Rags Meets Riches

I sat down on the piano bench and lifted the lid of the piano where eight keys were revealed to me. My fingers traced the edge of the grand piano that hadn’t been touched for a while and dust brushed against my fingertips. The line of black and white keys looked foreign to me, but felt native once I placed my fingers back onto the keys. I didn’t know how I remembered the pieces I had learned almost a decade ago, but it all came together as I closed my eyes and let my imagination run wild. For the first time in a while, all of my worries went away and I felt as if I was in another world.

Eventually, I ran out of pieces to play and opened my eyes back to reality, the one thing I seemed to dread.

Just as I was about to play another piece, I heard the sound of someone applauding behind me. I gasped and turned around quickly in my seat only to find Harry standing by the door. “That was magnificent,” he complimented. “Are you not happy to see me?” He chuckled, a crooked smile resting on his lips.

My jaw dropped as it finally clicked in my brain that he had somehow miraculously gotten in without anyone noticing. “You’re starting to scare me. Like do you have magical powers or something ridiculous like that? How’d you even get in here? My mother’s home though so you have to leave Harry…right now.”

Harry strolled across the room with his hands buried in the pockets of his slacks with the sleeves of his collared shirt rolled up to his elbows where his tanned golden skin was revealed underneath. The faint smell of tobacco became evidently more noticeable as he stepped closer to me, but I didn’t mind it. I smiled as he sat down next to me on the piano bench, his eyes never once leaving mine. “Do you want me to leave Adelaide? I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“N-no, I don’t want you to go,” I stuttered out a reply, “but you can’t stay here either.”

“I climbed up a twenty foot wall for you today,” he started, “and what I’m getting from this is you’re going to make me climb back over that wall just because you’re scared your mother is going to walk through those doors and find us here? And you’re going to make me do this even though you secretly want me to stay. I don’t understand you, princess.”

I laughed and he smiled. “Fine, you can stay! But you have to be quiet!”

“Is this quiet enough for you?” he whispered in a raspy voice that cracked slightly. I giggled and hid my face in my hands. He grabbed both of my hands and pulled them away from my face. “I want to hear you play again, Adelaide. Please?”

“Well what do you want me to play?” I faltered and let my chin drop trying my best to hide a coy smile from him, but I wasn’t careful enough. Harry could see the corner of my lips curve upward and I couldn’t help but turn my head to the side and helplessly smile at him after he laughed. “Stop looking at me like that,” I pleaded. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Anything.” A smirk of satisfaction was etched onto his face. “Am I really making you nervous? I’ll look away, okay?”

“Okay,” I nodded. He turned around so that his back was facing me and almost instantly, the pressure was taken off of my shoulders. I played a short piece I had learned when I was a child. Before the piece even ended, Harry turned around, and threw me off for a bit, but I still managed to come through. I smiled after I finished playing and he returned it with a wide grin.

“You don’t have anything to be nervous about,” he whispered softly to me as he leaned in and connected our lips. My hands left the keyboard of the piano and held onto his biceps as he pulled me closer to him. Sparks flew through my body immediately and sent my heart skyrocketing which almost left me breathless. With the desire growing every single second inside of me, we both held on for a few more seconds until Harry accidently knocked his elbow onto the piano keys creating a rumble of clashing notes.

“Shhh! be quiet!” I laughed quietly as I quickly pulled away, rolling in both of my lips to savor the taste just a little bit longer. When I opened my eyes, I found that he was staring right at me and I immediately glanced away, focusing on the painting on the other side of the room. “You promised you would be quiet Harry. What was that!?”

“An accident. I’m sorry. Forgive me?” he asked of me and I only rolled my eyes in response. “Oh come on Adelaide. You know you want to forgive me.”

I felt Harry’s rough fingertips nuzzle under my chin as he lifted my chin gently. My pulse quickened along with my breathing as he increased our proximity and pressed his soft lips to my neck. I shifted my position on the bench as I felt him leave a trail of kisses down until he got to my collarbone. I gripped his arm and tilted my neck to the side giving him more access as I felt his teeth graze my skin. My eyes closed and I tangled my fingers in his dark curls. He made an undeniably arousing sound after I pulled at his curls. “Harry.” I exhaled heavily once I heard voices coming from the floor below. They were getting louder when they shouldn’t be.

“Yes, Adelaide?” He laughed against my skin and rested his forehead against my shoulder. We were both breath heavily, but both of us held our breath as we heard footsteps outside the door in the hallway. Naturally, I gripped onto Harry’s arm nervously and looked frantically into his eyes.

“Do you hear that?” I asked him under my breath. “Listen.”

The footsteps came again.

“Well who is it?”

“I think it’s my mother,” I whispered back to him and he looked around, searching for an exit, but there was nowhere to hide in the room which was completely vacant except for the piano and the mirrors on the wall. I knew it was a bad idea letting Harry stay, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to regret my choice. Surely my mother would remember his face from the party and if she didn’t, Harry was known in town for being a thief. All I knew was that there was no way that we were making it out of this unharmed.

“What do we do?” Harry asked me, but I didn’t know how to respond.

Just as I was about to answer him, I head my mother’s voice in the hallway. “Adelaide, are you up there? Where are you?”

Notes

here you go! xx -brianna