Chapter Eight
Week Two (cont.)
Things did look different in the morning, because a letter from Lily awaited James at the breakfast table.
She'd written that letter to Remus, but still. It sat at his spot.
And, okay, it sat there because Remus had put it there, but whatever.
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, James picked up the length of parchment. He could feel Remus, Sirius, and Peter's eyes on him as he read.
My darling Remus,
I've decided that Emmaline needs to make her fucking move on Sturgis. If she won't do it organically, I'll have to force it. (Before you can ask if I'm doing this because I'm bored…I don't know, maybe I am.)
They're coming over for dinner tonight. Dorcas and Benjy and the idiots will be here as well. If you're not busy, please come by. I'd love to show you my progress on one of Effie's greenhouses. It's very much a work in progress, but the Venomous Tentacula and I have become good friends. (Translation: I hate its fucking guts because it keeps trying to throttle me, but we've come to an understanding where it just stays bound.) I haven't named it yet, so I'm open to suggestions.
I thought about telling you that you were only allowed a plus one, so you'd have to pick between your mates, but I know they'd hardly listen. They're welcome too, of course. It still feels mad weird to invite James to his own house, but here we are. The world is a weird place.
Hope to see you tonight.
Love,
Lily
"First love letter Moony's gotten…maybe ever?" Sirius said, and he grinned when Remus had no rebuttal but a roll of his eyes. "No need for attitude, Moony. She's a good-looking bird. You're a lucky man."
"Prongs, are you going to moon over her more or less than the last Order meeting?" Peter asked. He regarded James like he was the height of entertainment.
"Less." James hoped that he meant it. He wanted to mean it.
Yet when they arrived that night, all of that went immediately to shit, of course.
Everyone was in the kitchen, and their voices were loud enough that James could hear laughter the second he walked through the door. The sound warmed his chest with that familiar feeling of a full house, like new memories were being made somewhere that might overtake the ghosts and grief and loss he felt every time he found himself there when it sat empty and quiet.
Sturgis and Emmaline were at the kitchen counter, their conversation quiet and Emmaline's face pretty and soft and shy as Sturgis showed her how to cast a spell that peeled all of the apples in front of them.
Lily stood near the table, her back entirely bare. Dorcas had tugged down the halter back of her yellow sundress even lower, her keen eyes examining the smooth skin with minute detail. Gideon and Benjy did the same. Fabian had a hand between Lily's shoulder blades, but to his credit, he looked more concerned than lustful.
"—can't believe you didn't fucking tell me that night," Dorcas was saying, her tone caught somewhere between angry and worried. "Or yesterday, even! This isn't the kind of thing you casually drop on someone when they come over for dinner, Lily!"
"It is when it's fine because there's no lasting effects," Lily said. In contrast to Dorcas, her voice sounded light and easy. James wondered how much of that she faked, especially when she spoke more teasingly. "And you're lucky James healed me. I told him he could send for Fabian or Gideon if he didn't want to deal with it. Can you imagine how mad you'd be if they knew something you didn't?"
"Or Remus," James reminded her, and she looked sharply over her shoulder in a way that he shouldn't have found as attractive as he did. "You also suggested Remus."
"What can I say? He's got a cool head in a crisis." Lily stepped away from the inspection and righted her dress. "I'm fine," she added to Dorcas. "Really. James had my back patched within hours, and I got the old wounds on my arm and hip healed right after. It wasn't—"
"They came back open?" Gideon asked, his voice tight and serious and most unlike him. "What—"
"Spells reacting to each other," she said simply as Gideon reached for her arm to examine the wound she'd closed less than forty-eight hours before. "That was the extent of it, though. It looks the same, doesn't it? And no, I won't show you the one on my hip, before you ask." She smiled, all pretty charm, and slipped out of Gideon's grasp to go hug Remus. "Come see the greenhouse," she told him, tugging at his shirt. "The other one is basically still feral at this point, but I'm proud of what I've done so far."
"What are your thoughts on names for the Venomous Tentacula?" Remus asked as he followed her to the kitchen door that led outside. "I'm sure you have some obscure historical figure you're planning on—" He closed the door behind him with a snap.
Dorcas sighed and sat down heavily at the table. "I hate when she does that."
"What, acts like things are fine when they're fucked? Same. Wish Mary was here. She'd get to her." Fabian sat down too, and looked at James. "Glad you made it out in one piece. I suppose you were due some luck after the last time, right?"
Probably, but James didn't feel very lucky just then.
After she and Remus came back inside, Lily flitted around the kitchen in a way that reminded James entirely of how she had once acted at parties in the Gryffindor common room, or later parties they'd attended together as a couple outside of school. She worked a room well and easily and almost without trying, really, because she seemed genuinely interested in talking to everyone.
She chatted with Sturgis and Emmaline while they cooked, carrying on a casual discussion at length before offering a lending hand. "I'm sure you do," she answered cheerfully once Sturgis told her that he and Emmaline had everything under control. Any subtlety vanished as she laid things on thick. "You two make a really good team. Have you ever noticed that before? I've certainly thought so more than once." Before either could respond, she slipped away, light on her bare feet.
"Meddler," Fabian muttered to her later, slinging an arm around her shoulders. James could only just hear his voice. "Can't stand to watch Sturgis miss all the signs? Benjy and Gid and I have been laughing about it for months."
"Of course you have. That's because you're terrible friends." But Lily smiled while she said it, the sort of smile where Fabian couldn't help but smile back.
She chatted with Benjy while looking at him as James had noticed before, in that sort of manner that revealed that she wanted to protect him. James thought he heard her say Mary's name, but the kitchen had gotten rather loud by that point, so he couldn't tell.
She coaxed Dorcas out of her obvious remaining worry by disappearing upstairs for a moment and returning with the stack of photographs he had seen the day before. By the third photograph—one of Lily and Dorcas asleep in the same bed—Dorcas had already started laughing.
"Mary took that, do you remember?" Dorcas said, face shining with fond nostalgia. "It was after my twentieth birthday. Holy hell, I don't think I've ever been that drunk."
"And Mary tried to take care of us," Lily said, smiling. "One of us had to match your energy, and she thought I'd have an easier time of it, so she got to play mum to us. Poor thing."
Lily had removed the photograph of her and James, he couldn't help but notice, as well as those of her and her ex. The photograph of Mary and Remus was missing as well, presumably already sent out in the post.
She spent time focusing attention solely on Peter, something James had always appreciated about her. It was impossible not to notice Sirius, and Remus came across quiet but kind, but Peter just seemed to melt into the background in a crowd of people. His true, funny self only came out around those he knew really well. Most other women James had dated overlooked Peter, and many overlooked Remus too. Lily had always focused particularly on both, like she knew they needed more affection than Sirius. Just as he had years prior, Peter blossomed under her attention, and he glowed with pride when he had her laughing so hard that she nearly spit out her wine.
There were other little things about her that James also noticed.
She brought Remus another beer when he drained the last of his, the gesture done without prompting, just reflexive kindness.
She mentioned an inside joke she and Sirius had once shared, and Sirius quickly forgot about everyone else in order to banter with her, laughing the whole time. Their excited chatter sent James fully back in time, back to the common room at eighteen. He'd always loved watching the two of them get on.
She leaned on Dorcas often, just a casual resting of her body against hers, like she drew energy from sitting near her. Watching them laugh, James thought she did, and that Dorcas did too.
She smacked at Gideon and Fabian playfully as they teased her, insisting at one point, "Those were not your fucking socks!" in the strange tail end of a conversation James could only guess after.
He doubted anyone else noticed those things. He doubted anyone else noticed much about her at all, in much the same manner that if someone had asked him what Dorcas or Emmaline had done all evening, he would have stared blankly. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep his eyes off her. His gaze constantly drifted back to where she stood or sat or leaned or walked, no matter how hard he tried to act like she interested him about as much as Dorcas or Emmaline did, and he did try. He especially tried after he saw that Remus had caught him admiring the way Lily tipped her head back as she laughed, and he saw an understanding in Remus' eyes that he loathed.
How could Remus act like he understood when James himself couldn't understand how he felt?
And how could he still want her so badly that it almost made his stomach hurt?
And how could she treat him like he wasn't even there?
That might have taken it too far. She acknowledged him. She spoke to him kindly enough when he addressed her, and she laughed when he interjected into her bantering with Sirius to throw in his own jokes. But she didn't seek him out like she did near everyone else, even Sturgis and Emmaline, who she hardly knew at all. She didn't rest her hand on his arm while she talked or smile his way with great affection or lean up against him comfortably, all things she did with every other person there.
If he didn't know better, he would have thought she did it all on purpose just to drive him mad. But he did know better…at least, he mostly knew better. It could still feel that way even if he knew it wasn't true, right?
Eventually, after they'd eaten a truly delicious meal and settled into the den for more drinks, James reached his limit.
"We really ought to do this more," Dorcas said, her face pink with laughter from a conversation with Sirius that James wasn't privy to or cared about. "There's no reason it should just be after meetings. Sturgis, we can exploit your labor and make you cook for us more, can't we?"
Sturgis had taken up a spot on the settee by Emmaline, his smile wide. Their arms brushed, and then he settled his arm along the back of the couch, behind Emmaline but not touching her. "I'd like that," he said, genuine and earnest.
James glanced around to find Lily gone, and like an idiot, he left to find her.
He only truly hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. The last time he'd followed her to the third floor after dinner, he'd severely regretted it. Would he just end up regretting it all over again?
What was the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results?
Well, he was insane. Officially insane. Hadn't she always made him that way? Hadn't he kissed his sanity goodbye at fourteen when he'd first started fancying her, and said goodbye to any lingering sanity after he'd fallen for her hard?
Well, if he was already nuts—
He only hesitated perhaps thirty seconds before he climbed the stairs two at a time.
She didn't look surprised to see him when he found her carefully stirring a cauldron of thin, lilac potion in the spare bedroom. In fact, she looked so unsurprised that all she did was flick her eyes towards where he stood in the doorway, lift an eyebrow slightly, and then look back down at her work without comment.
"Have you come to argue with me now?" she asked after she'd finished her stirs and he still had no idea what he planned to say. "We put it off. Is now the time?"
"I don't like arguing with you. I never did." He watched her brush her hair from her eyes as she examined another cauldron, one that bubbled thickly with a dark goo. "I'd like to talk to you, though."
"About what?"
About what indeed?
About how he still thought it fairly ridiculous that she'd gotten him off with her hand like he was eighteen again?
About how her merely touching him had felt more satisfying than actual sex he'd had with most other women?
About how he still wanted her so desperately that he would have given just about anything on earth to shag her?
About how sleeping next to her had made him feel more at peace than he could remember feeling in a long, long time?
"About—" He stopped, sighed, and tried again. "You know—" Again, he faltered, and frustration crawled up his neck. "Cut me a break. You know, Lily."
She blinked benignly at him, and he had the sudden urge to break something. She just did that to him.
He tried a different tactic. "Can I kiss you?"
"No."
He'd assumed as much, and even though he would have preferred the opposite answer, the one she gave at least provided him with a way into things. "That's what I want to talk about."
She nodded and moved to the long table that held her ingredients, wand, and several books, and she vanished the remnants of what looked like flitterby wings from a cutting board. "Alright. What about it?"
Why did she have to sound so measured and calm and rational?
"You said we needed to focus more on what we're meant to do for the Order," he said, and he waited for her to nod before he went on. "I'd like to offer a counterpoint."
She very nearly smiled, which melted away a significant portion of his frustration despite her next words. "No counterpoints."
"We're in a partnership, are we not? Partners listen to each other."
"Somehow, listening to you always got me into trouble."
"You used to like it."
"I used to be an idiot. I still am, but less so, I'd like to think." For a moment, she stared at him, a slight line between her eyebrows, but then she sighed. Leaning up against the wall behind her, she waved a hand. "Go on, then."
He pulled his counterpoint out of his arse, because he had nothing planned that he meant to say.
"We're in a wonderful fake relationship, aren't we?" he asked.
"I don't know if I'd call it 'wonderful,' but I'll agree to the rest."
He snorted. "Right. We're in a fake relationship, at least. I'll call it wonderful, even if you won't. It's therefore important that we act convincingly like a couple, right?"
"I can act convincingly without shagging you."
"Sure, but you'd be much, much more convincing if you did. I know I would be too."
She bit back a smile, and he smiled in return. "You already can't keep your hands off me in public, Potter. I don't think it's arrogant to assume that you'd get even worse about that if we started shagging, at least if history holds up."
She made a very good point.
"Counterpoint to that," he said, and she did smile then, all exasperation and reluctance, but a smile nonetheless. "If you let me get some of that out in private, I might not—"
"James, I'm not an idiot. Being in public has never stopped you. I could pull like eight different examples off the top of my head—"
"Think about me a lot, do you?" He laughed when she threw a rag at him, which he caught as easily as a quaffle. "C'mon, Evans. Don't set me up like that. Come here."
"Fuck off. I'm not—"
"You're not a dog, yes, I know. What if I come to you? I have no problem with that."
She sighed. "Don't be stupid. This is all so stupid. Look, I got carried away the other night. I shouldn't have offered to distract you, and even after that, I should have just stuck to snogging you like I said I planned. But I can't do this with you, not—"
"Did something happen with your ex last night?" he asked, blurting out the words before he could stop himself. "I figured you must have planned to see him the next day, since you had to reschedule Friday," he explained quickly when her face turned sharp and suspicious. "Did you see him?"
"Yes, I saw him." As she continued to watch him, eyes narrowed, he found his heart beating rather faster than he liked. Did that adrenaline come from worrying that she might find out that he'd spent far too much time in her room the prior morning, or from fear of her answer? "But, no, nothing happened, so there's no need for you to get all weird and territorial," she said finally, and he let go of a breath he hadn't intended to hold. If she heard the exhalation, she didn't comment. "I'm happy to be your friend. I don't dislike you, and it'll make things easier for the next few weeks. That's part of why I invited Remus tonight, because I knew he'd—"
"You've ignored me all night." Fuck, he sounded like a petulant child when he put it that way.
"Because you keep looking at me like you want to fuck me!"
Oh.
He didn't hesitate. "I mean, I do."
She looked much less amused than he felt. "Even Fabian asked me what the hell that was about, and he's not—"
He managed to very poorly conceal his glee. "What—"
"I'm not repeating that conversation back to you," she said flatly.
"Fair enough." It was, really, even if he would have paid an absurd amount of money for her to tell him. "I don't—"
"What are you trying to do? Shag me, I know—you've made that clear. But why? Are you bored? Are you coming to me because you can't go anywhere else without cheating on your very public girlfriend? Are you just—"
He stared, amusement suddenly a thing of the past. "You're joking me with that, right?"
"No."
"Then you're an idiot." Okay, it wasn't the nicest of ways he could have explained himself, but he meant it. "Evans, you're stupidly fit—more than ever, honestly—and I know how good we are together. You really can't see why I'd want to shag you?"
The shrug she gave looked almost helpless, if he thought her capable of that sort of thing.
He didn't.
"I can see why you'd want to, but I can't see why you're persisting like this," she said. "I can't see why you'd want to stay over the other night, even after what happened. If I'd been with anyone else, I wouldn't have gotten into bed with them. No one else would have even asked."
He kind of seriously doubted that, given how he'd heard Gideon and Fabian talk to her, but whatever. He held onto the first part firmly. She had only wanted him there.
That shouldn't have felt as good as it did.
He should have pushed further. He should have asked himself why she wanted to know the answer to those things. He should have wondered more about her tone. Did she sound hopeful, like she wanted him to say that he persisted and had stayed over and had followed her upstairs because he cared about her? Did she sound angry, like she wanted him to back off? Did she sound sad, like dealing with him tore her heart apart?
He didn't ask any of those questions in that moment. He didn't answer any of her inquiries either.
"Tell me to leave and I will." Fuck, he hoped he meant it.
She sighed, leaned her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Without a direct order to let her be, he stayed.
"I'm not asking you for the world, love." The pet name slipped off his tongue before he could stop it. "I'm asking you to not make me just act like your mate when you know neither of us will be happy with that. I'm asking you to let me flirt with you and kiss you when we're out doing things—or you can flirt with me and kiss me. I'd like that better, really. I'm asking you to—"
There he faltered. His voice had gotten suddenly lodged in his throat. "You have made this shit so much better," he said. "Do you know how many times I've had moments like the other night, thinking about things like Dad and how fucked all this is? I had no one I could talk to about it then. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad—what?"
She'd opened her eyes, and there was something—something—in her expression that he couldn't quite read. She shook her head soundlessly, that strange look never faltering.
Without much else to do, he went on.
"We don't have to shag. That's fine. I'd really like to—just to let you know one last time for the record—but I really don't want to go back to just focusing on work for the Order when we're out." He paused for a second, and then threw caution to the wind. "Evans, you fucking broke me with your hand the other night. You know that, right? I don't know what the hell you did or how you did it, but that was easily the best handjob of my life. I can't stop thinking about it—thinking about you—"
Oh. Oh. Wait, he did know that look. She teetered on the brink of something, and that something had left her flushed.
Soon, she would either give in and snog him or hold strong and banish him from the room. He just knew it.
She erred more on the side of giving in. He just knew that too.
"I owe you in return, you know. There was a time you never would have let me off the hook if I came and you didn't." The corners of her mouth quirked at that, which drove him forward. "Love, I know—"
"James."
She'd said his name earlier that night, and more than once, but never like she did then. She suddenly sounded heated and so desperate that she almost begged him, like something in her had abruptly broken and only he could fix it. And, holy shit, she looked at him like that too, all big eyes and bitten lip, like she—
Every muscle in his body tensed.
"Yeah?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice even.
"Come here."
She didn't have to tell him twice.
She was swearing before he even reached her, a series of breathless fuck fuck fucks that sounded somehow angry and longing all at once. Before he could grab her, she'd closed her fist around the front of his shirt and dragged him down to her mouth, and then her hands were in his hair and her mouth on his and she made a soft, pleading noise when he pushed her up against the wall. There was no finesse to it at all, to his hands on her body or his tongue in her mouth, but it didn't matter. She was every bit as tense as he was, every muscle in her body almost tight, and he couldn't think about much more than wanting to feel her go limp against him when she came, just like she once had. The only other thought that popped into his head had to do with just how often he'd started trapping her against walls, which he could only assume stemmed from his desire to keep her from bolting.
(Later, he would wonder if his fear of her leaving went deeper than just her physically separating from his side. Or rather, he would wonder that thought very briefly, and then push it from his mind with force.)
Yet she didn't feel like she was going anywhere just then. She responded more eagerly to his touch than she had the other times they'd kissed, arching her back when he ran his hands over her breasts, her fingers insistent in his hair, and all but clutching him to her, like she thought he might leave, just like he thought about her.
If she thought that, she really was an idiot. He wasn't going anywhere.
(Again, was it just about physically leaving?)
"I can't shag you," she said, the words all a rush and blurring into one another when he moved his mouth to her neck. "I—James, stop for a second." Her breath came in just as harshly as his as she brought his face up to look at her. "I can't shag you, because—well, I'm sure I could just shag a lot of other blokes, but I—I can't with you. You were—you meant too much to me. I can't shag you and just act like it doesn't matter and then leave. Not with you."
If he'd had more of a handle on his thoughts and emotions, he would have taken a second to think about the implications of what that meant. After he finally came back to himself, he would think on it constantly for weeks. But in the moment, all he could focus on was the leg that he'd wedged in between her thighs, because he could feel the heat already pooling there. "Love—" he began, even though he had no idea where he meant to take things. It was probably a good thing she interrupted him.
"I can't shag you," she repeated. "But—will you—"
"What?" he asked, even though he thought he probably knew. She'd broken off when his hand had trailed up her outer thigh, pausing just below the hem of her frustratingly, wonderfully short dress. "Ask me. I'll do anything you ask, as long as you don't get weird after."
He hadn't planned to add the second part. He hadn't even thought it, but, fuck, he realized that he meant it the second it left his mouth. It wasn't worth doing anything she could suggest if she went back to the awkward, stilted way they'd spoken when she'd first arrived—yes, anything, and he knew she could suggest a lot, because they'd done a lot together.
"Will you touch me?" Her voice came out as more of a breath, cheeks rosy and eyes fucking unreal when she looked up at him.
Breathing had become even more difficult than before. "If I do—you won't get weird?" His voice sounded strange, strained and almost pained, which exactly matched how he felt. "I don't want you to get mad at me or—or, I don't know, feel uncomfortable, or—"
"I won't." Her tone had changed entirely. Fuck, she suddenly sounded eager, like she could hardly wait another second, and he found himself somehow wanting her more, something he wouldn't have thought possible even a second before. "I won't. I'll be fine. Just—please make me come, baby. Please? Just once, and then I'll—"
He would later regret interrupting her very, very much, because he would wonder exactly how she would have finished that sentence.
And then I'll get you off?
And then I'll never bother you again?
And then I'll need you to keep making me come for the rest of my life?
And then I'll have you out of my system and you can fuck right off?
Something else entirely?
But he was helpless against her calling him 'baby,' and he knew she knew it, but he didn't care that she used it to exploit him. Hell, he wanted her to exploit him, and as often as she wanted.
He slipped his hand between her thighs, and even just touching her through her knickers left his mouth dry, and made her inhale sharply and close her eyes. She was already wet, and stroking her only dampened the fabric further. "James—" It sounded like a plea, or maybe like a prayer, and he decided then and there that he'd never heard anything more incredible. "I've been wet around you for days. You don't need to tease me. Just having you around is torture enough."
Fuck, she was good.
He groaned, frustrated, throbbing, and inordinately pleased at her words. "Look at me," he instructed, and power coursed through his veins when she listened immediately, as she never did in any other aspect of life. "You're so fucking beautiful," he said, more of that praise that he didn't plan to heap on her, but that somehow came out anyway. "I can't wait to watch you come. I can't wait." She made an unsatisfied noise in return, but that dissatisfaction shattered into something almost greedy when he pushed her knickers aside to run his fingers over her lightly. Her hips lifted from the wall, pressing into his hand, and he stared at her, aware he'd want to remember her face for—well, given that he still wanked to thoughts of her from years before, he'd probably want to remember her face forever. "Talk. I want to hear you talk."
"This is why I can't stand you," she said, forehead breaking with frustration. "I'm begging you to touch me, you swear you can't wait to see me come, and you're playing with me? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He couldn't help it. He laughed, and her expression went darker until he brushed his thumb against her clit, which wiped the slate entirely. She no longer looked mad, but once again eager, and watching her vacillate between the two—and knowing he could bring her back from the brink of anger with hardly more than a touch—was the greatest ego boost he could imagine. "It's payback for the shorts," he said, and he slid one finger inside her, and then another. "Those were just cruel, love."
She derailed his thought process entirely, and without even trying.
She contracted around his fingers the second he called her 'love,' which left him frozen, mouth ajar, staring at her with even more purpose than before. "Lily." He no longer sounded the least bit joking or collected or smug, but shaken, because he was. "Has that happened every time I've called you 'love'? When we were—I don't know, at the dinner table at the Rosiers' or talking to Sirius' parents or—"
"Not every time, but a lot of the time, yes." Her words were rushed, almost furious, and he felt similarly, because he knew he would never manage to call her 'love' again without wondering what went on between her legs. "Will you just—"
He suddenly remembered what he meant to do, and he set to set to making her come.
Touching her was better than he remembered. Annoyingly, it was better than he remembered not solely because of the way she felt or anything she said or did, but because she was her.
She just had a certain way about her, a way of looking at him and saying his name and making soft, delicious noises, that was more erotic than anything else any woman had ever done. It wasn't any one thing specifically, even though he tried to pinpoint exactly why his heart raced so frantically that he thought he might pass out and why his body seemed to come especially alive under her touch, but he couldn't quite figure it out. There was just something that blew his mind in the way she clutched his shoulders and kissed his neck and pulled lightly at his hair and fucking rode his hand, and worst of all?
Worst of all, he doubted that she knew that she had that effect on him at all, at least to the point that she surpassed those who had come after her. After all, at Hogwarts he'd had very little to compare her to, just as she also had very little to compare him to. Still, even then she'd teased him more than once when he praised her a little too highly or for too long, her words joking but with an undercurrent of truth. "You'd say that to any girl who sucked your cock," she'd say, keen to get some of the attention off of herself, but he'd known without a single comparison that she was wrong. After they'd broken up, he'd found out that he was right. She was wrong.
"How are you still so good at this?" she demanded, voice breathless and almost mad. She'd snaked her hands under his shirt by then, her nails in his back sinfully familiar. "You should have forgotten everything by now."
'Everything' included the things he remembered that she especially liked—the particular way he stroked her clit and the precise angle of his fingers that made her cry out and the way that he could make her beg by sucking on a specific spot on her neck. He'd tried those things on other women with varying results, but he'd never forgotten that he'd discovered them on her, or that they were all better with her. And while she might have sounded surprised that he remembered, he wasn't surprised at all. He'd never forgotten a single thing about her, even when he'd tried.
"I want to ruin your fingers for you again," he said against the sensitive skin of her neck, thoughts still on the ridiculously arousing things she'd said to him two nights before. "I want you to have to come to me to get off." It was another one of those things he hadn't thought through before he'd said it, but once he had, he realized exactly how much he fucking loved the sound of that. "Fuck, I want that, love," he breathed, and she tightened around his fingers, although he wasn't sure if it came from his use of 'love' or the increased speed of his hand or both. "That's the hottest thing I can think of. Thinking about you just waiting for me, trying to make yourself come but you can't, and frustrated because nobody—nobody—can do it like I can—holy shit, that's all I'm going to think about tonight."
"You're the worst." She almost laughed. "So territorial—such ego—oh, Christ, that's perfect, James."
She wasn't exactly helping him with either issue, territorial nature or ego.
"I'll do this for you anytime you want," he told her, and he hated how much he meant it. "I'll do anything you ask anytime you want. Anytime."
She nearly laughed again, the sound breathless and faint. "So if it's four in the morning and I can't sleep, I should—"
"Come wake me up. You know where I live. Come wake me up and I'll bend you over my bed just like I used to and fuck you until you finally stop thinking."
It hit her harder than he expected. She inhaled shakily, and he felt her drop her head back. When he looked up from her neck, the sheer hunger on her face made him redouble the efforts of his hand, his stroking and thrusting harder and faster. "I miss that," she said, her voice altogether altered. She didn't sound like herself, but she sounded exactly like he remembered from countless hours in bed with her. His cock twitched, still conditioned after three years apart. "Oh, I miss that."
He groaned, feeling suddenly almost as needy as she sounded, and worked his hip against her thigh in tandem with his fingers. It seemed increasingly likely that she wasn't even going to have to touch him to make him come. "You in those shorts on your hands and knees with your arse in the air in the greenhouse," he muttered. He'd thought over the image almost hourly ever since. "How many times have I fucked you like that? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to be around you even normally, but like that? You almost killed me, because I miss that."
She didn't answer, but she gave him something better. "I want you all the time," she said, and she sounded not at all pleased about it. No, she sounded longing but upset, like she wanted him more than oxygen and hated that she couldn't help it, and fuck if that didn't describe exactly how he felt about her. "I can't—"
When she broke off, he knew why immediately. She'd given a soft sound in the back of her throat that he remembered well, one that he'd come to associate with his own climax, because she always made it before hers, and he had followed her so often. He heard himself raining down the same sort of yeses that he'd said a couple nights prior when he'd gotten close to his own end. Her experiencing the same excited him just as much as his own pleasure—no, maybe more.
Fuck, he hated that too, because had he ever felt like that with someone else?
He watched her face, all but mesmerized, his cock twitching in his jeans. "Come, love," he instructed, stroking her breast. "I want to watch you fall apart."
She clutched his back in a way that left him certain he'd have marks in the morning. His Arrows teammates had often taken the piss out of him in the locker rooms when he'd show up with the markings of things he'd done to her the night before, but he'd worn them like a badge of honor. To him, they had been. Yet after a moment, she pulled her hands out from under his shirt to cradle his face so she could look at him, and when she came, she stared up at him, as if into the depths of his soul.
That was how it felt, anyway.
Mindless affirmations fell from her lips as she clenched tight around his fingers and her back arched and she said his name and called him 'baby,' all sights and sounds and sensations that he would carry home with him to think about later. In the moment, all he could focus on was how making her come still gave him a giant shot of dopamine and made pride burn in his chest and left him feeling tender towards her, like—
No, he wouldn't think about that last bit.
"I'll get you off any way you want anytime you want," he told her again, watching as she slowly came back to herself. "I want that, Evans."
She took his hand out from under her dress, and he missed the warmth of her immediately. Yet while he expected her to drop his hand by his side, she instead brought it up near her lips. He knew what she meant to do even before she did it, but disbelief still surged through his veins, the emotion only beat out by his absolute need for her. He had gone far past the wanting stage. And it went further still when she slid his fingers into her mouth, sucking off the glistening wetness he'd just seen, her tongue soft and skillful and her lips reddened from his mouth.
The whole time, she stared at him.
He lost it.
She had to know he would. How many times had he watched her or asked or told her to do that exact same thing? And every time, hadn't he reacted the same? Hadn't he yanked his hand out of his mouth to kiss her fiercely, as he did just then? Hadn't he ended up throwing her down somewhere or shoving her up against a wall or bending her over something almost immediately?
He couldn't do all that, even though he wanted nothing more than to tear her knickers off and fuck her raw—
Yeah, he'd lost it.
He recognized that, but recognition didn't help. Recognition didn't stop him from turning her around so he could grind his hips against her arse. Recognition didn't keep him from knowing that it wasn't what he wanted, but it was better than nothing, or from noticing that it somehow still felt stupidly better than it should have. Recognition didn't stop him from pushing his hand back into her knickers, fingers rougher than before. Recognition didn't clarify if he set out to punish or reward her or both, but if he could ever actually spontaneously combust, he didn't doubt he would have done so in that moment.
"You're such a fucking tease," he said into the junction of her neck and shoulder. He had to push the words through gritted teeth. "You're such a fucking tease, and—Merlin, Evans, I love it. I could watch you suck my fingers for hours. I already wanted to fuck your mouth, but now—you know. You know."
She knew that he'd never know another moment's peace until he got what he wanted. She knew him well, so she had to know that.
When he pushed her hair aside so he could drag his mouth to the back of her neck, she lifted nimble fingers to untie the string around her neck that held the top of her dress in place. He couldn't see when the top dropped, but he still knew. He could feel it give way, and suddenly looking at her from behind had a whole new meaning. If she hadn't sounded so pleased with the work of his hand in her knickers, he would have turned her around immediately.
Instead, he lifted his free hand to cup her breast, and he swore he felt something in his brain break further. Her breast was fuller than he remembered, but he could still recall the delicate pink shade of her nipples, a color he'd loved coaxing redder with his hands and lips and tongue and teeth. Under his fingers, her nipple felt as hard as her breast was soft, and she said his name, faint and sweet, when he pinched her there.
"Can you come again?" he asked, running his mouth along her hairline in the way that had once given her goosebumps. It felt like it still did. "I want you to come again."
She didn't answer. Perhaps she'd lost it a little too. "God, I miss when you used to fuck me like this," she said, sounding almost pained.
That left him pained right along with her. "Say that again."
"I miss when you used to fuck me like this," she repeated, voice slow and meaningful, and he increased the pressure of his fingers. "Fuck, James." It burst out of her so abruptly that he almost pulled his hand away, worried he'd hurt her, but she caught him just as he started to withdraw. She hurriedly placed her hand over his, holding his fingers inside her, and he got the hint then. If he hadn't, he would have the next second, when she rubbed back against his erection, the movement all wonderfully swiveled hips in tandem with the movement of his fingers. "It's almost too much, but it—oh, god, it feels incredible."
He swore, frustrated and longing and fucking eighteen again, unable to control himself just because she said his name and praised him a little. He looked over her shoulder, and suddenly he could see her breasts and his hand on one, and it wasn't fucking fair that she somehow looked better than he remembered, but it didn't surprise him. Everything about her was better than he remembered, even just watching himself stroke the sensitive skin of her breast, fingers light compared to the way he thrust his other hand between her legs, because she arched her back and almost whined and she looked fucking beautiful.
"Will you come for me?" he asked, and nothing else mattered except the way she whimpered in response—whimpered. His touch had transformed bold, brash Lily Evans into a whimpering mess, just as it once had at eighteen, and that knowledge went straight to his cock. He bit softly at the sensitive spot on her neck, and she rewarded him with a half-formed fuck, the word uncompleted, as if she couldn't even manage that. "I'm going to come in my pants the second I feel you come. That's how fucking hard you have me right now. I feel—youmake me feel like we're back at Hogwarts and everything is as good as the first time. How, love? How do you do that?"
He wasn't sure if she heard him or not. Her words gave him no indication one way or the other, but he hardly cared about that when she spoke. "I'm close," she said, the warning unnecessary because he could very well tell, but he naturally liked hearing it anyway. "Baby, I'm so close. Will you—fuck, harder, please. God, I wish that was your cock. When you used to fuck me like this—oh my God, James, it was—"
"No, no, no, keep going," he insisted when she broke off, breathless and moaning. He felt almost frenzied in his need to hear her go on. "Tell me. Tell me."
She listened, again as she never would have in any other aspect of life, because she never did a fucking thing he asked, at least not the first time. He gave it back to her exactly the same, of course, although he'd always listened eagerly the second she so much as kissed him. She'd done the same—he knew that, logically—but somehow it felt like the first time he'd ever reduced her to such a state, and he never wanted it to end. "You fucking me like this was so good that nothing else has ever measured up," she managed, even though talking clearly took effort. "No one can fuck me like this like you can. Baby, please. I know you can make me come. Let me come. Please. Please."
Had a few simple sentences ever hit him as hard as those did? He wasn't sure, but he knew he was going to carry that knowledge with him for the rest of time.
He also had to wonder if she didn't entirely mind his ego if she voluntarily told him something like that.
He didn't even have to think about how to get her off. It was all instinct with her, no thinking and pure movement, easier than it had any right to be. He curled his fingers inside her without a second thought, and sure enough, she came again, and harder than before. She came so hard that he thought for a moment that she might actually collapse, and he moved his hand from her breast to circle her waist, just in case she fell. It was another movement he didn't think through, not like he might have with someone else. Things just came together with her in a way that he didn't understand.
Even if he didn't understand it, he knew instinctively that he was going to crave her more than ever. Sirius was right. She wasn't out of his system.
Then again, he hadn't actually shagged her. Maybe then he could stop thinking about her every fucking hour of every fucking day. He would repeat that to himself over and over for days, even though he would never fully believe it.
As he'd told her, he came in his pants like a fucking teenager, like he hadn't since the one time at Hogwarts they'd spoken of a week before, and it should have been embarrassing, but he couldn't conjure an ounce of embarrassment. Everything just felt too good, good past anything justified in the least. Her body went soft and relaxed and almost limp against his, just as he'd sought when everything had started. He'd spoken her name and other meaningless, frantic things against her neck while he came, but just feeling the tension leave her body made him groan appreciatively, because he had done that to her, and, fuck, he loved that. He always had.
When the world grew clearer again, he knew he needed to do something about the state of his jeans, but he had more pressing issues at hand. He turned her back around to face him, and he took a few solid seconds to drink in the expression on her face. She looked gloriously shaken, her lower lip red from her teeth and her cheeks pink and her eyes almost wild, and nothing—nothing—compared to how it felt to make her look that way. Still, he couldn't focus on her face for long, because he'd thought about her breasts far too often to not lose his head a little over finally having them bared to his eyes and accessible to his hands.
"On the topic of unfair clothing, I have no idea how I looked at your face at all when you were wearing those gold robes," he told her, still regaining his breath, as he ran a thumb across each nipple. "I don't know how anyone did, but no one else knew what you looked like underneath them, so I had it harder. I'll die on that hill."
She arched her back, pressing into his touch almost languidly, not with the absolute need that she'd exhibited before. It looked like she enjoyed his touch just to enjoy it, not to get to her end, and there was something stupidly hot about that.
Then again, he knew he could find something stupidly hot about just about anything she did.
"I liked watching you try not to stare," she said, her voice as soft as her laughter. "You're really cute when you struggle."
"That explains why you're constantly making me struggle."
"It does."
He found himself smiling, even though he had no recollection of beginning that smile. It felt like it had just appeared on his face, immediately full and unstoppable. "You just confirmed that you're every bit as beautiful and incredible as I remembered," he told her, trailing kisses down her neck. "So I'm going to struggle twice as hard not to stare at you now. I might just give up trying not to look at your tits or arse or legs. No one would blame me. And I'm going to have touch you all the time now, because you're—"
"I told you!" she exclaimed, weaving the fingers of one hand into the back of his hair. "I told you that nothing we did in private would stop you from getting after me in public—"
"Yeah, I lied. That was a bunch of shit." His smile grew when she laughed, clearly unbothered despite her accusations. "Are you going to like it or kick off about it?"
"Both."
Yeah, that tracked. Beyond that, it was entirely what he wanted.
She inhaled sharply when his mouth found the pattern of moles along the sensitive skin where her left breast met her ribs, a sprinkle of five dark dots, the only freckles on her body save for a light, random spot here or there on her arms. He'd once traced patterns between those moles over and over again, pretending they were stars and he meant to map out a constellation with his fingers and his lips and his tongue. "We need to go back downstairs," she said in a voice that clearly imparted her desire for the exact opposite. "They're going to think that we—"
"I hope they think that we're shagging." He really did. It was territorial and he knew it, but he hoped everyone took a single look at her and somehow knew that he'd made her come twice, and only after she'd pleaded with him to get her there. "Give me five minutes to start at all the things I plan to do here the next time I have you to myself. I'm going to have to spend days getting reacquainted with your tits. Don't even ask how long I'm going to spend with my mouth between your legs when you finally let me down there. They're going to have to send out a search party for you, because you'll go missing for that long."
"That's not happening," she said, even as her other hand joined her fingers in his hair. "I mean it," she insisted when he snorted in disbelief. "I meant what I said. I can't shag you even if I want to, because it's—"
He'd regret interrupting that too, but, again, he wasn't thinking about anything except the way her breathing had turned shallow and her fingers had gotten more insistent as he explored all the beautiful skin on the way to her nipple. "Do you want to?"
She didn't hesitate. "Don't ask stupid questions."
That said it all, really.
"Five minutes," he repeated.
She gave him closer to ten.
Annoyingly, she managed to compose herself almost entirely before they returned to the den. She looked as if she'd just gone to check on her potions, as she truly had, and like James had joined her just to talk, as truly he had, even though things had changed very quickly after that. She made Fabian move so she could curl up next to Dorcas, and they chatted and bantered and laughed much like they had for years in the Gryffindor common room, with nothing else evidently on Lily's mind.
In turn, James felt like he'd gone through some sort of natural disaster—but a natural disaster he'd somehow loved. It felt like an earthquake had rocked his entire fucking world, but that he'd count the seconds until the next earthquake came, because even if it wasn't good for him, he craved the chaos and rush and adrenaline so much that he didn't care about his safety.
Yeah, that just about summed up how he felt about her.
Something about the way Remus looked at him had James wondering if he'd somehow managed to decipher that James had just cast more than one cleaning spell to take care of the dumb, teenager way that he'd come in his pants. Remus couldn't know that, of course, but he just looked so knowing, like he always did, and James had no idea how he was going to get out of telling him everything. He could probably lie to Sirius, even though he never did. But Remus? Remus would somehow just know.
James did his best to act like everything was absolutely normal, and he knew he completely succeeded, no matter what he felt.
Things broke up a little past two in the morning. Emmaline announced her departure first, and when Sturgis said he'd walk her out, Lily had to hide her smile in her wine glass. She thanked them both effusively for coming and cooking and their wonderful company, all proper host, and then broke into a truly pleased smile once they heard the front door close.
"It's absolute bullshit if you help Sturgis get laid when you've never done that for me," Gideon told her, and she laughed, pretty and bright. "I mean it, Lil. If they go shag, that—"
"They're not going to shag." She sounded entirely certain. "It'll take at least one date to get there, but probably more. Can't you see that? This isn't some quick thing, and that's why I'd never help you." She nudged Gideon fondly. "I love love. I care about that. I don't care about helping you get your cock wet."
Peter choked on his drink.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gideon didn't look surprised by her vulgarity, but amused. "Never knew you were such a romantic, Lil. It's dead cute."
He clearly meant to tease her, but she looked unbothered. "Like I said, I love love," she said with a shrug. "I absolutely want that for other people. You all are kind of shit for watching those two flounder for months without trying to help them along. One social event outside of an Order meeting. One. That's all it took."
She took off for bed shortly after that.
James watched her go, even though he had to turn to do it, and he knew that everyone saw him look after her. He didn't care about that just then. He cared too much about wondering if he should follow her, or if he should wait until everyone left and then join her, or if he should go home. He knew what he wanted to do, but was there some sort of etiquette that he missed about what he should do?
"She said you stayed over Friday night," Dorcas said, her voice as casual as the way that she lounged, one leg draped over the sofa's arm. Yet when James looked at her, her face looked sharp and interested, the complete opposite of her tone. "Said you helped heal her and then you two slept in her bed and nothing happened."
"That's right." Technically, it was right. Anything that had happened between them had taken place before the attack.
Dorcas raised a delicate eyebrow. "You're both liars." She sounded definitive. "Don't act like I didn't live with her when you two were together. I know how things were. There's no way you two just climbed into a bed and just fell asleep. Did you ever go to sleep without shagging?"
Honestly, almost never, so far as James could remember.
"It's different now," he said, even though he heard a tiny voice in the back of his head that vocally wished it wasn't different. "We're not together anymore. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I can care about her without shagging her, Dorcas."
Dorcas didn't look convinced. Then again, James doubted he knew the words he could say that would convince her. He doubted such words even existed.
What would happen if he just let loose about it all? What kind of fallout would occur if he told them that he'd just had his fingers inside Lily, had watched her face as she came, and then had made her come again? What reaction would he get if he admitted they were outside the ballroom on the night of the auction because they were fooling around, and that she'd somehow gotten him off with her hand with such skill and ease that he was still thinking about it? Would Lily kill him? Probably, but he didn't know for sure, and that made it very, very tempting. At least maybe then Fabian and Gideon would let up on her a bit.
"I'm glad you were with her," Fabian said, knocking James off-kilter entirely. He looked uncharacteristically serious, and spoke almost like James would expect to hear a brother talk of a sister. "I know anyone in the Order would do their best to take care of her, but…I know you care more than most, so I'm glad you were there. I fucking hate the thought of anything happened to her." He looked to Dorcas, who returned his smile gently. "Or you. I'd hate that too, Dory, but somehow you're always just fine. She always acts like she's fine, but she just attracts bad luck, doesn't she?"
"That's easy to do when you're muggleborn," Benjy said. "It's definitely hardened her, but she didn't really have a choice." No one had a response to that, because there really wasn't one.
"You planning to push your luck?" Sirius muttered to James not long after, when everyone else prepared to leave. Genuine curiosity played across his face. "You were both upstairs for a while, weren't you? I'm assuming enough happened to justify you looking at her like you did after you got back."
James didn't ask what he meant. He didn't want to know what he meant. Best to stay in the dark about anything of the sort.
"Don't do it, mate," Sirius added. "You—Prongs, you're in over your head. You get that, right?" He actually sounded a little concerned. "Whatever you're doing—don't. I know you think you can handle just messing around with her, but you can't. Not with her. You never could. You knew that once."
"I'm fine." James didn't even believe himself, really, so he knew that he couldn't convince Sirius at all. "Don't worry about me. I've got it under control."
He wasn't quite sure what "it" was, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know.
He contemplated his options, just as he had from the second she'd left. Did he follow her? Did she want him to follow her? If he did, would she let him stay? Or would she send him away, harking back to her insistence that they needed to focus more on things for the Order and less on each other? Or, fuck, send him away because she'd gotten him out of her system that night, when she was more under his skin than ever?
In the end, he took the easy way out and went home.
xxx
A/N: You know those weeks where things just pile up and nothing goes the way it should? That was this week for me, so many thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter. Each one was a bright spot for me.
The next chapter is one of my favorites! Looking forward to sharing it with you all next week.