× Mercury

Niall was a dangerous combination of adorable and fuckable.

He lay as still as a brick sleeping, the only movement was the slight rise and fall of his chest. His heart thumped in accordance with slow, shallow breaths. Blonde tipped hair stuck up in every direction, a combination from the events of last night and sleep. Serenity was across his face. It was hard to imagine that this was the same boy that I despised only a few months ago.

The sheets were pulled up to his waist, but I knew he was still naked. I liked him better that way.

Last night was different than before. It was slower and a lot more intimate, even more so than the other times. I thought maybe something was distracting him, but whenever I looked at his face it was clear as day that he was in the moment. I never got the chance to ask him what was up because exhaustion took us before I could even open my mouth.

It was a rare sunny day, fluffy snow falling down ever so slowly through the window. Through the sun's rays, little specks of dust danced around in the light. It wasn't the first time I compared Niall to the sun, but at that very moment, they couldn't have been more alike. Bright, warm, and attractive.

My eyes lingered on his naked torso before trailing up and over his neck. Faint red marks were visible and I couldn't help but smile at the memory of creating them. Moving up to his jaw, and then to his face, I paused when I saw something I never noticed before.

There was a small hole in his ear.

I moved my head a little in case the sun was playing tricks, but it didn't disappear. Did he recently get his ear pierced or was I just oblivious to it before?

Smiling to myself, I got out of bed and picked up my shirt and tugged it on before digging through my underwear drawer and took out a clean pair and pulled them on. Then I opened up my jewelry box quietly and dug out a silver stud and went back to the bed, cautiously crawling onto the mattress without disturbing the sleeping body.

I tried my best to stifle my laughter by biting my bottom lip, but as I carefully pushed the stud into the small hole in his ear, it was getting harder to control myself. He was going to hate me for this.

Once the earring was securely placed, I straddled his waist. A low groan left his lips as one eye peeked up and looked at me. He didn't say anything at first and instead just slowly opened his eyes, a small grin forming at the corner of his mouth.

When I started to laugh, his eyes narrowed. "What are you giggling about?"

"How come you never told me you had your ear pierced?"

Niall was confused for a moment. "Uh, I don't know," he answered in a low, sleepy voice. "When I was younger I was dared to-" he reached up to touch his ear, his eyes growing wide. "What the fuck did you do!?"

A loud laugh escaped my lips. "Relax," I soothed. "It's just an earring."

"I should be mad at you," he said with a pout. "But it's hard to be with you sitting so close to my cock like that."

I raised a brow at him. "God, you're weak."

Niall gapped at me like he was offended. "I am not weak," he protested. "Just when it comes to you."

I wrinkled my nose at him and leaned down. "I bet you say that to all the girls you sleep with."

He moved his hand to my cheek, tracing his thumb across my lips. And then he smiled a full, lively smile that also reminded me of the sun.

"Just you."

I've known Niall for almost five months now and there were some things I had found about him to be my favorite. Like his voice, for instance. His voice is like hot chocolate on a really cold day, or honey when I have a sore throat, or mittens when my hands are cold. It was soft and yet brash at the same time. Sometimes when he talks about something he's interested in, like chemistry or soccer, his accent gets harder to understand, but it doesn't even matter because he's just so animated that you don't have a choice but to put all your focus on him.

Another thing is his love for expanding his knowledge. When I first met him, he wasn't aware of something when it came to girls, like how we weren't as fragile and that we don't always need someone to be there for us 24/7, and how he had learned from that. He's developing and he's not afraid to tell himself that he was wrong, and that he was willing to be told what he needed to change. His ego only stood in his way when it came to soccer, and even that was tinkering down. His head wasn't so big anymore.

The last thing I really adored about Niall is that he's such a enigma, he has so many layers and it's fun to see all these different aspects of his personality come out. It makes me want to talk to him and just get to know him better and make him trust me enough to share all his fears and aspirations and interests with me. Some people make him out to be this one dimensional person, because that's what he wants. But when he lets you see all his sides, you know that he's a lot more complex than he's letting on.

"What are you thinking about?" Niall asked, his hand moving to the back of my head so his fingers tangled in my hair.

"You," I answered honestly.

"Yeah?"

He closed the space between us, his lips brushing across mine lightly, so lightly it felt like a whisper. He pulled back, waiting for a response. My hands cupped his face, thumbs running alone his cheekbones as a soft smile played on my lips. Niall returned the smile and kissed me again.

I felt his arms wrap around my waist, pulling me down until we were chest-to-chest. My body lit up with fire but did little to reduce the chills running down my spine and arms in delight shivers.

"Have you-?" I started, pulling away from him breathlessly. "Have you ever, um, been tested? You know, for STD's or STI's?"

Niall lifted a brow, a smirk on his lips. "You were thinking of sexual transmitted infections while we were kissing?"

"No, no, no," I said quickly. "That's not- I was just thinking- I was just wondering; since we've been sleeping together for a while, and I was just... you know... you've had a lot of partners and I-"

I was interrupted by laughter. "I've never known you to stutter before," Niall said through his amusement. "It's cute."

"Shut up," I mumbled and removed myself from his chest

"Aw, don't be like that," Niall said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back down to him. "To answer your question, I go to the doctor's every month to get tested. However, I haven't been there for the past three months because... well, you've been the only one I've slept with. So unless you're infected, I'm clean."

"I am, too" I assured him. "I was tested when I took my physical, and then when I slept with Bradley after, I went to the clinic to get checked again and came back negative."

Niall looked at me with interest and curiosity. "So... does that mean you and Harry never did anything?"

I groaned and buried my head in the crook of his neck. "I'm not answering that."

Niall laughed again as he reached up and removed the earring. "So that's a yes?"

I silenced him with my lips, my hands gripping around his neck softly and leaning down to meet his. It was desperate and powerful and seemed to last forever. An entirely different sort of pain rocked my heart, the friction sparking it to flame, pumping fire through every last bit of me. I felt it in my shoulders and my gut. In my fingers and toes. Not a single part of me was gone. I was fully aware of every inch of myself. I felt it. I felt it everywhere.

From the sun shining down on us and the heat our bodies were creating, the room quickly became stuffy and hot. But that didn't affect me, if anything it fueled the already bright fire running through my veins.

My hands found their way to his hair and I made sure to pull on his roots, just hard enough for a low groan to slip through his puffy lips, so deep and throaty that I felt it vibrate through my body and all the way down to my core.

"Shit, I love you."

I paused momentarily until I slowly moved my head and looked at him, feeling nothing short like a bomb might explode if I made any sudden movements. The only sound in the room was our heavy heartbeats and the blood rushing in my ears.

It would have been easy to pass off his declaration as an incoherent noise that only sounded how it did. But when I looked at his face, his mouth slightly parted and eyes open in slight horror, I knew what he had said was real and he never intended on letting the secret out.

Then his eyes closed tight and a string of profanities left his mouth.

"You know what? Fuck it," he finally said and his blue eyes landed on me. "I'm in love with you, Lynn Mercury."

I was paralyzed. I didn't move a muscle, I didn't even blink. He had to have been lying because he can't be in love with me. He can't be. He was just confused, that had to be it. We've been spending a lot of time together and, as stories have told countless of times, there is an attraction about the forbidden that makes it unbelievably desirable.

I moved away from him, dazed as I detached myself from on top of him. I was shaking my head slowly; collecting all this information at once was making my head spin. My palms were sweaty and my heart was beating wildly.

Niall sat up, the sun bouncing off his golden hair and sending dust particles flying around him like glitter. "This is probably the most mental thing for me to admit, but I don't give a shit about Coach's rule," he whispered, looking at me - pleading with me. "There is literally every possible odd against us right now, but you're all I fucking think about. Trying not to love you only goes so far."

I was shaking my head faster, the truth finally sinking in. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with me. This was wrong, all fucking wrong. I felt myself falling into this dark hole, everything around me going fuzzy and the only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat and the sound of Niall's voice.

"Lynn," he called. He reached out and took my hands in his, but I pulled them away like I was bitten. "Lynn, I don't think you're understanding me. I-"

"No stop," I finally spoke. To my surprise, my voice was strong and harsh. "Just stop, Niall. You don't mean anything you're saying."

"Yes I do. Trust me, Lynn. I know what I'm saying," he argued. "You don't think I didn't try and come up with some other reasoning for what I'm feeling? I spent countless hours trying to comprehend it. I even considered that I had a brain parasite. There's no denying that I have feelings for you that can't be explained any other way."

I couldn't seem to do anything but shake my head. My throat was starting to close and I could feel the pressure building up. It was only a matter of time before a tear slipped passed my eyes.

I quickly jumped off the bed and backed away from him. Niall scooted to the edge of the bed and reached down for his boxers and pants and tugged them on. When he started walking toward me, I felt myself back away from him but he didn't stop from advancing.

My back pressed against a wall and I didn't have any choice but to stop, Niall taking his place in front of me.

"You want to know why I was with Abby on New Year's?" he asked, his breath fanning down on my face. "It was because of this, Lynn. I was going to tell you on New Year's but then I saw you and Harry kissing and I got angry." He was breathing heavy now, and I knew his fuse was quickly burning out. "I know it's fucked up, but I needed something to get my mind off you and him."

I clenched my jaw shut and pressed the palms of my hands against the roughness of the wall behind me. I already knew he went after Abby because he was jealous, but I had no idea it was because he was literally about to tell me how he felt. But that didn't make it any better. What he did was wrong, and putting his feelings into it didn't justify the fact that he was trying to intentionally manipulate me.

"There were so many times I could have told you," Niall continued as his hand reached up and trailed a finger along my cheek. I turned my face away from him, but it did little to remove his contact. "But I chickened out. At the gym right after, when we were in the shower, any time when we were in Ireland... And then you got cold feet. I couldn't let you just slip through my fingers so I had to do something. I almost told you right there in that locker room. I literally had it on the tip of my tongue but you cut me off before I had the chance to say anything."

Goosebumps broke out along my arms as his finger fell down the length of my neck. How long has he felt this way? How long has he kept this to himself? Did he even keep it to himself or did Jace know? Did his brother know?

I suddenly felt like a caged animal with him so close to me. There was so much happening right now, my mind couldn't connect to one point to another.

"You're literally impossible. Like, you defy everything I know. You turned everything I believed into shit because you changed the rules. I'm a man of science so I know sex is purely a physical act, but just being with you, standing so close to you... it's more. I crave you in the most innocent form. I keep searching for this biological explanation, but there isn't anything. I don't know what to do. I'm a fucking idiot who doesn't know a damn thing anymore except for the fact that I'm willing to figure it out with you."

I shook my head again. "You don't love me. You don't strategize love like it's some sort of chess game you can rig on a technicality. You can't- you don't put all the responsibility on another person. When you love someone-" I paused sullenly. "They're all you see."

Niall pressed himself closer to me. "Then tell me what this is."

"It's desire. What you're feeling is pure lust."

"You think I don't know the difference between lust and love?"

I laughed bitterly at that but didn't respond. He must have known what I wanted to say because the fuse that was burning down must have been blown out. The light in Niall's eyes went dull. He removed his hand from my skin and backed away from me. Despite losing the fight in him, his eyes still never left mine.

I took a shaky breath. "I think you should go."

"No."

"Niall, leave. Please. I can't... I can't talk to you right now."

"I'm not leaving. We can't just leave this unresolved."

"Sleeping around isn't healthy for a relationship, Niall," I started again, this time more sincerely. "What we have isn't healthy."

"You're joking, right?" Niall laughed, close to hysteria now. "It's more than that and you know it, Lynn. I've bore my heart to you on multiple occasions, told you countless of times how I have changed for the better because of you, told you things I've never told anyone before. We connected sexually and emotionally, both when you brought me home and vice versa. What isn't healthy about this relationship is you pushing me away, it's you leaving things open and unresolved."

"What do you want me to say!?" I shouted, my shocked exterior finally breaking. "Do you want me to lie and say I love you, too!? Because I don't."

That seemed to hit him harder than any comment I might have said before. I watched him carefully as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

I knew Niall was right, about so many things. Maybe he did love me, but it all comes down to one thing: the risk. It always comes down to what we are putting against ourselves. Niall might be one hundred percent in this, but I wasn't going to let him ruin his career because of me. I've already told him that once in the men's locker room after he punched Louis Tomlinson in the face, and that still applies. There would always be a figurative red mark next to his name once we were caught. I wasn't so sure I would ever live it down if Niall couldn't go professionally.

"You need to leave."

Niall didn't make a move toward the door, instead he ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room; like he knew this was the last time he was going to see it.

"Now."

"Lynn," Niall started again. "Lynn, you can't tell me you don't feel anything when we're together; when we're sleeping together, kissing, or just in each other's company. You can't possibly stand there and tell me you feel nothing."

Niall wasn't pleading anymore, but more like he was trying to figure out what to do next - what he could do to possibly change my mind. I could almost see his mind working, trying to figure out the strategies one step at a time. So I took matters into my own hands and grabbed Niall's shoes, shirt, coat, and car keys and shoved them at his chest.

When he still didn't move, I grabbed his forearms and pulled him toward the door.

"Get out!" I shouted as I shoved him into the hallway.

"Please don't do this."

Before I slammed the door shut, I saw Niall's face one last time. It was the look of heartbreak, it had to be. I've never seen such hurt and pain on someone's face before and I couldn't think of another emotion that would best fit it.

This was brand new territory for me - I've never occupied the empty space in someone's heart before. The heavy aching in his chest was my fault. That perpetual frown on his face is because of me. The hole in his heart bleeds because my trembling hands were the ones to pull the trigger.

But I didn't think much of it because I was dealing with my own heartbreak. The second the door slammed shut, I let out of the most hideous sob I'd ever heard. It wasn't because I loved him, but there was so much going on in my heart that the only reasonable feeling was that it was breaking in half.

I found myself falling, pressing my back to the door and sliding down the wood until I was sitting and silently balling my eyes out.

It had always been a foreign feeling, being wanted.

I let the ones who actually want me go, in fear that those that want me, begin to doubt the sincerity of their feelings. Why do they want me? Why should they want me? And what if, one day, they wake up and decide that they don't want me anymore?

It's a pain that I'm used to.

But when I'm so desperate for love, I change myself to fit their needs. I live and breathe for the person whom I want to love, plan my life around theirs. They're the center of my world, but more often than not, I'm not the center of theirs. And that's the tragedy of it all - we chase after those we want but can never have, while we exploit those who are patiently waiting on us, only to find that one day, it'll be too late and they too, will be gone.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we never feel the heat until we get burned.