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“You know I love you, Donna.”
Donna had been unable to get Harvey’s parting words out of her head. The fear in his eyes; the hesitancy. But those words hadn’t faltered and he’d delivered them clear as a bell. Still ringing in her ear hours later.
The whole fiasco with Liberty Rails had changed something between them, and they both knew it. She’d never felt fear like she’d felt in that courtroom, watching her entire future slip away. Even Harvey at her side, coaching her through it, hadn’t been able to calm her pounding heart and as her anxiety grew, so had her need for a validation of sorts.
Harvey was fighting for her, but what if they failed? She felt guilty for doubting the abilities she’d seen him wield time and time again, but terror is hardly ever rational.
Louis told her how afraid he was of losing her, had suggested Harvey shouldn’t be representing her and, for a moment, she’d wondered if he was right. But she’d needed Harvey, not just in her corner, but the strength of him, the comfort no one else could provide her.
“Donna, the thought of you going to prison makes me want to drop to my knees.”
She’d barely had time to process the vulnerability of his words, the fear that drove them, before he was lashing out and pushing her away so he could focus on saving her.
She’d given him the space he requested, deciding it was enough to know that he would feel her absence as keenly as she’d feel his, if this all went south. Which was exactly what convinced her that he was going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that didn’t happen.
It was the longest week of her life, but Harvey came through. She didn’t ask how; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but when he called and said that she was off the hook and everything was going to be okay…she’d been the one ready to fall to her knees.
Donna had cooked him dinner as a ‘thank you’ and he’d brought her favorite wine. They didn’t talk about the trial or their fight or the fact that they were both finally breathing easier until it was late into the night. And it was in that moment on her couch, watching Harvey finish his wine while making a remark about saving her ass, that she felt a hard shift.
The air seemed to thicken between them and when he’d looked back up at her, she’d seen the same awareness reflecting back in Harvey’s eyes.
Time froze, giving them a raw moment they were usually quick to brush off with jokes and snide comments.
“I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
He told her how it affected him, feeling as if she didn’t have faith in him, and it was clear that the knowledge had rocked him. It’s why he’d sent her away the night before. It’s why he’d called her the enemy for daring to doubt him.
“With you it’s different.”
She had to believe he was the best, capable of doing the impossible, so that he could believe it about himself.
Their moment had broken. Harvey’s eyes changed, the vulnerability being tucked away behind that iron wall of his, and it sprung desperation through her body. Donna felt the shift again; the closing of a door that she’d never known was open and suddenly found herself wanting to run across the threshold before it could shut and lock her out again.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Apparently, she hadn’t. Or maybe she could have guessed, but she’d never expected him to actually say the words out loud.
You know I love you, Donna. You know I love you, Donna. You know I love you, Donna. You know I love you, Donna. You know I love you, Donna.
Then he’d left. And she wasn’t able to sleep until hours after.
The following day, she felt like Harvey might be avoiding her. Or maybe she was avoiding him. After all, Norma’s death and Louis’s emotional aftermath had given her plenty to focus on. Her phone remained silent until the sun had left the sky and when it lit up, it was his number, but only two words.
My office.
Her breath had caught, reading the message. All day, she’d pondered on the possible ways Harvey could spin whatever the hell had happened between them the previous night.
It didn’t mean anything? She had misread the situation? It was a panic response to the idea of her going to jail? There were a hundred ways for him to backtrack what he’d said to her, but he couldn’t explain away the fact that he’d run scared after the fact.
Which meant he’d felt something real.
She’d pondered those possibilities too. Had recalled telling Rachel that there was a time she would have wanted to try for something more with Harvey. And if that was where this was heading; if this entire screwed up situation was what it took for this thing that had been blistering between the two of them for a decade to finally come to light…then maybe the risk of jail time was worth it.
Harvey was sitting at his desk when she pushed his office door open, an unreadable expression on his face. Donna hated that she couldn’t get a sense on what direction he was leaning; that she had no idea what to expect from this conversation.
“You wanted to see me?” she started, stepping into the space she’d occupied a million times.
Harvey looked up, and she swore something like relief flashed across his face, “Yes. Where have you been all day?”
Had he come looking for her? Maybe it would have been better to leave a note at her desk.
“Why?” she mustered up a confidence she didn’t quite feel, “Is there something you want to talk about?”
If he was waiting for an opening, she couldn’t give him a clearer one than that.
“Yeah,” Harvey sat straight, “Where you’ve been. Sean Cahill was at my door last night-”
Donna’s heart sank as he started in on something about the case. No inflection to his voice now. Business as usual. Like she’d imagined the entire exchange between them.
“Harvey, Norma passed away,” she cut him off, “I’ve been helping Louis.”
Because that was what she did. She helped, she fixed, she comforted. And Harvey…Harvey wins. Consequences be damned.
“Norma died?” Actual emotion flickered across his face and his brows furrowed, “That’s terrible.”
Donna was surprised by his comment. They’d known the old woman for years, sure, but, “I thought you couldn’t stand her?”
She shifted stiffly, unsure why he could express sympathy for a woman he didn’t even like, but when it came to whatever was going on between them, it was easier to bury his head in the sand.
“I couldn’t,” he admitted, “but I assume Louis loved her. So do what you need to do.”
That assumption, though probably true, sparked a thread of annoyance in Donna.
“Oh. Because she was his secretary, he must have loved her.”
The implication wasn’t lost on Harvey, who shook his head. She saw the defensiveness take over his expression; those iron walls high and solidifying with each second.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But it is what you said,” she fired back.
Maybe it was all the close calls that week that had exhausted her, or the defiance in his eyes that set a challenge in her own, but Donna refused to back down.
A fact Harvey seemed to be aware of, because he leaned forward in his seat and clasped his hands together on the top of his desk; like a school principal staring down a troublemaking student.
“Okay, Donna. What’s wrong?”
Finally, an opening for honesty.
She scoffed, “How about we start with the fact that I have been wondering for the last ten hours if you’re going to acknowledge what happened last night. But you’re you,” a legal giant to the outside world, unwilling to look deeper than the goddamn mirror, “So of course, you’re not.”
The look he gave her could have frozen hell, but annoyance was evolving to anger in her chest. She didn’t waiver.
“I’m not gonna acknowledge it,” Harvey sighed, “Because nothing happened last night.”
Aaaand there was the backtracking she’d expected, but she wasn’t keen to let him take back that moment without a fight.
“Why?” she demanded. Why had nothing happened? Why was he refusing to acknowledge those three words that could change everything? “And don’t tell me I know why.”
“Because it would have been a mistake,” he answered begrudgingly, sounding defeated, “And you know it.”
A mistake? She wasn’t so sure.
“What I know is something happened,” she insisted, “And you ran away.” He flinched slightly at the reminder. “But not before you told me you loved me-”
“I did that because I wanted to make you feel better!”
Forget anger.
Donna’s mouth fell open as his excuse calculated in her mind and it was rage that danced along the nerve he’d just struck.
“What did you just say to me?” she hissed.
Harvey wasn’t a complete idiot, contrary to the way he was acting. He noticed the shift in her tone; the narrowing of her eyes.
“That’s not what I meant-” he began backtracking again, but Donna was so furious she couldn’t listen to another word without taking off her stiletto heel and chunking it at his head. She stormed toward the exit while Harvey still attempted to cover his ass, “I didn’t say that-
“Because you pity me?” she exhaled a short laugh that was half hysterics, “Yeah, you did.”
There was no way in hell she’d stayed up all night analyzing a bone he’d thrown her because he felt sorry for her. Fuck that. Fuck him.
“No,” Harvey stated firmly, still seated, “I said it because I love you, and I wanted you to know it.”
Donna stopped and took a breath. She knew better than to push him. She’d even told Rachel why she hadn’t done so the first time they’d faced this possible crossroad. She’d been so afraid to lose him that she was willing to take him in any capacity she could. But she was so sick and tired of living off the scraps of possibilities and maybes.
“Love me how?” she asked, turning on her heels to face him.
“Why does that have to-”
“Love me how?” she repeated, throwing all the emphasis on that last word. Because damn it, he owed her an answer she already knew she wasn’t going to get.
Harvey turned, letting his shoulder be a physical barrier between them as his jaw clenched and his mouth clamped shut. His eyes simmered as he glared back at her.
“That’s what I thought,” Donna sighed, “You either can’t answer it or you won’t. Which is bullshit because obviously, you don’t just look at me this way.” She waved a hand down the length of her body, knowing she was crossing a line; bringing up the one thing they had always silently agreed was off limits.
“You’re capable of looking at me that way,” His eyes flashed and she would have guessed he was angry, too. She didn’t care, “But you don’t want to let those worlds collide, because you’re afraid to risk anything!”
“Because we have everything!”
“No, Harvey. You have everything!”
The closer. The gambler. The winner. Always. Until it came to matters of the heart and he'd rather hold anything good at a distance than risk losing something he had no control over.
“So you’re saying you want everything?” he threw back at her, almost mocking, and Donna could only stare at him.
What she wanted, truly wanted down in her heart, he wasn’t ready to give her. Maybe he never would be. But she refused to cower from her emotions the way he did. A few days of facing years in prison had put some things into perspective for her. Had weeded out the nonsense until all that remained was what really mattered. Maybe she was the one who needed to take a risk.
“I didn’t say I want everything, Harvey,” she held his gaze, unflinching, “But…this isn't working for me anymore.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I want more!” Her voice spiked, frustration, desperation, an exhaustion stealing her tongue from her, “And that I’m sick of pretending whatever the hell we’re doing here means nothing!”
Harvey finally stood, “I didn’t say it means nothing, I said-”
“You said you love me,” she stood her ground as he came around his desk, jaw locked and anger flashing in that hard gaze, “And I want to know if you meant it.”
“Donna-”
“Are you in love with me?”
“It’s not that simp-”
“Make it that simple!” she was practically yelling now, “Do you love me, yes or no?!”
“Damn it, Donna!” he was in her face now, “You once said yourself that you can’t give a yes or no answer to a complicated question!”
She scoffed, “You’re right. But that was then and this is now. And I don’t think it’s all that complicated anymore.”
“Then you can answer the damn question!” he spat, and heat licked down her spine like an electric rod.
He was turning it on her because he thought she would run like he had. That she would choose preservation of whatever this was over the truth. But she wouldn’t be the one to hold them together this time. He’d started this. He could deal with the consequences.
The words were easier to admit than she’d thought they’d be, but the fury lacing them diminished any vulnerability, “Yes, Harvey. I love you.”
His eyes widened and she watched the same panic bloom there that she’d noticed in her living room. She’d called his bluff and he didn’t know how to handle it.
“I’m in love you,” she clarified, just to make sure it sunk into his thick skull, “And I don’t know when it changed or if I just realized what’s always been there, but it’s the truth. You can hate me for saying it, or you can man the hell up and admit that there could be something between us if you’d ever get out of your own damn way!”
Donna watched so many emotions fly through Harvey’s eyes that she couldn’t track them.
“You’re gonna come at me for there being nothing between us?” He apparently settled on indignation, “It was your goddamn rule that made sure of it in the first place!”
Oh, he wanted to fight.
“No, Harvey, it was my goddamn rule that got us here!” Donna pushed her pointer finger into his chest hard enough to bruise the skin beneath his jacket, “Because if I had told you ten years ago that I wanted more than a casual fuck, you would have ran scared, just like you did last night, just like you’ve ran from every long term relationship you’ve ever had because you can’t handle letting someone get that close!”
He snatched her wrist in his hand, yanking her finger from his chest and dragging her close enough that she could see the anger and rage warring in the whiskey flecks of his eyes, “Is that what I can’t handle?”
His words seethed with an unabashed threat, and it occurred to Donna that a normal person might feel a lick of fear. Harvey wasn’t a small man, he was prone to a temper, and his grip on her wrist was painful. But she’d never been afraid of him before and it wasn’t fear she felt now.
“You can’t handle feeling weak,” she said breathlessly, “And that’s what love is to you. A weakness.”
She ripped her hand from his grasp, “You’d rather be alone than risk being hurt. Folding your cards rather than risk losing, and you think that means you’re protecting yourself, but really it’s just being a coward!”
Harvey’s head shook, “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about-”
“Yeah I do,” she spat, “Because whether you like it or not, I do know you, Harvey! Just like I know that your fear isn’t about me; it’s about you thinking there’s a chance any woman you let yourself love will end up betraying you, the way your mother betrayed your father!”
If there was a point of no return for them, Donna was sure this was it. The heated fury bled from Harvey’s face, leaving behind something cold and violent in the silence that followed.
His gritted teeth flashed when he finally spoke.
“You can see yourself out.”
Iron. Fucking. Walls.
She watched that shield go up, felt the way he withdrew, and realized something irreparable was about to splinter between them. It was always going to be all or nothing, wasn’t it?
“Fine,” she swallowed as he turned back toward his desk, “But if I walk out that door, I’m not coming back.”
That stopped him and he spun to face her with narrowed eyes.
“Really? I refuse to fight with you and you’re gonna threaten to quit?”
“We both know that’s not what you’re refusing, and no, I’m not quitting, Harvey. Louis asked me to come to his desk now that Norma’s gone and I think it might be-”
Harvey moved, faster than she’d expected, grabbing the glass paperweight on his desk and throwing it against the wall. It shattered on impact and Donna flinched.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” His nostrils flared as he turned to her, pupils blown and hands shaking, “What the hell gives you the right to threaten to leave me just because I won’t tell you what you already fucking know-”
“That’s just it, Harvey, I don’t know!” she exclaimed, chest heaving, “I don’t know what you want from me when-”
“What I want from you?” he demanded, “How about what you want from me?”
“I want what I came in here asking you for!” She stormed across the space between them, not entirely sure she wasn’t about to strangle him, “The truth, Harvey!”
“You want the truth, Donna?” Those dark eyes flared and he grabbed her, pulling her so hard she tripped and fell against his chest, “Here’s your goddamn truth!”
His hands fisted in her hair and suddenly his mouth was on hers; his body was on hers, everywhere, overwhelming.
She bit down. Hard. And Harvey growled against her lips, shoving his tongue into her mouth.
She tasted blood. Tasted him.
And that was all it took to rip open whatever precarious dam had been holding back the emotional turmoil festering between them for a decade.
Donna threw her arms around Harvey’s neck and the force of her body sent him stumbling back against his desk. She heard a crashing sound as something, probably his landline, fell to the floor, but could only focus on the way he was now pulling her thighs, parting her legs as he hauled her up onto his lap. Her nails scored the skin below his hairline and she bit his lip again, this time dragging her teeth and relishing in the moan that escaped him.
Then he was moving them, scooping her up by the ass as he stood, lifting, turning, stumbling. Until her back was slammed into a shelf and several of his vinyl records fell off of it. Harvey didn’t seem to care as he devoured her, held her, trapped her.
Donna couldn’t breathe, and she didn’t care. She never wanted to breathe again if it meant he would stop kissing her like his life depended on it. She was starting to think hers actually might.
Harvey nipped her lips raw then moved his mouth to her neck, biting and sucking until a line of red marks trailed to her collarbone. His fingers dug into her hips, grasping desperately at the fabric of her dress so that it drew up around her waist. Donna tore at the shirt beneath his jacket, pulling it from his suit pants as he ripped her panties down her leg.
If she had her wits about her, she might have been concerned about the few colleagues that lingered down the hall and the fact that the dark space they were tucked into wasn’t completely hidden from view if someone came prying, but all rationale had completely abandoned her.
Because at that moment, nothing else mattered but Harvey and what was now happening between them. She’d dreamed of this so many times and had pretended it meant nothing. That she hadn’t wanted him like this. Missed him like this. And it wouldn’t have mattered if someone walked in on them at that very second, she would see this through.
Harvey gave no warning before he touched her. He shoved his hand between them and his long fingers rubbed bare against her clit, stroking, sliding, finding her entrance without hesitation and pumped into her.
Donna cried out and bit down on his shoulder, the thick suit jacket muffling her voice. She felt his lips press against her head; briefly, before he ripped his hand away so fast she was left feeling dizzy. Electric pulses ran through her whole body. Her legs shook, her heart was trying to jump out of her chest and all she could do was hold on tightly as he adjusted them.
There was a quick movement. The sound of a zipper, then-
“Ohmygod,” she gasped, jaw dropping as Harvey entered her in one swift thrust. She stretched around him, pulsing and quivering, their hips completely connected.
It was at that moment, when her head fell back against the shelf and Harvey glanced up in time to meet her gaze, that sense seemed to return to him.
She wished, not for the first time, that she couldn’t ready him as easily as she did. Because his look of holy-shit-what-did-we-just-do wasn’t something she wanted to think about. She didn’t want to acknowledge any regrets they may feel later. Not now. Not when that blurry line they pretended didn’t exist had finally been obliterated.
She could handle Harvey being angry. What she couldn’t handle was any contrition.
“Don’t,” she pleaded when he opened his mouth, his body still frozen, still so hard inside of her, “Don’t you dare grow a conscience now.”
“Donna-”
“Finish this.”
“I-”
“Fuck me, Harvey.” She didn’t care if she was begging.
He did what she asked.
She cried in relief when he drew back and slid home again. Then again. And again. Whatever emotion had been in his eyes disappeared behind that iron wall. She was on fire and he was ice cold.
Donna buried her face into his neck as he took her against the shelf, grunting quietly with each thrust, fingers digging into the back of her thighs, spreading her to take him harder.
He overwhelmed her, stole every thought in her brain as sparks of pleasure speared from where they were joined. Something like his name fell from her mouth.
Harvey.
She hated him. She wanted him. And she loved him so damn much that it was breaking her heart.
Tears welled in her eyes and burned a path down her cheeks.
“Don’t stop,” she begged as release, in every sense of the word, churned through her body, “Please, Harvey. Don’t…I…fuck, please-”
One of his hands locked onto her scalp, tangled in her hair. He pulled her mouth back to his and she sobbed against his lips as the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced ripped her from reality.
She cried into his mouth, a shaking mess of raw emotion and a sense of finality as wave after wave washed through her, dragging Harvey to the edge as well.
Donna felt when it hit him, even through the haze of her own pleasure. Her name left his mouth like a prayer, and she swore she would never forget the way it sounded in her ear. He pumped his release into her, filling her, grounding her.
Then it was over.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, in the aftermath; the entirety of Harvey’s weight pressed against her, her legs locked around his hips as his erection softened inside of her.
She stared straight ahead, all too aware of the sudden silence that had encapsulated them.
Harvey was still quietly panting, his forehead pressed against her chest so that the ends of his hair tickled her jaw.
Donna felt the urge to cry. To pry her fingers off of him and demand he let her down so that she could try to preserve some level of dignity. But her heart wouldn’t let her utter the words. She had no idea how many more seconds this proximity was going to last and was terrified of what awaited them when it ended.
There would be no going back this time. No brushing this one under the rug and pretending Harvey had just platonically fucked her senseless.
He exhaled against her cleavage and she wanted to stop him from lifting his head; from looking at her. She wasn’t ready to face this. She wasn’t ready for it to be over.
But his brown eyes didn’t try to find hers. Instead, his grip tightened on her and his hips shifted. He slid out of her body but held her by the waist, finally pulling her off the shelf.
He didn’t comment on the records that now littered the floor, hopefully still in solid pieces. His head was buried in her chest as he moved, walking over to the leather sofa, still holding her.
Harvey sat, keeping her in his lap, legs wrapped around him, clutching her tightly as his heavy breath was muffled by the skin of her breasts.
Then the breaths were ragged, his grip harder. Like he was falling from a peak and she was his lifeline. Another minute of quietly sitting and he was outright shaking.
“Harvey,” Donna broke the silence, loosening her own arms from where they’d been grasping at his shoulders.
He just shook his head, tilting it so that he was buried in her neck now, her hair making a protective curtain around his face.
“Harvey. Hey…” She reached down to cup his jaw, drawing his face up with both of her hands until they had to look at one another.
His face was dry, but those eyes of his were damn near bloodshot with the tears they were holding back. He looked so sad; so lost…she wasn’t sure what to do.
So she took another risk. She kissed him.
It was so soft, so intimate, compared to what they’d just done and Donna felt Harvey’s breath hitch as she pressed her lips against his once more. Then twice.
By the third, he was kissing back and she let her fingers run from his jaw to his hair and back in comforting strokes, until he pulled away.
“Donna.”
He swallowed a few times, clearing whatever lump had developed in his throat.
“Please,” he finally mustered, “Don’t leave me.”
That request seemed to be the bottle cap, letting the rest come unscrewed and spewing.
“I’m sorry,” he said, making his hold impossibly tighter, “I’m sorry I’m such an asshole. I’m sorry I ran and that I made you cry and that I can’t get the shit in my head together.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes closing.
“I do love you, Donna,” he murmured and her heart stopped, “I need you in my life. I’ve just always been afraid that pursuing one meant losing the other…and I can’t lose you. So, please. Don’t leave me.”
Those iron walls were finally crumbling. Donna’s own eyes squeezed shut as her thumbs brushed over his cheeks, holding him.
“Leaving you is the last thing that I want,” she assured him, the moment she could breathe again, “I only considered Louis’s offer because something has to change, Harvey.”
“I know it does.”
Both of their eyes opened as he pulled away and they stared at each other.
“I don’t know the right thing to do here,” she whispered.
Harvey’s gaze raked over her and something settled in his expression.
“Come home with me.”
Donna blinked, “Are you sure?”
Harvey nodded, “I want to take you home. We’re gonna get cleaned up, pour a drink, and we’re gonna talk. Then I’m going to take you to bed and do what I should have done years ago. What I should have done tonight. Donna, I am so-”
“Don’t apologize for it,” she said, “I was the one who said awful things-
“Nothing that wasn’t true,” he conceded, and his brows furrowed, “I don’t know how to let people in. But with you…I never had to. You were just there. You knew me. And I’ve taken that for granted for a long time.”
“You aren’t the only one taking things for granted,” she assured him, “You were right. After the first time we were together, I slammed my rule between us so fast because I was too afraid to be honest with you. To tell you I would have wanted to try for more.”
He shook his head, “No, you were right. I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it back then, and your rule is why we made it this far.”
A feeling so damn close to hope started to sprout in Donna’s chest as his words settled over her.
He wasn’t ready back then. Back then. Tonight, he wanted to take her home.
“I don’t care about the rule anymore,” she said, “I just want you.”
Harvey’s expression softened and the first hint of a smile curved the corners of his mouth. He leaned in and the look he gave her before pressing his lips against hers was so tender, Donna decided she never wanted him to look at her any other way.
They kissed soundly, all of the world around them fading to the feel of each other’s breath. Harvey stroked a hand down her back, over her hip, and Donna let their noses brush as they broke apart.
“Lets get cleaned up and get out of here,” Harvey squeezed her waist, “Before I make a mess of you, right here on this couch.”
Donna smirked and motioned over his shoulder, “What about the mess we made over there?”
He kissed her again, quick and promising, “We’ll blame it on Louis.”
She laughed as they stood, and Harvey helped her straighten out her dress and settle on her wobbling legs. They cleaned up as much as they could and Harvey took off his jacket to hide the very obvious spot on his pants where the outcome of their releases had pooled with her in his lap.
They did pick up the few fallen records and placed them, probably in the wrong spot) back on the shelf; but they’d worry about organization tomorrow.
Tonight, Harvey’s hand was on her lower back, leading her out of his office, and he was kissing her in the elevator and opening the door of his waiting car to let her in first, then kissing her again in the foyer of his apartment.
She believed him; that they would have a drink and talk about what all of this meant. But as they kissed and stumbled through his space, giggling and moaning along the way, Donna knew that it didn’t matter what was said.
They both knew what this was; where it was going…where it had been going for years.
“I love you,” she whispered into his mouth as Harvey laid her back against his mattress.
Rather than shock or fear, his wide eyes shone with an echoing emotion, flowing freely.
“I love you, too.”
This time, she didn’t have to ask how. He kissed her.
And she knew.