist in her belly, low and deep, that she’d rather ignore. 

or

Harry thinks Y/N is cute and Y/N is having horny nightmares

part 1

(18K+ words)

ii.

“He said what?” 

Y/N has always believed that there were people who liked sitting on the floor and people who avoided it at all costs. She had always been a floor sitter, for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, she’d play on the floor with all her stuffed animals and dolls. Then she got a little older, and laid on her stomach over the purple faux fur rug she begged her parents for (only for her cousin to spill wine right in the center of it on a summer visit) while she pretended to do homework and study, but listened to music and daydreamed about her crushes. And when she was in college, she’d have her legs spread out on the floor surrounded by notes she actively ignored while stalking her (now ex) boyfriend online. Then she went to culinary school, and there really weren’t a lot of options to sit on the floor in the kitchen, yet somehow she always found herself with her bum on the linoleum after cleaning up, waiting for her food to be finished in the oven. 

And now she was sitting on the floor of her bedroom overanalyzing every interaction she’d had with her boss. 

The thing is, she knew the whole point of her taking home his shirt to get the stain out was so that her spilling the drink on him didn’t plague her every thought this whole break they had – but that actually did very little to help. It wasn’t just spilling the drink that tormented her, but every waking moment she spent thinking about the whole night. From the second Harry plopped down in the booth across from her, to the moment he’d let her door swing shut behind him. Each memory twists, spins, and dances along the forefront of her brain to the sound of Beethoven's 5th Symphony because she’d recently heard it in a commercial and it’s stuck in her head. The music swells, crescendoing, Harry’s carefully curating a lettuce wrap and making her eat them, then there’s a lull of sweet violins and he’s smiling at her dancing with Niall with his drink in hand, and they start beating on the kettle drum around the time Harry’s pulling his shirt off, saying she flusters easily, calling the side he saw of her cute. 

Just a month ago, Y/N would have expected cats to pose a coup against the government and throw the whole country into a state of chaos and fish-flavored treats before believing that Harry would have ever even thought anything about her existence. Apart from annoyance, at least. Despite Harry going out of his way to email her professor and let her know that he wanted Y/N to study under him, she often wondered if he even liked her. Technically, you didn’t have to like someone to work with them or to teach them. He’d seen promise in her and seemed like he wasn’t particularly fond of her as a person, but she’d accepted that with relative grace for the last year. Again, there were moments when she wished for a closer relationship with him but she’d given up that dream about five months in when he still hadn’t referred to her by name and Adam and Niall were already sharing inside jokes.

So to think now that he had smiled at her with dimples and called her cute? It doesn’t even feel real. 

The morning after, her head was throbbing and she was convinced that the mushrooms Harry had cooked on the grill were actually psilocybin and she’d had a psychoactive hallucination for the rest of the night (because that had seemed more likely than any of what she was remembering). Then she sees his shirt, soaking in her sink where she’d left it the night before, and it feels a bit more tangible. Her face feels hot because now she’s completely sober and embarrassed over every single word she uttered. Then it feels like her cheeks might melt off when she thinks about how she saw his bare torso, and how she knows his nipples pebble quickly when he’s cold, and how he has laurel tattoos leading down to his dick like it’s a prized possession. 

With a face hot enough to melt ice, she diligently works to get the stain out of his shirt. There’s a concoction of many different laundry agents that her mum had to teach her when the grass stains from playing outside turned into the blood stains of an angry uterus. It works well to get the brown liquid out of the shirt, maybe even making it whiter than she started. For a quick, pathetic second she wishes she hadn’t started soaking it last night so she could have pressed her nose to the fabric and seen what it smelled like – but then she wipes that thought from her brain and pretends she never had it.  

The rest of the day she forced herself to tidy up, do laundry (that wasn’t Harry’s), and go grocery shopping in preparation for the threatening snowstorm. She prepped a roast that she would throw in her slow cooker the following morning, then snuggled with Hazelnut and a hastily made sandwich. Every couple of minutes an image of Harry from last night doing something flashes through her brain like a strike of lightning that she’s desperate to ignore. It could have been worse though, she decided, that maybe her brain had finally taken mercy on her and stuffed this down into a locked box. 

Until Niall called her just before she started to get ready for bed. 

“Okay, I think I’ve allotted us both plenty of time to get over the hangover,” he started, “Now what happened when you and Harry left the club?” 

So that’s how Y/N found herself stretched out on the floor, phone pressed to her ear, Hazelnut taking it upon herself to sit heavily on Y/N’s chest and make it a little harder to breathe. She’ll blame Niall for prying open the box she’d just tried locking and sealing (even though she did a poor job of locking and sealing it in the first place) because it’s incredibly hard to act like it didn’t happen when she’s recounting it to Niall. Niall, who gasps at everything, from Harry opening the car door for her (a tiny gasp and a murmured, “He totally wants to fuck,”), to him peeling off his shirt, (a louder gasp, another murmur, only this time a question, “Oh my god, did you guys fuck?), to him more or less calling drunk-easy-to-fluster Y/N cute. 

“He said what?” 

Y/N covers her face with one hand, “That the side he saw of me last night was cute.” 

“Oh my god,” she can picture Niall’s face, mouth ajar, his hair pressed from his forehead by the fluffy polka dot headband she forced on him – she’d just heard him spit the toothpaste out of his mouth, so she knew he was washing up for bed, “Y/N he is trying to fuck you. This isn’t even me being delusional.” 

She swallows, “I mean, it’s a little delusional, all he did was compliment me,” she plucks at her bottom lip, sighing, readjusting her hips with a grimace because they hate the floor sitting agenda, “If you can even call it that. Now that I repeat it, it sounds like he was making fun of me.” 

The faucet turns on, on Niall’s end, “If Harry were any other man, I might believe you and think it was just a compliment,” he sounds like he’s drowning while she speaks, so he must have moved on to washing his face, “But he isn’t just any other man. This is Harry – I don’t think he does or says anything that isn’t deliberate. Taking off his shirt, saying you’re flustered easily, calling the side he’d seen of you cute – this man wants you to slobber on him. Or maybe he wants to slobber on you. A mutual slobbering.” 

Y/N laughs and the movement of her chest annoys Hazelnut enough to peek her eyes open at her but not to move off, “I don’t know, I just keep replaying like every moment and hating how I responded and reacted. Like. . okay, let’s say we aren’t being delusional and he does want to sleep with me – I definitely blew it. I was not sultry or seductive and I sounded like a dumbass.” 

“Honestly, I don’t think that’s what he wants at all,” she could hear him splash more water on his face, “Not to speculate, but I think he wants someone easy to fluster and cute – both of which you are. I don’t know much about him besides that he scares the fuck out of me, but from how he was last night, he just seems like the type to tease and taunt. He probably went home and got off thinking about your face after he said it.” The water turns off, “What kind of car does he drive? Was it nice?” 

She knuckles at her eyes, “It was so nice – some kind of SUV, but it had seat warmers and drink warmers. And he didn’t ask what I wanted to listen to, but he picked a playlist that had a suspicious amount of artists I listen to.” 

“He’s probably stalking your socials,” Niall deduces, “Or he’s listening when we think he isn’t. Think about how many times we’ve been talking in the kitchen with him around. He probably knows more about you than you think.” Niall sighs, “Alright, babe, I need to put on this face mask and get ahold of Adam – he called like 3 times while we were talking ‘cos he wants me on League. You should probably start looking for toys around Harry’s size to train, ‘cos how long has it been since you’ve slept with anyone? You’re practically a virgin now.” 

“Oh God, goodnight Ni.” 

Y/N clicked off the phone, flopped it down on the floor beside her, and made no move to get up. Hazelnut doesn’t either, barely even stirring when Y/N covers her face with her palms again and groans. Delusions aside, it was a little helpful to have spoken it out loud – the thoughts had been vibrating, pushed up against her skull, ready to seep through her ears had she kept it to herself any longer. Niall had put more things to think about in her head though – the possibility that Harry wanted to sleep with her, for one. 

There’s no way – she knows there’s no way. . .but. . .but like, was there a way? 

No. No there wasn’t – she’s being silly. The other night Harry was just looser than he was when he was in the kitchen, that’s all. Adam had even said he was excited for them to see who Harry was outside of his role as a boss, so maybe this is just what he was like. He’d been kind to Niall too – he certainly hadn’t been feeding Niall as diligently as he was feeding her, and maybe when she would look over she’d catch his gaze more often than Niall did but he was looking at the both of them, right? Just watching his subordinates have fun. No thoughts other than being able to relax and show a side of himself that he doesn’t allow outside of the kitchen. His attitude must have just been softened by good food and his glass of whiskey, or whatever. Or maybe it was all about the vibes – which had been immaculate that night – he might have just been in a good mood too. 

He probably just felt guilty because she told him that he was scary and that contributed to her whole passing out thing. And, despite prior interactions and feelings before he’d started being the tiniest bit more gentle – Harry was someone who had a heart and a conscience. There’s a chance that he didn’t necessarily want to come off as scary, but his austerity and desire for structure and success made him come off that way. 

So, once again, she tries to carefully pack away the night and the thoughts of him looking at her in any way other than his apprentice that he’s become at least the tiniest bit fond of. Or, at least, one that he cares about even a little. 

If she goes and looks at eight-inch, silicone dildos – well, that’s her business. 

                                                              .                           .                            .

Snow blankets the ground by the time she goes back to work. 

The weather had been all over the place the last couple of days, so she was happy that they had them off, even if it meant she couldn’t do much with her time but rot away inside. Clouds couldn’t decide whether they wanted to spit out freezing rain, sleet, or snow until they settled for big, fluffy white flakes that refused to melt along her window panes. Sometimes a random, intense gust of wind would rattle the glass and pique Hazelnut’s attention but otherwise, her flat had decided to be kind to her and withstand the intense weather. Her furnace stayed warm and her water heater kept running, and even though a few times her service was a little spotty, things remained in relative working order. 

Being stuck inside did very little to soothe her overactive brain but each day that passes, last Friday seems like a distant memory. Something closer to a dream – at least that’s what she’s going to pretend like it was. And after a near treacherous time getting from her flat to the restaurant in the still icy cold weather, all she could think about was how to warm her frostbitten hands. Despite coming in later in the day, the sun did very little to warm anything where it was hidden beneath the clouds. Y/N finds herself wishing hopelessly that she was back in her bed, pressed up against Hazelnut’s warm little body, but no matter how many times she closes her eyes, she opens them to see nothing but practical snowy tundra in front of her.

Because the universe has something against her, the first person she sees when she steps through the door is Harry. He doesn’t drop to the floor and kiss her feet like Niall seems to think he’d do, but he does give pause when he usually wouldn’t. Head tilted, eyes curious, “You seem cold.” 

Y/N can barely get a laugh out, her lungs frosted over and stiff, “Yeah,” she agreed, “It’s freezing outside.” He continued to stare at her, and. . .well, yeah, things have changed but haven’t really. The stare he levels her with makes her mouth move while her brain tries to catch up, turning into a fumbled, rambled mess of words, “That’s um – I don’t really like driving when it's snowy and icy like this, so I have to take the subway here. And they haven’t really taken care of the sidewalks well enough, so there’s still a lot of snow to walk through and I don’t have snow boots so my shoes are like. . .like sopping wet, so I’m pretty cold, yeah. I’ll warm up soon though, being here – s’always hot in here.” 

Harry looks displeased, brows knitted, “You don’t have boots?” 

“Um, no? I’ve never really had boots for the snow since we – it doesn’t get that bad, that often.” 

They are quiet for a moment, an awkward tension thick in the air. Y/N was stupid for even considering that Friday night might change their dynamic because this is much of the same. Weird breaks in the conversation, uncomfortable periods of heavy silence, and Y/N feeling stupid after every word she spoke. It must’ve been the shots and the presence of Niall and Adam who very rarely let the mood get unpleasant. It had nothing to do with her, with Harry realizing anything – yeah, maybe he found some aspects of her cute, but she’s also still not entirely sure she didn’t hallucinate that. 

“You’ll be with Oliver today,” he changed the subject abruptly, motioning toward their saucier standing at a station she rarely gets time at – it would be good for today, considering all the different, intricate sauces and gravies they have on their seasonal menu around dinner time, “His shift ends soon. When he leaves, I’ll take over with you.” 

That’s all he says before pivoting on his heel and disappearing into the kitchen, leaving Y/N to trek to the coat room so she could disrobe her winter garments. 

The day goes as a typical day goes – the evening is busy, busy, busy but Oliver is nice and helps remind her of the basic principles Harry had taught her about sauces. How to get the right consistency, the proper flavoring, and what to do if it doesn’t turn out right the first time. He’s not much of a teacher but in this case, Y/N doesn’t need a teacher, just a guide – that’s the only reason why Harry would allow her to be following someone else. The first part of her night goes relatively fast with the number of people desperate to eat their food after being denied it for several days. She thinks the second half of the night slows, but only because Oliver is smiling at her regretfully when he tells her he’s clocking out and Harry will be covering the rest of his shift. 

It isn’t bad – it’s the same as before, which should be good, but Y/N can’t help being a little bummed about it. For all she’d convinced herself that Harry didn’t want her like that, there was a sliver of her that still hoped that she was wrong. That Niall had been correct in his interpretations and Harry was actually chomping at the bit to slobber on her, or with her, or mutual slobbering – whatever he’s said. That he pulled off his shirt in front of her because he wanted her to think about it for days and days and days. That he was teasing her because he wanted his dick inside her too. 

Alas, this wasn’t a movie. Or a show. Or a book. If it was, then she thinks the setup for them to have a riveting, whirlwind romance is there but sadly, this is real life. Harry was nice to her because she was drunk, had recently called him scary, and she’s pretty sure he knew she was crying when he yelled at her last time. 

Being the same as before meant he was still making an effort to encourage her more, which is nice. Y/N guesses she’s most glad that he isn’t trying to prove to her that their dynamic hasn’t changed by being rough with her again. When he tastes the bordelaise sauce she prepared, he nods his head, “It’s good,” he complimented, “Add a bit more pepper and it’ll be better.” 

She still feels like she’s glowing when Harry verbally compliments her food, no matter what the compliment is, it’s much better than just a grunt and a pissed-off look on his face. Y/N tries not to show too much that she’s gleaming, but she feels the stretch on her cheeks long after he’d disappeared to answer Adam calling for him. Like being praised by a kitchen deity; or a kiss of favor by a kitchen king. 

Harry’s freshly washed, unstained shirt has been folded neatly in her bag all day, waiting for the perfect time to hand it off to him. She knew better than to do it in front of the other staff because gossip runs through this place like a grease fire, difficult to snuff out. Y/N might have been saved for the fact that the number one runner of the rumor mill, in charge of oiling all its gears, is Niall – but he’s a sucker for a good story. If someone got him going, he’d probably reveal his whole theory about Harry wanting to sleep with her. 

It’s easy to find the time to give it to him because she and Harry are always the last in the kitchen. Everyone cleans up, but Harry specifically delegates her to help him with storing what’s left, putting in orders for the inventory diminished by their day of work, and tidying after they’ve tidied. A double tidy – to make sure everything is actually clean. 

On a normal day, Y/N would be whining about this, but it does allow her to hand him his shirt after they’d finished. 

“Harry?” She called to him, still feeling a little weird not referring to him more formally while they were here. Harry hums from where he was tucked away in the office so Y/N ambles her way over. She reaches into her bag and has it set out on her hand before he even turns around from the file cabinet he’s digging in, “I – your shirt,” she says, very intelligibly, of course, “I have it.” 

When he turns around, he seems surprised – like he must have forgotten about it, “Oh?” Tentatively, he takes it from her hand, unfolding it. An impressed look twitches at his eyebrows, “You really got the stain out.” 

“You didn’t think I would?” Y/N pressed, pulling her bag more firmly over her shoulder. 

“I didn’t know if you could,” he countered, carefully folding it back up, “Brown liquor is notoriously difficult to get out of clothes – a white shirt at that. Are you sure you don’t want a career in dry cleaning?” 

Y/N huffed a laugh through her nose, eyes rolling as she turned on her heel, “Very funny. Goodnight, Harry.” 

“I hope you aren’t planning on taking the subway again,” he mentions before she can get too far. It does make her pause, twisting back to face him, head tilted because. . .well, how else was she supposed to get home? “It’s dark and even colder than when you came in. You’d be lucky to make it home without a cold.” 

She tugs at the end of her scarf, “I – well, I don’t really like spending money on Ubers though, and their prices skyrocket in this kind of weather, so –” 

“So I’ll take you home,” he answers definitively, “Let me get my coat.” 

Harry disappears toward the coat closet before Y/N can even register what he’s suggested. Or rather, what he told her was going to happen. There had been really no room to argue and, honestly? Y/N wouldn’t have argued, to begin with. The thought of trekking through the snow and ice while a thin layer of frost formed over her eyes seemed horrific, and she’s certain her toes almost froze to the point of snapping off on the way here. She couldn’t even find it in herself to do a polite, pretend denial of it. One of those, “Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to do that? Really? Okay, only if you’re sure!” Instead, she just follows Harry out to his car and tries not to eat shit on the pavement when her feet catch on the patches of ice. 

He pops the car door open for her and waits until she’s fully seated before shutting it and walking to his side. Y/N realizes that she’s much less suited for a car ride when she isn’t a couple of drinks in, so her blood is sort of roaring in her ears. Harry shivers when he gets in and keys the engine to life. 

It’s quiet while they wait for his car to warm up. Y/N wondered if it would be too awkward to ruffle around through her purse and grab her phone, so she could at least look kind of busy, and not seem as socially inept as she did right now. Or maybe Harry just thinks she’s tired – which isn’t a lie. Y/N is sleepy; it weighs heavily on her bones, especially after having so much time off. It’s hard to return to being a productive member of society when she’d lounged around with Hazelnut for the last few days. 

“Why didn’t you ask Niall to bring you home?” Harry inquired, finally, piercing through the silence. 

Y/N hums, shifting in her seat, pleased by the seat warmer melting heat into her bum, “He and Adam were g’na have one of their League nights, so I didn’t want to make them wait for me.” It’s true – Y/N’s always there earlier than everyone and later than everyone because Harry is her mentor and those are the hours Harry works. That would’ve meant an additional 30 minutes eating into their weird little cult video game thing, and at that point, they’d try to drag her with them to make sure they didn’t lose any more play time. Y/N loves them but she doesn’t need to be involved. 

“League?” Harry sounds confused and Y/N sighs – maybe he does hear a lot in the kitchen, but he blocks out a lot too. Y/N wishes that was an option for her, but Niall will just debrief her on everything anyway, so it’s better to listen for the first go around. 

“League of Legends,” she replies, “Their game that they go bananas over – don’t ask me to explain it, I don’t understand a thing and Ni will go on about it for hours if you let him. Once we tried ecstasy together and he made me listen to a 40-minute spiel about this show based on it. The show was good though, so I get it.” 

Y/N doesn’t realize her slip-up until Harry hums softly, “Ecstasy, huh?” 

The blood drains from her body, flushes from her face, down her chest, through her belly, spinning out of her legs, and through the bottoms of her feet. Oh my god – how the fuck did she let that slip? Maybe she could’ve said that when she was drunk and could use that as an excuse, but now? Completely sober? What if Harry gets rid of her on the spot? Pushes her out of the car? No chef training under him is going to have experimented with ecstasy a year ago. 

“Oh, I – um – that’s – that was a lie.” 

“A lie?” He repeated, “You know how I feel about liars.” Her face pulls into a look of true and utter distraught panic, opening her mouth to explain herself, but she’s cut off, “Just kidding,” his face does not suggest he’s joking at all, apart from the tiniest twitch of his mouth, “I don’t care what you do and try, as long as you don’t come to work impaired by any measure,” he slows to a stop at a light, then briefly turns to face her, “Understand?” 

She nods, eyes wide, nervous, “I – yes,” she tells him, “I’m sorry for – still, I didn’t mean to tell you that. And I don’t want you to think I do it regularly! We just wanted to see what it was like – or at least I did, the last time Ni did it was in UNI during a rave, and I definitely get why people do it at raves because – yeah. But I haven’t done it since.” Y/N kind of wishes someone would shove their hand over her mouth to make her stop talking (Harry, preferably, but she thinks that would probably make her moan). She’s just stuck in the perpetual need to impress him, and finding out that she and one of his other learning chefs did ecstasy and then talked about a video game for 40 minutes is like. . .not impressive at all. 

Harry’s gaze darts around her face like he’s looking for something. Or maybe he’s just registering that she’s freaking the hell out. Whatever it was he finds, he turns back to the front and slowly eases the car past the light once it turns green, “I won’t judge you,” he finally says, “I’ve done it before.”

Y/N had never once learned anything personal about Harry in their time together. Everything she knew about him was based on old interviews and untested hypotheses because picking his brain was impossible. He was someone who believed that work was for just that. . working; there was no time for gossiping, sharing anecdotes about each other’s lives, discussing interests, and through that somehow decrypting their political ideologies. So Y/N knew nothing about him, except for the amount of salt he thought necessary to add to certain dishes and his preferred method of slicing onions. 

So this was – riveting information, actually. A tidbit – a small sliver into Harry’s life that she’d never been granted before. She takes it in, and – greedy as she is – wants more. 

“You have?” She turns to face him more, “That’s – that’s crazy! When did you?” 

Harry pulls right, driving down a relatively quiet street. For a Thursday night, there wasn’t as much hustle and bustle as usual, but that makes sense with all the snow. Nobody wanted to risk breaking their front teeth on the pavement because of poorly shoveled and salted walkways, “My second year of culinary school,” he replied, “After a particularly grueling semester. Someone in my class offered it to Adam, who then offered it to me.” 

“That’s – whoa,” she says, very intelligibly, and she thinks she hears Harry puff through his nose an amused noise, “Did you ever do it again?” 

He shook his head, “No. I don’t like feeling out of control of my body.” Then, he tacts on, “Do you?” 

Y/N stilled, blinking at him. 

Did she hear him right? 

“Huh?” 

“Do you like feeling out of control of your body?” Oh, so she had definitely heard him right. 

“I mean like. . .like I guess it depends on the context?” Her mind is whirling, spinning wildly, flinging around, knocked off its axis, and careening like a piece of rock flying through space. Why did she say that — why did he ask that?

Harry laughed – it’s a real thing; something she’d only briefly heard a couple of times when they were out with each other last week. This one doesn’t last very long, but it truly is a gleeful sound, as he shakes his head quietly to himself, “Depends on the context, huh?” He repeated, and Y/N didn’t think she’d ever seen him so amused. It makes something twist in her belly, low and deep, that she’d rather ignore. 

“Why do you – um – why do you ask?” Her face felt hot. 

There was a smile on his lips that she’d never seen before – taunting, goading, before he answered simply, “No reason,” with a pleasant-sounding sigh, even though Y/N thought that there was definitely a reason, but there was certainly no way that the reason is the reason that she was thinking about. Because if it was then. . .then that would mean that maybe her and Niall’s grandiose delusions had more accuracy than they originally thought. And if that were true, then that would mean Harry is thinking about doing the naughty, despicable, filthy things that Niall has been prophesying for weeks now.

The rest of the ride is quiet, though it’s not very long – just five minutes of Y/N fidgeting with her fingers in her lap before they pull into her complex. Harry remembered the way from the last time he dropped her off – she’d only realized at the end of the trip that she didn’t have to direct him once. He pushed the car into park, then turned to face her, still seeming humored, his eyes tickled with an emotion she doesn’t see often from him. So infrequently, in fact, that she didn’t know what emotion it was. . .just that it wasn’t the typical, aloof gaze that he normally leveled her with. 

“Thank you,” she gathered her purse in her lap and gripped the straps like they’d keep her from saying something stupid, “Have a sweet night, or good dreams, or – have, um – christ,” the grip hadn’t worked, “Have a good night.” 

Harry nodded politely toward her, “I’m sure I will,” he replied, “You too.” 

As Y/N took the elevator to her floor, walked to her door, ambled her way through her flat while she started shedding layers, and made her way to the bathroom (all while Hazelnut slithers around her ankles), her mind raced. Niall had heard from his friend’s, dog’s, cousin’s, owner’s sister (or whatever) that Harry was a freak, hadn’t he? That he was into different kinky dynamic play, how his dick is huge, he edges people for weeks, he fucks nasty. Did he actually want to do that with her? Why else would he ask a question about her opinion on feeling out of control of her body? 

Or – fuck, did he really just want to know if she did other drugs? And then she accidentally made it weird saying it depended on the context. Like, seriously – what other context could there be? Drugs, alcohol, or giving your body to a kinky sadist and letting them make decisions over it? She seriously thought her face could melt off from how much heat it held, despite the way glacial winds battered against her cheeks while she walked to the front door. 

Of course, she updated Niall, after her shower, when droplets of water were still clinging to her skin and she avoided stepping out of the bathroom because she knew it would be freezing. 

Ten minutes later, she gets a reply (probably in the middle of a snack break, or a piss break – they have one scheduled in every thirty minutes of their gaming). 

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!! 

He might as well just tell you he wants to fuck at this point, he’s being so obvi 

Should you show up to work in a collar and buttplug or would that be too much? 

                                                         .                            .                             .

The thing is – Harry is a professional. 

There are no lingering gazes or suggestive questions during work hours, nor are there references or insinuations that they’d ever spent even a moment together outside this kitchen. Again, unless being scrutinized by the razor-sharp eye of the deluded, their relationship dynamic hasn’t changed by much. However, Harry is much more giving with compliments, or soft praises to encourage her. She roasted a rack of lamb the other day and when Harry tasted it, accompanied with a careful hum and a pissed-off face, he verbalized, “This is good,” with a nod of his head, “It can be even better next time. We’ll work on the seasonings together.” 

So that’s nice – because Y/N doesn’t necessarily want to be the source of kitchen gossip. For example, when one of the servers that used to work there started hooking up with Vivian, their saucier, only for Vivian to find out the server had a wife.  Then she found out at the beginning of their shift one day, promptly cried about it to the other kitchen staff (the kind of inconsolable sniffles that were hard to stop), and as Y/N recalls, Harry had said something like, “Take the day to compose yourself, we don’t need tears in the sauce.” Which. . .could he have been nicer about it? He sure could have, but the more she grew to know him, the more she realized that this was Harry being nice.

(He’d run the sauce station that day, had Y/N follow him around like the imprinted duckling she acted like, and – mysteriously – the server quit a couple of weeks after that.) 

The moral of the story was – if people were fucking at work, they kept quiet about it. As long as nobody brought the drama and theatrics of their relationship into the kitchen, and so long as their meals never paid the price of the emotional toil an argument in the break room could have – Harry didn’t care what anyone did. Though Y/N isn’t sure if he knows who is rendezvousing with who. He doesn’t care to concern himself with petty things like that – or so Y/N thinks. It’s just the vibes he gives off. 

Does he give off the vibe of someone who would fuck an employee? Well. . .Y/N and Niall have differing responses to this question. If you ask Niall, Harry is frothing at the mouth to stick his hands down Y/N’s pants in the pantry room and make her beg for him to spit on her tongue. If you ask Y/N – yeah, Harry kind of does seem like he’s into that, but she couldn’t be positive that he wanted it from her. Or, maybe he might, but he’d realize how inexperienced she is in kink and that could be a turn-off.  Who wants to have to teach someone how to fuck the way they like it? That’d probably be so aggravating, especially for him. Up until recently, she thinks he barely liked teaching her anything to begin with and that was the basis of their relationship. 

“You’ve clearly haven’t read enough corruption kink literature,” Niall flicked her ankle, Y/N’s foot resting on his thigh while he carefully brushed the nail polish over her pinky toenail (Y/N helped him get rid of his calluses and ingrown nails in a very grueling “at-home-spa” day last week, so this was his repayment – he was surprisingly very serious about it and doing a great job), “I’ll send you some recommendations.” 

Y/N sighed, dropping her head against the back of her couch, and narrowly avoided landing on Hazelnut (who lifted her head and glared momentarily before going back to sleep), “He’s been – like, you know how he has me come in on off days to practice?” Niall hummed a small nod, “Beyond a few subtle things I’m definitely reading into, he doesn’t mention anything crazy at all. I’m starting to feel like he just wants to fuck with me.” 

“Fuck with you, fuck you – it’s the same difference,” he shrugged, pressed the brush back into the bottle and dunked it a few times, “Harry is a serious guy, yeah? He’s not going to interrupt prep or cooking with clear signals that he wants to blow your back out. It’s why he only does or says shit kind of blatant outside of that environment – his personal and work life are separate.” Niall tilted his head to the side, “I’d say you’re one more outing from the work setting away from him having you call him Daddy, but that’s just my hypothesis.” 

With her unpainted foot, she nudged his knee and ignored him when he clicked his tongue, scolding her for it, “Shut up,” she sighed again, “Ugh, I want to fuck him.” 

“In due time,” he murmured wisely, “Now stop moving your damn foot before I paint the whole toe.” 

Niall did have a point and it did stand with Y/N’s – Harry is a professional through and through. There’s no way he would hint anything at work, right? At least definitely not during working hours. She guesses why she’s frustrated, is because there aren’t many opportunities that involve her and Harry outside of the kitchen. So they’re basing all these theories off the whole two times something kind of happened, and it would probably be an outstanding amount of time before they were alone outside of the restaurant again. 

Unless Adam could convince him to come out for dinner and drinks again, but – well, Y/N doesn’t see that happening any time soon. 

                                                                    .                         .                       .

Y/N was in a bad mood. 

It was mostly hormonal, she knew that; this morning she woke up to her period which had been looming over her with threats in the form of symptoms. Her breasts were tender, her lower back ached, and the fatigue was so intense it was hard for her to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time on her off days. Plus she was horny and hungry, in equal, large, thought-consuming amounts which was the biggest red flag (no pun intended). Still, she could have had an LED sign light up on her ceiling that said YOU’RE PERIOD STARTED!!! and she still would have worn the same shocked, annoyed expression when she wiped after peeing. 

Thankfully she’d only bled in her underwear, but still, she was annoyed that it forced her hand to start laundry. And all she wanted to do was eat a breakfast sandwich, take a bath, and crawl back into bed but she needed to be at work in a couple of hours. There were errands she needed to run, Hazelnut had a vet appointment, and she thinks she promised her neighbor she’d change the batteries in their smoke alarm (it was an older couple, who had no business standing on a chair to reach it). A list of things that were daunting on a normal day, but even worse today, and she had to work a busy shift on top of that. 

Things have been hectic at work lately – it always is after the holidays, so they’ve been running around like crazy. Even Harry and Adam have had to jump in even more than they already do, preparing dishes, cooking the meat, sauteing vegetables, and the like – because they’ve been getting slammed. Both during the day for lunch and at night – Y/N wonders if the rich were trying to quell their seasonal depression with fancy meals or something. So she knew that having a nice, easy night wasn’t promising, and while she woke up in a foul mood already, that did nothing but worsen it. 

Then, to add icing to it, her ex messages her again and she should really just block the dumbass’s number but something in her heart won’t let her. So there was that too. 

Still, she goes about her business in the morning and when she gets to work, she puts on that she’s doing just fine. Y/N had always been a firm believer that you shouldn’t make your bad mood other people’s issue, so she tries to keep it to herself as much as she can. And she’s good at it too – only Niall notices that she’s more grumpy than normal, and it wasn’t for anything but the sound of her laugh being just a touch different. Niall is very in tune with the people he considers himself close with, so a tonal shift of any kind has his brain dinging. He seems to know the root of the issue before Y/N could disclose it (sometimes she wonders if he has a tracker on his phone to keep up with her dates) because at lunch there’s a piece of chocolate and two paracetamol waiting for her in the breakroom. 

Everyone else doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong either, save for Harry, maybe. It feels like his eyes are more keen on her today than they typically are on her, following her around the kitchen. Or maybe he’s just in super mentor mode and is making sure her dishes are being prepared correctly, even in the fast-paced environment of a dinner rush. Either or, every time she looked up his eyes bore into her with the same apathetic glare he always had and she always darted her gaze away quickly (could he at least look a little happy when he saw her? Why did he always seem so unimpressed?). 

For the most part, he leaves her be, too busy with his own shit to have time for any additional hovering than normal. He sticks close by so he can taste or correct a technique, but far enough that Y/N can zone out a bit – fall into the methodical structure of making mass amounts of potage aux legumes and let the rest of the night zip by. He’d barely spoken to her today, but once two hours ago, when he tasted the soup. 

“The taste is good,” he told her, “The consistency could be smoother but this isn’t a bad start. Try pureeing less at a time and it will improve.” It does take a knock at her confidence but he rebuilds it rather quickly the next batch she makes when he stirs it and hums approvingly. 

By the time the end of the day rolls around, she’s dog-tired. The exhaustion only weighs heavier in her bones when Harry grabs her attention as they are cleaning, “Stay after tonight.” That is all he says, and she immediately wants to flatten her face into a pillow and scream but instead, she nods and replies, “Okay.” with little fuss. Despite how extra fussy she feels. 

Soon enough, Niall is squeezing her shoulder and telling her to message him when she gets home, and Adam is threatening Harry to not stay here too late. Really, this is no different than any other day – Harry typically expects her to stay until he tells her to go, but a request like this must mean he’s planning something. She just couldn’t figure out what, considering his normal “teaching her something new” days are the days the kitchen’s closed. Y/N thinks she’d be more annoyed about staying if Harry were anyone else but – well, it’s Harry, after all. Even in a foul mood, she is appreciative of any extra time he wants to give her to instill some of his knowledge. 

They finish tidying – or, Y/N finishes tidying. She wasn’t sure what Harry was doing until she turned around to find that he had a variety of ingredients out, some in their respective measuring cups, some still in the packaging. The confusion must show on her face, because without so much of a hum to question him, Harry is explaining what she’s looking at, “We’re going to make a slice of cake.” 

Y/N tilts her head, “A slice of cake?” 

“A big slice,” Harry nods resolutely, “Do you like chocolate?” 

She blinks, his eye contact undeviating, “I – yes? Yes, I do.” 

“Good. Let’s begin.” 

It’s. . .weird. Y/N’s very confused because Harry has never given any indication that he’s interested in desserts at all. Of course, she knew that he was capable of creating pastry dishes, but he always seemed to prefer savory dishes – his owning a restaurant like the one he does was proof enough of that. A weird fact that she’d picked up about chefs in general is that once they find their flavor they tend to stick there. A chef who prefers searing steaks and curating the perfect plate for dinner typically fumbles through baking a cookie made from scratch. She’s unsure why that is, but it has happened enough times for her to make note of it. 

Harry, as always, seems to be perfect at all things. He moves around, showing her what order to add the ingredients, the consistency it should be after mixing, and how to perfectly melt the chocolate – all with the practiced ease of someone who bakes every day. Maybe he does when he gets home, but she hardly believes that. 

Harry just belongs in the kitchen. Every aspect of cooking, of baking, of creating something delicious for people to consume and enjoy – seems to be a craft that he’s perfected somehow. Y/N knew that if culinary school hadn’t worked out, she would use her business minor to do. . .something. Having a degree would make it easier to get hired at some random skyscraper building, doing desk work 9-to-5. She would’ve made do with that – it wasn’t her dream by any means, but she could still find happiness somewhere, even if it wasn’t at work. There were still holidays to cook for her family, friends who wouldn’t have survived off more than the fries in her university cafeteria, and neighbors who appreciated her replicating old school dishes from their childhood. 

But Harry? No. . .there was nothing else he could do. He didn’t fit anywhere else – or at least, she thinks he is too stubborn to fit anywhere else; his heart, his body, and his spirit all belong near pots and pans. At least that’s what she thinks – she’s honestly quite sure he’d agree. 

It doesn’t take too long, and when he slides it into the oven to bake (she’d never seen a tin that was cut into multiple slices before – and they only filled up one of the six), she wonders what they’ll do while they wait. 

The answer is clean up, which she should’ve seen coming, but that only takes a little while. As she’s wiping off the soap suds from her hands, Harry is prompt against the counter they’d been working on. The area they’d utilized is wiped down, sparkling, and smelling faintly of the cleaner he orders in large shipments (the boxes are heavy, Y/N knows firsthand). She doesn’t know what they’ll do – hopefully not stare at each other for the remaining 15 minutes of the bake time  – so she searches for questions about the baking process to fill in the empty space. 

Harry beats her to it. 

“How is your mood today?” He inquires, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against the counter. 

“My mood?” Y/N repeats, and he nods, “Oh. . .well. . .I mean – why do you ask?” The question seemed kind of cryptic to her. Did she have a huge blood stain on the back of her bottoms? It sounded like the kind of thing you ask someone before you potentially tell them something that would put them in a poor mood. How is your mood today? Because just so you know, I’ve been staring at a blood spot the size of a small country on the back of your pants, just so you know – it’s probably been there since about midday. 

“You were different today,” he tells her, “You’re typically more bubbly. You seem to be in a poor mood – am I right?” 

Y/N is shocked. Like, legitimately – if anyone had told her a couple of months ago – or, arguably, even last week – that Harry would notice any sort of change in her mood, she thinks she would have popped a lung from laughing so hard. Because the very idea of Harry paying enough attention to her to even recognize what her baseline was is hard to believe. So hard to believe that it’s actually kind of hilarious, the thought – like imagining a llama baking a cake. 

She stares at him for probably a little too long to be normal, the gears cranking and turning in her head before she finally thinks to reply, “Oh!” Y/N shakes her head, then realizes it looks like she’s disagreeing with him so she fixes it to a nod, and in the end, her head just looks like it’s wobbling and knocking her brain around (it feels like it too), “I mean, yeah I wasn’t in a great mood today? Was it that obvious? I thought I was doing a good job hiding it.” 

“You did well,” he countered, “I was just paying close attention today.” 

Y/N’s breath catches in her throat, “You were?” 

“Mhm,” he nods, “Is there something wrong?” 

She sighs, shoulders sinking, “No, not really, just – tired, I guess? It’s like. . .personal or whatever,” she says, but then motions to her uterus and forgets that she’s trying not to be blunt and continues, “My period, so like I’m just tired. And my ex messaged me which was annoying, then I had a busy day so there was just. . .a lot stacked against me today.” 

Harry’s mouth opens around an “Ahh, I see,” before the oven beeps. He holds his finger as if telling her to put a pin in the conversation before he goes to retrieve it. Harry brings it to the counter they were at to cool. “And it’s been busy today, so I’m sure that was no help.” 

She shrugs, her face feeling hot when she realized she might have been too open, “It’s – that’s life I guess. Sorry for telling you that, by the way,” she wanted to melt into the ground, form a puddle that he mops up then pours down a drain, “You probably didn’t want to know that.” 

“I asked you, didn’t I?” He rebuts, “If I ask then I want to know the answer. I appreciate your honesty.” Harry pulls the icing that they made closer to them, “This is my second time hearing about your ex. Why does he keep messaging you?” 

“Ugh,” Y/N flops her body further against the workbench, groaning, noting that the pressure of the edge pushing against her lower abdomen is nice – Harry’s big ass hand against it would be nice too, probably, and warm (she would be imagining that later while she was in bed), “It’s stupid because he’s always just asking me for restaurant recommendations, or wondering if I can get him a table and a discount here, like – he’s so annoying about it.” 

Harry hums again, thinks for a moment, then replies, “Pardon my language, but why don’t you tell him to fuck off?” 

Y/N laughs a little, humorlessly, “I – I’m not sure,” she plucks at her fingernail, “Maybe then because that makes me the bitter ex-girlfriend? We ended things mutually with no hard feelings. . .or, like – he thinks it was no hard feelings at least.” 

There were plenty of hard feelings, actually, Y/N was just good at pretending that there weren’t. They had dated for three years, the longest relationship she’d ever been in and the most serious she had ever felt about another person romantically (at least next to her long-standing celebrity crushes – that was an untouchable love that no man in her life could ever come close to). Y/N thought things had been going well, enough that she was starting to wonder if they should talk about moving in together. There had never been any glaring red flags that something was going on, that his eyes were wandering, that when he was with her he was thinking about his new coworker who understands him on a deeper, personal level than their relationship could have ever gone – according to him, at least. 

Y/N remembers how it felt with her hands in his, the way he stroked her knuckles, how he made a big deal of looking empathetic like the situation wasn’t his fault, to begin with, “I never physically cheated,” he promised, “But emotionally. . .emotionally I haven’t just been yours for a couple of months now.” 

“How long?” She’d inquired, her voice steady as she could have made it. She wanted to cry but she didn’t, because. . .well, Y/N knows how to hold them in, you know? And she’d rather feel them burn behind her waterline than let this stupid fuck see her upset. 

“Six.” 

She remembers pulling her hands away, slipping them from his grasp, with a soft frown, “Okay,” she wanted to shove him off the chair he was sitting on, “Thanks for letting me know.” 

It probably hadn’t been the reaction he was expecting. Part of Y/N thinks that it hadn’t been the reaction he wanted either; who didn’t want their girlfriend to grovel at their feet? Beg to be chosen? Remind him of all their time spent together and why he shouldn’t throw that all away. That’s the reaction he wanted – to be sought after and fought for, but she didn’t give him that. And she thinks, maybe, every time he just pops up and asks her about recipes to impress someone, or to get him a reservation and money off at a high-class restaurant – he thinks he’ll get that big reaction. Almost like he wants to feel justified in what he did – his bitter ex, he had to break up with, it just wouldn’t have ever worked, like see how hostile she got when he just asked a question? 

Harry watches her, as she relives the moment, with furrowed brows, “What a prick.” 

Y/N laughs, “It’s fine, it’s whatever,” she waves her hand, “This place is way too ritzy for him to afford anyway, so at least I don’t have to worry about him showing up.” 

After the cake cools, Harry carefully transfers it to a decorating board. He shows her how to spread the icing so it’s a smooth finish, where to add the slices of strawberry, and the appropriate and classy amount of whipped cream to dollop on top. “Ready to try it?” Y/N nods, probably the most enthusiastic she’s been all night. Harry only grabs one fork, and she’s confused – did he not want to try it himself? Or was he going to indirectly kiss her again so she could think about it like a loser for two weeks nonstop? 

Harry slices into the desert, a spot that has the right amount of ganache icing they made, that shows off the fluffiest most moist part of the cake, it gets some of the strawberry and some of the whipped cream too. She’d never witnessed someone so methodically get every aspect of desert into one bite, nor had she ever had them present it to her either. Hovering near her mouth, waiting for her to part her lips – which she does – so that he can slip it inside. 

For as careful as he was getting all the right parts of it onto the fork, he was not very careful in the transmission – or maybe Y/N’s coordination is just worse off than she thought because some ended up on her lips and chin. 

But the cake is delicious; what she’s chewing and swallowing down is divine. As she looks for a napkin she whines, “That’s so yummy,” with a frown, “It’s a waste to have to wipe any of it from my chin.” 

She expected a huff from his nose, maybe. The way he shows he’s a little amused by her before taking to the rest of the cake and having a bite for himself. 

Instead, Harry’s hand raises to her face. 

Y/N freezes – like a predator has just spotted her in the forest foraging for seeds. She can’t read him (could she ever?) exactly, as his fingers carefully cradle her jaw. Her breath sticks in her throat when the pad of his thumb swipes over the mess on her chin in a way that’s almost too tender for how fast her heart races. Has he ever touched her before? Have Harry’s fingers ever gotten anywhere near her face? 

She’s dizzy when he swipes it up, over her bottom lip, resting carefully at the seam of her mouth. It’s his turn to still, waiting quietly, patiently, for her to make a move, but Y/N is seriously frozen! Her brain is not computing a single bit of stimuli right now and she thinks she’s malfunctioning, blinking at him, not pulling away, not getting closer. 

Harry wears the tiniest, smallest smile at the corner of his mouth, “Open,” he orders, and Y/N’s lips part automatically – did he plant a chip in her brain or what? His thumb sinks between them and rests on her tongue, sweet from the chocolate, salty from his skin – his skin – that she’s tasting, because his thumb is in her fucking mouth! “Suck.” 

Was she really doing this? Yes, absolutely. Somewhere, hardwired in her brain is the desire and need to listen and enact every instruction he’s ever given her. Even if that instruction is to suck on his thumb while the rest of his fingers splay out over her jaw, and her heart was hammering like a rabbit's, and the gleam in his eyes resembled a wolf’s. 

Y/N is tentative about it; honestly, it’s probably way less porn-y than it could have been. She wishes she had the wherewithal to bob her head, make it sexy, something for him to remember and dream about later – that would make him want her more. But it isn’t like that. She is shy, the way she curls her tongue around his knuckle, how she pulls him deeper into his mouth with careful each careful suck. The icing is long gone by now, but she doesn’t want to let go or look away from him and how he stares at her mouth. 

The only thing that gets her to let go is when Harry starts to pull away, and even then – she grazes her teeth along his knuckle when he withdraws. A whine bubbles in her throat when she swallows thickly, wanting more, but it’s like Harry reads her mind. With one hand, he grabs her wrist as if to keep her still, and with the other, Harry pulls a slice of strawberry from the cake and offers it to her, holding it at her mouth. This time he doesn’t have to instruct her to part her lips, she just does it, and he seems pleased as he feeds it to her. Watches her chew, rubs his thumb along her bottom lip, and once she swallows, urges her mouth open again. 

She opens up as wide as he wants her to and lets him carefully prod his fingers inside of her mouth. Harry uses his index and middle fingers, sliding against the ridges of her teeth, petting the inside of her cheek, and sliding down her tongue again. When he does that she tries to close her lips around him again but he clicks his tongue, “Ah ah,” he shakes his head, “I didn’t tell you to do that, did I?” This time she does whine, pitiful and needy. Something wanting curls low in her gut and she thinks she might pass out because she really hasn’t taken a proper breath in like three whole minutes. 

But she lets him explore her mouth and feel what he wants to feel, and she isn’t sure what his motive is. Maybe just to prove that he could – perhaps just to see that Y/N would do anything he told her to. 

Eventually, he finally pulls his fingers from her mouth. With the ones not wet from her spit, he caresses her cheek with his knuckles, sighing, “Hm, it’s time to go home,” he murmured, “You had a long day.” 

What? That was it? Wasn’t he supposed to. . .Y/N doesn’t know, she thinks he was supposed to like –bend her over the table and fuck her or something, right? That’s usually where these things go, don’t they? The hot, sexy mentor throws his sweet little mentee down and stuffs her full. . .or something like that. 

Harry must notice her confusion because he laughs – a bright sound from him that’s rare to hear. She’s used to the puffs through his nose and the mild look of amusement, not something so outwardly jovial, “What is it?” He inquired, “Expecting something else?” 

She blinked at him.

“Oh, uh….no?”

“Okay then,” he nodded, “I’ll pack up this cake for you.”

                                                                 .                        .                       .

Y/N hasn’t stopped thinking about it. 

She doesn’t think anyone in their right mind could stop thinking about it., honestly. The ghost of his fingers still weighs in her mouth, poking and caressing all the spots hidden from his eyes. His gaze, staring at her curiously but knowingly, all in the same glance – like he knew she would let him do it but wondered how far she would let him go. And Y/N isn’t coy; there’s no cat-and-mouse game with her. She would have taken anything he put into her mouth without a second thought, probably, just because Harry was the one telling her to. 

Did he like that, or was that a turn-off? This was only one of many questions plaguing her every waking thought, along with her subconscious, that had been unhelpfully supplying scenarios in her dreams, all of which ended with her legs spread and needy. A recurrent theme in every naughty dream is that she can’t see Harry at all, but she knows that it’s him – she could feel him, his aura, the true, honest-to-god vibe that he just emitted from being near. And just as soon as he’s about to come into view, crawl up her body, unzip his trousers, and finally let her see what the hell he’s been hiding in there. . .she wakes up. 

It’s a cruel joke, and one she has a feeling would make Harry a little giddy. Honestly, it's more like a nightmare, really. A horny nightmare.

She hadn’t told Niall about this recent development yet because it had suddenly gone from fun, delusional daydreams to horny, lingering nightmares. How was she going to explain to Niall that Harry had poked around in her mouth but then didn’t fuck her? Honestly, she was like. . a little embarrassed about how easily she gave in. How much better would it have been had she trailed her tongue around his knuckles, grazed her teeth against the skin, hummed, and maintained eye contact but with a twinkle that bespoke her playful, confident demeanor? Harry probably would have had no choice but to fuck her then. . .like it might have been a need at that point, had she really pressed forward and been sexier. 

The next day, Harry is painfully normal. Not even a glimmer in his gaze would suggest he even made a cake with her yesterday (one that she had already consumed when her belly was aching with cramps and her mind was aching with questions), let alone shoved his fingers in her mouth. Y/N tried her best to act the same: indifferent and calm. But when Harry stands beside her, when he tastes the soup she was preparing and murmurs his praise, when he accidentally touches her arm as he’s reaching for the ladle – goosebumps pimple all over her body. She stiffens, her heart races, she thinks maybe she could pass out, and her mouth feels significantly empty (and she’s significantly upset about it). 

But nobody else seems to notice. The person would have been her delusional partner in crime, but when lunch comes around, and all he has to talk about is the Grammys and how he’s been farming for gold in League – well, Y/N knows she’s not being obvious. At least not to anyone but Harry, who could probably smell the tension on her when he was within 400 meters of her, like a shark sniffing out blood in the ocean. 

All she received as acknowledgment for the night before was a question right after lunch when Y/N had just left the storage room carrying two large containers of chicken broth. They’re balanced on top of one another, and she keeps them stable with her hands and her chin on the top of the second container. 

“Did you enjoy the rest of the cake?” He inquired, appearing out of thin air and taking them from her easily, holding them close to his body “Or are you saving it?” 

Y/N’s face felt hot at the memory, especially when she admitted, “I finished it already.” 

“Ahhhhh,” he seemed pleased, “Yeah? It must’ve been really good then.” 

She nodded, her breaths felt thin in her throat, “Yes,” she agreed, “Thank you again, for that.” 

Then Harry tilted his head,  “Which part?” Either he’s just a pro at pretending to be aloof in all situations, or this particular situation didn’t leave him as giddy, breathless, or frazzled as it did her. She’s more inclined to believe the latter as his gaze sits still upon her, undeviating, and. . .well, he didn’t look like he cared much what her response would be.  

Before she could answer, Adam came barrelling out of the kitchen, “Y/N!” He’d exclaimed, and he seemed so frantic that it had Y/N’s heart kicking in her chest – what could be wrong? “Please settle this between Niall and I. He’s making an absurd claim that my leather club pants are outdated and tacky but –” 

“That’s because they are,” Nill emerged after him, “When was the last time you saw someone in leather pants for a night out, and it wasn’t a Groovy 70s-themed event?” He tossed his arms up, “Just buy a fitted trouser if you want to show off your ass! Ask Harry where he gets his.” 

Harry had disappeared from her side in the fuss, so Y/N never got to answer – though she didn’t know what her answer would be. Thank you for noticing I was in a bad mood? Thank you for making me a slice of cake under the guise of teaching but you actually just wanted to do something nice for me? Thank you for saying my ex was a prick? Thank you for putting your fingers in my mouth and then implanting what will easily be months worth of wet dreams? 

Other than that, he hadn’t brought it up, and it had been a full week. Y/N was going crazy thinking about it over and over and over again, mouth feeling painfully empty. Every time she swallowed, she imagined the weight of Harry’s fingers on her tongue, how much space he’d occupied, how she thought he would’ve kept going even if she started drooling all over him. Y/N hadn’t even thought about actual dick-in-vagina penetration with her ex as much as she was thinking about Harry putting his fingers in her mouth, like – seriously, she’s feeling a little pathetic. 

Still, she persists through her days, cooks, cleans up, pretends like she isn’t itching to crawl into his shirt, and refuse to leave. . .let’s Niall talk about his campaign in league with Adam (whatever the fuck that means). Y/N figures that either something will happen or. . .it won’t. She sure as fuck wasn’t going to bring it up – like, what if he regretted it? Maybe he thought about it and decided it wasn’t what he was looking for. Maybe he wanted something different, someone different, someone prettier, who was sexy and didn’t ruminate about a two-minute situation for seven days. 

Y/N is kind of abandoning all hope one night when everyone had left the kitchen, and only she and Harry remained. It was quiet, reminiscent of how it was just a month or two ago, with Y/N stuck in a loop, wondering what Harry was thinking when he was silent like this. He made his way around the kitchen, tidying, marking things off on his sheet, carefully storing what could be preserved. 

There are so many thoughts roaming around in her head that she’s barely paying attention to what she’s doing, which technically shouldn’t be a problem because she’s just cleaning. But maybe when she’s cleaning the stove she should be just a little extra careful. Even if it’s been a while since it’d been on, a burner that’s been scalding hot all day typically takes quite a while to cool down. The light near the dial warning of its heat was still illuminated, but Y/N wasn’t paying any mind to that. So she isn’t extra careful like she should be and she ends up accidentally burning the side of her finger on the burner grates. 

She flinches, cursing low to herself and gripping her finger. 

“What happened?” Harry, who had just been across the kitchen, was suddenly at her side when Y/N turned to toss the wash rag in the sink. She’ll admit that it made her yell, startled by his agility and wondering if he should have looked into being a private detective, or a spy even. His eyes widened at the volume of it, echoing through the kitchen. 

“Shit!” She breathed out, holding her fingers from the pain, then both of them held to her heart, feeling it slam against her chest, “Harry, you scared me!” 

Harry is firm but gentle in the way he reaches out to her; his fingers slide down her forearm to get a grip on her wrist before guiding her to the sink. He twists the faucet on, and a soft, cool stream flows from the nozzle. When Harry can identify which finger she hurt, he carefully pulls it to sit beneath it. At first, Y/N hisses, her body jerking, but Harry’s grip on her is so steady that she barely even budges and that. . .she’s real enough to admit that it does something for her. But what doesn’t do something for her these days – she’s really easy to work up lately, and she knows the man holding her so tightly right now is the one to blame. 

“You need to be more careful,” he scolds her after a little while, and when Y/N turns to look at him, she realizes his face is much closer than she thought it’d be. Her gaze darts back down to her finger as she clears her throat, “You aren’t normally clumsy like this. Are you alright?” 

She nods quickly, “Yes, yeah, sorry I just – got distracted,” she shrugs, “I’m a little tired.” 

Harry stares at her for a moment, holding her finger beneath the water – it really isn’t necessary for him to stand there but she wasn’t going to complain about him holding her hand. Even if this is a little more clinical than how she’d like it, she’d take this – how big his fingers looked compared to hers, the way they swallowed her hands up when they’d move from her forearm, stretching out over her knuckles. They’re warm too, and surprisingly soft. She’d expected more callouses from him, but they were smooth like he’d used a sugar scrub on them. And because her pervy brain couldn’t do anything but haunt her, she tried to remember if they felt that soft in her mouth too.

“You’re always saying that,” he clicked his tongue, “How tired you are.” Yeah, Y/N guesses she says that a lot, but the thing is – she’s never said that to Harry directly before. To complain about being sleepy in front of Harry would have been like trying to piss him off on purpose. It’s just a rule of thumb not to whine or moan about how busy you were or how tired you are to Harry. Honestly, it was a rule of thumb not to speak unless spoken to when it came to him during work hours. The only person to break this regularly was Adam, and Y/N was second to that, only because she had just recently gotten comfortable calling him over to ask questions about the dishes she was preparing. 

So how Harry had been hearing her complain about being tired, she wouldn’t know. That’s something she only thinks about or fusses with Niall over. Maybe she’d said it once or twice to the other staff in the kitchen this week because it had been extremely tiring, but she couldn’t imagine speaking loud enough that Harry would have heard her. 

“I’m just having trouble falling asleep lately I guess,” because my sexy as fuck mentor is all I can think about, and it’s haunting my dreams – Harry hums again, “Even when it’s busy here and I’ve been running around all day, I just kind of. . .stay awake when I’m home. Hazelnut doesn’t help, she loves playing until late. I have to tire her out.” 

Harry smiles a little, at what Y/N believes to be the thought of Hazelnut, but then he opens his mouth, “It seems like you need something to tire you out too, hm?” 

It was a loaded statement to make, and Y/N is immediately reading into it.  

So she could either stumble over her words, or she could try something – to propel this further. To make him understand that she wanted this too if he did – that it’s all she can think about. That she wants his stupid, dumb, soft fingers filling her mouth again. Pressing at her gums, the back of her teeth, stroking along her tongue, making her feel dumb and needy because she wants it to be his cock so badly, but she’ll take whatever he gives her. 

“Are you. . .are you offering?” 

It could have come out more confident, for sure, but the message comes across clearly. Harry, once more, allows a smile to twitch at his mouth when he looks at her – a brief thing that makes her insides stir up as he slips his hands from hers.

“That depends,” he answers, turning off the faucet, “Are you a good girl?” 

Y/N’s breath feels like it leaves her lungs but she somehow manages to speak, “I – yes,” she pouts her mouth, “You know I am.” 

Another hum, “You’d let me fill up your mouth with my fingers again?” It’s his only true mention of it happening, and Y/N thought she wanted him to be direct about it, but her heart slams against her sternum hard enough that it might crack it. Her ribs rattle with each beat, and all the blood in her body is surging this way and that. Every cell in her body shivers and vibrates in anxious excitement. 

“Yes.” She agreed urgently. 

“What else would you let me put in your mouth?” Harry goads, but Y/N doesn’t mind playing into it. She’s never been one to play hard to get, really, and maybe that makes her look extra desperate and extra pathetic, but she doesn’t care if it gets her what she wants. Right now, she’ll look as pathetic and desperate as she needs to, if that’s what Harry likes – if it’s what finally pushes him. 

Y/N wheezes, practically, “Anything.” 

That does make Harry chuckle, the smile returning only this time much bigger, and she sees that dimple again – honestly, she might scream if he doesn’t fill her mouth up quickly. Harry’s palm is soft when it cradles her cheek tentatively and slowly before he introduces his thumb to the corner of her lips, “Anything, huh?” He repeats, pressing down into the tender flesh of her mouth, firm enough that it pushes her bottom lip against her teeth, “You’d let me fuck my fingers in your mouth right here again if I wanted, right? You’d drool all over them like the messy, greedy little puppy you are. Open your mouth.” 

A sound leaves Y/N, something like a whine and a gust of breath leaving her lungs again, and she’s so worked up she feels herself squeeze around nothing. She parts her lips instantly and feels strings of spit stretch and snap with her mouth as it opens and Harry slips his thumb inside of it. Y/N should wait for him to tell her to suck again, probably, but she can’t help it – she wants to, so badly, and she’s been thinking about it, and his thumb actually feels really good in her mouth. Does she have an oral fixation? Wouldn’t have that arisen at some other point in her life? She isn’t sure and she doesn’t care either, not when Harry’s tender hold turns a little sterner.

“I thought you were good, hm? Who told you to start sucking?” He inquired but he makes no move to make her stop, and only huffs a laugh when she whimpers around the thumb in her mouth, “Looks like you wanted this badly, hm? This is what’s been keeping you up at night.” He doesn’t say the last sentence like a question, more like a statement, and he’d be right so there’s nothing for Y/N to pop off and correct him for. She nips around his knuckle, and pulls his thumb in deeper, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands – so one of them – the one that isn’t burned – grips onto his wrist to keep him from moving it. 

Harry does start to slip his thumb from her mouth, but before she can protest it, Harry slips his index and middle finger into her mouth. Now the sound Y/N makes is a little more gleeful, a content hum, and really, since when is she into this? Y/N has never had the urge for something to fill her mouth up like this before, but she needs it more than anything – maybe it’s just because she’s ovulating. She’s always been a bit ravenous during this part of her cycle, and Sabrina Carpenter’s lyrics have started making a lot of sense over the past couple of days, so that would add up. But she needs this more than anything right now. 

Embarrassingly enough, Harry must be able to tell, if the way he murmurs, “You really like this, hm?” is anything to go by, “You’ll need training, won’t you? To be a really good girl for me. I’ll teach you how I like my puppies to act. Do you like the sound of that?” 

She nods, her mouth full, her eyes threatening to close, her cunt clenching around absolutely nothing and leaking into the cotton covering her. The whole thing should be extra humiliating, but it only turns her on more. A puppy, huh? That’s what he’s into? Y/N could do that – she could wag her tail and bark too if he wanted, she’s just as big a pervert as he is – she might be an even bigger one.

Harry seems. . .endeared? Fond? Y/N doesn’t know if she’s just seeing things, but she hopes that’s what he’s feeling right now. He doesn’t seem disgusted or annoyed, at least, and that’s reassuring to her. 

“You’ll need to let go of me for a second,” he murmurs, “We need to go to my office.” 

It’s with a mighty sense of will that she’s able to pull away, ultimately more embarrassed now that she wasn’t actively doing it. Harry looks at her lips for a moment longer than she was expecting before guiding her to his office. Y/N had only been in here a couple of times before, one of which when she first came here, Finley by her side as Harry told them all the things he didn’t like and all the things that they would do. When he outlined their schedule, when he was so scary Y/N was regretting accepting his offer, while she wondered if she had what it took to be a chef studying under him. 

And now he’s pulling her in here, pushing the door closed behind them, and offering his fingers back up to her mouth. Maybe Y/N is a greedy puppy, because she takes them back in and this time she does bob her head once, pulling them deeper, down to his second knuckle. Her throat convulses at the intrusion, rejecting it, and it makes her shudder as she withdraws some. The saliva in her mouth is on another level right now, but Harry doesn’t seem to care at all. She wonders what he’s thinking about – wonders what he wants from her. Was he getting off on this too? 

Y/N looks down, but her view is obscured by his hand. Even if it wasn’t, he uses his other hand to tilt her chin up, “Ah ah, eyes above the belt, Pup,” and the nickname – wow, is it possible for her to cum untouched? She kind of thought stories like that were bullshit but the curl of arousal in her belly is so intense, it feels like there’s no way that it isn’t a possibility. 

Harry’s free hand moves from her chin, down to her top. The black button up she has tucked into her bottoms is carefully pulled up from beneath her trouser band, and the button of her trousers follows shortly after. Harry works with a precision only someone with experience could move with, dragging the zipper down, pulling the fabric out, entirely. The tips of his fingers graze along the delicate waistband of her underwear, before he stretches the elastic and slips his fingers in. 

When he feels how wet she is, he cusses. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” it’s the first time he’s sounded truly affected by anything, and Y/N bristles with it, humming around his fingers, “Such a messy pussy. All from sucking on my fingers?” Her hips move without her say, bucking into his touch – his fingers are cold in comparison to her scorching insides and she wants more of them. Wants him to rub her clit, wants him to tuck them inside of her, wants to ride them while he sits there with them still and makes her do all the work. She wants, and wants, and wants so viciously that it feels like she might go crazy. 

Harry plays around in her wetness a bit, slipping his fingers through it between her folds before slipping the pad of it up to her clit. It’s swollen, flicking beneath his fingers before looping soft circles over it. Y/N moans, her brain fizzling out for a second, all soap bubbles from the sink filling the grooves. It’s the only thing that’s gotten her to stop sucking this whole time, her mouth falling open around it. She wonders if he could feel her pulsate and squeeze around nothing if he liked it, if he liked how she felt. She wonders if he’s hard, and she wants to touch so badly she doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

“There you go,” she shivers, his voice is placating like he really was talking to a greedy dog. It’s humiliating in the best way for her and makes her leak more – could he feel that? “Poor thing, all this worked up over a little treat. How cute.” It’s the first time he’s called her cute since after the Korean barbeque, and Y/N is suddenly reminded of that entire night. How he’d made sure she was fed, how he took care of her after, drove her home, calmed her panicked drunk self about the stain she’d left on his shirt. How soft we were with her led to all of these delusions that might not have been delusions in the first place. He did want her, at least in some way. Maybe not in all the ways Y/N wanted him, but still, something was better than nothing. Maybe she could fuck this out of her system and actually sleep without her subconscious bullying her. 

It goes from feeling good to feeling really good in just a couple of spins. How all orgasms do, it’s building, and building, and building, until suddenly things are feeling great, and there’s a point where there’s no turning back. That’s where she was at – her teeth dig into his fingers, which is not helping the puppy allegations in the slightest, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind it. He seems amused, tickled, and a little too joyful for someone who hasn’t even gotten touched yet. This alone should have rang alarm bells in her head, but it didn’t, because her head was full of cotton after her brain finished melting from her ears. 

So when Y/N knows it would only take a couple more circles of his fingers before she would cum, and he pulls his fingers away – well, she’s shocked. Shocked and horrified and appalled. The look must be written all over her face because Harry’s biting down on a huge smile then, dimples and all, slipping his fingers from her mouth too. 

“Wh-why?” She asks, and the distress is palpable – enough that Harry even gives a small, pitied laugh while he thumbs at her bottom lip, “I was almost – I almost –” 

“Mm, I wasn’t ready for you to do that yet.” He tells her, and Y/N frowns – nobody had ever snatched an orgasm away from her before. Honestly, her ex just seemed stoked that he could get her there every once in a while. Y/N hasn’t even done that to herself.  

“But I was!” It sounds whiny, even to her own ears, and Harry still seems pleased with himself. 

“I thought you were a good girl, yeah?” He rubs his fingers, wet from her spit, on his shirt. The fingers wet from her, he merely drags his tongue across right in front of her because he hates her guts and he wants her to suffer before continuing to speak, “Good girls wait for their treats. Are you going to be a well-behaved puppy or not?” 

Y/N feels frazzled and overwhelmed and so needy she could scream. She’s starting to think that maybe she was right from the start – maybe he was just fucking with her. 

Still, she relents, “You hate me,” she accuses him, but Harry just laughs again, like she’s just the most amusing thing in the world. Probably like when you’re watching your dog look at its reflection for the first time or when you put them in socks and they walk funny. Harry takes it upon himself to rebutton and zip her pants while she pouts, her arms crossed over her chest, “You really do, I knew it.” 

Harry doesn’t bother to tuck her shirt in, “You’re fussy when you’ve been edged,” he murmurs, “Poor thing.” He calls her again and plucks at her bottom lip again, only pushing on it until she sucks the pout back into her mouth, “Alright, let’s put some cream on your burn and bandage it.” 

The contrast between what they were doing five minutes ago and what was happening now – honestly, was kind of funny. If Y/N was in the mood to find humor in anything, then she’d be laughing, but she’s still feeling a bit huffy over it. She rubs the cream on her little burn while Harry cuts a sliver from the bandage, then helps her loop it around her finger carefully, “Take it off in the morning and air it out,” he murmurs, but then slips the cream and the rest of the bandage in her pocket, “If you do this for three days then it should heal up nicely, and barely scar.” 

“Okay,” she nods, “Thank you.” 

Harry looks like he’s thinking about something when he’s staring at her, watching as she tucks her shirt back in at least a little bit and addresses her hair that had been smashed between her head and the wall, so her bun was all fucked. When she’s finally halfway righted herself, she finally looks back at him, blinking, waiting for him to speak. 

“Be careful on your way home, Puppy,” is what he decides on, and Y/N feels her face get hot all over again, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

                                                                     .                    .                      .

“Why in the f-u-c-k am I just now hearing about his fingers in your mouth?” Niall is staring at her across the table at a Greek restaurant where she should definitely not be explaining this story. She couldn’t help it, though, because her brain-to-mouth filter is nonexistent when it comes to being with Niall, even when they’re in public. And all Niall had to do was say, Any new Harry stories, I need something to preoccupy my time with – and she was explaining everything. 

She did cower beneath his glare, a little, “Because I kind of felt pathetic and stupid because he wasn’t doing anything about it afterward, and he wasn’t bringing it up so I was like – well, guess he decided that I was ugly and – ow!” 

Niall, who had kicked her from underneath the table, is staring at her with crossed arms, “Call yourself ugly again and I’ll kick you harder.” 

Pouting, she reaches down and rubs at her shin, “--and I was like. . .licking my wounds a bit. But then he did it again so –” 

“He did it again?” Niall exclaimed. 

“So I was like – well, I better tell Ni,” she finished, then nodded, “It was – Niall, it was crazy! I’ve never been so horny in my life, which is insane, because it was after I burned myself so –” 

“Okay, hold the fuck on,” Niall’s pretenses of keeping his language somewhat appropriate for a dine-out setting are lost almost immediately, “Start from the beginning of the night, after I left with Adam.” 

Y/N does – she explains it all. From he burning her finger, to Harry sending her off with soaked panties and stuff to treat her wound, and everything that happened in between. Niall is good to tell stories to, even if they aren’t very interesting ones because he’s a very active listener. He gasps, he asks questions, his eyes widen, his brows furrow, his mouth falls agape in shock and he scoffs at the right moments too. By the time Y/N finishes the story, you would’ve thought Niall had gone through it as well, with how flustered he seemed. 

“Oh my god,” he’s holding his head in his hands, “I can’t believe you were getting felt up while I was begging Adam to wax my ass for me.” 

“Please, Ni, nobody wants to see your balls from that angle when they aren’t planning on fucking you.” 

“Oh my god, he is a fucking freak, my sources were correct.” He ignores her, then his head darts up, “Wait, so showing up to work in a collar and a buttplug wouldn’t have been too much! God I understand kinky fuckers so well, it’s like my brain is hardwired for it.” 

“Your brain is hardwired for it, because you’re also a kinky fuck. Did you forget?” 

He ignores her again, “Wait, so how do you feel about the puppy thing? Is it a turn on or do you actually hate it?” 

Y/N had been mulling over this for a couple of days now, “I think if anyone else did it, I wouldn’t like it,” she explained the conclusion she’d come to at 9PM one night, when Hazelnut was lying on her belly, purring, her eyes shut but her right paw kneading her nails just below Y/N’s breast, “But with him it just like. . .feels right? Like I couldn’t imagine him treating me any other way.” 

“You’re so right, this is like – this makes perfect sense for him,” he nods. 

“What do you think I should do though?” Y/N asks, her hands squeezing around the glass of water she’d been preoccupying them with, “Like – how should I be sexier? What would make it hard for him to keep his hands off me?” 

Niall is good to ask, not only because he knows how a guy’s brain might work but because he is sexy. He’s coy and flirty, and every person that he sets his sights on to date ends up obsessed with him. When he’s dating someone, or even when he just has a fuck buddy, he’s always covered in love bites and hickeys, and they’re messaging him nonstop while he ignores them in favor of snapping those medieval torture hair ties with the balls attached to them on Y/N’s head (when she wanted to try a ‘cyberpunk’ hairstyle that didn’t even work out). If anyone knew how to lure Harry, it would be him. 

“Don’t do anything differently,” Niall tells her instead, shaking his head, “Clearly, whatever you’re doing does have him worked up.” 

Her brows dip, “But I feel like I just come off like a. . .like a. . .” 

“Big virgin dummy?” 

“Hey!” 

“Maybe Harry likes big virgin dummies,” he teases, pulling his straw to his mouth, taking a sip of whatever fruity lemonade he’d ordered, “Listen, Harry is like. . .at the risk of sounding cliche, not like other men. I don’t think the same tactics would work for him. If he wants a “dumb little puppy” to train, then you fit the bill, Sweetheart.” He slides his drink away, “Not to say that you’re dumb or that you even come off as dumb. But you clearly space out when he’s trying to talk to you, listen to what he says, and have this cute deer-in-the-headlights look about you. Plus, you’re good at your job and followed his lead when he acted like nothing happened between you two.” Niall leaned on his hand, “You’re probably pretty interesting to him.” 

Y/N runs her thumb over her brows to relax them, “Okay, if you’re sure,” she replies, "I'm like, worried I’ll make the wrong move and he’ll snap out of whatever spell I accidentally cast on him – hey!” He kicks her again. 

“You’re cute and funny, there was no spell involved,” Niall scolds her, before a smile pulls at his cheeks, “I can’t believe he’s going to edge you! I’m so giddy right now, I could squeal.” 

She hides her face in her palms and shakes her head, “Stop! I’m so – not giddy about that! I know he’s going to be mean.” 

“That’s the fun part isn’t it?” Niall pulls at her wrist, “No stop hiding, we need to look up collars and measure your neck when we get back to your place.” 

                                                                 .                        .                      .

Another week of nothing passes. The air outside is still cold for the most part, but they’ve come to the part of winter where there’s a fake promise of spring for a week or two. Just before the area plunges back into the icy tundra that torments them until the actual solstice. Still, Y/N enjoys it while she can – opens her windows, and accepts the fresh, warm-ish breeze, and the sun that blares through the glass.

So she starts her day in a pretty good mood. She and Niall are back on the mornings now, but this day in particular Harry isn’t coming in at 5 AM so he relieves her of her 5 AM duties as well. He will be seeing her promptly at 6 AM, however, which. . .okay, yeah, it’s only an hour but an hour is still an hour! Plus the sun was so pretty the day before, Y/N sat outside and soaked it up so she’s high on vitamin D and vibes. 

It must show on her face when she walks in, and Harry instructs her to start preparing the vegetables for the day (they’re already washed and waiting for her on the cutting board). 

“You’re awfully cheery this morning,” he made note, and Y/N shrugged.

“Is that a bad thing?” She asked. 

Harry looked like he was considering it, before shaking his head, “Carry on then. Be in a cheery mood.” 

So she does. She even kind of hums a little until Harry side-eyes her, and then she stops humming. Even with the new development in their dynamic, Harry is still intimidating as hell and kind of scary, so she doesn’t want to annoy him or bother him. By no means did she believe that him having his fingers in her mouth and his hand down her pants gave her any special treatment. If Mora gets a glare when she starts singing and cooking the steaks, then Y/N sees herself as no different. 

They move harmoniously, as they always do. Adam and Niall come in loud and bright like they always do. Everyone else filters in; the mood is light and airy, and Y/N is excited to start cooking. 

The good vibes continue until around 2 PM when there’s a complaint about Y/N’s plate. And the vibes diminish entirely when she walks out to speak to the customer to see what’s wrong, and she sees the same annoying prick that is always there bothering everyone. She hadn’t seen him since the last time he’d come and stirred a fuss. When Harry initially yelled at her, and then she went and cried in the food storage closet. Y/N still remembers how horrible it felt to be accused and scolded for something that she hadn’t even done, and she has a feeling that the same thing is going to happen again today. Because no amount of being a cute, dumb puppy is going to stop Harry from being upset when the state of his business is questioned. 

“Oh, what a surprise,” the man says, this time with a different woman sitting across from him, “It’s you again. You think they’d have put some sense into you since the last time.” He raises his hand, this time another piece of hair, another color so far from her own that she could have screamed over it. The only thing that is a little confusing is she doesn’t remember plating this. Y/N was supposed to prepare the seared salmon, but Harry had told her she was needed in the sauces to help Niall. She’d been a little confused but didn’t question it, because any chance to hang out with Niall in the actual kitchen was pretty fun but they’re always at different stations. 

So Y/N didn’t make this one, because she hadn’t made salmon today, but it must have come from her station for the waitress to come get her. 

The manager is at her side, opening his mouth to apologize again but another presence emerges to the left of them. Y/N turns to see Harry, her heart hammering – was he going to remember that she hadn’t prepared that dish? Or would he have forgotten? This is. . .not a good look, being in the same position as she had been before, even if this time it definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, could not have been her fault. The piece of hair was long in length – longer than Harry’s, and the wrong color too. But he hadn’t noticed the color last time – he’d probably been so mad at her that he was blinded by it. 

“Thank god you’re here,” the man shook his head, looking disturbed, “Another piece of hair. You should really look into monitoring the women who –” 

“You planted that.” Harry cut him off. 

The man stops, blinking. 

“Wh-what? That’s absurd?” He exclaimed, “Why would I have done that?” 

Harry has the same, impassive look on his face that he did the last time they were in this position, but this time he shrugs, “You tell me. Why would you plant your date’s hair into a dish that I prepared?” 

The color drains from the man’s face, “What?” His eyes darted between Harry to Y/N, “When I asked the waitress she said –” 

“She said that chef Y/N made it,” Harry filled in the blanks, “But the thing is, Sir, I’ve been hearing a lot about you since you’ve been here last. How you’re always bothering the female staff, how you seemingly only enjoy the food and leave a good tip if it was a male chef, or if you had a waiter as opposed to a waitress. How you’re always here with different women who look uncomfortable in your presence. So I imagine that you saw your food, asked who cooked it – as you always do –  heard it was a woman’s name, and thought that you could get a free meal again, correct?” 

“Excuse me –” The man was red now, bright red, looking enraged, but Harry continued. 

“But I had the hostess alert me when you came in, and I made sure that I was the one to prepare your plate. This –” he plucks the hair from the hands, holding it between his fingers, then holds it up to his head, “Is not my hair. It’s not the same length or the same color, and I was the one to cook the fish, plate the dish, and have it sent out to you. It’s not the same color as your waitress; hers is bright pink, and Chef Y/N has never come into contact with your plate. This does, however, look very similar to your date’s,” Harry holds it out now toward the woman who looks embarrassed to be sitting across from him now, and it is a perfect match – if he dropped it onto her shoulder, nobody would have questioned where it came from, “You planted it.” 

“I – I did not –” 

“I don’t like liars,” Harry takes another step closer, withdraws the plate from the table, “And I won’t stand for you harassing my staff anymore. Get the fuck out of my restaurant.” 

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, which is unusual for this time of day, with this amount of people seated and eating. Y/N is staring, wide-eyed, and flustered by the whole situation when Harry pivots from the table, “Y/N.” He says her name and it startles her from her trance. She’s worked with him long enough to know that this means he wants to speak to her, so she trails after him, her heart slamming against her chest. 

Harry drops the plate onto the kitchen counter and directs Y/N into his office. Adam catches her gaze, looking distressed – he must think she’s about to get yelled at again. Honestly, maybe she was – Y/N doesn’t know. 

He closes the door behind them and Y/N tentatively sits in the chair across from his own at the desk. Harry doesn’t sit though, instead standing beside her, his arms crossed – oh she was definitely getting yelled at –

“I’m sorry.” 

Y/N is confused instantly. 

“Wait, what?” 

Harry takes a deep breath, “I don’t want you thinking that the only reason I did all of this is because of the change in our dynamic,” he explained carefully, “And I want you to know, going forward, how I treat you will not change no matter if we are friendly outside of the kitchen or not. I know you understand this, yes?” Y/N nods, eye gaze locked onto his own, “But after last time, I inquired about this particular customer and heard a lot of stories that I wish would have been shared with me before. Then you cried – and for all I’ve yelled at you, you’ve never looked like that afterward. Never seemed so distressed or sad either, it’s when I first got a feeling that something was off. So I wanted to apologize to you because you deserve it. I should have heard you out and asked you what happened instead of assuming the worst and berating you.” His gaze is softer than she’s ever seen before, despite how angry he just was – it melts her insides and makes her insides swirl with an emotion different than the usual, horny demon that tries to overtake her, “So I’m sorry.” 

“Oh – it’s,” she raised her hands, “It’s okay, I –” 

“It isn’t,” he replied, “It isn’t okay at all. I’m sorry.” 

Y/N swallows thickly, nodding, “I – okay,” she replies, “That’s – I accept? Honestly, I forgot about it like a couple of weeks ago, so I promise I’m not holding onto it or anything! So I accept your apology.” She answers, and she doesn't necessarily know what to do with her hands so she holds out one of hers for him to shake. Y/N isn’t sure why – she’s just a loser, and panicking, and her boss was just really fucking hot out there, so she isn’t sure what to do with herself. 

Harry entertains her at least, and meets her hand with his own, shaking it once, “Alright,” he agreed that it was settled on, “Are you okay? I know the situation was uncomfortable.” 

She smiles, nodding, “Yeah, it was – it was kind of uncomfortable, but you were really cool out there,” she told him, “Like, badass and cool. That dick has had it coming for a long time, and you told him off so it was. . .it was pretty cool.” 

This makes Harry laugh, and he doesn’t let go of her hand. Instead he squeezes hers, warm against his palm. 

“You’re cute,” and even if he’s said it before, it still makes her shiver, that he thinks her bumbling and fumbling through her words and sounding stupid was in any way endearing, “Do you have plans tonight?” 

Y/N shook her head, “Nothing besides – well, Hazelnut and I may watch a movie.” 

“Tell Hazelnut you’ll need a raincheck,” Harry told her, “You’re coming to my flat.”  

[daylightmidnights]

Guru my girl, I don't think I need to tell you that this is insanely good and hot and cute and sweet and I was giggling so much throughout that bowling alley scene. Thank you so much for sharing this with us tumblr girlies. I am definitely gonna re read this.

But I am annoying you know that so I am gonna share my real concern here. WHAT ABOUT HER CAREER? Did she get a good job after she gained some experience from the work she was forced to do? An internship at least? Did she move out of her parents house? Cause idk why the whole time I was expecting that maybe at the end we'll see that she got a decent enough job for now. I NEED her to have a good job you know and I need her to move out. Like with her first month salary she has a day out and goes shopping and to a fancy restaurant and then a fancy club and almost spends too much money just to make up for the shitty after graduation life she lived. And if there weren't any Harry in her life I'd imagine her buying guys drink and having hot sex in the club bathroom. Just because she is happy and she could do that. Because she absolutely deserves to have some careless fun. Why am I like this? Why can't I just stick to the plot!!!!! I'm sorry 😭

Maybe Fate

MAIN MASTERLIST

This was first posted on Patreon one year ago! Figured I’d share it here with y’all on tumblr! 💕

Summary: The first time you meet Harry is under odd circumstances. But the second time you meet him it feels like fate. Well, if you believe in that sort of thing.

A/N: I have a couple of songs linked through to Spotify if you are interested in listening to set the scene - it's not necessary, though!

Word Count: 8,347

Warning: smut, cuteness, loud sex that can be heard by others

..

Your roommate K had some gall. You could hear her and whoever it was she brought home from the bar going at it for what seemed like an exaggerated amount of time. How was it possible that they could last that long? Why were they still having sex?

As annoying as it was to lose sleep (you had a test in the morning so it was a little more than just annoying) you could admit, it did sound like she was getting it good.

The man, who you’d not yet seen and probably would not be seeing, had a deep voice. And not just any deep voice. He sounded—hot. You couldn’t hear everything that that he said but he was vocal and he was definitely talking dirty to her.

Of course, there was also her bed wildly bouncing and frame smacking into the wall which told you he was plowing her in a way that made you a little jealous. You hadn’t been laid in a while. It was your senior year at university and you were busting your ass like the good student you were. You needed a good grade to get the internship you were up for that summer.

So sleep was vital. And here you were listening as K was getting the life fucked out of her. She sounded like she was crying but then you’d hear her long drawn-out moans of pleasure…

You stuffed your pillow over your head and groaned. If you failed your test the following day you’d be having a word with her about proper roommate etiquette. They could keep it down. There was no way they weren’t aware you could hear every little thing happening on her bed. You could even hear their bodies colliding every time he thrust into her.

Jesus. You needed sleep. But you also needed to get laid.

. . .

You didn’t fail your test, but you barely passed. But a passing grade was a passing grade you thought to yourself as you ordered your cappuccino. You were exhausted. Memories of what had kept you up had you rolling your eyes.

K was nice. You didn’t know her well, though. You were renting a small two-bedroom apartment and found it through an ad she’d posted. It would have been nice to have a place of your own but who could afford that? So, being stuck with K was more out of necessity than anything. You didn’t have much choice.

And up until the night before you’d really had no major complaints. She was six years older than you and had a regular job. She brought men home from time to time but nothing like her most recent Casanova that shook the whole apartment. And it was funny to you how she was always out partying and drinking while you stayed in on the weekends and studied til your eyes bulged out of your head. It should have been the opposite with you being the college kid and her the more mature adult.

Your plan had been to go home and crawl back into bed to catch up on the sleep you’d missed out on. But when you walked into your apartment you realized that K was still home. Which was odd since it was midday Thursday. Normally she was working.

You tossed your bag in your room and toed off your tennis shoes before making your way to the shared bathroom in the hallway and pushing open the door.

But instead of finding the bathroom unoccupied, you were met with a naked man who looked just as surprised as you were, “Oh shit!”

You turned quickly and put your hands over your eyes, “Sorry! Oh my god!”

The shock of seeing a man’s naked dick when you were not expecting it had you a bit dazed.

“Sorry, I’m covered now. Sorry,” you heard his voice and realized immediately who the offender was. The rowdy Casanova from the night before.

You kept your fingers over your eyes as you turned and slowly parted your digits to make sure it was safe.

He laughed and you verified he was indeed covered. But you did notice all the tattoos on his chest and arms, and his dark curls and soft green eyes… Yeah K was a lucky girl. Damn.

You didn’t stare long, though. But you could tell his body looked like he had a lot of stamina, and after everything you’d heard the night before you understood it all now.

“I’m Harry,” he held a hand out to you in greeting.

You smiled up at him and slid your palm into his, “Y/n. Uh… I’m guessing you’re K’s friend?”

He laughed again. Even his laugh was attractive with a big grin and nice teeth, “Yeah. I guess you could call me her friend.”

“Got it,” you nodded as you backed up out of the bathroom, “Well, I’ll come back when you’re done in here. Honestly didn’t mean to see…” you waved your hand around, “any of that.”

. . .

You didn’t see Harry again after that. You did hear him again the following night, though. But this time you had a picture in your head of the man who was obliterating K with that big thing between his legs and his nicely built body with broad shoulders and thick, muscled thighs.

It was no wonder she was crying out in ecstasy. You wondered if she’d need to repaint the wall where the frame was knocking into the plaster repeatedly. Wondered if other neighbors could hear (surely they could). Wondered what position he was putting her in and how he might look doing it.

Then you heard a loud pop and K’s choked gasp and then another three or four pops. He was spanking her.

You rolled your eyes so hard you felt the force of your sockets nearly separate from your eyeballs. It wasn’t fair. God, what you wouldn’t give to have a man that looked like that fucking you so hard into your mattress you were a blubbering mess and then to have him spank you with those big hands…

You could almost see the dimpled smirk on his face as he landed his palms over her bum. You could hear his voice but it was difficult to make out the words he was saying over the racket of the squeaky bed and K’s high-pitched moans.

And once again, the amount of stamina he had to last as long as he did was quite amazing to you. Most of the guys you’d slept with couldn’t keep going like that or they’d come too fast.

But of course, the longer they lasted, the less sleep you were awarded.

. . .

Graduating from university felt different than you imagined it would. Nothing much really changed. You envisioned getting that internship and starting a new life and making new friends with people who had the same interests as you.

But instead, you found yourself not getting picked for the internship even though you were more than qualified, and moving back in with your parents once your lease with K was up.

Honestly, it felt a lot like high school again, except this time you needed to get a job. And as it turned out having your engineering degree meant zilch when you had no experience to speak of. So you were forced to find something that had nothing to do with the framed certificate hung on the wall in your childhood bedroom.

So that’s why you needed a night out or something. Something to break up the monotony of what this very disappointing after-graduation life looked like so far.

“I know it might sound really lame, but I am going bowling with some friends. On Fridays, they have $10 pitchers of beer and pizza. Cheap fun.” Your cousin, Lee, told you over the phone when you called to find out what her plans were.

But even if you were terrible at bowling, beer and pizza with adults your age sounded really fun. You needed to get out of your parent's house and do anything else. Bowling sounded more appealing than listening to your dad talk about his coworkers and what time he was gonna light up the grill and make hamburgers (then hear him complain about how you don’t eat meat).

Rocket Soul Bowl was one of those dirty, old bowling alleys. The parking lot was filled with potholes and had weeds growing up through the cracks and the inside smelled of stale cigarette smoke, had dim lighting, with old school rock and R&B playing. It was perfect.

Well. Better than watching your parents eat hamburgers while you stuck with chips and potato salad.

You found Lee with one of her friends after you got your used (and hopefully sanitized) bowling shoes and she already had a pitcher of beer on the table with plastic cups.

“Y/n!” She jumped up and hugged you, “This is Chris,” she gestured toward the guy who stood up to reach his hand out for you to shake. “We’re waiting on Harry. And then we’ll start bowling and order pizza.”

You smiled at Lee and Chris and then poured beer into your cup as you sat down on the hard, smooth plastic bench at the table. It wasn’t often you heard the name Harry. Immediately your mind went to the tall curly-headed man with tattoos. Part of you thought how funny it would be if that was the Harry who was meeting up with your cousin at the bowling alley. In all the world, to have it be the same Harry seemed impossible.

But when a Bill Withers song began playing over the speakers and Chris stood up to greet someone who approached you from behind, “Hey man! Good to see you!” It was like something inside of you just knew. Before you even heard his voice or looked at his green eyes.

Placing your plastic cup down you stood up and turned to see him. Harry hugged Lee but the moment they parted from the hug he saw you and the smile on his face changed to a flirty grin. “Y/n, what a surprise. Are you the cousin?” You noted he had a black helmet tucked under his arm.

You nodded and looked at Lee and back at Harry, “Yeah. I’m Lee’s cousin. You guys know each other?”

Lee laughed, “For years. Wait? You know Harry?”

Before you could speak Harry grabbed your hand and pulled you into his side, draping his arm over your shoulder, “We do,” he looked down at you, “Intimately.”

Chris laughed and you shook your head, pushing yourself out from under his arm, “We know each other, but not really. Definitely not intimately. He’s joking,” you laughed.

Harry’s demeanor did not falter, “But we do, Y/n. You’ve seen my cock and balls and bush. I’d say that’s intimate.”

You looked at Lee, still shaking your head, “No, that was an accident–“

“She’s playing shy. Knows very well some other very intimate details about me as well,” he kept his eyes on you, the edge of his mouth playing upward in a smirk, “Isn’t that right?”

You rolled your eyes and laughed as you squinted at him, “You’re crazy.”

Harry pulled you back into his side and put his arm over your shoulder, “I am a little.”

When Lee put everyone’s name in the computer and the match started it was your turn first. You picked a bowling ball you liked the color of and stood along the lines on the slick floors and attempted to launch the ball down the center of the lane but once it got toward the end the ball suddenly veered to the left and only knocked down two pins.

You repeated your move, trying to make the ball stay toward the center but it rolled in nearly the same path as before, veering to the left at the end, this time hitting nothing before it rolled into the gutter and then it was Harry’s turn.

“Better luck next time, Cherry,” he eyed your shirt as he spoke and picked up his ball.

You were wearing a black t-shirt with cherries on the front with the words Have a cherry good time! You rolled your eyes as you sat down and sipped your beer. But inside you were feeling something other than annoyed. In fact, you could say you were quite pleased that Harry was there.

It turned out, as was no surprise, that you were a terrible bowler. So was Lee. Chris was good enough to hold his own, but what was surprising was how good Harry was. He claimed he rarely bowled, that it was just luck. But you weren’t sure about all that.

The four of you sat on the plastic chairs after your first set and ate pizza (you opted for cheese) with a fresh pitcher of beer, “I’m just good at most things I do. I have no idea why,” Harry laughed before taking a huge bite of his slice of pizza.

“It’s true. This guy just learns how to do something and immediately he’s good at it. In our sophomore year at university, I was on the track team and one day I was at practice and Harry just pops in because he wants to chat about something so I tell him I’ve got to run laps so he just goes with me. The whole team was out there practicing in our athletic gear, like just dragging and sweating and Harry’s in jeans and a t-shirt and he’s running next to me not even breaking a sweat. He held a whole conversation while we were full-on running without skipping a beat.”

Chris took a drink from his cup, “Oh, and then there was the time that girl was showing us how to play chess and Harry sits and watches and listens to her explain the game so he plays a round with her and he fucking beats her. Like?”

The four of you laugh but the truth is you’re a bit impressed. You also happen to know another thing he’s really good at, but you stop yourself from allowing that thought to develop further.

The next game you play, you also suck. You barely hit any pins but you were having such a good time you could have cared less. Of course, Harry was just strike after strike. One time he went up with his plastic cup, launched his ball with one hand while he took a sip of beer and hit all but two pins. On his next try, he threw the ball, knocking down the two remaining. But that was him showing off. His cocky grin aimed at you as he sat down.

But the best part was that he sat next to you every time he went back to the seats when his turn was over. He kept his arm over your shoulder with his thigh flush against yours.

It made you hot having him so close. Every time you looked down at his thighs you were reminded of that day you saw him. You knew what he looked like with no jeans covering his bottom half. And you knew those muscles were definitely good for something.

It was hard not to think about Harry that way. He was hot and he was flirty.

And when your mind was wandering into the figurative gutters (unlike the literal ones your bowling ball kept wandering into) about what he’d be like with you in bed you didn’t realize it was your turn as you listened to his husky voice with his arm over your shoulder and his fingers brushing the skin just under your t-shirt sleeve.

“Cherry girl, your turn,” he spoke into your ear, breaking you from your reverie.

Another bad round. You were terrible. You laughed as you turned back to see Harry right behind you waiting his turn, “Come here,” he pulled at your hand, “Let’s do this together. Your form is all wrong.”

“But if I bowl on your turn I’m gonna fuck up your score.”

Harry’s dimples poked into his cheeks as he smiled, “Why would I care about my score? I’m not making money on this or anything. Even if we hit no pins I’m still gonna win anyway. Now get your cute ass over here so we can figure out what’s going on.”

You coughed a laugh and looked back at Lee who was watching the exchange with her brows raised. Yeah, she’d been giving you looks the entire time. You were sure she thought you and Harry had something going on. You could only hope.

Harry moved you up to the line as he stood behind you with his hands on your shoulders and then he pushed his chest to your back, helping you hold the ball correctly, positioning your hands with his, “Hold it like this, yeah?” His voice vibrated off the shell of your ear and down the back of your neck.

“There, good girl, Cherry. Just like that.” He let go of your hands and then you felt his grip on the back of your hips, “We’re gonna take one step forward, and then as you bring your other leg up you’ll swing this back for momentum before pushing it out and letting it roll toward the pins. Follow my lead.”

He nudged you forward before putting one hand on your right arm, “Now bring it back,” he let you swing the ball back before you felt him push the ball in your hands, giving you a bit more oomph in your swing. “And release. Like that…” he stayed against your back as you both watched the ball roll down the lane and rather than either going directly into the gutter or only hitting the last two pins on the left it was almost center and hit half the pins.

You jumped up and spun around, “Oh my god! It worked!” He laughed as you hugged him and you felt his arms squeeze around your middle before letting you go.

“Now try it again. See if you can do the same thing I just showed you.”

You took your bowling ball and lined up, holding the ball upward as Harry showed you, and then moved to swing and release. The ball didn’t have as much power as when he had helped you but it still hit three more pins.

You jumped up and down and turned back, high-fiving Harry as you both took your seats next to one another. It felt good to hit more pins. Something about it was exhilarating and maybe it was the way Harry looked proud that had you feeling that excitement even more so. It didn’t matter, though. You were having so much fun.

But all good things must come to an end. When the last round was nearly over and you were still losing while Harry was blowing everyone out of the water, you were feeling a bit of anxiety at that being it. Maybe you’d never see him again. He hadn’t asked for your number and even though he was obviously flirting with you there was no guarantee it actually meant much of anything.

When Lee took her turn and a Bruce Springsteen song came on you felt Harry’s fingers move to the back of your neck, “What are you doing after this?”

You smiled as you looked at him, his face was incredibly close to yours, “No plans. You?”

“What a coincidence that two young and attractive people have no plans on a Friday night after bowling. Wouldn’t you say?”

You laughed as his fingers trailed over the skin on your neck, “Yeah. Wild coincidence.”

“Actually it is. Maybe fate even,” he grinned teasingly, “I’m pretty sure this means we’re meant to hang out after this. Me and you, Cherry. You can’t say no to fate.”

The smile on your face couldn’t be removed if anyone tried. Because maybe Harry was right. Maybe it was fate. Maybe the coincidences in life that we think of as just coincidences are more than just random occurrences.

“That’s true. Who can say no to fate.”

You watched him lick his lips before Lee sat at the computer and tallied up the score. Obviously, Harry had won, to no one’s surprise.

Everyone stood up to say their goodbyes. Lee hugged you as she pulled you toward the exit with Harry and Chris following behind after you’d dropped off your rented shoes, “So, you and Harry?”

You laughed and shook your head, “I don’t know. He invited me to hang out after this. Maybe just a little fun,” you raised your brows and Lee laughed.

Harry had a black motorcycle, which explained the helmet he had with him, that had coincidentally (once again) been parked right next to your little shitter car.

“Where are you parked?” He said as he looked at you. Lee and Chris were already headed away toward their cars.

You pointed to the car right next to Harry’s motorcycle, “That’s me.”

Harry’s eyes took in your old beater and he leaned against the door, “Wanna take a ride with me? I can bring you back to your car later.”

You nodded, “Should I have a helmet?”

Harry raised up the black one that he had, “You’ll wear this. Okay?”

“But what about you?”

Harry inched in closer to you as he unhooked the buckle on the helmet, “I’ll be fine. My place is pretty close if you want to go there,” he raised his brows at you in question.

“Oh. Sure. Okay.” His place.

“Yeah? Did you want to go somewhere else instead?” He pulled the helmet over your head and adjusted the straps as you looked at his face.

“Your place is fine, Harry. I’d like that.”

When he’d fixed the helmet tight to your head he looked at you and lowered his gaze over your frame with a sexy grin, “Cute.”

You’d never ridden on a motorcycle before. Harry got on first and held your hand to help you on behind him, “Put your arms around me and hold on.” Turned out you really enjoyed the ride. The cool night air whipped around your body while the world around you flew by in a fuzzy blur as Harry safely took you to your destination.

You liked sitting behind him and holding onto his waist. The smell of his cologne or soap was fresh and his body was warm. You felt like a different person on the back of that bike with Harry. You didn’t know what to expect exactly but that was part of the thrill.

Harry turned into an apartment complex and parked at the front before helping you off the bike, “This is my place,” he gestured toward the second floor of the building and then helped you take the helmet off. Which you didn’t need him to do but found you loved his attention on you.

Following behind Harry you walked up the steps to the second level and he got to his door and stuck his key in. Before he opened his door he turned to look at you, “Kind of messy inside. Didn’t expect to have company.”

When you stepped in and he turned on the lights you looked around. It was about as messy as seemed appropriate. Nothing crazy. An empty glass of water next to a bowl of what looked like dry cereal on the coffee table, a blanket bunched up on the couch, trainers by the door with socks tucked inside, and some books on the floor next to a chair by the couch.

“Would you like anything to drink? Water? Beer? Uh… that’s really all I’ve got.”

“Nah. I’m good. Thank you, Harry.”

He sat the helmet down on the coffee table and plopped onto the couch, patting the space next to him, “Come here, Cherry.”

You laughed and sat next to him. Harry pushed his arm over your shoulders, his body angled toward you, “You know that day you walked in on me in the bathroom?”

You raised a brow at him, looking up to his face, “Yeah?”

“I kind of wanted to get your number. Is that bad of me since I was there with K?”

You breathed a laugh through your nose, “A little bad. But why? Sounded like you really liked K.”

Harry cackled loudly and his body shook the couch as he gripped your shoulder, “I liked her. But she was just using me for my body,” he teased, “But seriously. You were so cute and then I never saw you again. Thought about you a few times after.”

You grinned as you squinted at him, “You did not think about me after. Seemed you forgot anyone else existed while you were in her bed that night.”

He watched your lips as you spoke and he nodded, “I tend to just give it my all when I’m with someone, casual or not. If other people happen to hear then that’s fine. I’ve got no shame.”

“Clearly,” you grinned.

Harry scrunched his brows and looked over your face, “What do you like, Y/n? Does it bother you when other people can hear you having sex?”

You dropped your mouth open and blinked at him in surprise, “I… Well, first of all, I don’t think anyone has ever overheard me having sex. It tends to be relatively quiet I guess?”

“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever had sex that was quiet. Unless I’m wanking myself off but that doesn’t count. So you like quiet sex, then?” He smirked at you and tucked his lips into his mouth.

You shook your head, “I just mean I haven’t had loud sex is all,” you smiled, “I think it could be fun. Sounded like it was fun…”

“It was. But I like to have fun. Bet you’d like it too.”

You were caught in the moment with Harry like there was a force that made looking away from him impossible. You smiled shyly and pulled your bottom lip between your teeth.

“How are you this cute?” He lifted his hand up to your cheek and you watched his pupils wind over your features. “Cherry girl with cherry lips,” he settled his gaze on your irises, “Pretty eyes.”

He lowered his hand to brush his knuckles down your neck softly and you closed your eyes at the light touch as you released your bottom lip from your teeth.

“Likes her neck touched,” his voice lowered as he spoke, moving in closer to you, “Probably likes it kissed too. Yeah?”

You opened your eyes to look at him and nodded. You did like your neck kissed, that was true.

His thumb pressed the side of your neck as he looked at the skin under his fingers, “Is it okay if I do? Right here?”

“Yeah,” you spoke in a breath before you felt his warm pink lips on your skin and the whole world melted away the moment you felt his tongue lave up to your jaw.

He pressed gentle kisses down your neck and then up to the lobe of your ear, “Tastes like cherries,” his breath warming your skin and making you breakout in goosebumps as he continued using his mouth and tongue all around your skin, his damp lips leaving traces of his saliva in each spot he kissed.

Your breath deepened as you moved your hand to the top of his thigh, “Oh my god,” you whispered, not even realizing you’d spoken.

Harry smiled as he lowered his lips to the collar of your shirt, dotting the skin just above the fabric with pecks, and then you felt his hand grip the back of your head before his mouth was pressed against yours and now you were in space kissing the man that coincidence (or fate) had brought back into your life.

You moaned into his mouth as you placed your hands on his broad back and he leaned over you, moving your back into the couch and licking the seam of your lips before you pressed your tongue against his.

Soft and smooth kisses slowly became eager and wanton. Harry’s mouth and his hands directed the whole thing. He pushed your legs apart and settled himself down between them, his hand wrapped around the back of your neck.

When he lowered his mouth to your neck again you let out a helpless gasp and he puffed a laugh against your skin but he didn’t stop. You felt his mouth at the curve of where your neck and shoulder met as his free hand grasped your side, his hips pinning you down. It made you dizzy.

You pulled at his shirt, the material bunching in your hands so you could feel his skin under your palm. He was warm and even his back was strong. You could feel him flexing under your hand as he sat up and slid his shirt off over his head.

You followed suit, pushing yourself to sit up and remove your cherry t-shirt. Harry’s eyes honed in on your bra-covered breasts and he dipped down, cupping both sides with his hands and licking over the thin fabric to wet the spot right over your nipple. You were pushed back down into the couch as Harry’s lips worked over your bra and his hands squeezed.

He moaned as he used his thumb to pull the fabric down slowly and then pressed his lips to the plump skin on your tits where the fabric was pulled down.

“Take it off,” you moaned as Harry’s green eyes settled on yours and he pushed his hands behind your back to unhook your bra. He dropped his mouth to your clavicle as he worked to get your bra undone and when he’d finally had success you felt the material being pulled out from under your back as he dragged the bra from you and draped it over the back of the couch.

He dove in right away. Lips parted, tongue out as he wetted your skin and kissed your nipples one by one.

You put your hands into his hair, thick brown curls between your fingers as he began to lower his lips down to your belly button.

You quickly released his hair and unbuttoned your pants, giving him permission to take them off if he chose.

And he definitely did. With his lips parted and shiny he looked at you as he tugged your jeans down your legs before squeezing at your soft thighs running his palms up to your hips over your panties, “Fucking beautiful.”

He kneaded your tits in his hands again and then softly coaxed his hands down your sides to the tops of your thighs, pressing his fingers into the meat as he took you in.

You saw a grin pull up on his face as he dragged his thumb to the edge of the fabric of your panties, “You like me don’t you?”

You laughed, “Well I think that should be obvious, I’m sitting here in my panties in your apartment.”

Harry looked back down to your panties and smiled, “That you are. I can see just how much you like me too,” he looked up at you as he ran his knuckle down the crotch of your panties and that’s when you realized what he meant. You were wet through your panties.

Out of instinct, you began to close your legs when Harry held your thighs apart and tutted at you, “But guess what? I like you too. Want to get to know you real good, cherry. Wanna know just what you like and how you like it.”

You wiggled your toes as your heart pounded with your legs spread out for Harry to inspect as he pleased.

Harry looked up at you, letting go of your thighs, and began to unzip his jeans, “Wanna see how much I like you?”

You nodded and laughed nervously as you watched him peel his jeans off and you could see the clear erection under his briefs. It was curved to the left a bit, tucked under the band of his underwear until he reached his hand in and positioned his cock upward.

You swallowed. You weren’t sure where to look. His strong thighs, his soft abs, his muscled pecs, or the glorious thick erection bulging at this underwear.

Tonight was your lucky night you decided.

“See? Pretty good match yeah?” He grinned as he smoothed his hands over your thighs again and up to your panties, “What do you want, Y/n? Should we take this further?”

You nodded, “Yes.”

He licked his lips again as he looked at your pretty face, “Okay. How far do you want to go with me?”

You inhaled and blinked your eyes. You wanted it all. Wanted whatever he wanted. Hoped he wanted to fuck you with that big thing but you weren’t sure that’s what he meant. Maybe he didn’t–“

Harry leaned over you and cupped your jaw gently, “Seems you’re overthinking a little so I’ll make this easy for you. I’ll tell you what I want and you just tell me if you like that or not. Okay?”

You nodded.

“First I want to touch you, under your panties. Get my fingers nice and wet, finger you a little. Then I want to taste it. Lick you up and down, make you feel good. Then I want to take you to my bed and have loud sex with you so everyone can hear how good I’m making you feel, how good you’re making me feel. Sound good?”

A cracked moan fell from your lips as you nodded, “Yeah. I like that.”

Harry’s grin widened as he let go of your face and brought both hands down to your panties, “Good. Then let’s get rid of these.”

You felt the wetness on the fabric as they were moved down your legs and then Harry’s fingers were running through your labia up and down. His eyes focused on your bare pussy.

When he pressed over your clit he watched your face and hissed when he saw your brows scrunch up and your lips part, “Right there, yeah? You like that?”

You nodded with your bottom lip bit into your mouth, looking from his face to where his thumb was pressed.

He used his free hand to push at your thigh as he continued stroking his fingers up and down, glazing his digits in your arousal before you felt him press at your entrance slowly.

“Open up for me, cherry… there we go, sweet girl. Fuck me…” he watched as he pressed two fingers inside slowly, your pussy wet and puffy. “So pretty. Look at tha’” he watched his fingers slide in and out and back in to his knuckles with the gushy sound of your pussy being fucked by his fingers.

“Oh god…” you breathed out your words when he put his thumb back over your clit and began to press and circle as he continued pressing his fingers through your walls.

And the way he fingered you was only making you more wet, making you feel desperate. You moaned and ran your hands up your tummy to your tits, as you watched Harry’s arms flex as he fucked his fingers into you and stroked your front wall.

“Fuck that smells so good, cherry,” he kept his eyes on your cunt as he lowered himself down, “Gotta have some of this.”

It couldn’t have gotten any better than it was. Harry’s fingers already felt better than they should’ve but it did, in fact, get better. Because his big mouth and wide tongue on your clit had you unable to think straight as you let out a whine.

He kept his long fingers inside of you as he focused his lips and tongue on your clit. He could have taught a masterclass on cunnilingus. Even your toy didn’t feel like this. And it was a really good toy.

“Oh fuck!” You cried when he sucked your clit gently, using his tongue to press as he did so. The sound was lewd with his mouth on your pussy and his fingers tucked deep inside of you.

You’d need to bring him with you everywhere if this was how he did it. That toy was not going to cut it now that you’d felt how good it could really be.

When you’d finally lifted your head to look down at him you saw his eyes already opened, looking up at you as he swiped his tongue over your button, pink lips winding over your pussylips and up to your clit.

He let go of your thigh as he reached up for one of your hands and pushed his fingers between yours. You clung to his hand tight and gasped.

The gesture was so intimate, so sexy. It felt like everything he was doing was truly to make you feel good. He wasn’t rushing to get you off. The care and attention he gave you made you feel hot and shaky.

You couldn’t take your eyes off his as he worked your pussy and you began to shake.

You were putty in his hands. Totally unable to stop the unwinding of the tight coil in your tummy as you squeezed his hand and he moaned into your cunt.

And it happened so fast. The snap of your orgasm seemed to even shock Harry as his eyes widened when you began to come in his mouth.

He kept his mouth on you and his fingers inside of you as you cried out and threw your head back. He didn’t let go of your hand, keeping you grounded as every other part of you liquified and then evaporated into the atmosphere. The only parts of your body that remained intact, throbbing, and aching were your pussy and your hand. Only the parts he touched were whole. Everything else was hot liquid soaked into the couch.

Your chest heaved and your brain was fuzzy as he finally pulled his fingers from your hole and looked down at you, “Did you come?” The grin on his face told you he was being playful.

You laughed as you watched him wipe the edge of his mouth with his thumb and lick the mess up, his eyes on you.

And just like he said he wanted to do, he took you to his bed. He helped you up onto your wobbly legs and then kissed your lips, smearing your arousal all over your mouth. The kiss did nothing to make your legs feel solid but rather made you feel even weaker. So his assistance was very much needed to put you into his bed.

His room was lit with a lamp and his sheets felt clean as he pulled the blankets back for you and tucked a pillow under your head.

You watched him take his underwear off and then pull a condom from his drawer before he climbed onto the bed next to you, “Still want more?” He raised his brows at you in question.

You nodded and smiled, “Yeah. I do.” You couldn’t take your eyes off his cock, though. You absolutely wanted more. You wanted the whole shebang and if there was anything you knew about Harry it was that he could provide exactly that.

He grinned at you as he tore the wrapper and gripped himself at the tip, stroking down to coat himself in the bit of precome that had leaked from his slit before putting the condom over his impossibly hard cock. His entire cock was thick. From tip to base. It looked… heavy. It looked like it was going to tear you in half.

Harry watched as you ogled him. He didn’t mind. He was pretty proud of it himself. As he pushed himself up to his knees he pulled your legs apart and settled between your thighs.

He pushed his hips in close to yours and let his cock fall over your pelvis and up to your low tummy, measuring his size in comparison to you. You looked down from where his daunting cock lay heavy over you up to his face.

“I want it…” you breathed your words and Harry’s dimples smiled as he smirked at you.

“Oh, yeah? Want my cock inside your pussy, Cherry? Wanna feel it all the way up here?” He pressed over your low tummy and you moaned loudly.

Harry moved his hips back and then gripped his base as he dragged his cock through your drenched pussy, “Want me to fuck this soft pussy, slip in and out until you can’t handle it anymore?”

You nodded, “Please…”

“Please? How sweet. You are a sweet girl, aren’t you? I like sweet girls, Cherry, and you might be the sweetest one yet.”

Harry teased your pussy some more, his cockhead smoothing up and down, pushing your arousal up to your clit until you began to squirm under him and let out a small whimper.

He laughed as he finally stopped torturing you and pressed his thick crown to your entrance, pressing his bulbous crown to your entrance before he began to push through your tight, wet ring.

You gasped when you felt him entering you, slowly pushing your insides apart until he was tucked deep inside of you. He let out a deep breath when he finally had the luxury of feeling your hot pussy wrapped around him.

He thrust in again, bottoming out until his balls pressed against your ass. And again. And again.

He worked you open until he was satisfied that you were ready for more and then he leaned over you, his hands down next to your shoulders with his eyes on you, and began sinking into you so deep you thought you saw stars limning your vision.

“Your pussy feels just as good as it tastes, Cherry,” he moaned before he began to rock into you with more force, and you could hear the sound of his body smacking into yours each time he plunged in.

“Umph…” you grunted when he dipped in sharp.

“Yeah? Deep isn’t it? Pussy needed stuffed properly. Hm?”

Your body was being pounded into and there were no words that could form on your lips as your tits jolted up and down.

“Let me hear you, Cherry. Let me hear how good it feels. I can tell your pussy loves this, so wet and puffy for me…” his voice was shaky as he railed into you, “Am I treating you right, baby?”

You coughed out a moan and nodded your head as you held on to his forearms, “God! Fuck yes, Harry! Oh fuck!”

Harry’s own moan was loud as he watched your face twist up and listened to the way your pussy took his big cock.

“Yeah? Fuck that feels good, doesn’t it? Pretty thing was made to be fucked. Pussy so sweet needs to have her insides split open every day. Hm?” Harry was breathing hard between words.

“Oh my god… yes. Yes!”

Harry sat back onto his haunches and pulled you up so you were sitting on his lap as he spread his thighs for leverage to continue fucking into you. You yelped at the change of position and how deep he felt inside.

The new angle had his tip slamming into your guts and you grabbed onto his strong shoulders while his hands held your ass, guiding you over him.

Your body flopped up and down on his cock and against his pelvis as he sunk into you over and over again, his hips hammering up into yours.

You began to roll your hips down, smushing your button against him for friction as he continued thrusting upward.

When you finally let out a choked moan Harry gasped and pulled you in by the back of your neck to kiss your mouth. Soft licks against your tongue as your pussy was getting fucked into, had you beginning to shake and fall off the edge of the earth again.

Harry parted from the kiss and held you down on his lap, keeping his dick nudged against your cervix, “Already, Cherry?” He gently rolled upward, “Gonna come on my cock so soon? Can you hold off for a bit longer?”

You sucked in a sharp breath, “Yes. Sorry.”

“Shh… shh… Nothing to be sorry about. Means you like it,” he rutted up into you with a grin before laying you down to your back again, pushing your legs apart.

He began to push into you, his hips slamming against yours making his bed creak and your pussy clench around him. You didn’t know if you could hang on much longer as your thighs began to quiver. His cock was coaxing another orgasm from your body without you even focusing on it, which you normally had to do when you had sex. It was as if you had no say in whether your body should come or not.

“Shit!” He slowed his motions a little and leaned over you to brush his fingers along your cheekbone, “Are you okay?” He laughed as he asked.

You nodded, “I’m gonna come, Harry. I’m sorry I can’t stop it. If you fuck me like that…” Your rounded eyes and heavy breaths had Harry’s heart feverishly pounding.

“It’s okay. You’re not doing anything wrong, Cherry. You just needed a good fucking didn’t you?”

You nodded and pulled your lips into your mouth.

“Yeah. That’s good, then. We’ll give you a nice good fucking,” he slowly pulled out to his tip and languidly moved himself back in making you moan.

“We can go nice and slow,” he repeated his motions, his thighs flexing as he held himself steady to fuck into you in long strokes, “Getting you all creamy. Hear it, Cherry?”

You did hear it as you nodded with a whine. The wetness coming from your pussy. The way his cock fucked your cream into your cunt. The way it sounded when he buried himself into the hilt and ground his hips against yours.

Harry watched your face scrunch up and your moans grow louder as he pushed his way into your tummy until he knew you couldn’t hold on any longer.

He sat back and fucked into you faster as he pressed his hand over your tummy, putting pressure on the spot where his cock was sliding through your insides and you lost it. You cried out his name and gurgles of nonsense as the frame of the bed began to rock into the wall and Harry coughed out a laugh at the way you began to thrash around on his cock.

He watched as he rutted into you, his cock disappearing into your cunt, your slick arousal all over his base and in his pubic hair.

You clamped down on him with your legs wobbly and he felt your walls contracting, squeezing his cock tight. He snapped his hips forward, pressing through your spasming cunt as his balls slapped into your ass and he moaned with you.

“Fuck! There you go, honey! Coming on my cock, yeah? Oh shit…” he watched your body press up each time he slammed into you, your face in ecstasy, and your wet pussy swallowing him whole as he finally began to come, releasing into his condom with a groan, “Draining my cock, cherry. Ohhh, ffff…”

Harry punched through your slick opening with the thick crown of his cock as he gushed into the rubber surrounding his dick until he stilled his hips and ground into you, swiveling in circles to empty every drop of himself.

You could feel him pumping inside of you, the heavy throbbing in his dick as he unloaded his sperm.

You both gasped when you’d finished and he lowered himself to kiss you hard. His hands cradled your face as his sensitive dick twitched inside of you.

Lifting your knees you wrapped your legs around his low back and he brought you down to your side, leaving you both connected fully, still kissing, his cock still deep inside of you.

The wave of euphoria that covered your entire being had you feeling so relaxed and so at peace you sighed and pushed your fingers into his hair.

You were surprised by your reaction to how he fucked you. And you wished you could have gone longer but he was so good, or… you didn’t know what it was exactly.

Harry parted from the kiss, keeping his face close to yours, “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you’re not comfortable with it.”

You nodded, “Yeah.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had sex? I don’t mean masturbating either. Just curious.”

You squinted and looked toward the corner of the room before putting your eyes back on his, “Like, maybe a year? Something like that.”

Harry’s thumb grazed your cheek, “A year? So that means when you were living with K at that time you hadn’t had sex since before that even.”

You grinned and nodded, “I was in university. It was my senior year and I was super focused. And it just didn’t happen.”

“Poor thing. No wonder you were so sensitive to me. Came so fast, Cherry.”

You laughed, “I know. It’s never been like that before. Surprised me too.”

“I’m glad we met again. Feels like we should honor the universe and stick together for a while. Stay the night with me?”

You puffed out a laugh and rolled your eyes, “Let’s honor the universe. Obviously, she wants us to have sex and hang out.”

Harry watched your eyes crinkle up as you grinned and he chuckled, “She really does. I’m sure of it. So that’s a yes?”

You scratched your nails along the back of Harry’s head and smiled at him, “It’s definitely a yes.”

. .

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[daylightmidnights]

Sportsman Harry

MLB!Harry (Major League Baseball)

Harry is on the football team and Y/N steals a dog

[daylightmidnights]

MLB!Harry Verse

DATING AND ENGAGED

PREGNANCY

KIDS

BLURBS

JUST MLBRRY & YN BLURBS

[daylightmidnights]

OH. MY. GOD. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS PATIENTLY AND IT WAS WORTH IT. THIS IS SOOOOOOOOO GOOD. THE NEXT CHAPTER IS GONNA BE DELICIOUS AND YUMMY OOHHHHHH. I'M SCREAMING AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT

“You want verbal praise.” It didn’t necessarily sound like a question, but Y/N still nods anyway, “Why haven’t you said that before?”

 

Y/N is blinking at him again, confused, “Because you’re kind of scary? And I thought you’d. . .I thought you’d be annoyed with me.”

 

He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, taking it away with a soft popping sound. Y/N is worried that she accidentally offended him, but he only nods his head, his face twisted up in a way that tells her he’s considering what she said, “Alright,” he finally said, “I’ll do my best to give you verbal praise if you do your best not to lie to me. I don’t like liars,” he motioned toward the foil, “Now eat, I made that for you.” 

or

Y/N wants to be a chef and Harry is her grumpy mentor

(16k+ words)

i. 

Y/N is not going to cry. 

She isn’t, she really isn’t. Tears burn up her cheeks but she has become seasoned enough in the last year and a half to blink them back even when the reprimand is brutal. She chokes them down, straightens the wobble in her voice, and bites the fleshy part of her bottom lip so it doesn’t quiver. Y/N takes all criticism, all admonishments, all the scoffs and disappointed glares in stride. She nods curtly, replies tersely, and fixes the problem. 

Then once all that’s done, she finds a quiet corner and cries. If she can wait longer, she’ll go home, scream into her pillow, take a hot bath, and maybe let a tear or two slip out, but she gets over it quickly. She went into this knowing what it might be like, so she tried her best to let most of it brush off her shoulder, just as she’d been advised to. Take the (harshly put) advice, channel the anger and upset into making not even just the next meal better, but the next plate – and never let them see you cry about it. 

So Y/N isn’t going to cry, she’ll make damn sure of it. Maybe it was harder today because she didn’t sleep well last night, but that was her own fault – the show she was binging was getting too good to stop and it was 1 AM before she realized. This morning she woke up seconds from chattering her teeth from the glacial-like cold the air in her room took on, only to find her furnace wasn’t working. The water from her shower greeted her in icy slaps to her skin so she found her water heater was just about as useful as her furnace currently was. And she was late this morning because she’d missed the subway, and she stepped in something sticky so her shoes kept squeaking with each step, and just before she walked in she checked her phone and saw a message from her ex that she promptly ignored, but in the middle of ignoring that she ran into Niall who spilled his lukewarm latte down the front of her shirt – 

The day had just been pretty shitty already, is the problem. The last thing she needed was a rich prick complaining about the taste of his food when questioned about it. Don’t get her wrong, she typically takes complaints from customers as a learning experience to grow and nurture the outcome of future meals – but this particular dick does this with all the female staff, he’s noticed. Either the waitress was rude (because she didn’t answer his advances), or the hostess was unprofessional (because the flower tattoos on her forearm were somehow offensive to him), or the whole establishment was filthy (because there was a hair laid delicately on top of his beef wellington). 

One look at the hair and Y/N knew for a fucking fact it wasn’t her own. It wasn’t the same color at all, or the same length – actually it looked quite similar to his date sitting across from him, who seemed. . .relatively put off by the show he was putting on. He can’t do things discreetly, thriving off the attention delivered from the spectacle he makes of himself in these situations. That’s why he announces it particularly loudly and demands to speak to the chef who made the meal, and when Y/N isn’t giving him the reaction that he wants (beyond a gentle apology and an offer to remake his plate), he demands to speak to a manager. Better yet, he demands to speak to Harry Styles himself. 

Harry Styles isn’t a manager. Harry Styles, back in his early twenties, joined the group as one of the youngest chefs to receive two Michelin stars. Before his 30th birthday, he’d gained eight more, was on the cover of Time Magazine, had received critical acclaim and praise from some of the most refined chefs in the world, and quickly became the enemy of any restaurant on the same block as one of his seven locations across the globe. He was skilled beyond reason, a true culinary god born from a spark of heat on a carbon steel pan, someone to look up to, study beneath, attempt to emulate, and then fail because his mastery is something untouchable. He was almost perfect in every way. 

Almost. 

Harry didn’t have the best temperament, his personality was scored with bad-tempered moods, and his attitude left much to be desired. He wasn’t personable, rarely smiled, and the inflection in his voice was typically nonexistent if not for him scolding you. Y/N is unsure why he’s so serious – from what she’s read and heard his childhood was pretty decent, and his love life was nonexistent but he seemed relatively content about it, he was rich which – Y/N knows money doesn’t buy happiness but it surely allows you to live comfortably. She’s sure he must have faced hardships at some point, but he doesn’t talk about it.

So studying under him is a privilege just as much as it’s a thorn in the ass. It’s difficult to become his apprentice – he’s had a total of 10 apprenticeships in the past couple of years and only 3 of them made it past the 5-month mark, and only one of them actually finished out the three years. The fact that Harry is such a coveted culinary artist that the waitlist to apprentice under him stretches long before he’s even reached 35 is something to be noted. And every day Y/N is both endlessly confused and grateful that he chose to take her under her wing (she and another aspiring chef, Finley started together but Finley left pretty early on, after the first time Harry tasted a soup he made and told him it was shit and to start over). 

Harry Styles isn’t the manager, but he runs his kitchen so precisely and so strictly that if someone’s asking to speak to the manager, you can bet your ass that he’ll be present at the table as well. Much to Y/N’s chagrin, that is, she stands there while the patron stirs a fuss holding up a hair that was the wrong color to be hers. If Y/N was apprenticing under Adam, the other chef in the kitchen (second in command and much less intense, but still really good) then she would have told him it seemed like the fucker just had his date pull a piece of her hair out and lay on his food. Harry has all of his staff wear their hair slick back, pulled tight into a bun if it is long enough to, with a black headband stretching over part of her scalp. Even those with short hair are expected to have hair nets on, and they’ve not had a problem with hair in the food. The whole thing was just hard to believe, especially with who it was coming from. 

Alas, Adam was not Y/N’s mentor, Harry was and Harry doesn’t like excuses. So instead of defending herself when he nods at her toward a small alcove before they return to the kitchen, he remarks, “I’m not teaching you for you to embarrass me.” She merely dips her head and agrees, “People come here to enjoy their meals without the fear someone’s fucking hair is going to be mixed in. What’s next, huh? Your fingernail? A band-aid?” He clicked his tongue, “Never again. Quality control must be done on every single plate after we plate it and then again before we send it out to the floor. If this happens again, you can kiss the rest of this apprenticeship goodbye. Do you understand?” Y/N nodded again, “Now get out of my sight.” 

In comparison to all the other lashings she’s received in the past, this was relatively light, but it affects her just as poorly. Maybe even worse than some of those times, because Y/N could admit that the times she’d been scolded before, those mistakes were her fault and she knew it was something to learn from. What the fuck could she learn from a prick messing with the food for the sake of being an asshole? It hurts worse because she knows she didn’t do anything wrong, but she’s still getting yelled at, and she’s exhausted, and the day has been long, and she thinks she’s a week off from her period which is when she feels the most emotionally frazzled. 

Still, she waits to find her quiet corner – deeper into the restaurant, in the food supply closet there’s a space between two of the racks that forms a corner. She squeezes in there and lets the tears burn down her face quietly, scrolling through her phone for a second to try and get over it. It would help if she could get the disappointed glare from his face out of her head. His eyes are a light green but they always seem darker when they’re narrowed, and his manicured eyebrows seem more daunting when they’re furrowed. His hair is on the shorter side, neatly gelled and styled, and there’s a mole to the left of his lips that she’s never seen pulled into a smile except for a couple of photos from an interview a few years back. 

Y/N’s there for about five minutes before she thinks she should get back. Niall finds her just as she’s easing her way out of her crying corner with a pitied expression on his face, pouting his lip out at her. “Don’t look at me like that,” she grumbles, knuckling at her eyes, “I’m fine.” 

“You just look like the saddest small animal in the world when you cry. Like a pound puppy or summat,” he reaches into his back pocket and produces a pack of tissues, pressing them into her hands, “Why didn’t you tell Harry that dick planted the hair? That clearly wasn’t yours.” 

She shrugs, taking a tissue from the plastic wrap and wiping her eyes with it, “It doesn’t matter,” she sighs, heavy and dejected, “Like he’ll believe me over a customer. It’s better to just let him fuss at me then get over it.” 

Niall is still frowning as she blows her nose, taking the pack back and slipping it into his pocket, “Still, it’s fucked,” he checks his watch, “Only two more hours to go though, yeah? Do you wanna stop by that one burger place on the way home? We can eat our feelings, and maybe discuss how you’re going to learn how to do laser hair removal so you can zap away some of my pubes.” 

Niall was learning under Adam, who was good enough to gain Harry’s respect but still managed to be lax and pretty easygoing. One time, when they first started (Niall started just a month before Y/N did), Niall had made the wrong dish entirely and sent it out to the table. When it was brought back, Adam shrugged, and told him to make the right one, “But do it quickly so that this one is still warm and you can eat it.” In comparison, if Y/N had done that, Harry might have had her hung, drawn, and quartered. 

“I’m begging you to just learn how to wax,” Y/N straightened out her top and apron, rumpled her lips, and set toward the door, “And I’m begging you to learn how in a way that doesn’t involve me seeing your balls.” 

“What do you have against my balls?” Niall presses the door open and almost mows someone down immediately. The squawk that echoed through the hall (drowned out by the neighboring clank of pots and pans) told them before they saw that it was Adam, who caught himself on the door and held a hand to his chest. 

“I hope you weren’t in the food supply closet trying to show off your balls Ni,” Adam recovered quickly, shaking his head, “That’s bad for business. Hey, Y/N – oh my god, have you been crying?” 

“What? No,” Y/N lies and she’s thankful she did because Harry rounds the corner in hot pursuit – she hopes for the salt inside the storage room and not his lowly apprentice, “I have bad allergies this time of year, sometimes they just act up. Itchy eyes and all that,” she waves him off, “I took some medicine though.” 

Adam looks wary, but smiles goodnaturedly, “Ah, yeah, okay I get that. If you need anything just let me know, yeah?” Because Adam knows that his head chef is kind of a dick, and rough with his apprentices not only because he works with him, but because he learned right beside him, from the same man – Harry’s grandfather. They grew up together, which is why he’s the only person in the kitchen not tiptoeing around Harry. It’s also why Y/N could never let him know that Harry upset her, because he wouldn’t have a problem bringing it up to him.

(Which is what happened to Finley, who – after confiding in Adam that Harry was a big meanie – Harry found him, pulled him to the side, and asked, “Did you think tattling was going to make me go easier on you? Honestly, you just pissed me the hell off.”) 

She smiles, nods her head, and when she inevitably makes eye contact with Harry (whose scowl has relaxed minutely) she gives a curter nod, before ducking away. Niall stays back with Adam and Harry doesn’t yank her back by the collar to yell at her some more, so she hurries off. It’s only a couple of more hours, just like Niall said, and hopefully, in that time, she could redeem herself even remotely. 

It can be hard. Y/N signed up for this sure, but not directly – not really. The culinary school she’d been attending had many chefs come to speak to them, some from smaller establishments and some from bigger chain restaurants, offering them apprenticeships and speaking about life after they graduate. Nobody had expected Harry Styles to show up one of the days, closer to graduation, and nobody expected him to pick anyone to be his apprentice – least of all Y/N – but she remembered the day clearly. How he bit into her shepherd's pie (what Y/N had been embarrassed about making now that one of the most masterclass fine dining chefs was coming to taste their food), and his face pulled into one that Y/N had misinterpreted at the time as disgust. She found out soon after that when Harry enjoys a dish, he looks pissed off about it. 

“Who made this?” He asked and Y/N felt her heart drop to her stomach when she raised her hand, blinking a million times a minute like her eyelids might help her fly away if she tried hard enough, “Come here.” 

The room had been quiet; silent enough that you’d be able to hear a soap bubble pop as Y/N weaved through the tables to where he stood. He was at the space she prepared it at, his hand lying on the counter while his other hand held the fork. Harry sliced into it with the side of the utensil, motioned at the inside of it, how it falls out slowly, “Where’d you learn to make this?” 

“Um – a cookbook, sir.” Y/N was lightheaded, and she kind of thought she might pass out in a second if he didn’t stop staring at her so hard. 

Harry huffed a laugh through his nose, and at the time, it felt like humoring a god, “Yeah?” He must have been in a good mood, “What is your name?” 

“Y/N, sir.” 

“Y/N,” he repeated her name back to her, then brought another forkful to his mouth – it was the only time he’d gone back in for seconds, “This is good.” 

“Oh, really?” Her eyes went wide, “Thank you, I – I mean, yeah. Thank you.” 

It wasn’t some grandiose request for her to study under him. Actually, Y/N thought he’d just been in the mood to give at least one compliment, until her instructor emailed her that he was interested in having her as his apprentice.

Anytime he scolds her, or is mean to her, or kind of rough – she vividly remembers the moment. It brings her some comfort, on the days that she’s certain he hates her and her cooking and thinks she’s useless in the kitchen beside him. That, at the very least, the shepherd’s pie recipe she used to read out of her Nan’s cookbook from decades ago was enough to make him take a second bite. 

“Y/N,” her name is called as soon as she steps foot in the kitchen, one of the waiters smiling at her, “An old bloke from table three legitimately said ‘send my compliments to the chef’ over your seared tuna.” 

That soothes the sear over her heart for now at least. 

                                                                   .                           .                         .

Y/N and Harry do not speak to each other. Or, well – that’s a little dramatic. They do speak to each other, but it’s nothing beyond the matters of the restaurant and cooking. When Y/N sees Harry, bright and early for Mise en place, she is barely spared a ‘good morning’ before he discusses what the specials for today are and what needs to be prepared outside of the norm. Y/N’s there early enough some mornings that she’s helping him unload the trucks and of course, that’s something they’re doing in relative silence. And then he speaks to her to scold her for something, usually, or to tell her that she did well which can be few and far between and is – at most – a small nod when he tastes a sauce that she’s made or cuts into a fillet and checks the tenderness. 

But they don’t talk about life. Harry has no idea what Y/N does when she leaves the restaurant and she has no idea if he even lives outside of this kitchen. He doesn’t know that she’s got a cat named Hazelnut or that her ex messaged her the other day asking for restaurant recommendations and she doesn’t know if he has any pets or if he’s ever dated someone in his life. While Adam and Niall knew the intimate details of one another’s scrotums, Y/N couldn’t even tell you what Harry’s favorite color was – but she guesses that’s okay. They don’t have to be best friends for Harry to teach her properly, and honestly, it’s probably for the best that he’s a dick. There’d be no way she’d be able to focus on anything if he was nice to her – because nice and attractive in the animal side of Y/N’s brain flashes alarm symbols that scream SUITABLE MATE!!!!! and that’d probably be a mess. 

With all of this being noted, Y/N is well and truly shocked when she shows up at 5 AM to sharpen knives and chop vegetables, and Harry speaks to her beyond a perfunctory greeting. 

“How are your allergies today?” 

Y/N blinked at him, stilling where she was pulling off her coat like a bunny who’d just been spotted by a predator in the wild. She’s like, almost halfway certain that he isn’t speaking to her at all, but they’re the only two in here – Adam and Niall don’t turn up for another hour. 

“My what?” 

Harry has a clipboard in his left hand, his fingers around the base of his favorite ballpoint pen – he must’ve been doing inventory checks before she got here, “Your allergies,” he repeated, “Your eyes were red yesterday – you told Adam it was your allergies acting up.” 

This honestly might have been the most words Harry has spoken to her without any food being involved. Y/N’s struggling not to seem like an idiot but she’s certain she’s staring at him like he’d grown a second head, and he might as well have. In the mornings, she gets orders and maybe a grunt of approval now and then if she fulfills them as he intended. She has never been asked how she slept, what her commute was like, if she’d eaten breakfast – none of those routine questions you ask someone to start the flow of social interaction. 

Yet here Harry is, questioning her about allergies she lied about. Y/N does get seasonal allergies sometimes, but typically when one season is beginning to melt into the other. It was too far into winter for her to suddenly have itchy eyes, with all the pollen dormant, waiting to really destroy her come spring. Anyone who had allergies could kind of guess that and Y/N has the horrifying thought that Harry has allergies, and knows that she was lying. Even if he didn’t have allergies, he probably already knew she’d been lying – she was relatively certain that his eyes had a second setting that was programmed to see right through her. 

“Oh, uh – better,” she swallowed thickly, praying that he only thought she was being awkward because they didn’t do casual conversation like. . .ever, “They’re better. I took medicine though.” 

Harry eyed her quietly and Y/N shuffled beneath his gaze, wishing he would look away from her. Y/N had always thought she wanted a relationship akin to the one Niall and Adam had with each other, but she’s finding quickly that she wouldn’t be able to handle it well. At least not now, when they’d already established their dynamic as begrudging mentor and feeble mentee. 

“Brunoise the carrots and celery, and tourné the potatoes. I already have them prepped.” 

That’s. . .different. Not the order to start cutting but the fact that Harry had already washed and prepped the vegetables for her. That’s normally a job he leaves for her while he tends to more important matters like inventory checks, delegating tasks for the others when they come in, or even prepping some of the other ingredients for their plates that day (he prepares his meat very precisely and particularly, and he hasn’t shown her exactly how yet – Y/N knew it was going to be something that took her weeks or maybe months to master in his keen eye and she wasn’t looking forward to it at all).

So Y/N is kind of sketched out but she’s learned to not look a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to Harry. If he was in a good mood, then she would accept it graciously and do everything in her power not to muck it up. 

Being in the kitchen with only him is more peaceful than one might think – at least for her it was. Most of the time Y/N doesn’t even think what she’s done is enough to piss him off, but a collection of small things by multiple people. It’s just a matter of the wrong mistake at the wrong time when Y/N does something little and stupid that grates his nerves and sends him right over the edge, but had she been the first one to make a mistake, he probably wouldn’t have cared as much. Y/N’s only scientific backing for this hypothesis is that Harry seems to be more at ease in the morning. Maybe that’s just because the day had only just started. Y/N likes to pretend it’s because he feels more at ease when it’s only the two of them in the kitchen. 

Niall and Adam arrive after an hour and a half of Y/N silently cutting vegetables, just in time for the meat prep which is admittedly her least favorite part. She likes to pawn off some of that job onto Niall who does it so long as she listens to his escapade and offers meaningful commentary, which she’d be doing anyway but he didn’t need to know that, necessarily. Harry had told her the ingredients he wanted in the marinade and went through the steps rather quickly but Y/N had scribbled it down (he’d slid her a notepad and let her have his pen. . another small grace that he typically didn’t offer). 

“Fuck sake,” Adam shivered as he pulled off his winter coat, “Harry isn’t it a bit rude to have a woman come out in this weather this early? Reckon that’s like – a fuck you to chivalry or something.” 

“You could take her place in prepping then,” Harry replied coolly, not raising his eyes from where they were fixed on his inventory sheet, “Be here by 5 AM.” 

Adam grimaced, then looked at her, “Sorry Babe, I gave it a go. Don’t think he’s willing to budge.” 

“I’d just like to state for the record that Y/N has never requested Adam to get her out of anything,” Niall said loud enough for Harry to hear across the kitchen, “He did this of his own free will without the consultation of my client.” 

“What’re you, her lawyer?” Adam snorted. 

Niall clicked his tongue, “I’ll have to be if you make damning statements like that.” 

Y/N laughs though she does glance over at Harry, who mostly seems to be in his own world. He typically is, when Adam and Niall are going back and forth. However, today – and maybe she’s just hallucinating it – but he has the tiniest of smiles twitching at the corner of his mouth. Like. . .barely there. It was so invisible that nobody could tell he was smiling if she took a picture and held it up side-by-side with his normal face. So maybe he wasn’t smiling at all, but it was a fun thought to have at least. The idea that he might be even remotely interested in kitchen antics apart from business was always kind of fun to pretend now and then. 

“Y/N,” Harry’s voice sliced through the kitchen, “Get back to work.” 

She hadn’t realized she’d been idle with a potato in her hand since Adam and Niall walked in. Her eyes widened as she set it back down on the cutting board, “Oh, oops, sorry I will,” she replied before grabbing the knife again. Adam and Niall were headed to the hand-washing sink before they started their task. Y/N, once again (and she’ll do this several times throughout her shift), wondered what it would be like if she and Harry had that type of relationship. Where they came in together (Y/N thinks they honestly drive each other sometimes), relaxed and laughing. Comfortable in each other's presence whether that be in the kitchen, goofing off in the stock room, drinking after work. One time Y/N messaged Niall and his response was Sorry, Adam and I were bowling what do you need — like, it’s crazy! Y/N can’t imagine Harry doing a recreational activity with her without someone threatening him — and even then, he might still say no. 

What would he be like outside of work? Does he laugh at things? Like – has this man ever had a belly laugh in his life? Does he watch movies? What genre does he like? Has he ever binge-watched a TV show? Does he cuss at the screen during footie games? And what color are his sheets? Does his house look like someone lives in it? Does he think about her outside of work? Does he remember why he chose her to apprentice under him in the first place? 

She has to shake her head free of all the questions – she could ask a billion and go crazy with no real answers. Some days Y/N wishes he’d accidentally dropped a journal or something that she could dig through to get a better understanding of him, but it has yet to happen. And she thinks if she asked him any of these questions he’d glare at her and tell her to mind her fucking business and organize the seasonings on the rack by name and color.

Maybe one day she’d learn more about him. 

                                                                      .                       .                       .

“I’m just wondering like – has he ever made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” Niall inquired idly when he and Y/N were hiding in the break room for the 15 blissful minutes of peace they were afforded. They had to take their lunch, not actually around lunchtime – either a little bit before or a little while after since noon was a busy time of day. They’re smack in the middle of the business district, so plenty of workers – mostly the bigwigs who can afford the high prices of their meals without overthinking about it – come around for their 30 to 60 minutes allotted for lunch to have steak flambeed at table side. 

Y/N was, funny enough, warming up a frozen meal to scarf down. For as much as she loves to cook, she rarely has time to do it for herself anymore. She can’t even remember the last time she ate a full meal that she prepared, now only able to take little sips and bites to make sure the sauce was to taste or that the meat was tender. Around holidays she can work her skills for potlucks and family gatherings, but otherwise, she’s eating cheap little meals to stave off hunger pains and keep her bank at least partially appeased. 

There wasn’t a lot of time though – she had ten minutes before needing to go back out there while Niall chewed through his peanut butter and jelly, swiping at the grape jelly that stuck to the corner of his mouth, “S’like, I can’t imagine it. I feel like he was 4 years old eating coq au vin.” 

She snorted, watching the time on the microwave, “Yeah, most likely,” she sighed, “If he made one though it’d somehow taste like it cost a hundred quid to make.” 

“I agree,” Niall nodded curtly, “He could probably piss on the bread and it’d still taste like gold.” 

“God, you’re so gross–” 

“Y/N,” Harry peeks around the door. His voice always startles her, especially when he refers to her by name. He spends so much time catching her attention with a matter of grunts and staring until she makes eye contact, that she’s surprised he even remembers it sometimes. This would mark the second time this week that he’s referred to her by it though, and a part of her is reeling because of it. Even though he’s only saying her name to tell her, “Since we’re short today, I’ll need you to step in and run Freya’s station.” 

Freya is their garnish chef, always plotting out the most perfect plates and adding them intricately. It’s a job that goes unnoticed by many, but Y/N has always been able to appreciate how beautiful she’s able to make even something as simple as a salad appear. Half of the restaurant experience is to appeal to a visual appetite, going hand-in-hand with how it tastes. Something could taste delicious but look like shit, and you’d lose one of these customers in a blink of an eye. Freya makes sure that this isn’t something to worry about. 

Y/N actually spent a couple of weeks following Freya last month, and her plating game had been upped tenfold. She can only imagine this is why Harry wanted her to run her station, but still. . .it feels like a kiss on the cheek from a god. For him to show any amount of trust in her to run a station speaks to the growth in their relationship as apprentice and mentor; when she’d first started, Harry barely even let her hold a knife without him hovering. 

“Oh! Oh my god, yeah, I’ll do that.” She agreed, taking her phone and sliding it into her pocket. 

Harry gave a short nod, “Good. I need you there now,” his eyes flickered to where Niall sat, his hand frozen in a pack of pretzels, “Have you eaten?” 

“Yes,” she lies, and when Harry pointedly looked at the microwave, now beeping, she motioned toward Niall (and made sure to step on Niall’s foot a bit to keep him quiet, though she’s certain he wouldn’t speak out of turn to Harry ever), “That’s his – he’s really hungry today.” 

Harry eyed her for a moment, and she guesses he decided it was not worth investigating before turning on his heel and leaving. Niall looks at her, brows raised, “Holy fuck, he’s letting you run a station? That’s like next level.” 

“Shut up, you’ve run stations before,” she replied, sneaking her hand in his bag of pretzels and grabbing a couple. Y/N probably shouldn’t have lied about eating but she was worried that he would find someone else to run it if she wasn’t quick enough. Plus, what if he thought less of her for trying to feed herself over the general public or something? She could hear him scolding her now, something like They eat then you can eat – your hierarchy of needs matters very little in comparison. 

“Yeah, but that’s because Adam is Adam, but Harry is Harry,” he stressed, “Don’t mess it up, he’ll never trust you again.” 

“Thanks for the upbeat pep talk, Ni.” 

“I mean, you’re gonna do great! I’m proud of you!” He cheered, fist in the air to rally with her, “Um, but do you think he heard me say the thing about him pissing on a sandwich? Because he showed up like 5 seconds after that.” 

Y/N doesn’t bother answering him more than a squeeze to his shoulder then sets off to go run the station. Her stomach growls at her but in her head, she chastises it and tells it to suck it up. She’d gone plenty of days skipping lunch to work, even before she was even a chef, so she was used to it – she wished she’d had a better breakfast in preparation, but she was praying that the two pieces of toast with peanut butter and her fiber infused yogurt would do her well. At least until her next break. 

She’s got this though! She’s going to prove to Harry that he can rely on her, and their relationship will be better because of it. Maybe they could have even a sliver of the camaraderie that Adam and Niall share. Y/N has lofty hopes, she knows, but it’s what pushes her. She’ll do her best – no, she’ll do even better than her best. 

That’s what Harry expects of her. 

                                                               .                         .                      .

What Harry doesn’t expect from her, is for her to nearly pass out two hours into taking on the assigned role. 

How the restaurant is set up is like this: they serve lunch and dinner. Every two weeks she and Niall alternate between working the lunch shift or the dinner shift, though somehow Y/N still gets stuck coming in early a lot of the time to do prep work – but after prepping she’s free to leave. Ideally, if Finley had stayed then he would be working the alternate shift of her and he’d be doing it but that didn’t happen. Y/N doesn’t think Harry flips – she imagines that he’s there all day every day, except Mondays and Tuesdays when they’re closed. Adam, who is a hard worker but not willing to break his back or sacrifice too much of his life, has another chef who works under him, and he garnered Harry’s approval. She is who runs his side of the kitchen during dinner if he’s on the lunch shift, and vice versa. 

So this week, in particular, Niall and Y/N were on the lunch shift. Both shifts have their own complications and their own menus. Both can tend to be busy as well, though usually, lunch is a little slower than dinner, nowhere near as hectic as it gets from 5 PM to 8 PM. That being said, getting dishes out in an appropriately timed manner is imperative, because people need to get back to work after their lunch break is through. This means that if there is an influx of customers, it’s fucking brutal. 

And today, when Y/N was finally trusted enough and given the task to take on Freya’s role, it was fucking brutal. 

She did it though! Y/N was actually so good, if she was able to stroke her ego, she did much better than she thought. Everything looked pretty, it tasted nice, and things were plated and sent out in record time with the help of two other kitchen staff (Max and Gretal). Harry had come over to see how she was doing and didn’t say a word, which – for him – is the same as high praise. If he doesn’t speak sometimes it’s because there’s nothing to correct. He thought it looked good, even if he wasn’t saying it aloud, but Y/N knew he wouldn’t send out a plate that he didn’t approve of. 

It was just – once the rush had settled, Y/N’s vision went spotty and she almost fell right into the stove. 

Not a great look at all, and she’s horrifically embarrassed. She wasn’t sure who saved her from slamming into the boiling pot of soup until her vision righted itself, Adam looking at her with the same wide, panicked eyes he had when he caught her crying, “Jesus Christ!” He cried out, “What happened?” 

“Sorry,” she replied sheepishly, “I just – um. . .I think I need to eat?” 

So she was directed not to the breakroom, but to an abandoned little alcove far down a hallway. Nobody ever comes here, and Y/N needed a minute to lick her now very tender and mortified ego. There was something inherently embarrassing about people seeing her nearly fall and though she knew reasonably nobody was going to point and laugh at her, she still couldn’t shake it. She felt silly and the thought of people remembering this every time they saw her was enough for her to want to smother herself. 

Adam had told her he would bring her something to eat, just to hold tight, and left her with a juice box. They don’t have kids come here often, but if they do, their limited kid menu does include apple juice. She slurps through the tiny straw and feels the threat of a headache tickling around her temples. She’s sure Harry isn’t even going to register how well she did today because there’s no way this wouldn’t completely overshadow it. At the very least, she’s thankful that she didn’t actually tumble into the stove – she probably would’ve ruined the soup boiling on it and Harry would have her head. 

She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting there before the door leading into the hallway opened, the wind it created, and the subsequent clearing of the sounds in the kitchen that it’d been muffling giving it away. Y/N had prepared herself for a doting Adam, worried and fretting, making him promise not to fuss at Harry over this. She was ready to eat, get herself right, then return and finish the rest of her day. 

What she wasn’t ready for, was Harry coming around the corner instead. 

Y/N’s heart drops to her stomach – well, it first speeds up to a thousand beats per minute and then drops to her stomach. Maybe even lower than her stomach? Down to her ass, more like. The threat of sweat building at her nape was true to her fight or flight response because he doesn’t necessarily look pleased with her. Plus he’s holding something in his hand – probably a contract promising to never try and work under him again because even the sight of her name after today might disturb him. 

Upon closer inspection, Y/N realizes instead that he’s holding something wrapped in foil. He comes up to her and surprisingly doesn’t immediately start yelling, instead staring down at her for a second. Y/N blinks at him, and he blinks at her, wordlessly. 

“Um, Sir?” She held the juice box tightly in her hands, “Are you here to scold me?” 

Harry rolled his eyes, lowering down until he was squatting in front of her. This position was way less menacing as he held out the foil-wrapped mystery item, “Why do you talk to me like I’m your headmaster in school?” Y/N took the foiled object tentatively, “And why did you lie?” 

“Huh?” 

“You lied about eating,” he nudged his head toward the kitchen, “And almost took out the chestnut soup.” 

Y/N grimaced, struggling not to shrink in on herself, “I’m sorry,” she frowned, “I’m – I hope that the kitchen doesn’t suffer not having someone run Freya’s station, but the others should be able to take care of it.” 

He sighed, annoyed, “I don’t give a shit about Freya’s station,” Y/N’s mouth fell open, “I care about why you lied.” 

She shuffled, nervous, her heart still racing, “I just thought. . .I thought if I’d told you I hadn’t eaten yet it would annoy you,” she explained, swallowing thickly, “You’ve never offered me to run a station before so I wanted to jump on the opportunity and show you that I can do well.” 

Harry stares at her hard, unrelenting, and Y/N feels like she’d rather have passed out into the soup. Anything to get away from this intense gaze he has, piercing right through her, like he’s trying to peek into her very core. She doesn’t think he’s ever looked at her for this long if he’s not chastising her for a mistake. Even when he’s teaching her something, he’s mostly staring at the food, at her hands, scrutinizing the deftness of her fingers and the techniques she uses. 

“You should never sacrifice your health for the sake of someone else,” he finally replied, pointing his index finger at himself, “Not me,” and then he pointed where the dining area sat behind the walls, “And not them. You should always come first, no matter what the circumstances are.” He rested his hand on his knee, still squatting to her level, “I already know you can do well, you don’t have to prove that to me.” 

Y/N frowns a little, “But I do,” she answered, and she would blame it on being lightheaded and dizzy later, her talking back to him instead of taking the compliment, “The only time you speak to me is to scold me, so how am I supposed to know you think I’m doing well? If I have an opportunity to make you acknowledge me, then I’ll take it.” 

“You won’t survive this career if you’re only working for my acknowledgment.” 

She groans because he’s missing the point, “That’s – not it,” she huffs, “People eating my food and finishing it is enough acknowledgment for me, sure, but you – you’re my mentor! And you’re one of the best chefs there is, if you tell me I’m doing well. . .it just feels good, is all. Sometimes validation is nice and there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

Harry takes some time to stare at her again. The scent of his cologne is slithering around her, something vanilla and warm which is a surprising choice for him but welcomed by her nares. His skin is clear up close, and she thinks the rumors about him getting laser hair removal on his face might be true because there’s not a speck of hair or even the hint of a shadow along his jaw or upper lip. He somehow doesn’t have frown marks for someone who looks pissed all of the time, but she guesses he’s always looked pissed with his lips pulled into a straight line. Their black button-up dress code is the same, but Harry always looks more expensive than everyone else, and he rarely wears the apron anymore, unless he knows he will be completely hands-on with a dish. His trousers were nice too, and she knew the shot of his bum from the back might be glorious, but now wasn’t the time to think about that. 

“You want verbal praise.” It didn’t necessarily sound like a question, but Y/N still nods anyway, “Why haven’t you said that before?” 

Y/N is blinking at him again, confused, “Because you’re kind of scary? And I thought you’d. . .I thought you’d be annoyed with me.” 

He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, taking it away with a soft popping sound. Y/N is worried that she accidentally offended him, but he only nods his head, his face twisted up in a way that tells her he’s considering what she said, “Alright,” he finally said, “I’ll do my best to give you verbal praise if you do your best not to lie to me. I don’t like liars,” he motioned toward the foil, “Now eat, I made that for you.” 

Her brows raised, peeling the foil back carefully to reveal a peanut butter and jelly, carefully constructed and sliced into two triangles. Her gaze flickers back to him, then back to the sandwich, “You made this for me?” He nods, and Y/N can’t help the little smile that pulls at her mouth, “Oh wow, thank you. It looks yummy.” 

“I didn’t piss on it, but it should be good.” 

Horror writes itself all over her face, the realization that he’d heard Niall say that. Then she wonders how many other things he’s heard when he just appears out of nowhere, and she gets a little nervous. Before she can say anything, he snorts, pats her knee, and then finally stands (she’s impressed by how long he’d been squatting in front of her), “Eat, and then when you feel less dizzy, head home, I’m giving you the rest of the day.” 

“But –” Y/N tries but Harry clicks his tongue and interrupts her. 

“If you get lightheaded again and actually take out the soup, I will be pissed. But I’m in a good mood right now, so take advantage of it. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Y/N lets her shoulders relax, hovering the sandwich over her mouth, “Okay,” she replies, “Thank you, Sir.” 

He sighs, heavily, “Please, enough with that. You’re making me feel like an old man. Just call me Harry for fuck sake.” 

                                                            .                          .                        .

There are several cooking techniques that Y/N has started to get the hang of and several that she has still yet to master. Honestly, there were quite a few that she hadn’t tried yet, because her kitchen and supplies at her flat didn’t provide the best space for experimentation. Like, practicing flambe on her electric stove would set off her fire alarms and probably the sprinkler system, and since the wiring is so dodgy at her complex then her neighbor’s sprinkles would start raining down on them too. So it was just all around safer to keep that for a more open space with a more seasoned chef watching her do it. 

Y/N is unsure if Harry goes by a schedule or if he just decides to teach her new techniques when he feels like it. It always seems a little random; sometimes the skills she’s learning aren’t even put to use until a month or two after she’s learned them. It might just be whatever day Harry wakes up and feels a little more patient than usual, he must decide that’s the best time to do it.

Now, considering that he’s running a business and there’s very little time during the work day for him to sit and train her on different cooking styles and techniques, he usually calls her in on an off day. If Y/N had a more active social life it would probably matter to her that he expects her to drop everything and come at his command when she gets a message on a Monday. Instead of having brunch with some friends, however, Y/N had gotten out of bed to shower and then went to her sofa to continue lying down. 

Productivity on off days is something exclusively reserved for nice weather, or at least Y/N thinks so. As soon as it’s cold outside, she is exempt from having to leave home for anything short of getting food, and she doesn’t have to feel bad or lazy about it. Who wants to be out in the cold? Especially days like this, when the wind slices bone deep and the sky looks thick and heavy with the threat of snow. Y/N thinks she’s better off in here, within the confines of her flat that now has a working heater, and her cat Hazelnut snuggled on her lap. 

When her phone buzzes in her hand, it yanks her attention from the show that she’d been going in between watching carefully and ignoring to scroll through Twitter. Y/N blinks once, twice – three times to make sure she isn’t hallucinating that the Harry Styles she’s seeing from her notification isn’t a hallucination. 

Are you busy? 

Y/N presses herself from where she’d been stretched out on the sofa, disturbing her cat just enough to side-eye her but not enough to get up and move. 

Is everything okay? 

She thinks it’s an appropriate question, actually, even though it isn’t responding to his question. The last time Harry messaged her was eight months ago and it was a simple You’re late – when she woke up after snoozing her alarm for 20 minutes then got caught in an intense morning thunderstorm. He doesn’t contact her often, since he sees her 5 out of the 7 days a week. So this makes her nervous, sweat dots against her palms while her teeth worry her lip between them. 

There’s no response for three minutes, and Y/N is staring anxiously at her phone the entire time. 

Come to the kitchen. 

Y/N can only assume he means the one at his restaurant, and can only assume that he’s about to lay into her about something. She doesn’t know what would permit a house call other than him telling her she was useless and would never make it in the culinary world. That he couldn’t even find something to pretend to find praiseworthy, and that she would need to find another mentor, out of his sight, and nowhere within 100 kilometers of his kitchen. 

There’s a frantic way in her movements as she throws the blanket off of her lap and stands up, Hazelnut grumbling a meow up at her, annoyed, “Sorry,” she murmured but ultimately tripped over herself grabbing for her purse and shoving her feet into her shoes. There was no time to get in different clothes, fear kicking her into gear – it’s not like she’s eager to get scolded and kicked to the curb, but she knew not knowing would drive her insane. It was better to face her fear head-on, which means facing Harry head-on, and praying that it’s something simple to be yelled at for. Like, maybe she didn’t clean a pot well enough? Or did she leave a burner on and burn half the kitchen down? No, no, hopefully, she just left the pantry unlocked and it irritated him. Or she left the freezer open and everything thawed and now they have no meat for the rest of the month. 

From the time it took her to get into her car and drive to the restaurant, Y/N had conjured a thousand different scenarios as to why Harry would be contacting her. None of them were even remotely soothing to her brain and all of them left her in a state of slight panic, which she’s sure is showing all over her face when she stumbles inside. Harry is casually leaning against one of the counters, looking down at a piece of paper with a furrowed brow. It looks like the inventory sheet – had she used too much of the garnishes when she took over Freya’s station last week? She did feel like she was using an insane amount of parsley. 

“Um, Sir?” Harry’s gaze flickered to her, and Y/N felt like she wanted to crawl underneath the counter, into a pot, and hide, “What – why did you – um, did I do something?” She is breathless, and it’s clear no matter how much she tries to control it. Her chest raises dramatically with each inhale and Harry blinks at her, head tilted. 

“What?” His brows relaxed, “Did you run here?” 

She cleared her throat, “I mean, I rushed here, yeah,” she explained, then motioned toward him, “I was worried because – you never contact me on off days.” 

“So you automatically assumed you did something wrong?” 

“You were being cryptic!” 

Harry sighs, shaking his head, “No, you haven’t done anything,” he replies, “Though your immediate reaction screams guilty conscience to me. I wanted to teach you how to cook en papillote – have you heard of that before?” 

Y/N’s shoulders sink, all the tension zipping from her bones at once and she’s just as relieved as she is irritated. He couldn’t have just told her that? She did all that panicking just to find out he wanted to teach her how to cook in parchment paper. God, if they had a closer relationship, she’d be tearing into him right now – if he were Adam, she’d be fussing and grumbling and telling him that he owed her a day off and a drink or maybe a shot of Ativan directly into her bloodstream. 

Instead, she nods,  “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never tried it.” 

Harry hums, and finally Y/N looks down at the counter before him. There are vegetables prepped, lemons already sliced, and what looks to be a halibut already descaled and deboned. A medium-sized baking tin sits beside his drumming fingers, along with parchment paper, “It’s a blind cooking method,” Harry continued, saying, “The parchment paper traps the moisture and flavor that would otherwise evaporate while you’re baking it. It’s ideal for fish – it’s one of my preferred ways to prepare it.” 

“I – yeah,” she swallows, “I’ve never tried it but I’ve heard good things about it. I think what makes me nervous is not being able to see it.” 

He agrees with another hum, “You don’t cook fish often,” he says it as a statement rather than a question, “It’s a good thing to have in your repertoire; no matter the type of cooking you decide to venture into, from culture to culture, fish are always a big part of it.” 

So, Harry shows her. By no means is he warm and fuzzy about it – when Harry teaches it is with a rigid sort of preciseness that leaves very little room for error. Harry shows her, step-by-step, piece by piece how to slice the vegetables, season them, and arrange them delicately around the fish. He shows her where to slice so the meat cooks thoroughly, how to wrap the parchment around it, what she should feel for, what it should smell like, and how she should know it was done cooking without being able to visualize it. 

The scent is mouthwatering when he pulls it from the oven and as he peels back the folds of parchment, revealed is the cut of fish browned and the vegetables steaming. Harry slides the fork inside and it goes so smoothly that Y/N knows it must be tender, and slices off a small piece with the knife, making sure to soak it momentarily in the juices that had gathered at the bottom of the dish. He pulls it to his mouth and purses his lips to blow over it, the steam disperses from around it. 

In a move that Y/N did not expect, he doesn’t bring the bite between his lips – he holds it out to her. 

There are barricades between synapses as her neurons try to communicate, forcing them to dance and dip around each other. Something is misfiring as she stares between him and the fork, and it takes him raising an eyebrow at her before Y/N’s lips finally parted, her mouth opening for him. She doesn’t lean in to take the bite between her teeth, instead letting Harry guide the fork inside before she curls her lips around it. 

It’s delicious because there’s never been something Harry has cooked that hasn’t been delicious – but she’s caught up in the process of him having her try it. In the past, Harry barely offered her a fork to try what he’d prepared when he was teaching her, but now he’s feeding her. Watching her with keen eyes as she chews, waiting patiently for her throat to bob with a swallow, “It’s good, yes?” He phrases it like a question but it sounds like he knows because of course he does – it’s always good. 

Y/N doesn’t know why her heart is speeding up behind her ribcage, startling it to a rattle. Her insides felt like gossamer-winged butterflies were licking her insides with each flutter, knocking against each other and bouncing off her organs. For the first time since she’s shown up here, she realizes that Harry is dressed for his off day as well. With an off-white, linen long-sleeve, and brown linen slacks, he seems soft and well-rested, like he should have woken up in the French countryside during the early summer months. The gaze he held was still unrelenting and intense but somehow more gentle than she’d ever experienced before. 

“It’s yummy,” she answered, finally, acting like she hadn’t just ogled him before responding. 

Though no smile graces his mouth, he huffs a soft breath through his nose, and it’s as close to a laugh as she usually gets from him. “Yummy,” he repeats, amused, “Let’s see if you can make it yummy as well.” 

So she does as he tells her. Harry watches and guides her through the steps he’d just given her, correcting her technique or adding more seasoning where he deemed fit. At some point when she’s slicing into the fish, he’s plucking at his bottom lip and she almost cuts her finger staring at his mouth before getting a grip. Y/N is a little ashamed of herself – he hasn’t even been that nice, but he’s being a whole lot more amicable than he’s ever been. He hadn’t scoffed or sighed in the face of her messing up, not even once; instead, he gently redirected her mistake. Y/N wonders what her experience would have been like so far if he’d always been like this with her – if she would be a better chef because of it. 

When it’s time for them to try hers, Harry cuts two pieces off this time. One for him and one for her, only he offers her the fork first and once she takes her bite, he uses the same fork to place his bite in his mouth. Y/N is fully aware of the rudimentary nature of her thoughts, but like. . .wow, they used the same fork. That’s like. . .indirectly kissing, is what the 15-year-old in her brain reminds her. 

“How does it taste?” Harry asks like he doesn’t have the same piece in his mouth. Y/N had been too focused on the whole fork-sharing thing to pay much attention to the taste, but he clues her in with just enough time for her to have something to say. It was alright – not as good as his, but she had never once thought she’d be able to imitate the taste of things he’s made. There’s a sneaking suspicion she and Niall share that Harry possesses some special cells on his fingers that make everything taste ten times better than the average person. All he’d have to do is peel and slice an orange and eating it would probably have the same effect that snorting cocaine has on the body. 

Y/N shrugs, “It’s. . okay,” she tells him, maybe selling it a little short so he didn’t feel the need to humble her, “I think it could be better.” 

Harry hums thoughtfully, she thinks to agree with her, but he slices into the halibut again and this time stabs his fork into a cherry tomato, roasted brown around the edges. Then he takes another bite. . .Y/N could have fallen over from the shock of it. Harry is notorious for one bite then dropping the fork and either grunting his approval or grunting his disgust (two different types of grunts that Y/N has grown expert in differentiating). There were silly rumors (started by Niall) that Harry sustains himself from the single bites he takes to test meals. It’s what had made him take a second bite of her shepherd’s pie so important when they first met. 

“I think you sell yourself too short,” he says after swallowing, “Do you know why I chose you last year?” Her head barely moves when she shakes it, staring at him with wide, dumbfounded eyes. Harry had never alluded to a reason – he rips into her day in and day out, enough where Y/N herself couldn’t figure out why he would choose her over everyone in her class. Most days she thought it boiled down to him liking shepherd’s pie, “You are a good cook, that’s why. I wouldn’t have chosen someone bad at cooking to study beneath me,” he explained, “For your first try, this is good. Your next try will be better, and the time after that, I expect you to take your own spin on it. Do you follow?” 

“Yes, Si–” 

“Ah.” He cuts her off. 

“Harry,” she corrects herself, “Yes, Harry.” 

Y/N almost wanted to wipe her eyes to make sure her vision wasn’t blurry when she saw his lips pull into a small smile. She pinched the meat of her palm beneath her thumbnail to make sure she wasn’t dreaming though, and idly wondered if sudden onset hallucinations would warm someone’s permanent state of straight mouth into a smile. But she thinks it’s real – honest to god, a real smile, big enough that she doesn’t have to squint and wonder if a muscle in his cheek spasmed. 

“Good,” he set the fork and knife down on the counter, “Are you busy today? Would you like to try again?” 

                                                                .                            .                             .

There’s a shift so subtle in their dynamic that only two highly delusional people would notice it (her and Niall). 

To the untrained eye, there had been no change at all, but Y/N and Niall, who maybe spent entirely too much time hyper fixating on his every move knew that something had changed. The crease in his brow gets just the slightest bit less crease-y when she does well, and the pitch to his hums and grunts are diminutively higher when he is pleased with what she’s done. Things that would have made him scold her harshly or fuss at her for being careless, his reaction is much milder. Now instead of a disapproving glare, it’s a disapproving glance that doesn’t last very long. He doesn’t pull her off to the side to tell her that she overcooked the pasta and how if she wanted to continue on she better learn how to manage her time better so things like this didn’t happen – he merely clicks his tongue, dials the flame down or maybe even pops it off the stove if she’s preoccupied with something else. 

That’s not all though, because he’s always somewhere looming but his presence seems much lighter to her now. Much less oppressive and scary, where knowing that he was hovering behind her watching her like a hawk felt like being a rabbit stalked by a fox. The change is more like an instructor on standby in case their trainee needs them. . .closer to the way Adam hovers around Niall even when they aren’t discussing who footie teams are trading or comparing pube grooming techniques. Only instead of talking about sports and pubes, she and Harry don’t really speak but still. . .it’s nice not to be so worried around him all of the time. 

At first, Y/N thought this was purely her brain deluding herself into thinking she and Harry were closer after several Mondays when he’d called her into the kitchen for teaching. But during break one day, when she and Niall had escaped the building to fight past blistering winds for this new hazelnut latte at a cafe down the street, Niall brought it up unprovoked. 

“Has Harry been like. . .minutely nicer to you lately?” His cheeks, nose, and ears match the same bright red of someone who’d been trapped in an unforgiving snowstorm for an hour, but he’s hellbent on not seeming dramatic about the weather. Mostly because Y/N and Adam had both chastised him for going out without a scarf and hat but with a coat that barely did anything to shield him from the onslaught of wind (he had a date after work that night, and was convinced that he did not need to lug around all his winter gear because it would damage his “vibes” or whatever the hell excuse he made). 

Y/N had whipped her head around so fast that she thinks it might have spun 360 degrees, “Oh my fuck, yes! Have you noticed?” 

So they discuss at length the changes that both of them noticed, some things that Y/N didn’t know because she couldn’t have her eyes on Harry all of the time. Apparently, he is staring at her with much less discontent when she’s not looking and once, Niall had even seen Harry pluck a piece of fuzz off her shoulder. It must have been so delicate that Y/N didn't feel it because she sure as hell didn’t know this happened. Then Niall shares that Harry had asked Adam what Y/N and Niall get up to outside of work and her body is overrun by giddiness that he’s even remotely interested in her life. 

“He wants to hit it,” Niall said, shoulders sagging with relief when they stepped into the cafe and heat was blaring, “And I think he fucks nasty too, like – I’ve heard some things.” 

“Shut up, no he doesn’t – like, not with me,” she shook her head, “I think he’d rather put his hand in a boiling pot of water. What have you heard though? And why the hell haven’t you told me about it?”

Niall gasped, scandalized, “I just found out about him fucking nasty! I only started doing some investigating after I decided that he wanted to hit it raw with my bestie in mind,” Y/N’s face feels hot but she’ll blame the sudden warmth of the cafe on her previously cold face, “Anyway, you know Juni? So her sister married this girl, Laina, and Laina’s cousin knew a guy who –” 

“Niall, this is a lot to follow.” 

“--well be patient, dick, I’m getting there,” he clicked his tongue, “She knew a guy whose sister dated Harry like a while ago. 5 or 6 years? She showed me the photos and everything.” Niall’s eyes were wide, the gleam in them one he only gets when he’s so stupidly excited about something he can barely contain it, “Apparently his dick is huge and he’s a freak. Like dom shit, I’m pretty sure. They did loads of kinky stuff and played into the dynamics, apparently one time he’d edged her for three whole weeks once.” 

Something curled inside her, stirring interest in her gut, “Holy shit.” 

“Right? It adds up, he seems like the type.” 

“I. . .literally can’t deny that at all, he definitely seems like he would fuck someone until they cried,” she can’t help that she almost said it wistfully, absently wondering if they were being too loud but the pop song bumping through the speakers and the typical sounds of a cafe drowns them out for the most part, “I don’t think with me though. I mean, I’m delusional, but not enough to think that him finally being relatively kind to me, means he wants to sleep with me.” They paused briefly to order their drinks, and Niall added on a scone for them to split at the last minute, but continued as they walked down toward the pick-up counter, “Whenever I almost passed out in the soup, remember how me and him had that conversation? I think he just feels bad.” 

Niall pulled his sleeves down to cover his palms, “Do you have those hand warmers you’re always lugging around?” Y/N shook her head, “Ah shit – anyway, you know I can’t get over Adam going to make the sandwich for you before Harry demanding that he be the one to make it.” 

“I think it’s because he wanted to corner me.” 

“God, you talk about him like he’s hunting you down sometimes,” he retorted, then seemed to consider it for a moment, “Which. . .maybe he would want to, but in a bedroom instead of a restaurant and with less clothes.” 

Face scrunched, Y/N slapped his shoulder, “Stop it! I’m like – don’t put that image in my head, I’ll go crazy.” 

“I know we were pretending like you didn’t think he was hot for the sake of workplace humility, but I for one saw this coming from a mile away,” Niall stepped over to the side, letting an older woman shuffle by them for the straws at the end cap, “Your taste in men seems to be hot bullies.” 

“You’re not wrong, but we can’t entertain this for longer than this break and then we have to squash it. It’s nonsensical and he’s definitely not looking at me in that way,” their drinks are set on the counter, along with the scone, “Besides, I think he sees me as an annoying kid he has to deal with.” 

“Babe, he’s not that much older than us,” Niall reminded her, then flinched when the latte burns his tongue, “Ah, fuck – he does act like a grumpy old man though. I’d kill to see him at a club or something.” 

Y/N would probably offer herself up as the one to kill if she saw Harry in whatever his version of going-out clothes is. If he wore pants that stretched over his thighs tight or a shirt that stretched across his chest and showed just how built he was underneath all of his clothes. How would he wear his hair? Would he slick it back or wear it unruly? And what kind of jewelry would he wear? In a few interviews she saw him sport rings, and she’s seen a necklace around his throat a couple of times. He doesn’t seem like the flashy type thought – god, she doesn’t know. She shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. 

The thing is – of course Y/N has had a big, fat, stupid crush on Harry. He’s her mentor, and he’s amazing at something that she loves, he always smells like vanilla and amber, plus he’s nice to look at. Y/N would have had to possess the mental fortitude of a monk to be able to completely deny it. Instead, she shoved the feelings down deep into the recesses of her mind to only be dabbled in every so often when she had a couple of drinks before she locked them back away. 

Was it sad that all it took was for him to be even a minuscule amount nicer and she was ready to kiss him on the mouth? Yeah, it was, but it’s not like anything was going to come of it. She’d squeal about it in her bed later pretending that he was actually obsessed with her and thought about her nonstop and then she’d go to work the next day and pretend to be normal. This is light work – easy shit because she’s been living in slight delusion since secondary school and she finds it makes life ten times more bearable. 

“Let’s make this walk count,” Niall looped his arm around her elbow, and to an onlooker, it might seem like a sweet gesture to be close as friends, but Y/N knew it was because he was so cold his bones were probably shivering, “How big do you think his dick is?” 

“Like six inches soft, and eight when he’s hard.” 

                                                          .                              .                             .

Whenever Niall and Adam go out for Korean barbecue, they always let Y/N tag along, especially if there were drinks to follow. Y/N personally loves going with them because Adam, without fail, always ends up doing all the grilling while Y/N and Niall get to pluck pieces of meat from the tongs and gorge on the sides. It’s fun because Y/N never gets the princess seat at any food establishments among her other friends and her family. Culinary school and then working in a restaurant have always equated to kitchen lackey at any events where food has to be prepared or served. It turns out that when you’re with other chefs, the older one typically takes responsibility for the cooking for some reason and Y/N is not about to question the dynamic (at least not until the day she is the older chef, then she’ll spout something about respecting your elders). 

Tonight it was a Friday, and they had a rare weekend off thanks to one of the kitchen's boilers acting up. Harry has never been a “get it repaired and hope it lasts until next winter” kind of guy, he’s just going to replace the whole boiler, but last minute and over a weekend meant it would take some time. While it put their star chef in a sour mood, everyone else was quite happy about 4-5 days off paid, because it wasn’t their fault. So Niall invited her along for a celebratory dinner and drink and Y/N, of course, was going to oblige. 

It was just them at dinner, but a couple of the other workers from the kitchen would show up for drinks. For now, Y/N is sitting beside Niall in the booth while Adam starts cracking his knuckles, prepared to slave away over the grill for his two subordinates. “Thank you boiler,” Niall says into the air, hands clasped together, “Proud of you for refusing to stick it out for a second longer, I appreciate you.” 

“Is the boiler here with us?” Adam inquires, engaged. 

“He's speaking to its spirit,” Niall reaches over for the dish holding the cucumbers, making an annoyed sound when Y/N stabs into one while the plate is midair on its way to him because he’d already eaten like six of them at that point.

He yanks it closer to himself,  “Shit, relax, they’ll bring more!” 

Adam clicked his tongue, “Then you ought to give her the whole plate of those, and make sure she’s fed.” 

Ever since Y/N’s slight passing-out mishap, Adam has been very concerned about her eating habits. If she even looks like she might have dissociated for even a second too long, he’s at her side with a granola bar or a bowl of sliced fruit. He makes sure she’s out of the kitchen for lunch and doesn’t let her return even a minute before the allotted 30 minutes, no matter what the state of the kitchen is in at the moment. She would suspect that it was something that Harry might get pissed off about, but every time she comes back in, he levels her with a slight, scrutinizing gaze – like he’s trying to see through her when he asks, “What did you eat for lunch today?” To make sure she isn’t lying. 

It’s sweet – Adam’s concern feels like a big brother’s caring love, while Harry’s concern kind of feels like a witch plumping up her protein for soup, but the sentiment is still kind. Plus, it has Niall rolling his eyes but pressing the braised potatoes over to her in exchange for the cucumbers. Y/N accepts it, “Your hand will remain forkless for another day.” 

Adam’s phone buzzes on the table just as he’s laid the first strips of beef down on the grill, sizzling loudly, and he picks it up with the hand not gripping the tongs. A smile breaks out over his lips, “Perfect timing! Harry’s here,” he tells them gleefully, “He’ll take over the cooking, and for once I get to just eat.” 

Y/N’s heart nearly stutters to a stop, “Harry’s here?” She repeated and Adam was still smiling. 

“Yeah! You’re shocked, right? I didn’t think he’d want to come either, but when I mentioned going out with you two he said he’d try to stop by,” Y/N might pass out, “So fun, I’m excited for you two to see him outside of his restaurant-boss mode he’s always in.” 

Before they could discuss it further, and before Niall could do anything other than pinch his nails into Y/N’s thigh, the bells hanging on the door chime over the music and the chatter of other patrons. Y/N looks over to see Harry scanning the area, finding them once he locks his eyes with her own. He’s casual in a very Harry way – he’s in maroon pleated trousers with a white t-shirt tucked in neatly, everything still looking particularly pressed and put together in a way Y/N could only hope to strive for. His hair isn’t gelled back like usual, but loose and soft, his curls threatening to sprout in little wisps around his head though the length of his hair doesn’t allow it to be too unruly. 

“Hello,” he greets them, scooting in beside Adam, right across from her, “Sorry I’m a bit late, traffic was shit.” 

“That’s fine, man,” Adam claps a hand on his shoulder, and holds out the tongs, “You can repay us by cooking some of this meat! Get some of the chicken bulgogi on there, that’s what Y/N’s most excited for.” 

Y/N expected some pushback, a bit of grumbling, maybe a glare that shut the whole place into silence – but none of that happened.  Instead, Harry takes the tongs and gets to work, laying the chicken around the edges of the grill and then flipping the strips of beef Adam initially laid down. Y/N is staring; she doesn’t mean to be, but it kind of feels like seeing a tiger walk along the side of a highway. Even if it’s still a food-related area, seeing Harry outside of his restaurant, participating in something that’s not technically the same realm of dishes he prepares – is crazy. Enough that Niall nudges her knee and holds out the cucumbers with raised brows as his nonverbal cue to stop staring before she starts drooling or something stupid. 

“What’s the estimate on the boiler?” Adam asks, and because his hands are unable to stay idle for long, she finds him using the second set of tongs to pick up the beef and start cutting it with the scissors into smaller pieces, “And how long?” 

Harry flips the chicken with one hand and eats some of the rice with his other – Y/N knew he could multitask, but not this well, “Enough that I wanted to scream over it,” he replied coolly, despite the context, “It should be here and installed by Wednesday, but we won’t be able to open up until Thursday or Friday.” He looked up between them, “By no means act disappointed on my account. It’ll be a nice little break.” 

Niall sighs, plucking a piece of brisket from the grill and dropping it into the little dish of ssamjang, “Okay, thanks, I was not going to be able to act sad about it – a break will be pretty nice. I might like – read a book or something.” 

“You’ll have to learn to read first Ni,” Y/N found her voice just for that remark, hoping to not seem too weird and off-putting by just eyeballing her boss and being awkward. Adam snorts, Niall steals a cucumber from in front of her, and Harry’s gaze shifts to her, smiling a little. 

“So Niall will learn to read,” he reiterates, adding vegetables to the grill, “What will you do, hm?” 

Y/N feels hot because they’re in front of a steaming grill, in an already warm establishment – for no reason would any of the warmth flooding her body have anything to do with Harry, and how nervous she was to be speaking casually with him, about her plans. 

With a swallow, she answers, “I – uh – probably hang out with my cat?” Could she sound like more of a loser? “I’ll catch up on shows too, maybe – um, clean?” 

“You have a cat?” Harry starts to tong the chicken onto her plate, “I didn’t know that.” 

I didn’t think you even knew my name like seven months into working with you, so of course you didn’t know I had a cat. 

Y/N doesn’t say that – she does nod instead, “Yeah, her name is Hazelnut. She’s really sweet.” 

“Her name suits her then.” Harry replied, “Try the chicken.” 

She scrambles for her utensils before realizing they are already in her hand and takes the piece into her mouth. Of course it’s cooked perfectly – the marinade she couldn’t credit Harry for, but how well it was cooked she could. Then he plucks a lettuce leaf from the plate and places some of the beef, a few of the vegetables, and the pieces of kimchi on top of it. Y/N thinks he’s constructing this for himself, while Adam is adding more to the grill (simultaneously feeding a whining Niall) but then he curls it up and stretches his arm across the table, “Now try this.” 

During the duration of their meal, everyone chatters idly. Harry does eat, or at least Y/N thinks he does, but she’s so distracted by the fact he somehow took over as the one grilling for her. He’d choose the pieces of meat to give her, always the best-looking ones, and he’d construct little lettuce wraps and flagged down the waiter for more cucumbers saying that he wanted to try them (since she and Niall hoarded them all), but doesn’t eat but one of them and pushes the rest of the bowl over to her side of the table. 

Harry is not a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, but he is making sure she’s well-fed. Up until Y/N is full and feeling entirely too sleepy to go out and get drinks. The rest of the night seemed much more suited for a bath and crawling into her bed, but she knew Niall was not letting her flake on drinks. Especially since, as Niall alleges, “Adam is a horrible wingman, and everyone just thinks we’re dating so they aren’t hitting on me.” 

“Are you coming for drinks?” Niall asks Harry after they’ve finished and to Y/N’s absolute shock, he doesn’t roll his eyes and say shit like clubs and drinking until late are beneath him (which, if he had said that, he wouldn’t have been lying).

Harry’s eyes slide to her, and Y/N always feels so pinned to the spot under his gaze, that she doesn’t know what to do, “I suppose I could come for a little while,” he answers, “If you don’t mind drinking with one of your bosses.”

Adam scoffs, “Please, as if that’s ever been a problem for these two. They damn near drink me under the table each time.”

                                                                   .                         .                         .

The drinks help but also make whatever turmoil trapezing through Y/N a little worse too. 

After the bouncer hit on her while they were coming in – something that usually made her feel giddy and primed her for the night, felt slightly embarrassing with Harry there – she took two shots almost instantly. It helped to soothe her nerves just a bit, enough that when they find a table she doesn’t feel rigid and tense. One more shot after that and she’s loosey-goosey and knows that she’s in a sweet spot where only one more would get her tipsy, but right then she just had a nice buzz. Floaty and warm, tickling her veins with the promise of something sweet. 

Another shot and she’s ready for Niall to take her to the dance floor. He and Adam are in a relatively heated debate over some footie league drama when a song off the BRAT album comes bumping through the speakers. If she and Harry were closer then maybe she would have dragged him out there and been silly, but she’d rather place both of her hands on a burner than drag Harry to the dance floor. Niall comes easily anyway, telling Adam that it isn’t his fault he’s so fucking wrong but his shoulders and hips are already moving to the music. Y/N briefly makes eye contact with Harry as she leads them off, but darts away just as fast. 

“Adam is such a dumb dick, he knows they shouldn’t have traded Alfie,” he all but yells over the thumping bass, “By the way, Harry’s been looking at you like he’s starving all night. And why does it seem like he’s trying to fatten you up for a soup, Hansel and Gretel style?” 

It’s easy enough to ignore him a little bit by grabbing his hands and making him move with her, especially when the song switches from bumping, cocaine, bass tones to something they can roll their bodies together to. They always do this when they’re out, usually with Adam nearby standing watch like a bodyguard ready to push any unwanted attention elsewhere. Or to encourage welcome attention – whichever the coin fell. Now Adam is with Harry, so they just vibe with each other – Y/N has no plans to go home with someone tonight, and Niall always says he does but puts forth 10% effort at the beginning and then abandons the idea for the rest of the duration. 

All things considered, Y/N’s having fun. She feels loose and happy, she ate enough that she doesn’t feel like she needs to stuff her mouth with bread so she isn’t just surviving off vodka shots and vibes. Niall’s hands are all over her, smoothing up and down her sides, grabbing her hips, laughing when he accidentally hits her boob trying to fix her hair when it got mussed from an intense headbanging to a Rihanna song that probably didn’t warrant headbanging. 

They did one more shot and Y/N knew she was good for the night. Her bones buzz and her vessels feel warm and they make their way back to Harry and Adam. Y/N can look Harry in the eye now, which is more than she can say for herself earlier, and she smiles at him, “Hi again,” it doesn’t feel as awkward as it would have been before, and Harry seems to take pity on her tipsy state. He returns the smile, his fingers wrapped around his glass – she doesn’t know what he’s drinking but it looks brown and more sophisticated than whatever she was drinking. 

“Hi,” he replied, then nodded toward Niall, “You two are closer than I suspected.” 

“The liquor drives them to be menaces,” Adam tells him like a warning, “One time they full-on made out, I’d never been more shocked.” 

Y/N pouted, her face hot, “Hey, Niall kissed me to get some guy’s attention, that time wasn’t my fault!” 

“The time before that?” 

She huffs, rolling her eyes, “I wanted to kiss someone! Sue me,” then she looks at Harry again, and maybe she is a little bit tipsier than she thought, “They’ll make me sound like a whore, but it’s not me, it’s Niall. He’s the whore.” 

“I mean I won’t deny it.” 

At some point she and Niall are dancing again, and so is Adam this time but it’s just at the table and it’s all wild limbs and no coordination, barely any rhythm or beat. Harry has an amused glint in his eye the entire time which is better than an annoyed glare. Even when Adam almost knocked into Y/N, and to avoid getting elbowed in the face and ending up in the ER with a broken nose, she ducks out of the way. 

Then hits Harry’s drink and sends it all over his nice shirt. 

For a second, Y/N considers making a run for it. She has no idea where, or why even – it was an accident – but in her head, she imagines the night being ruined. Imagines any traces of amusement or joy leaving his face in one, drastic swoop before he stalks off into the night and vows to never give her a chance again. This was her one chance to make him like her, and maybe expand their relationship and dynamic to something even a centimeter closer to what Adam and Niall have. 

But now he has brown liquor staining his nice white shirt and some of it drips down to his pants. Y/N wants to cry – honestly, she might, she thinks she could feel the tears burn in her eyes. 

“Oh my god –” she starts but Harry raises his hand. 

“It’s ok–” 

“I’m so sorry!” She is so stressed, her face pulled into a deep frown, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’m the – I’m the worst, I’m so clumsy, I can't believe I – was it expensive? I’ll pay for another one. I’ll – where’d you get it? I’ll buy one, or you can just take it right out of my pay! Or –” 

Harry is pinching the fabric away from his torso, “Y/N, stop talking,” he finally cuts her off, raising his voice only to be heard over her panicked rambling, “It’s okay. It’s just a white shirt, I have a dozen others.” 

Still, Y/N is frowning, and in a rare moment of courage purely from the mango-flavored shots (that didn’t taste like mango at all) and intense, immense guilt, she grabs the shirt too, keeping it peeled away from his skin, “I’ll get the stain out? I can get it out for you, I’m great at getting stains out.” 

“Don’t worry about –” 

“Mate, just let her,” Adam sighed, “For the sake of her psyche and enjoying this little break we have, let her get the stain out.” 

Harry seems at a loss, for the first time she’s met him. He’s looking between all of them, Adam, Y/N, and Niall who is nodding in agreement that Y/N, even sober, would let this distress her the duration of their time off. And she guesses Harry isn’t an evil person, because he doesn’t mutter that he doesn’t give a fuck about how she feels over break when she screwed up his shirt. Instead, he seems to be debating something but something in Y/N’s heart that it isn’t just whether or not he should let her get the stain out. Theoretically, all he’d have to do is give Y/N his shirt and wear Adam’s jacket out of the club. 

But a different idea is what struck him. 

“How did you get here?” Harry inquired. 

“Ni and I took the subway.” She explained, still holding his shirt from his body, and when she was this close to him she could see how the lights danced off his eyes. 

“I’ll drive you home,” he decided, with a sharp nod of his head, “I’ll leave my shirt with you, and you can return it to me on a different day. Will this ease your psyche?” 

Y/N agrees adamantly, “Yes, yes, yes, at least for now – when I wake up I’m g’na be a mess.” 

“And I’ll be hearing about it for sure,” Niall agreed, then gave a wary sigh, “Adam, I guess you’ll have to take me home too since nobody is trying to see my shaving routine up close. I’m not riding the subway alone.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Adam patted him in the middle of the back, “I figured that.” 

                                                            .                          .                              .

Y/N is very self-conscious about her flat right now. 

Normally she isn’t. It’s definitely not the prettiest on the outside, and if not for her superior interior decorating skills, the inside would look just as bad but she does her best to keep it looking cute and whimsical. That’s fine for someone normal to see, of course, any of her friends she doesn’t mind coming over, and she’s never felt like they would judge her things. 

But Harry is not someone normal. She’s pretty sure he lives in a high-rise flat with a view of the whole city from his living room, and the kind of windows that you click a button to close. Something modern chic and expensive, while she had to caulk her windows to keep bugs from getting inside and had to rent an industrial carpet cleaner to get the carpet in her bedroom a normal color. Plus her kitchen is small, and for some reason that is the thing she is most worried about him seeing – her itty bitty counters, and her cabinets that can fit maybe two pans each. 

Though Harry seems to regard her place respectively, or at least he had so far from where he stood by the door. There’s no noticeable disgust or judgment when she watches his eyes dance along with what he can see, and he seems pleasantly surprised when Hazelnut greets him at the door. “Ooh,” he coos, “She’s friendly.” 

“Maybe a little too friendly for her own good,” Y/N replies, “I think she’d leave with any stranger that had treats.” 

Harry crouches to get closer to her and Y/N is feeling a little overwhelmed by the sight of her big, scary boss puckering his lips and clicking his tongue at a cat, so she heads to her bedroom. That was the plan – to get Harry one of her shirts so that he could switch out with the stained one he’s wearing. Then Y/N could start the process of de-staining it tonight because if there’s one thing that a heavy, irregular period taught her in her early teens, was that she could get a stain out of anything. 

It takes her a couple of minutes to dig through her drawers, searching for something that he could wear comfortably but pickings are slim. Tonight was when she’d been planning on tackling the laundry in her hamper but since she went out instead, she didn’t have many options. She settles on a shirt she often sleeps in with a hedgehog on the front of it and decides it will have to do. 

By the time she comes back out, Harry is fully sitting on the floor with a lap full of Hazelnut. It’s cute and does something weird to her chest that she decidedly ignores in favor of clearing her throat, grabbing his attention, and holding out the shirt for him to take. “Thank you,” he murmured politely, and Y/N was suddenly so happy that she left her telly on so there’s at least some noise in the background – especially when Harry politely removed Hazelnut from his lap, stood, then pulled his shirt over his head. 

The gasp that leaves her isn’t really covered up by the telly, but it lessens the severity of it a little (she hopes). Y/N had just recently started witnessing Harry in casual-ish clothes, so to suddenly get an eyeful of his bare torso was a lot to swallow. He is covered in tattoos – she knew about the ones on his arms, but she knew nothing of what decorated his chest, his belly, his hips – she might scream. She might have to scream, or squeal, or both – preferably in her pillow after he’s left but the shots have made her lips loose. 

“Holy fuck,” she marvels at him – his physique is nice too, and his pecs are like. . .mouthwatering. Y/N wonders how much she can fit into her mouth and bite down on – “That’s – you have loads!” 

Harry looked down at himself like he was also surprised that there were so many. He huffed a laugh, opening up the shirt she gave him and finding the neck hole, “Yeah, I guess I do,” he stuffed his head inside of it, pulling the shirt over his body and covering all of the milky skin that he’d been hiding. Y/N wishes she could have taken a picture of it to stare at later or something – she doesn’t think she had nearly enough time to ogle him, “After my 22nd birthday, I think I might have been getting one each month at some point.” 

“I – whoa –” she says lamely, “They look so cool.” 

“Thank you,” he still has a glint in his eyes, all too amused, standing in his trainee’s flat, in a hedgehog shirt, watching her flounder for words, “You’re very easy to fluster, Y/N, did you know that?” 

Her throat feels dry, suddenly, like no amount of water would be able to soothe it. 

“I –” 

“It’s cute,” he adds, and Y/N thinks she might explode or something, “The side of you I saw tonight was cute.” 

Y/N is at a loss for words, her voice barely scratches out a, “Really?” 

And then she sees something that makes her positive that she actually passed out in the club after the last shot, and Niall was dragging her halfway-conscious body through a subway while she actively hallucinated. 

Harry Styles. . .her scary boss. . .the chef that has made people older than himself and in the industry for longer than him cry. . .the very man that she nearly chews through her lip waiting for his opinion on something she’s made out of pure worry and a state of panic. . .

. . .has a dimple. 

He has fucking dimples! 

“Rest well, Y/N,” he advises her, “Drink lots of water and enjoy your time off.” 

With one more pat on Hazelnut’s bum, Harry opens the door and steps out of her flat. 

[daylightmidnights]

"but I want you more" "but you're better" 😭😭😭

This is why I am so obsessed with this. He's just so in love with her that nothing else matters to him. That's his girlfriend y'all!!! His GIRLFRIEND ffs. They're so adorable and hot. And they're happy 🥺 My babies!! I love them so so much!! ❤️

A Good Boy Xmas Blurb

A Good Boy Masterlist

Summary: Y/n gets Harry a special xmas gift and she helps him get acquainted with it.

Word Count: 1,658

Warning: smut, assisted masterbation, use of toy, age gap

˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖ 𐙚 ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖

"What is this?" Harry looked at Y/n, a surprised smile on his face after he'd opened one of the gifts she got him. He knew exactly what he was looking at.

"Something to use when I'm not here. You can pretend it's me."

The small tabletop Christmas tree in the corner lit up the space of his dorm room while they had a pine-scented candle burning on his bedside table.

He turned the fleshlight over in his hands and eyed the opening where it looked like part of the female anatomy—sort of. "Looks nothing like yours."

She laughed, "Well it's not supposed to. Just something to have fun with when I'm not here."

He grinned and looked down at it, fingers pressing over the soft material, "Very thoughtful. Wished it looked more like you, though. Gonna be weird sticking myself in this and trying to pretend it's you when it looks like…" he laughed, "Well, I don't know who it looks like."

Y/n climbed to her knees and kissed his mouth softly, "Let's play with it now. I'll help you with it that way next time you use it alone you'll remember that I was here the first time you fucked it."

He swallowed and groaned, "But what if I just want to fuck you instead."

"Well, we can do that later, can't we? I'm here all weekend with you. Let me try this out on you. Want to see how it looks." She grasped the toy in her hand and kissed her way down his neck.

Y/n and Harry would be spending Christmas together in his dorm. She didn't want to be in that big house with Leo while he had Parker over. She wasn't jealous, it was just an awkward setup. Plus Parker didn't like Y/n being there when she was.

All the better for Y/n really. She could just spend more time with Harry. Leo told her that he'd rent her a condo in the city after the New Year. He was feeling guilty for the whole Parker thing. She wondered what he'd think if he knew she was fucking his son.

They'd cross that bridge when they got to it.

Harry was already hard. Of course, he was. Any talk of sex with Y/n and he was raring to go almost immediately. With her mouth still pressed to his, she pushed him down, his back hitting the mattress as she reached over him and worked at his button.

His big, solid prick was so nice and warm in her hand once she pulled it out of his boxers. She'd slid his jeans down to his thighs and then brought the rest down with it so she could take him in her palm.

He gasped a laugh, "Hands are cold."

Y/n moaned as she kissed his neck and stroked him, "And your cock is gonna warm them right up."

Y/n slid her hand up and down his shaft slowly as she kissed his neck. By the time her hand was all warm, he was softly bucking his hips and moaning desperately.

"You ready to get your big cock fucked by my little present?"

He panted as he nodded, eyelids drooped as he rocked into her hand, "Okay but I want you more."

She grinned at him as she shifted and reached for the lube that she'd bought with the toy. Harry watched her get the silicone slippery for him, sliding her finger all around before she smeared the rest down his length, "You can have me all weekend. Right now, I want to see how good this feels on you. Want to watch you come."

Pulling his pants and boxers the rest of the way off his legs she lowered down to kiss at the top of his thigh and tease her lips close to his dick, her breath warming his base before she sat up and settled between his thighs, fleshlight in hand.

"You're such a good boy for me. Bend your legs a little more so you have enough leverage to thrust into it, okay?"

Harry did what she said, planting his feet flat and bending at the knees as she slowly pushed the opening of the toy over his tip. Right away he bucked upward to stuff the toy full but she pulled it upward and tsk'd at him, "Hold on. Let me get you all warmed up first, then you can go to down. Feel that?"

He grasped the blankets in his hand as she pressed it only over his tip, sliding it up and down in smooth strokes slowly.

"Fuck…" he groaned.

"Mmhmm… It's good, isn't it? Knew you'd like it."

He breathed out, "Yeah. But you're better…"

She grinned as she pushed the fleshlight down his cock further, "I know I am. Nothing beats a real, live, warm pussy."

Harry's thick shaft disappeared into the sleeve as she stroked him, the lube gushing as she fucked him with it. But when she finally pressed it all the way down to his base his tip came out the other end. His pink, mushroomed head looked so sweet, she couldn't help but lean down and kiss it, wrapping her lips just over the very tip before she sat back and continued working the toy over him.

Harry coughed out a moan as he looked from his girlfriend to the toy that was wrapped around his dick.

"You can fuck into it now. I'll keep my hand here to hold it steady."

His jaw was slack as he began rutting up. She loved watching how he did it. Sliding his thick shaft up and down, the tip poking out the back end before he'd draw it back in and feel the slippery silicone wrapped around him.

Harry watched the sleeve as he plunged into it and then looked up at Y/n with a moan. He wanted to be inside of her, not some plastic toy. Sure, the fleshlight felt good on him but Y/n's pussy was warm and the way she wet him and squeezed around him couldn't be replicated. There was no comparison.

He inhaled through his teeth when he fucked up again, his tip poking through as he throbbed and leaked a bead of precome. He worked his hips up and down, thigh muscles and glutes flexing, his balls pressing into the plastic edge of the toy.

Y/n moaned as she watched how filthy the scene was. Bulbous pink, lube-smeared crown pressed through the end as his abs flexed. His cheeks were heated, and his parted lips were puffy and pink as he arched his brows together and breathed out studdered breaths, his eyes on hers.

"Look at you. Barely fit in this little thing. Kind of a snug fit isn't it, baby?"

He groaned, his throat bobbing as he thrust up and reached for her hand, "Let me put it in you. Please."

She bit her lip and squeezed his hand, "Mmm… Just imagine it's me, Harry."

Y/n pulled her sweater upward and peeled it off her head before unplucking her bra hook to expose her tits to him. She placed her hand back on the toy to keep it in place as she leaned over him, breasts wobbling softly.

He moaned loudly as he watched her pretty breasts and tried his hardest to imagine he was fucking into her, to imagine she was on top of him with her warm pussy encasing his length. The bed springs under him bounced gently as he rocked his hips upward.

"Ooh… Fuck, you're so good. Getting me all wet just watching this."

He grabbed a palmful of her breast and squeezed as he clenched his teeth, nostrils flaring as he edged toward his release. His heart was fluttering so fast in his chest as he set his gaze on Y/n's, plunging his cock through the silicone and gasping as he began to twitch and his balls tightened.

A shaky breath fell from his chest as he reached for the back of her neck and pulled her down to kiss him. He moaned into her mouth as he began to come, a small spurt of sperm hit her tummy as he swung his hips upward and released, most of his come dripping down to his stomach.

Y/n moaned with him, sliding her tongue against his. Harry's heart hammered in his chest and he stilled his thrusts. He'd come so fast, it was pathetic. But he could always be vulnerable in front of Y/n without worry. She never made fun of him for it. Instead, he seemed to imagine that she kind of liked it.

And she did. It was quite flattering how worked up he'd get with her. To Y/n, it was a compliment.

"I take you liked your Christmas gift." She looked down at him, her palm cupping his cheek.

His chest was still heaving as he opened his eyes and nodded, cum all over his low tummy, "That was good. But I still like you better."

She bit her lip and pulled the toy from his dick, making him shiver, "Yeah? You think you can handle another round right now? Watching that got me all wound up."

The thing about Harry was, that he could often go twice in a row. Sometimes he'd come quite fast (he'd get too excited) and if she wasn't quite done she'd keep going and soon enough, Harry'd be right back in it, fucking another load into her after she finally came.

He panted and licked his lips as he pulled at her, "You know I can."

She pulled her jeans off and smiled at him before straddling his hips. He was still all messy as she stroked him gently, "Mmm… still hard for me too. Looks like it's gonna be a Merry Christmas for both of us."

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[daylightmidnights]

The List

Ex Boyfriend's Dad

Unmatched, Part 2

Camboy Harry

Gravity

Pleasing

Harry wants to try sex with a girl, and Y/N is a very good friend

Harry doesn’t really like people, but he likes Y/N

DILF

Where We Started

Y/N and Harry are best friends, and best friends don’t keep secrets, right? | Y/N decides secrets are bad but learning the truth is harder

A Good Boy Xmas Blurb

The Naughty List

Backstage Business

Softdom!H x praisekink!yn

Tuesday Dinner

Harry likes leaving hickeys and Y/N's trying to watch a movie 

Soft

Text with Harry

Harry just wants to take care of sick Y/N

Harry is Y/N's guardian angel and he's frustrated with her

Prince Harry and servant Y/N, Part 2

Y/N takes control, Part 2

Y/N wakes up craving blood and Harry's there to help (reluctantly), Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Y/N wants to be a chef and Harry is her grumpy mentor

MLB!Harry

Kisses to my exes

Just Like The Movies

Neighborhood Watch

Dangerous Love

Size Kink

Morning sex w/ Harry

A Bit Jealous

Cross The Line

The Silent Type

Please Please Please, Part 2

The Fake Girlfriend

Nerdrry office crush, Part 2

Mr. Sunshine

Y/N takes Harry’s yoga class and Harry blushes a lot, Part 2, Part 3

Nemesis With Benefits

Harry and Y/N are witches, they hate each other, and something’s coming, Part 2, Part 3

Maybe Fate

The Witching Hour

Off Limits

Obsessed

Harry turns 30

Harry is on the football team and Y/N steals a dog

Not In The Same Way, Part 2

Y/N throws surprise birthday party for Harry but he cancels on her to be with his gf

Harry comes home in bad mood and snaps at Y/N but she's not taking it

Daddy Harry and Y/N go bareback for the first time

Lights Out, Keep Warm

Harry thinks Y/N is cute and Y/N is having horny nightmares (jawllines' cheff harry part 2)

[daylightmidnights]

Roommate/Flatmate Harry

Caught

Alpha H and Omega Y/N hate each other

[daylightmidnights]

Other AUs

The Other Man

Even If It Takes Forever

No Regrets

Pleasing (chef harry)

Harry is Y/N's guardian angel and he's frustrated with her

Y/N wants to be a chef and Harry is her grumpy mentor, Part 2

The Fake Girlfriend

Y/N takes Harry’s yoga class and Harry blushes a lot, Part 2, part 3 🍂

Maybe Fate

Off Limits

[daylightmidnights]

Student/CollegeAU Harry

Unspoken

Sex Ed With Harry

The Threesome, Spiderman

Sex Tutor, Part 2

Camboy Harry

Gravity 🌵

Harry doesn’t really like people, but he likes Y/N

Mr. Sunshine

Harry is on the football team and Y/N steals a dog 🍂

[daylightmidnights]

Babysitter/Nanny x Harry

To Love And Be Loved

[daylightmidnights]

Boyfriend Harry

Too Hard To Keep Quiet

The Italy Blurb

No Panties

Jealousy, Jealousy

Arrogant S.O.B.

Waterfalls

A Little Baby Girl

Getting What He Wants

Watermelon Sugar

Enough For You

Harry and Y/N just love each other a lot (ft. a friend's wedding)

Juno

Cover Up

Love Language

Violet 🍂

Cocky

Cuddles And Tits

Unpleasant Business

The Naughty List

Backstage Business

Softdom!H x praisekink!yn

Harry likes leaving hickeys and Y/N's trying to watch a movie

Text with Harry

Y/N takes control, part 2

Size Kink

Harry turns 30

Harry comes home in bad mood and snaps at Y/N but she's not taking it

Daddy Harry and Y/N go bareback for the first time

[daylightmidnights]

Ex Harry

Cloudburst

Kisses to my exes

[daylightmidnights]

Husband Harry

Fight and Make Up

Lactation Kink blurb

Breeding Kink blurb

Bruising Cervix blurb

Santa's Little Helper

Malibu

Costume 🍂

Tuesday Dinner

[daylightmidnights]

Step Relative Harry

The Forbidden | stepbrother!harry

Stepdad!Harry

A Good Boy | stepson!harry

[daylightmidnights]

Vampire Harry

Harry’s a vampire and Y/N never dresses for the weather (ft. cranberry juice) 🌵

they have a fight, Y/N gets jealous, night out with Y/N's friends ft. grumpy impatient H 🍂, he has a wet dream about Y/N, first time coming inside, period blood, extra clingy vamprry, wants threesome but doesn't like sharing his human 🍂, vamprry in heat, vamprry doesn't like halloween, vamprry and little human attend a wedding 🍂

Y/N wakes up craving blood and Harry's there to help (reluctantly), part 2, part 3, part 4

[daylightmidnights]

Alpha Harry

Harry and Y/N hate each other...but things change

Alpha H and Omega Y/N hate each other