Disclaimer: Justified ain't mine. Sadly. Comments welcome.
Author Note:This was written for norgbelulah's excellent Summer In Harlan fic meme at LiveJournal. The prompt for this story, from jbkr73, was: Any and all characters/Heatwave.
Ice/Burn
She had been praying for rain but when it had come, finally, it hadn't lowered the temperature, it had just made the heat wet. Her lungs feel too small to take in the air, everything thick and heavy, like trying to breathe underwater. Every movement raises beads of sweat on her body, clammy, a great damp blanket of heat.
These are days of slowness. Every movement needs to be languid if it is to be made at all.
The porch offers a brief refuge - shade from the parching sun during the day and the pretence, at least, of freshness in the evening, but the rain has brought out the mosquitoes and the battle against their blood-sucking bite and high-pitched whine is too much. It makes the heat hotter and she retreats indoors.
The house feels stale, its corners filled with pockets of humidity, everything feeling almost slimy to the touch. In the kitchen she opens the ice-box, pokes around, stares at it helplessly.
'Goddamn it.' Flat.
'What's wrong, baby?'
She stares at him, eyes wide and wild and guilty. 'There's no ice. I forgot to fill the tray.'
He closes the book he's been reading at the kitchen table; he stands, hands going into his pockets, looks into the ice-box and his shoulders roll slightly, a resigned shrug. 'Well, that's too bad.'
She chews on her lower lip, frowns. 'They sell ice at the store.'
'They do.' His head tilts. 'It would all have melted by the time I got back here. Unless you want me to drive you down there and I could set you in one of the freezer chests.'
'It might come to that,' she mutters. The refrigerator's motor whirrs louder, working overtime but she keeps the door to the ice-box open, absorbing the faint tendrils of cool greedily. She presses her hands against the sides, finding the white the white build up of frozen crystals; the cold is a shock, spearing through her hands and up her arms, but after that stultifying, enervating heat, it is welcome. She keeps them there until her fingers feel stiff and the skin whitens then she presses them to her face, her neck, against the flat plane of skin running from her collarbones to the worn edge of her thin, faded sundress. Head tilted back, eyes closed, she drinks in the cool.
Her hands throb as the feeling comes back. Unwelcome warmth.
She opens her eyes and Boyd's are on her, barely blinking and he smiles slightly.
Too hot. It's just too damn hot.
She backs away from the refrigerator, pulls herself up onto the kitchen counter, finds the residual cold in her fingertips and presses them against her pulse points. Boyd investigates the inside of the ice-box.
'There ain't nothing in there,' she tells him, irritable.
Silence and then he straightens. 'You should have more faith, Ava.'
'Oh?'
'Seek and ye shall find.' It glistens between his fingers, translucence hugging an opaque centre, already wet. She laughs.
'That won't go very far.'
His head tilts. 'Maybe not. I guess it depends on what you do with it.'
His walk is slow and he still wears that faint smile and his eyes don't leave her face. It's the focused intensity of a hunter, like he's stalking her. She moves her gaze from his to the ice-cube and her mouth is dry, lips like paper. She moistens them, tongue catching on hard skin.
'What are you planning on doing with that?'
'Well,' he is thoughtful, considering her, so, so close to her, 'I was thinking of starting here.'
She sucks in a breath as the ice nestles into the hollow beneath her ear. He draws it down the lines of her neck, achingly slow; she takes her lower lip between her teeth and watches the serious, studious expression on his face.
She doesn't mean to tilt her head back, but she does, offering him the slender curve of her throat; icy droplets dribble down, slowly drying on her skin in the hot air. He draws a looping spiral across her breastbone, marking a trail in ice that burns like fire. A painter working on his masterpiece would take less time, she thinks. But it is increasingly difficult to think at all: everything she is has become focused on sense, on the collision of warring elements across her body, of the occasional catch of his nails on her skin, on the heat she can feel rising off him, a different heat to the summer haze around them, the sound of her own breathing and the burn of his eyes. In this moment, this is all that she is.
He slides the straps of her dress down her shoulders and she'll swear that she can feel every thread of cotton in them. Every nerve-ending hums. It is the sweetest torture and when they find her body she's sure they'll write that she died of exquisite torment.
A drop of water rolls down between her breasts and he follows it, long lazy fingers flicking open the buttons that hold her dress together. Her hands grip the edges of the counter and she can't help the arch of her back, the sharp intake of breath as the ice traces the curve of her breast, circles it, glances across the nipple and her skin tautens, tightens in response.
Desire ignites low in her belly, rolling through, matching the tattoo his fingers beat lightly against her hip. She grasps his shoulders, pulling him closer, holding him in the circle of her body.
There is nothing gentle in that kiss, not on either side. A wildfire ferociousness, possessive. He is sweet and bitter and strong in her mouth and slivers of ice graze the ridges of her ribcage, slide lower and she gasps and the muscles across his shoulders are hard, bunching under her hands.
Her dress pools around her waist, the skirt pushed up her thighs and his touch is icy and-
'You wouldn't dare,' she murmurs, incoherent, and feels his smile against her lips and-
He would. And he does. And she stifles a cry and sinks her teeth into his lip and wraps herself around him. The pulse of her heart and her breath increases against the relentless slow rhythm of his fingers. She trembles, gasps, and heat floods through her, a shaking fever.
'I'll get you for this,' her voice low and still catching in her throat, forehead resting against his shoulder. He laughs, soft, the sound stirring her hair and he pushes the damp locks away from her face.
'Oh, Ava, I'm counting on that.'
She tries to look fierce but she laughs instead, again, and tightens her hold on him.