Fic - it all comes down to you (Donna/Harvey) pg-13, 1/1
Title: it all comes down to you
Summary: Harvey is finding more and more lately that she fills the space around him with something that breathes a hint of possibility.
Rating: pg-13
Author's Notes: 2,983 words. CHRISTMAS FIC! Set in the (hopefully) not too distant future. General series spoilers. All mistakes are mine. These two idiots, unfortunately, are not. Con-crit is both welcome and appreciated.
For lapiccolina because she is awesome. I wish all good things for you in the upcoming year.
(If you can name the two movies I quote in this, I'll give you a cookie *g*)
Eventually, it just happens.
Something shifts in the distance and finally settles between them.
The line they have been toeing for years - the one which was once bold and bright now worn down by persistence and time, the edges blurred to the point of being indiscriminate - ceases to be relevant.
Both are far too busy to notice.
On a Thursday afternoon, Harvey slides his jacket around his shoulders and pauses to look at her just as he has countless times before. Donna is busying herself with the files on his desk, straightening and arranging them just so, in the exact order he will need them later, and when she looks up, she catches his eye. He smiles and so does she, both of them active participants in a short, graceful moment that stretches until one of them looks away. They do this a lot - participate in these moments where one or both of them are on the cusp of saying what they are truly thinking, uttering the words they’ve been holding back for years, only to pull themselves back when it counts the most.
In the doorway, Mike lingers, watching them curiously. He and Harvey are on their way to court for a fight Harvey feels confident he’ll win. The confidence hums under his skin like a livewire, warm and dangerous as it propels him into action.
“You going to the party tonight?” he asks, glancing at her expectantly. He almost smiles, his mouth curling just slightly near the left corner.
She does smile, nodding and laughing a little. “A fancy new dress, free booze, and the chance to watch the associates make complete fools out of themselves? Where else would I be?”
His lips press into a thin line to keep the grin from spreading across his mouth. “What kind of dress exactly? Can I get a visual? Color? Length? Backless?”
Smirking, Donna leans into him, reaches to fiddle with his tie, straightening the fabric until the dimple is centered perfectly. “Use your imagination,” she murmurs, eyes catching his just as her mouth turns, and Harvey is finding more and more lately that she fills the space around him with something that breathes a hint of possibility.
He likes it more than he should, more than he allows himself to acknowledge.
“Oh, I will.”
He figures it out, of course, while he is with someone else.
Feelings once realized and forgotten realized again, the hint of maybe both he and Donna had buried over a half-decade before fighting their way to the surface as he tries, really goddamn tries to make an honest go with someone else. Someone else who is intelligent, and beautiful, and interested, and doesn’t use feelings or emotions as some sort of warfare or game.
Harvey didn’t love her, of course, this other woman. This is for a variety of reasons which are both significant and seemingly insignificant in comparison to the vital truth only those who know him best understand: Harvey doesn’t really understand what love is or what it should be. Still, eventually he finds himself recognizing the fact that he could love this woman. He was right there, standing on the edge of the great divide ready to step over it, only to realize he already had - months and years and a decade before.
This other woman, this woman who could never quite compete, never quite measure up to something Harvey always thought was intangible, starts making plans for the future. She is tentative, cautious, treading the waters because she does know him, he has allowed her to know him - but Harvey takes a step back all too quickly. Forces himself to imagine what his life could be like, and only sees one unyielding constant in his periphery. It isn’t her. It takes him a while to realize the full extent of what that means, and how he feels about it.
It sets him down a path he’ll never be able to break free of, a path he realizes he has been traveling along for years.
Donna, he muses, has probably known it all along.
Donna wears green. A deep shade of emerald that looks stunning against her alabaster skin, her hair down, curling at the edges - just the way Harvey prefers. He knows her, knows it’s probably backless as well, the fabric leaving her skin bare and Harvey is a male, and this is Donna, so his fingers are already itching to trail along the smooth expanse of her skin, the gentle curve of her spine.
He arrives first and separately, is standing with Jessica and some of the other partners discussing business with a glass of champagne dangling idly between his fingers when she arrives. He is known for taking control of a room the moment he enters it, but Donna is known for demanding the attention of all who cross her path with just a mere subtle look. Tonight she does just that, and it’s comical, really, the way he knows she has arrived be the way some of his partners turn their head and stare for one second, two second before glancing away as if caught.
Harvey excuses himself quietly and makes his way over to her, watching as she seeks him out, her mouth quirking playfully when she finds him. He grabs a glass of champagne off of a passing waiter’s tray, and presses it into her hands when he’s close enough. She allows her fingers to linger against his a moment longer than necessary and the warmth of her touch takes Harvey by surprise. He covers it easily.
“This is exactly what I imagined,” he says.
Donna offers him a shrug. “I play to win.”
“In that dress? Definitely not an issue.”
“An effective use of your bonus, then?”
His eyes narrow in mock frustration. “I thought we talked about that.”
“We did,” she laughs. “I chose to ignore it.”
Off to the side, Jessica is nonchalantly trying to get their attention and Donna sees her first, placing her now empty glass to the side before touching Harvey’s shoulder to get his attention. Jessica is with a client they’ve been trying to close for weeks, but have only now decided to bring Harvey in on. He can already taste the victory in the water.
“Care to help me with this one?” he asks, nodding his head to the side. Her mouth spreads into an almost predatory grin and Harvey finds himself liking it a little too much.
“Harvey Specter asking for my help? Christmas isn’t for another two weeks,” she teases, already heading in the direction of Jessica. He falls into step beside her, his palm flatting against the slight dip near the small of her back.
He was right, of course. The dress is almost entirely backless.
“Not exactly. I just thought it would be a waste for you to miss seeing my greatness in action.”
She spits a filthy name at him, her eyes rolling characteristically, but the way she leans into his touch, allowing him to guide her across the ballroom, completely gives her away.
There was a moment, in the not too distant past, a span of time that stretched on and on between them, where the hint of maybe began to appear as something akin to a tangible promise instead of a mere unlikelihood. Instead of something that always seemed to be just out of his grasp. There was a bar, too many beers, a celebration of sorts for whatever case he had managed to effortlessly fight and subsequently win and Donna’s laughter flowed freely, the sound of it pressing into his skin and lingering with intent.
Harvey is the master of indifference, at compartmentalizing, at respecting boundaries when necessary and bending them when needed, but with Donna it is a trial, an uphill battle to remember where he ends and she begins. When he helped her into her coat at the end of the night, some anecdote about Louis on the tip of his tongue, the pads of his fingers brushed against the smooth skin of her neck as he helped her adjust her hair and the collar, his fingers lingering far too long. Donna turned, her mouth curling, and there was a shift, a change, the sound of something sliding into place subtly and gracefully in the distance and all Harvey could fathom in that moment was how much he wanted to kiss her, and how utterly exhausted he was of trying to outrun the inevitable.
So he leaned in on an unspoken dare, the edges of his mouth curling, pausing just a breath away from her lips as if he was seeking permission, as if he needed her to say yes. He watched too closely as her eyes fell closed, noted the way her body leaned into his, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat near his sides. Donna’s fingers tightened, her grip pulling him towards her just the smallest bit, and his inhale was sharp, the anticipation thrumming through his veins as he waited.
“We should think about this,” she murmured, and his eyes slide open to find hers.
Nodding, Harvey took a small step backwards and pulled back into himself. Allowed the moment to pass them by. His hand remained splayed against her hip, the only place they remained physically connected, and he stared too long at the way his fingers fit perfectly around the gentle crest of bone there.
“You’re right,” he mumbled.
(She usually is.)
He catches her in a faraway corner, shoulder against the pillar separating one part of the ballroom from the other as he leans into her, grin just a tad bit too smug as it stretches across his features. Donna has a flute of champagne dangling between her fingers and there is a commotion across the way, one of the associates whose name Harvey doesn’t care to know making a scene that will be sure to leave a mark on his reputation with the firm.
The crowd laughs, Donna too as she watches the scene unfold over his shoulder, and he can’t help but think about how he wants to kiss her, right here, in front of everyone. Harvey thinks about leaning in, pressing the weight of his mouth against hers, wonders what she would taste like - Champagne, he muses, maybe a lingering hint of mint from the gum she chews throughout the day. He has thought about it more than once. He wonders if she does too. Thinks about asking her idly.
Donna reaches for him, fingers reaching to straighten the bowtie around his neck and lingering for far longer than necessary and it hits him like a kick in the stomach then - his pulse quickening, throat growing dry. He wants her. All of her. Probably always has, but just refused to see it until now, until he knew he was capable of giving her all the things she deserved. He leans into her further, knows they are the least of anyone’s worries this far off to the side, and listens to the way her breath hitches at the close proximity, the way her skin starts to flush ever so lightly.
“I’ve thought about it,” he tells her, and thinks, again, about kissing her. Can already taste the bit of champagne against the roof her mouth on the tip of his tongue.
Her eyes widen just slightly before relaxing. He knows he’s caught her off guard. “Have you now?”
“Have you?”
Donna laughs softly. Merely murmurs, “I have,” with a slight nod of her head and a smile that cuts right through him.
He’s too tired of this game, this dance they do everyday around what they want, but are too afraid to ask for. Which is why he says, “You want to get out of here?” with every ounce of smugness and bravado he can muster when she’s this close and the opportunity he’s been wishing for is right within reach.
It is a risk - albeit a calculated one - and he waits with guarded apprehension for her response, tries to look for the emotions on her face, a mere hint to what she is thinking, what she is feeling as the moments tick by between them.
There is nothing, of course, just the flash of a smile hidden behind her glass, fingers tightening around the stem as she finishes the contents in a smooth swallow.
“What the hell took you so long?” she asks matter-of-factly and Harvey can’t help it - he laughs.
The kiss is anything but a surprise.
Ray has they night off so they hail a cab and head west, to her apartment, not his. He kisses Donna first, mouth tentative, testing the waters and toeing the lines drawn between them as his fingers tangle in her hair, pulling gently to angle her mouth just right below his. There is a sound, deep and guttural, that spills between them as they finally meet in the middle, its origin unclear. Harvey allows himself to imagine it was hers, swallows it readily, makes it apart of him because he quite like what it signifies - that she has thought about this, has wanted for this just as much as he has.
Outside, a New York winter rages on, the rain turning to ice as it falls slowly, and she huddles closer to him for warmth and something else altogether different. He is all too aware of the strange tick and hum of his blood through his veins when she’s near, and he feels it now, the warmth she radiates off her in waves pressing into his skin, making him dizzy. Harvey’s fingers untangle from her hair, graze the column of her throat before slipping under the collar of her coat and spilling against skin. Donna sighs into his mouth, and he shifts closer, starts fiddling idly with the buttons of her coat brazenly, his smile growing larger and larger as he works the last one open and his palms smooth against the green silk of the dress he very much admires, but cannot wait to get her out of.
He thinks, of course, that maybe he is getting ahead of himself. Maybe he is allowing his mind to play tricks on him as he presses his eyes shut and sees the night stretched before him in a haze of tangled limbs and arching backs, her fingers twisted in the cotton of her sheets as his mouth works her tirelessly towards release. But then Donna moans lowly, the nails of her fingers digging into the soft skin of his scalp, pulling him closer, and Harvey is acutely aware of where this night will end and feels the anticipation, the excitement intermingle and roar to life inside him.
When they pull away it is simply to catch their breaths, the driver in the front seat clearing his throat awkwardly as the cab slows to a halt at a light. Neither of them bothers with looking embarrassed, the laughter spilling out of their mouths as she reaches for him to smooth back the hair her fingers had mussed just moments before.
“Because if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?” she says quietly, eyelashes slipping against her cheeks as she continues to laugh. The sound warms him against the cold, his fingers slipping to tangle in the silk of her dress, pushing it up until they can fold against the bare skin of her knee.
Making a tsk sound with his teeth, his fingers gradually start to climb, tracing the lean muscle of her thighs. She shifts a little, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch, and he likes it too much - the effect he already has on her. She is sensitive here, he notes, the skin of her inner thighs soft, the muscle strong, and he files the knowledge away, next to the trivial facts about how she prefers her coffee, and how the height of her heels correlates directly with her mood.
“Chick flicks don’t count. I’m still winning.”
Donna’s shrug is half-hearted, her hands fumbling with the bowtie around his neck, loosening the fabric until it comes undone completely. When she has succeeded in doing so, the grin of satisfaction quirks near the corners of her mouth.
“Name the movie and I’ll concede.”
He can’t, and she knows it. He tries to count years and holidays, all the way back to the start, to the Christmas they spent together, snowed-in with his father. He recalls plot points vaguely, but most of what he remembers of that time is Donna curled next to him on the couch, his sweatshirt loose around her shoulders as the movie played and the scent of his shampoo in her hair lingered between them as a taunt, an almost dare.
Harvey leans forward, brushes his mouth against the hinge of her jaw. Murmurs almost too seriously, “I’m too tired not to be with you,” and catches her hand when she moves to shove his shoulder.
“Because that’s not a chick flick at all -”
He kisses her just to shut her up. It is a very effective argument.
Donna spills out of the cab and onto the sidewalk, all long legs and red hair, the green of her dress a pop of color peeking out from under her coat as the streetlight to their left flickers on and off.
Just a mere step behind, he watches, in awe of everything about her. There is a tension inside his chest - a tight constriction he’s had for years, something he regards as familiar, but only now welcomes and is able recognize for what it is.
On the stoop outside her door, he reaches for her, pulls her to him just so he can breathe in her warmth and make it his own.
At their sides, his fingers tangle with hers. She doesn’t let go.
Summary: Harvey is finding more and more lately that she fills the space around him with something that breathes a hint of possibility.
Rating: pg-13
Author's Notes: 2,983 words. CHRISTMAS FIC! Set in the (hopefully) not too distant future. General series spoilers. All mistakes are mine. These two idiots, unfortunately, are not. Con-crit is both welcome and appreciated.
For lapiccolina because she is awesome. I wish all good things for you in the upcoming year.
(If you can name the two movies I quote in this, I'll give you a cookie *g*)
Eventually, it just happens.
Something shifts in the distance and finally settles between them.
The line they have been toeing for years - the one which was once bold and bright now worn down by persistence and time, the edges blurred to the point of being indiscriminate - ceases to be relevant.
Both are far too busy to notice.
On a Thursday afternoon, Harvey slides his jacket around his shoulders and pauses to look at her just as he has countless times before. Donna is busying herself with the files on his desk, straightening and arranging them just so, in the exact order he will need them later, and when she looks up, she catches his eye. He smiles and so does she, both of them active participants in a short, graceful moment that stretches until one of them looks away. They do this a lot - participate in these moments where one or both of them are on the cusp of saying what they are truly thinking, uttering the words they’ve been holding back for years, only to pull themselves back when it counts the most.
In the doorway, Mike lingers, watching them curiously. He and Harvey are on their way to court for a fight Harvey feels confident he’ll win. The confidence hums under his skin like a livewire, warm and dangerous as it propels him into action.
“You going to the party tonight?” he asks, glancing at her expectantly. He almost smiles, his mouth curling just slightly near the left corner.
She does smile, nodding and laughing a little. “A fancy new dress, free booze, and the chance to watch the associates make complete fools out of themselves? Where else would I be?”
His lips press into a thin line to keep the grin from spreading across his mouth. “What kind of dress exactly? Can I get a visual? Color? Length? Backless?”
Smirking, Donna leans into him, reaches to fiddle with his tie, straightening the fabric until the dimple is centered perfectly. “Use your imagination,” she murmurs, eyes catching his just as her mouth turns, and Harvey is finding more and more lately that she fills the space around him with something that breathes a hint of possibility.
He likes it more than he should, more than he allows himself to acknowledge.
“Oh, I will.”
He figures it out, of course, while he is with someone else.
Feelings once realized and forgotten realized again, the hint of maybe both he and Donna had buried over a half-decade before fighting their way to the surface as he tries, really goddamn tries to make an honest go with someone else. Someone else who is intelligent, and beautiful, and interested, and doesn’t use feelings or emotions as some sort of warfare or game.
Harvey didn’t love her, of course, this other woman. This is for a variety of reasons which are both significant and seemingly insignificant in comparison to the vital truth only those who know him best understand: Harvey doesn’t really understand what love is or what it should be. Still, eventually he finds himself recognizing the fact that he could love this woman. He was right there, standing on the edge of the great divide ready to step over it, only to realize he already had - months and years and a decade before.
This other woman, this woman who could never quite compete, never quite measure up to something Harvey always thought was intangible, starts making plans for the future. She is tentative, cautious, treading the waters because she does know him, he has allowed her to know him - but Harvey takes a step back all too quickly. Forces himself to imagine what his life could be like, and only sees one unyielding constant in his periphery. It isn’t her. It takes him a while to realize the full extent of what that means, and how he feels about it.
It sets him down a path he’ll never be able to break free of, a path he realizes he has been traveling along for years.
Donna, he muses, has probably known it all along.
Donna wears green. A deep shade of emerald that looks stunning against her alabaster skin, her hair down, curling at the edges - just the way Harvey prefers. He knows her, knows it’s probably backless as well, the fabric leaving her skin bare and Harvey is a male, and this is Donna, so his fingers are already itching to trail along the smooth expanse of her skin, the gentle curve of her spine.
He arrives first and separately, is standing with Jessica and some of the other partners discussing business with a glass of champagne dangling idly between his fingers when she arrives. He is known for taking control of a room the moment he enters it, but Donna is known for demanding the attention of all who cross her path with just a mere subtle look. Tonight she does just that, and it’s comical, really, the way he knows she has arrived be the way some of his partners turn their head and stare for one second, two second before glancing away as if caught.
Harvey excuses himself quietly and makes his way over to her, watching as she seeks him out, her mouth quirking playfully when she finds him. He grabs a glass of champagne off of a passing waiter’s tray, and presses it into her hands when he’s close enough. She allows her fingers to linger against his a moment longer than necessary and the warmth of her touch takes Harvey by surprise. He covers it easily.
“This is exactly what I imagined,” he says.
Donna offers him a shrug. “I play to win.”
“In that dress? Definitely not an issue.”
“An effective use of your bonus, then?”
His eyes narrow in mock frustration. “I thought we talked about that.”
“We did,” she laughs. “I chose to ignore it.”
Off to the side, Jessica is nonchalantly trying to get their attention and Donna sees her first, placing her now empty glass to the side before touching Harvey’s shoulder to get his attention. Jessica is with a client they’ve been trying to close for weeks, but have only now decided to bring Harvey in on. He can already taste the victory in the water.
“Care to help me with this one?” he asks, nodding his head to the side. Her mouth spreads into an almost predatory grin and Harvey finds himself liking it a little too much.
“Harvey Specter asking for my help? Christmas isn’t for another two weeks,” she teases, already heading in the direction of Jessica. He falls into step beside her, his palm flatting against the slight dip near the small of her back.
He was right, of course. The dress is almost entirely backless.
“Not exactly. I just thought it would be a waste for you to miss seeing my greatness in action.”
She spits a filthy name at him, her eyes rolling characteristically, but the way she leans into his touch, allowing him to guide her across the ballroom, completely gives her away.
There was a moment, in the not too distant past, a span of time that stretched on and on between them, where the hint of maybe began to appear as something akin to a tangible promise instead of a mere unlikelihood. Instead of something that always seemed to be just out of his grasp. There was a bar, too many beers, a celebration of sorts for whatever case he had managed to effortlessly fight and subsequently win and Donna’s laughter flowed freely, the sound of it pressing into his skin and lingering with intent.
Harvey is the master of indifference, at compartmentalizing, at respecting boundaries when necessary and bending them when needed, but with Donna it is a trial, an uphill battle to remember where he ends and she begins. When he helped her into her coat at the end of the night, some anecdote about Louis on the tip of his tongue, the pads of his fingers brushed against the smooth skin of her neck as he helped her adjust her hair and the collar, his fingers lingering far too long. Donna turned, her mouth curling, and there was a shift, a change, the sound of something sliding into place subtly and gracefully in the distance and all Harvey could fathom in that moment was how much he wanted to kiss her, and how utterly exhausted he was of trying to outrun the inevitable.
So he leaned in on an unspoken dare, the edges of his mouth curling, pausing just a breath away from her lips as if he was seeking permission, as if he needed her to say yes. He watched too closely as her eyes fell closed, noted the way her body leaned into his, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat near his sides. Donna’s fingers tightened, her grip pulling him towards her just the smallest bit, and his inhale was sharp, the anticipation thrumming through his veins as he waited.
“We should think about this,” she murmured, and his eyes slide open to find hers.
Nodding, Harvey took a small step backwards and pulled back into himself. Allowed the moment to pass them by. His hand remained splayed against her hip, the only place they remained physically connected, and he stared too long at the way his fingers fit perfectly around the gentle crest of bone there.
“You’re right,” he mumbled.
(She usually is.)
He catches her in a faraway corner, shoulder against the pillar separating one part of the ballroom from the other as he leans into her, grin just a tad bit too smug as it stretches across his features. Donna has a flute of champagne dangling between her fingers and there is a commotion across the way, one of the associates whose name Harvey doesn’t care to know making a scene that will be sure to leave a mark on his reputation with the firm.
The crowd laughs, Donna too as she watches the scene unfold over his shoulder, and he can’t help but think about how he wants to kiss her, right here, in front of everyone. Harvey thinks about leaning in, pressing the weight of his mouth against hers, wonders what she would taste like - Champagne, he muses, maybe a lingering hint of mint from the gum she chews throughout the day. He has thought about it more than once. He wonders if she does too. Thinks about asking her idly.
Donna reaches for him, fingers reaching to straighten the bowtie around his neck and lingering for far longer than necessary and it hits him like a kick in the stomach then - his pulse quickening, throat growing dry. He wants her. All of her. Probably always has, but just refused to see it until now, until he knew he was capable of giving her all the things she deserved. He leans into her further, knows they are the least of anyone’s worries this far off to the side, and listens to the way her breath hitches at the close proximity, the way her skin starts to flush ever so lightly.
“I’ve thought about it,” he tells her, and thinks, again, about kissing her. Can already taste the bit of champagne against the roof her mouth on the tip of his tongue.
Her eyes widen just slightly before relaxing. He knows he’s caught her off guard. “Have you now?”
“Have you?”
Donna laughs softly. Merely murmurs, “I have,” with a slight nod of her head and a smile that cuts right through him.
He’s too tired of this game, this dance they do everyday around what they want, but are too afraid to ask for. Which is why he says, “You want to get out of here?” with every ounce of smugness and bravado he can muster when she’s this close and the opportunity he’s been wishing for is right within reach.
It is a risk - albeit a calculated one - and he waits with guarded apprehension for her response, tries to look for the emotions on her face, a mere hint to what she is thinking, what she is feeling as the moments tick by between them.
There is nothing, of course, just the flash of a smile hidden behind her glass, fingers tightening around the stem as she finishes the contents in a smooth swallow.
“What the hell took you so long?” she asks matter-of-factly and Harvey can’t help it - he laughs.
The kiss is anything but a surprise.
Ray has they night off so they hail a cab and head west, to her apartment, not his. He kisses Donna first, mouth tentative, testing the waters and toeing the lines drawn between them as his fingers tangle in her hair, pulling gently to angle her mouth just right below his. There is a sound, deep and guttural, that spills between them as they finally meet in the middle, its origin unclear. Harvey allows himself to imagine it was hers, swallows it readily, makes it apart of him because he quite like what it signifies - that she has thought about this, has wanted for this just as much as he has.
Outside, a New York winter rages on, the rain turning to ice as it falls slowly, and she huddles closer to him for warmth and something else altogether different. He is all too aware of the strange tick and hum of his blood through his veins when she’s near, and he feels it now, the warmth she radiates off her in waves pressing into his skin, making him dizzy. Harvey’s fingers untangle from her hair, graze the column of her throat before slipping under the collar of her coat and spilling against skin. Donna sighs into his mouth, and he shifts closer, starts fiddling idly with the buttons of her coat brazenly, his smile growing larger and larger as he works the last one open and his palms smooth against the green silk of the dress he very much admires, but cannot wait to get her out of.
He thinks, of course, that maybe he is getting ahead of himself. Maybe he is allowing his mind to play tricks on him as he presses his eyes shut and sees the night stretched before him in a haze of tangled limbs and arching backs, her fingers twisted in the cotton of her sheets as his mouth works her tirelessly towards release. But then Donna moans lowly, the nails of her fingers digging into the soft skin of his scalp, pulling him closer, and Harvey is acutely aware of where this night will end and feels the anticipation, the excitement intermingle and roar to life inside him.
When they pull away it is simply to catch their breaths, the driver in the front seat clearing his throat awkwardly as the cab slows to a halt at a light. Neither of them bothers with looking embarrassed, the laughter spilling out of their mouths as she reaches for him to smooth back the hair her fingers had mussed just moments before.
“Because if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?” she says quietly, eyelashes slipping against her cheeks as she continues to laugh. The sound warms him against the cold, his fingers slipping to tangle in the silk of her dress, pushing it up until they can fold against the bare skin of her knee.
Making a tsk sound with his teeth, his fingers gradually start to climb, tracing the lean muscle of her thighs. She shifts a little, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch, and he likes it too much - the effect he already has on her. She is sensitive here, he notes, the skin of her inner thighs soft, the muscle strong, and he files the knowledge away, next to the trivial facts about how she prefers her coffee, and how the height of her heels correlates directly with her mood.
“Chick flicks don’t count. I’m still winning.”
Donna’s shrug is half-hearted, her hands fumbling with the bowtie around his neck, loosening the fabric until it comes undone completely. When she has succeeded in doing so, the grin of satisfaction quirks near the corners of her mouth.
“Name the movie and I’ll concede.”
He can’t, and she knows it. He tries to count years and holidays, all the way back to the start, to the Christmas they spent together, snowed-in with his father. He recalls plot points vaguely, but most of what he remembers of that time is Donna curled next to him on the couch, his sweatshirt loose around her shoulders as the movie played and the scent of his shampoo in her hair lingered between them as a taunt, an almost dare.
Harvey leans forward, brushes his mouth against the hinge of her jaw. Murmurs almost too seriously, “I’m too tired not to be with you,” and catches her hand when she moves to shove his shoulder.
“Because that’s not a chick flick at all -”
He kisses her just to shut her up. It is a very effective argument.
Donna spills out of the cab and onto the sidewalk, all long legs and red hair, the green of her dress a pop of color peeking out from under her coat as the streetlight to their left flickers on and off.
Just a mere step behind, he watches, in awe of everything about her. There is a tension inside his chest - a tight constriction he’s had for years, something he regards as familiar, but only now welcomes and is able recognize for what it is.
On the stoop outside her door, he reaches for her, pulls her to him just so he can breathe in her warmth and make it his own.
At their sides, his fingers tangle with hers. She doesn’t let go.