Page 95 of The Sound Between Us

It should scare me. Should send me running back to Camden and my small, safe life where no one expects anything from me except showing up and not breaking the till.

Instead, I let the exhaustion catch up with me. The exhaustion of fighting this, of denying how far I’ve already fallen, of pretending that what happened in that studio was just professional collaboration when it felt more like communion. My eyes drift closed, and every instinct screams that this is how people get hurt—falling for someone who belongs to the world before they belong to you.

But sometimes, something real is stronger than fear.

When I open my eyes, his are already on me. Watching. Unapologetically.

The light has shifted again. Later now. Warm and syrupy, the kind of golden hour that makes everything look like a film still. His eyes look different in it. Less amber, more brown. Flecked with green I hadn’t noticed before. These aren’t the eyes that appear in magazines, retouched and distant. They belong to this moment. To this room. To me.

I don’t know how long we’ve slept, but the sleepy excuse for being this close has disappeared. We’re both awake now. Entirely. And the space between us is electric with all the things we’re not saying.

I roll to face him, the movement deliberate. His eyes search mine, looking for permission, or maybe proof that this is real, that I’m really here and not some fever dream brought on by creative exhaustion.

The silence stretches, taut and intimate. A heartbeat away from something irreversible.

I can hear his heartbeat. Can feel the heat of his skin warming the air between us. Can smell his soap—clean and citrusy—cut with the sweat and static of the studio, and something underneath all of it that’s just him. This is exactly what I swore I wouldn’t do. What I promised myself when I agreed to that one week in his house.

But I don’t move. I don’t run.

There’s something in his gaze that makes every wall I’ve built feel obsolete. He’s not performing. He’s just looking at me.

“Seren...” The way he says my name—low, careful, reverent—is devastating.

“Don’t talk.” My voice is tight with the effort of staying coherent, of not reaching for him and damn the consequences. “You’ll only ruin it.”

Because words make things real. Words turn this suspended moment into something practical—something strategic, dissected and doomed by consequence. They bring back every reason this shouldn’t be happening. His fame. My baggage. The inevitable fallout of crossing wires we were never supposed to touch.

Words remind us that he’s Harrison Carter and I’m supposed to know better.

But his hand finds my hip.

Not possessive. Not greedy. Just anchoring. His palm curves against me through the fabric of my shirt, fingers spreading with quiet certainty. Reverent. The heat from his skin seeps through mine, and suddenly my body doesn’t care about logic. Every nerve ending lights up, and I realise I’ve been holding my breath.

“Harrison, I can’t be that girl for you,” I breathe, the words rushing out before I lose my nerve. “The industry girlfriend. The muse. The temporary distraction between albums.”

“I know.” His response is simple. Direct.

No promises. No fantasy scripts about how we’ll make it work against impossible odds. No pretty lies about love conquering all. Just the impossible truth of it—and his choice to be here anyway.

And that undoes me completely.

Because what I’ve craved my entire life isn’t safety. It’s this. Someone who sees the complications clearly and still chooses me with both eyes open. Someone who doesn’t try to fix me or save me or turn me into someone else’s version of what I should be.

When he kisses me, it’s deliberate. Slow. Inevitable. A gravity we’ve both stopped resisting.

This isn’t London. That was chaos and adrenaline and too much too soon, desperation masquerading as connection. This is surrender. Conscious. Intentional. The slow fall into something we’ve been circling for too long.

His mouth is warm against mine—firm, searching, not rushed. I taste coffee and sugar and something purely Harry, raw beneath the polish. He kisses like he’s memorising, not devouring.

My fingers find his curls, finally. They’re softer than I expected. Wild under my hands. Untamed in a way stylists hate but I love. He makes a low, involuntary sound against my mouth—half sigh, half groan—and it shoots straight through me.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs against my lips, and there’s something vulnerable in the question.

“No,” I admit. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

His laugh is breathless, relieved. “Good. Because I’m not sure about anything except wanting you.”

We undress each other slowly. There’s no rush. Just reverence. Just the careful exploration of territory we’ve been mapping from a distance.