Friends with Benefits feel like a little more (Patreon)

What happens when the grumpy one goes soft? 

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“Harry --” 

“No.”

“Bug, you’ve got to let me --” 

“I don’t.” 

“But I’ve got --” 

“Skip it.” 

Y/N isn’t sure what has gotten into Harry as of late. He wasn’t normally so cuddly -- hell, she was lucky if she had rolled out of bed before he had to tell her to put her clothes on, or do something passive to make sure she remembered that she wasn’t staying the night. This was just sex, he’d made that clear quite a few times since they’d started this months ago, and even if Y/N would have liked it to develop into more she’d taken it as it was. If there was a choice between having him for a few hours or not having him at all, then she’d choose the former any day, no matter how much it can be a pain. 

They’d met at a party; it was one of them that was big enough to be qualified as a party but not big enough that it was a full on rager. There was consistently thirty or so people give or take a few as they filtered in and out as the night went on. Y/N was sat in the room with the big plush bean bag chairs, the pink lamp lighting that made it easy to obscure the pimple that decided to appear at the side of her forehead. She had her feet draped over her friend Adam’s lap, her upper half sprawled over one of the bigger bean bags, her hand cradling one of those spritzers that really do nothing for her but she hadn’t in particularly felt like dipping into the vodka. Collectively, the majority of the eight in the room were playing Cards Against Humanity, and she was good just watching for the most part. Adam would show her his cards every so often if he needed help picking and she would click her phone off to help him think critically about his options -- they won each time the did it together.

She isn’t sure when Harry had entered the room, but she does know when he appeared hovering above the bean bag that she half preoccupied, he startled her. Vividly does she remember jumping, holding her hand to her chest. Harry was gorgeous from the moment she’d set her eyes on him, his hair was the first thing she had noticed on him and though in the light she couldn’t make out the color, she could tell that it looked healthy and soft with little curls here and there. His eyes were soulful, his gaze was soft despite the stony set of his jaw -- he appeared irritated, which was in great contrast to the sweater he wore, sporting a sweet little lamb on the front of it, “Fuck sake,” she chuckled as she shook her head, “You scared the hell out of me!” 

“Sorry,” he uttered, but it was half hearted at best, “You’re Y/N?” 

Her brows furrow, “Who’s asking?” 

He avoids her question, “You’ve been dating Oliver?” 

“I wouldn’t say dating -- we’ve been seeing each other. . .why?” 

“He’s been fucking my girlfriend,” he put it bluntly, gaze hardening and Y/N’s brows raise, “And if he was your ride here, I wanted to make sure you had another, because I’m going to beat the shit out of him.” 

Y/N remembered wondering if anyone else was hearing this but they seemed way too taken by their game at hand, apart from Adam who’s eyes widen as she pulled her legs from his lap, “Whoa, whoa,” she began, pushing herself up so that she could stand up to speak to him, “Holy fuck -- what? How’d you find that out?”

“My friend caught them at a party yesterday,” he rolled out his shoulders, “Went into the same room and fucked -- apparently it’s not the first time either.”  

Sure, Y/N was hurt by it but she was too thrown off to let the knowledge of this settle in her stomach. She straightened out her tank top and pulled her pants up so they sat correctly on her, “Well that’s -- that’s fucked,” she replied, flabbergasted, “I don’t -- beating the shit out of him won’t make you feel better though. And his dad works with the school so. . .” 

“Fuck.” He stated, pivoting on his heel and storming out of the room but Y/N is hot on his tail, not a hundred percent sure that he would take her advice.

“Listen, I’m sure there’s another way to -- I could go yell at him?” 

“Not enough,” he shook his head, flattening his palm against the mahogany door that he’d walked down the hall to, shoving it open and revealing that the room was empty, she followed him into it, “Do you want to fuck me?” 

Her eyes had bugged out of their sockets, “Excuse me?” 

“He’s a prick -- he fucked us both over, and now we’ll fuck in spite of him. If it’s okay with you.” 

Y/N doesn’t know how he’d convinced her -- she doesn’t know if it was just because he was really cute, or if it was the fact that there was a portion of her that wanted to get Oliver back. They’d been on six dates in total, Y/N had kissed him and blown him, she thought that maybe they had something sparking that could be sweet and cute. . .she had felt giddy when he was brought up or if he messaged her. She had really started to like him, but not only was he fucking someone else, he was fucking someone else’s girlfriend -- and that was eighteen kinds of fucked up. 

Maybe that’s why Y/N is only a little hesitant when he takes a step towards her, letting the door swing shut behind them,  “Shouldn’t I speak with him? Did you speak to your girlfriend?” 

She remembered clearly how his brows had furrowed even deeper than they had been, “Did they bother speaking to us?” 

And, well, Y/N really couldn’t fight that logic. 

That’s how they had ended up together that first night. Harry spewed filthy words to her, he was rough — the finger shaped bruises all over her bum, covered in spit and cum, he bit her bottom lip until it was swollen and fucked her hard, his thumb lulling over her clit. He wanted her to be loud, chuckled when she had tears sprung to her eyes because of how good it felt. Harry groaned, told her how tight she was, how good she was at just taking it. “Fuckin’ hell,” he murmured against her mouth, “I could fuck you forever.”

After he finished, Y/N rolled out of bed, he stated, “This doesn’t mean we’re together.” Y/N replied with a brief laugh accompanied with a, “I didn’t think it did  — do you want water?”

That’s how it started, they had no contact with one another until one day she got a message in the bath a week or so later. She’d reached out of her tub, toweled off her sudsy hand and shivered when the water droplets dripped down her forearm, and read a message from an unknown number. 

Hello, it’s Harry. Do you want to see each other again?

She knew what he meant by it. 

At the beginning, whenever one of them wanted to fuck then they would call the other and they would set something up. Harry was rough, he held tight, he fucked hard, he made her feel small and turned her into the most submissive that she has ever been. She doesn’t know how he does it, but he turns her into a begging, whiny mess, grappling for him to be closer, groaning in his ear, shuddering every time he grunted something about her tight little pussy, how she was made for him, how nobody could fuck her how he could. And no matter how blunt and no strings attached he was when they weren’t in either of their bedrooms, the aftercare was always wonderful. He treated her like she was made of porcelain, caressed her gently, brought her back down, and wouldn’t let her drive or leave her alone if she still appeared floaty in any sense. 

Of course she developed feelings -- sex doesn’t happen recurrently without something sparking within you -- but she was mighty good at pretending like she didn’t. Didn’t grump at him when she saw he was with other girls, didn’t set her expectations high for a cuddle afterward unless she was really far gone. Hell, after three months and Harry not even sort of suggesting that he might have deeper feelings towards her, she had given up to some degree. Not in a melodramatic way -- she just figured that nothing was ever going to happen between them, and. . .well, she had to be okay with that. It’s what she agreed to, anyway. 

Lately, however, things have felt a little different. 

Maybe she was seeing things that weren’t there -- like shadowy ghosts in a dark house that’s expected to be haunted -- but it all felt very real. The way Harry had begun seeing other people less and less and how he had subtly hinted at the fact that he would prefer she call him rather than pursue any suitors. How he spent much more time smoothing their lips together after he had made a pertinent, invariant “no kissing” rule that he had implemented after that first night. Kissing might skew what this is, he had told her the second night they’d been together, but five months later and he’s initiating kisses when the head of his cock is nudging that spot deep inside of her. 

And in the beginning, they never really hung out other than maybe an hour or so waiting for a storm to clear up so the drive home was safe, maybe at a party when Harry decided to get particularly possessive and stay beside her with the looming promise of stretching her open later on, and maybe for a little while she tried to ease herself from whatever headspace he so effortlessly slid her into -- but never like how they have been. Harry will FaceTime her when she’s walking out of her Literature lecture and ask if she wanted to meet up at the library so she could help him study for an exam or proofread a paper. From the library they would get hungry and need something to eat, to which either one of them would offer to cook the other something or they would just go get takeout. But takeout gets cold if you have to drive home with it, so they just eat with each other, and then after they eat they’re stuffed and sleepy, so maybe they’ll just watch an episode of Skins to relive their childhood briefly. Maybe one of them falls asleep, maybe Y/N crawls into Harry’s lap and he holds tight to her hips and helps her rock against him, or maybe Harry slides his hands toward the inside of her thighs. 

They’ll spend such long periods of time together without sex too that Y/N begins to smudge the lines of what they are often. Had they gone from acquaintances who fuck to friends who fuck? Why does Harry’s touch linger longer than it used to when he pushes hair from her face or fixes her shirt back on her body? When did he start washing her clothes for her and letting her slip into his shirt when she spent the night? Is it weird that Y/N started enjoying helping him clean when she came by on Saturdays as long as it meant they got to spend time together? How come Y/N’s heart flops rather than flutters when he cradles her face in his palm and coos about how beautiful she is? Why the hell did he start doing that in the first place? 

Then there’s right now, after they’d woken up from a particularly rough night. Harry -- dare Y/N say -- got incredibly jealous when he spotted her speaking with her assignment partner at the same spot they go in the library together. He’d come to get some work done himself, plopping his bag into the chair across from her and looking between them both, “Whose this?” He asked but it didn’t sound like he much cared for the answer when Y/N gave it. Whether the boy felt the tension or legitimately needed to leave, he escaped through the stairwell adjacent to them and left a furrowed brow Harry in his place. Before Y/N could even open her mouth to ask what it was Harry needed to work on, he slid his hand down her thigh possessively and squeezed, “He’s a prat,” he told her, “At an Alpha Sig party last year, he cheated on his girlfriend with three seperate girls in the same night before she got there, then went and had her in the bathroom when she finally made it.” 

Y/N gaped, her mouth fell open as she made out the disenchanted look in his green gaze, the fluorescent lighting above them reflecting off his sclera, “Holy shit --” 

“He was looking at you all doe eyed and innocent - don’t let him fool you, or give him any ideas. He deserves none of your time.” 

She was confused a bit as she shook her head, “I didn’t choose him for a partner, the professor had them picked out already,” she turned to close her book, snapping the purple hardback shut with a thud, “Beside, he’s not even that cute. Beyond me how he got three girls -- and this is coming from the girl who contemplates giving everyone a blowie when I meet them.” 

It had been meant as a joke to ease the tension that had developed but Harry had only seemed more disgruntled by it. Y/N’s eyes searched his face for answers but she became distracted regarding the mussed state of his chestnut curls, loose and flopped haphazardly to one side. He had gotten it cut a month ago but it had already begun growing back out to a length that neither of them could keep their fingers out of (for different reasons - his was a more stress related tick or fixing his sunglasses like a headband, while Y/N just liked carding her fingers through it because it was soft and when his eyes fluttered, he practically purred like a kitten when she’d mess with the hair at the tender nape -- she loved how he would blink at her sleepily when he’d not realized his eyes had closed in the first place). He wore a soft, worn black t-shirt that had a neon Higgs stretched across the chest though she’s fairly certain he has never had a puff of cigarette smoke enter his lungs willingly, and blue jeans, the denim hugging his thighs unfairly tight. 

Harry tore her from her ogling; it feels like within a blink of her eyes, he’s just a breath away. His lips smear over hers, sticky from the hot chocolate he’d brought (he slid it to her when he had first sat, which she took as her indication to take a drink), he’s adamant and eager in the movement of his mouth. He kisses her until she’s breathless, ignoring the little squeaks from her mouth that had come from not only her startling but beckoning that her lungs burned for air. Everytime she began to withdraw he only followed her and she couldn’t say that it hadn’t sparked an excitement in her, but eventually she did tangle her fingers up in his hair and gave him a sharp tug. When they part, it’s with a wet smack and is accompanied by them gasping for air, Harry merely leaned his forehead against her as they pant. 

“You’re mine,” he muttered, which wasn’t out of the ordinary, but was just -- it felt different than it usually did -- normally when he said it, they were naked, his hand was stretched over her throat and his chest rubbed against her back as he fucked into her, “I’ll cover you in them dark, splotchy love bites until the whole damn campus knows to fuck off.” 

He promptly took her to his home, they had sex too many times to count all over his flat, from the front door to the kitchen over his counter (a pit stop at the living room), in his room but they were on the floor so she had a carpet burn on her bum, and after he ran her a bath he climbed in after her, she shifted onto his lap. She was sore when he slipped back inside of her but she only shuddered and whimpered as Harry cooed and kissed her whimpers away. Y/N began to feel floaty somewhere between having Harry’s fingers tucked in her mouth when she’s stretched out on the kitchen, and when she half squealed half whined when her bum drug against the carpet. Harry always treated her significantly softer once she breached that line, encouraged her to topple over it, and cared for her once she did. 

By the time they actually toweled off, Y/N still felt floaty. He had lead her to his clean sheets, let her stretch out and soothed her when she whined after he told her he’d be back, “Right back, baby, I promise -- g’na get you some water.” 

Her thighs were sore, her mouth was dry, and she had felt so, so good. Like all the knots in her body had been released, all loose, but she was incredibly exhausted and was nearly asleep by the time that Harry had reentered, “C’mon, c’mon,” he patted the side of her bum, the one that she hadn’t rubbed against, “Sweet little thing, I know you’re sleepy. Drink some water and then we’ll get under the covers.” 

They did just that -- she drank her water, he helped her get under the covers, he cuddled and murmured to her, drawing her back to reality and then helping her relax into slumber. 

The last thing she remembered was Harry holding her and feeling immensely content, and she supposes Harry felt the same way the following morning. Which would explain his distaste for her attempt at leaving the bed. 

“If I skip, then I have to catch up on two chapters worth.” She tells him but there’s much less conviction in her voice, as she relaxes back into his hold. They’re both still naked beside one another, so Y/N feels his bare chest against his back, his biceps constrict around her and one of his hands touched idly at her breast. 

“Mm,” he hummed, unenthused, “Stay with me, yeah? I’ll make you brekkie,” he nestled his face into her throat, “Them chocolate pancakes you like.” 

It was the first time that Harry had tried convincing her to stay without offering some sexual act. 

She sinks back into his hold.

“Okay, fine,” she murmured, “But I want eggs too.”