Whatever Chains (Sequel to Where Your Heart is - A Harry Styles fanfiction)

She didn't say she was coming, but she didn't say no either.

So I am holding on to that technicality as if my life depended on it, and I must have tried one too many shirts on before finally making up mind for that ridiculous sweater I bought last year.

It is really hard for me to fathom the notion that all that time have passed since then. Not to mention that another year will have to come to pass before we even get to decide whether we can make it work or not.

About that, I can't say that I am thrilled by the idea, nor looking forward to the twelve months laying before me. If it were entirely up to me I would start things over right this second. But since it is not, I am happy to accept her terms and prove to her, once and for all, that we can pull through anything.

I take another look in the mirror and I roll my eyes at the sight of the beer drinking elf that is knitted at the front of my sweater, winking an eye at me in a rather surprisingly well achieved lascivious expression.

"You better be here." I mutter, wiping my suddenly wet palms.

I don't know exactly what I'm expecting of tonight if she comes, but I am fairly nervous and excited. And I just hope my mother was thorough with the placement of the mistletoes, so I can have the perfect excuse to steal at least one kiss that would last me for a year.

Luckily, I don't have to wait much to see her walk through the front door.

She is greeted by my mother, who very politely takes her coat as she shreds it of her shoulders, and I am fortunate enough to have a few seconds to admire her before she spots me in the small crowd that is gathered in the room.

She always looks beautiful to me, because she is beautiful. But since our relationship has been mostly behind closed doors, and we never really went out on a proper date where we would get all dressed up for the occasion, I don't think I've ever seen her like this before.

And it is doing a lot of things to my body and my heart, which will most definitely add a new level of difficulty to the already impossible task of saying goodbye to her tonight.

The dressed she picked, hopefully with a very deceitful agenda to make things happen tonight - which I would totally fall for if she did -, is made of a velvety dark green fabric that hugs her in the right places and then falls loose and wavy, gracing her mid thighs.

Her legs are bare all the way to her ankles, and I just take them in as slowly as I can, swallowing down the water that suddenly filled my mouth.

And the cleavage, dear mother, it is not that revealing, but to me, at this point, it might as well be.

It's been a really long time, and this is the first time that I can manage to come out of my funk long enough to feel it. And it is because of her in that dress.

"Fuck..." I bite out when she starts walking towards me.

And it could be just a figment of my now heated imagination, but she seems to glide about quite provocatively. Almost gazelle like.

She is now close enough for me to smell her, and that is the final push I needed. Fuck. Again.

"Hi." Her hand goes to my hip so she can keep herself steady when she gets in her tiptoes to put a chaste kiss on my cheek. "Nice knitwear." And she giggles near my ear.