Born on the eighteenth of January 2004—Capricorn, same star sign as me—to Donna and Jason Ellis of Wrigsham near Bath. Has five siblings. Three older—including twin sisters—and two younger. Went to Greenhills Primary School and Wrigsham Academy comprehensive secondary school. Graduated from A levels straight into Bath Cents academy team before making the main team last September. Is afraid of flying but dreams of travel. He’s ambitious and wants to play at a national level. He routinely wipes his palms on his shorts before taking a kick, talks with a Westcountry accent and a slight lisp, and stims by tugging on his earlobe when he’s nervous. I also read that he’s anosmic—no sense of smell from birth—which explains why he’s oversprayed some cheap pharmacy-grade eau de cologne.
And yeah, it’s cute. It’s all very cute. And I have made a grave mistake.
He’s also, despite his general inexperience, a great kisser. Gentle but firm, and not slobbery or too tonguesy. He’s threading a hand through my hair and the other is flat against my lower back, pulling me close and eliminating any gap between our bodies, but he’s not grinding against me or possessively grabbing at my flesh, and it’s . . . different from what I’m used to.
“Shall we go inside?” I say, easing a space between our lips, and pretending I’m as turned on as he is by panting into his mouth.
It’s not that I don’t like kissing, or cuddling, or any of this “run-up” stuff. I actually love it. I love kissing, and soft gentle touches, massages, cuddles, falling asleep in the crook of someone’s arm. It’s just that in my experience those things rarely happen without the guy expecting sex. And they rarely last long.
A few minutes of snogging and they’re already scuffing their cock against my hip like a horny hound, trying to figure out the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way to bend me over.
Harry isn’t like that. He’s not grinding against me, chasing the friction. He seems content to move slowly and let me lead everything, but I need the opposite to be true. Need him to be feral for me. I need him to drag me up tomy bedroom, throw me onto the bed, and fuck me as though he’s addicted to me.
Unless . . .
Wait . . . am I losing my touch?
Or maybe he just doesn’t fancy me?
No, that can’t be right. I cycle back through the memories of earlier at the pub. The way Harry looked over at me while he was singing. The sheer number of times he caught my eye.
Yeah, okay, there’s zero chance he doesn’t fancy me.
I guide him through the service kitchen entrance, through the halls, up the stairs, and through the corridors. All the while his eyes are saucers, roving this way and that, taking in as much as he can. His mouth hangs open the entire time.
“I’ve been to National Trust houses that aren’t as posh as this,” he says.
I flick the lamps on in my bedroom and toss my jacket onto a nearby chair.
“It’s haunted, isn’t it? It’s definitely haunted.” I’m pretty sure he’s talking to himself. He doesn’t move any closer to my bed, so I kiss him again. “Oh,” he says, and melts into my touch.
But he’s being too gentle, too hesitant. I stick my tongue into his mouth, and we both whine. Better. We walk backwards to the bed, and collapse onto it when the mattress hits our thighs.
Harry’s not making any of the moves the men I fuck usually make, and my head is a swirling mess. I’m not accustomed to taking the lead. A strange ickiness settles in the pit of my stomach, and when I go to lift Harry’s T-shirt over his head, he flinches.
He flinches.
“Um.” I laugh to hide my anxiety. “Do you still want this?”
“Yes!” he shouts. “Yes, I still want to.” He strips off his T-shirt and tosses it to the edge of the bed.
Harry has freckles all over his torso. He’s muscular, his body sculpted from an adolescence of doing nothing but playing rugby.
“Now I understand why they call you Abs.” I crawl up to him and straddle his thighs as he drops backwards onto his elbows.
“Actually, it’s because of Prince—” Harry shakes his head. “Not even remotely important right now.”
I bring my lips down to his chest and plant the gentlest kiss between his pecs. He sucks in a breath and raises a brow but doesn’t try to guide me. If Harry’s not going to take the initiative here, I will, or we’ll be here all night.
Though maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I use the pattern of his freckles and moles to forge a path down his chest with my tongue. His stomach muscles spasm as he forgets and then remembers to breathe. When I reach the fly of his jeans, I pause and look up for consent. This isn’t something I ordinarily have to do. By now the guy would already have taken his cock out and would be trying to fuck my face with it.
Harry doesn’t offer me any words, he simply purses his lips together and then rolls his eyes in a slow blink.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
He nods, and I flip the button open and pull down his fly. “Um . . .” He releases a long, shaky breath, and I tug his boxers down at the front. “I’m sorry.”
