Set Ablaze
Chapter 1
A/N - For all-things-jily on Tumblr. This is mostly just smut.
The Morning After
He blinked his eyes open to the view of smooth, freckle-kissed skin, pale and aglow under the soft blanket of sunlight that bathed the room. Red hair, a shade so unique and dark that he knew his imagination could never replicate it, spilled over the pillow next to his. That his arm was slung heavily over the delicious curve of a waist registered only a few moments later, a time by which he'd already taken to drinking in the pleasant fragrance of the warm body beside his.
She was faced the other way, delicate neck exposed tantalizingly as she slept, as if completely unaware of the beauty she gifted to the world without charge. A blanket had pooled somewhere around her hips, his thighs, the material resting low enough that he could make out the even rise and fall of her chest, perfectly bare, perfectly maddening.
Though he remained motionless, eyes obediently travelling no further south, the already-hard length between his legs grew heavier, brazen, completely immodest as it ached for relief, for touch, for the body next to his. Suppressing that urge became a concern secondary when the sounds of her breathing changed pattern; a hitch in the soft melody that was impossible not to notice.
He froze, the sluggish haze of sleep lifted entirely as senses caught up to him, beyond just those of quiet touches and sweet inhales. That hair, that skin, those freckles, they were familiar sights; sinfully beautiful vices that he recognized from hours, days, years spent staring across rooms and, more recently, from close quarters.
The generosity of the view that he was allowed now, however, was as novel as it was torturous.
It wasn't difficult to identify the moment she reached the same level of consciousness as him. In a beat, the pliant form under his fingers, against his length, stiffened rather brusquely. He wondered if she knew that he was awake, wondered what she thought about him pressing intently into her backside.
The morning light, it seemed, brought a strange sort of bashful, self-conscious sensitivity to them, because he'd not been nearly as worried when he'd firmly sunk his fingers there the night before, nor even when she'd cried out in pleasure.
A strong enough bottle of Firewhiskey was enough to wipe away such inhibitions, he supposed.
"Hi," Lily said, and the low, husky quality of her voice erased any blooming idea in his mind that he might've been dreaming. "Have you been awake long?"
"No," he said, a moan caught in his throat when she moved slightly under the sheets. The brush of her arse against him made him want to automatically grind his hips forward. It was an impulse well controlled. "Just woke up a few seconds ago. Good morning."
"Good morning."
Silence ascended, achingly heavy and awkward, and he couldn't understand why, for the very first time in his life, the words wouldn't spill out of his lips. This shouldn't have been a big deal; they were adults, they were friends, they'd been drunk, and he'd been on the verge of asking her out again for weeks now anyway. If anything, the roof-shattering sex—because it had certainly been that—they'd engaged in last night should've solidified his confidence in whatever had been brewing between him and Lily for months.
The fact of the matter, however, was that it was a big deal. He didn't know how it couldn't be, not when it came to her.
A barrage of sneaking glances, tense moments and brief touches had collided painfully last night, hard enough that they hadn't been able to push back against the force once the alcohol had dropped the barriers that usually kept them sane. And inebriated though he'd been, he knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly what he wanted. In so far, he'd presumed Lily had, too.
Clarity, unfairly borne by daylight, ate away at that assurance somewhat.
Enough time had elapsed now that any attempt at a natural segue from their greeting would have been impossible for him to execute. Lily's hip twisted lightly under his fingertips, and the movement felt so sudden and stark that it shattered the bubble their bodies had still been caught inside. He reflexively pulled the hand back, scooted away to create a semblance of space between them.
She didn't protest, didn't lessen the tension with a wisecrack or cheeky comment. Worse, she'd pulled up the blanket to cover her chest, green eyes determinedly focused on the canopy of his four-poster.
His heart plunked, and he debated telling her that her efforts were futile: it wasn't as if the sight of those breasts could be erased from his mind now. The memory of them had been imprinted in his head, right alongside the feeling of her thighs, the heat between them, the pull of pleasure on her face as she unravelled around him, again, and again.
"What time is it?" asked Lily, and he was glad for the distraction. Any more reminiscing would have him spilling right there, amongst the bedsheets.
He checked his watch. "Almost eight."
"Shit," she cursed, shooting up into a sitting position, pulling half the blankets with her. The shift of light revealed a bloom of colour right beneath the ridges of her collar bone; a bruise, dark and purple. Memories of his lips on that spot flashed behind his eyes, the taste of her sweat, the gasp of breath against his ear.
He watched now, quiet and blindingly disappointed, as she rummaged around the floor for discarded clothes. The sight of her slender back, freckles a bit more infrequent there, was all he was allowed. "I have Arithmancy at nine."
"I know."
Seemingly finding undergarments to be a hassle, Lily simply slipped on her black top and white skirt quickly, all the while turned away from him. Something that felt frighteningly like a fist clamped around his heart when he started to gather that she was about to walk out, just like that. He'd almost convinced himself of this too, which is why, when she pulled her hair out from under the collar, sighed heavily, and finally looked at him over her shoulder, surprise graced his features.
"James," she breathed, instantly reminding him of the several ways her voice could call his name. "Are we okay?"
"Sure," he said, tight-lipped, smile stiff. If she wanted to run to class the first thing after waking up next to him, after the way they'd clawed at each other last night, there wasn't much in the way of emotion he could show, not unless he wanted his heart stamped on even more. "It's cool. We were just...yeah, drunk. No need to lose sleep over it."
"I—" Lily broke off, a crease forming between brows. "Right. Right, no big deal. We were just drunk."
His own words, parroted back with such cold tonality, had him leaning up on an elbow. "You okay, Evans?"
"'Course," she muttered, up from the bed and to the door in a beat, bra and panties bunched in hand. "I'll see you later, James."
The Night Of
They stumbled inside the portrait hole, a mess of wheezing laughter and flushed faces, the space that posed as the Heads' common area now suffused with the delight of its two drunken inhabitants.
She peeled off her cardigan and slung it over the back of the couch, feeling warm around her neck and face as they caught their breaths. The fading sound of low chuckles had her turning around again, smile affixed on her face as she found James wiping his eyes under those thick-framed glasses. It struck her, as it had all night, just how fucking hot the boy before her had become over the years.
A kind of attraction towards him had built within her slowly, one whose roots trespassed just his physical form or how fit he was—though that certainly did not hurt anything—into the unfaltering admiration she now held for him. He was just...bloody brilliant.
"Sirius better be glad it was his birthday," said James, grin bright as he stepped forward to shrug off his own jacket. "And that most everyone was passed out. There's no way I wouldn't spread the tale of his epic tumble down the girl's staircase otherwise."
She bit her lip, giddy laughter bubbling up again at the reminder of what they'd witnessed: in their frantic need to snog each other's faces off—coupled with the copious amounts of Firewhiskey that had been running through their veins—Sirius and Mary had traipsed on over the girl's staircase at two in the morning, completely sloshed. With logic and sense tossed right out the window, James's shouts of warning had fallen on deaf ears, and then they'd fallen, an inelegant tangle of limbs and annoyed groans when the staircase had spat them back onto the common room floor.
"Right." She sniggered, finding it hilarious anew even as her ears grew hot. With James stood next to her, she didn't think much about reaching out a hand to brace against his shoulder, the other occupying itself with untying the strings of her gladiator heels. "But you're going to take the mick in private anyway."
"Of course," he supplied cheerfully, shifting closer so she had a better grip.
"Thanks."
"Here, let me help," James said, when the snaking ties proved too complicated a task for her glazed eyes and uncoordinated fingers to execute. The true meaning behind his offer didn't register on her senses until he sunk to the floor on his knees, right in front of her, warm hands wrapped around her calf.
With a light tug of his fingers, the strings of her left heel unwound, and this, she thought, was no good reason for her heart to hammer away the way it did. In an instant, all amusement extinguished inside her throat, replaced by a buzz of electricity that sizzled to her fingertips when she planted them lightly amongst the thickness of his inky blank strands. James froze, momentary, hands stilling on her shin, before he slowly looked up at her.
There was no laughter on his face anymore either, just an expanding darkness in the golden blaze of his eyes. Her breath caught in her lungs audibly, fingers in his hair curling in tandem.
To her inexplicable disappointment, he quietly looked away, resuming the task of tugging away the strings with great care. The silence that had befallen the room was broken only by the soft crackling of firewood in the hearth, though it did little to restrain the shiver that ran through her spine when his hand traced a long, deliberate path from her heel to the back of her thigh, gentle, slow. Almost unconsciously, she pressed a little forward, enough for his forehead to skim the edge of her skirt.
"The left one's done," James said, voice so low that liquid pooled between her legs. A rush of warm breath skittered over the side of her knee. "You alright?"
"Yes," she replied, no pretence at holding back the strange breathiness of the syllables.
He shifted marginally to turn his attentions to her other leg, now elevated unevenly since she'd removed the left shoe. When the movement caused her fingers in his hair to twist slightly, James let out the lowest groan from somewhere deep inside his chest. The timbre prompted goosebumps to sprinkle over the back of her neck. That sight of him, kneeling almost directly under her, felt carnally forbidden.
"Lily," he sighed, hands scorching as they brushed against her thigh, over her ankle.
As the half-pained utterance of her name settled somewhere underneath the bones of her ribcage, she found her brows pulling together, bottom lip caught between teeth. "Yeah?"
But he didn't reply, motions enviously steady and confident as he uncoiled the ties of the right heel. Once done, James dragged a hand over her Achilles tendon, torturously sensual, and then slipped the footwear off her heel completely, hand skimming over shin, knee, thigh as he stood, impossibly close, impossibly warm, impossible.
That her own hand had dropped down to rest against the side of his face only caught her attention when he turned his head to gently brush the tip of his nose over her palm. Emotion burst behind the walls of her chest. "James, I—"
When the sentence died in her mouth, he stepped closer, chest almost touching hers. In a moment of role reversal, his gaze bore into her, into everything she was made of. "Yeah?"
"I—" she tried again, knuckles grazing the strong column of his throat. Beneath her touch, his Adam's apple bobbed tellingly. "Thank you."
Coward.
But he smiled, a huff of rueful laughter kissing her face as he stepped back lazily. Her mind hadn't even registered that he'd settled a hand on her waist until the heat had been pulled away. A scream at the loss spooled inside her.
"Go to sleep, Evans," James sighed, voice controlled. Another step back. "It's late. We're drunk."
"Yeah." She slumped against the back of the couch behind her. "Late. Drunk."
He nodded, taking a few more moments to look at her. She couldn't condemn him for the weakness, not when her own gaze refused to stray from him. A tangible charge of energy was strung in the space between them, something so potent and thrill-inducing that she felt like she could reach out and strum the tension if she so desired.
And Merlin, did she desire.
It was quite obvious that James did too, and it only served to strengthen her conviction when her gaze dropped to his trousers. With him turning away from her now, the profile view of his arousal, unmistakable, heavy, effectively snapped something within her.
"Fuck," the whisper dropped from between parted lips. James whipped his head around at the sound, brows arched.
"What?"
She pushed off from the couch, strode towards him, watched as his chest filled with something like anticipation. Or perhaps it was the courage that soared through her own veins. Maybe if she dug deep enough, she'd find out. "Fuck, no."
And then she crashed her lips to his, hands back in his hair, against his neck, calves straining as she balanced on the balls of her feet to reach him better, to pry his lips open. Her chest pressed into his, the planes of his pectorals a delicious solidness against the sensitive skin of her breasts. She could feel the hard length of him brushing against her now, drawing out more heat from within. The slightest shift of her thighs confirmed it: her knickers were drenched, completely, and he hadn't even touched her yet. In fact, she realized with a start, he hadn't responded at all.
Her lips on his slowed, a soft, final drag bringing her back down, heart pounding.
"James?" she croaked, redness creeping up her neck.
His pupils were entirely blown, irises burning with a flare that positively singed her. "Fuck," he cursed, fingers flexing tensely against his sides.
She looked at him, really looked at him, and understood. A calculated step forward had her right up against him again, lips a hair's breadth away, a faint caress of mouth on cheek. "Kiss me. I want you to kiss me. I promise I know what I'm doing."
"Evans—"
Hand reaching down between them, she let her fingers drag over him, sluggish, bold, utterly terrifying. "Touch me. I want—"
But the confession never materialized, swallowed up by the throaty groan James emptied into her lungs the next moment. His hand twisted within the thickness of her hair, crushing her lips back to his. In the most mind-numbing way she could've imagined, he wetly slid his mouth over hers, brushed his tongue against hers, sweet and warm and intoxicating—almost like the Firewhiskey they'd consumed—and she realized that yes, this was what felt right. Fuck, yes.
Her hands couldn't touch enough, couldn't feel enough, as she gripped his hair, traced his jaw, thumb ghosting over cheekbone. When her fingers clambered to run over his shoulders, a whimper escaping thanks to the palm he'd taken to cupping around her breast, squeezing exquisitely, James eased some of the torment by sliding a hand under her arse, almost beneath the short length of her skirt, and easily lifted her off the floor, her bare feet immediately wrapping around the sturdy muscles of his waist and back. This quick manoeuvre inevitably had the skirt bunching and pooling around her hips, leaving her achingly keen centre exposed to James's heat.
The cool presence of a wall pressed into her shoulder blades when he turned around and balanced her against the surface. She dug her heels into his back to bring him closer, and when his still-clothed erection rubbed against her, firm and sudden, the glorious friction had them both moaning aloud, necking harder.
James's free hand had crept along the hem of her top, under it, palm delectably rough on the flushed skin of her stomach while he dragged his mouth to her neck, tongue flicking, swirling, sucking over the pulse that jumped there. He was suddenly everywhere, hips pushing, hands squeezing, lips devouring, and when his thumb rolled over her nipple, over the thin material of her bra, the throbbing between her legs grew painful, muscles clenching.
"Merlin, James—"
Back arching off the wall, her need to touch him overpowered her senses, and she reached between them to stroke him again. With a muted swear, James ducked his head into the space between her neck and shoulder, teeth scraping over the sensitive spot as her hand rubbed along his length with firm pressure. In retaliation, his fingers pinched her nipple; a sublime twinge that she felt all the way to her core, alighting some madness within that had her fingers becoming frantic, removing his belt, tugging down zipper, and reaching inside to hold him, hot, heavy, and leaking, in her palm.
"Fuck, fuck. Lily, I—" His sentence broke off on a groan that he pressed to her sternum, hips bucking in pleasure against her hand. The feeling of him, smooth and thick, and so fucking ready for her, would've driven her to insanity if she wasn't there already, dripping madly, wetter than she ever remembered being in her life. She tugged on his cock once, twice, thumb swiping at the liquid on his tip, smearing it over the rest of him in an unhurried caress.
James kissed her again, hard and unrelenting, and she felt the difference somehow; desperation, so sharp and delectable that she could taste it on her tongue, made the heat of his mouth headier now. She squirmed against him tellingly, trying to seek out the friction she'd lost while her fingers jerked him sloppily between the press of their bodies, and James—never one to miss such a sign—immediately dragged his hand down from her breast, over her sides, to under her skirt.
But that's where it lay: spread out tormentingly close, against her inner thigh.
No longer possessing the patience, she tore away from the kiss, finding a silent question in his eyes.
"Touch me," she answered. "Please."
"Gladly." He smirked, eyes dark, though she caught the pleased blush on his cheeks as his fingers finally, finally pushed aside the swatch of her knickers and ran a languid trail right through the centre of her pussy. "Merlin, fucking hell."
She was inclined to agree, and voiced it quite strongly with the moan that tore out of her throat at the feeling of his fingers—James's fingers—touching her, parting her, stroking her. "Yes," she cried, dropping her head back against the wall and speeding up the movement of her wrist as she pumped him harder.
"Lily, you're so wet," he said, voice strained. A coherent reply to his observation never made it past her tongue, because James had decided to slip two fingers inside her just then, sheathed completely for a second, only to pull out and slide back inside again. "You're incredible."
"Faster," she said, rotating her hips to help guide him to the right spot. He found it soon enough, and she dug the nails of the hand not currently caught between them into his shoulder when his thumb rubbed her clit simultaneously. It felt maddeningly good, too good. A familiar pressure had started to build and yawn inside her, only much stronger than she'd ever known it to be. Her legs trembled around his hips as she panted, "God, James, I'm about to—"
"Good," he exhaled against her cheek, a huff of warm breath. "I'm not gonna last much longer, either."
The confession made her feel unbelievably proud, and she caught his lips with hers again, slowly swiped her tongue over the seam. "Come for me, Potter," she whispered, gritted, thighs clenching as spasms rocked through her, small at first, then larger and larger, until she could feel herself disintegrating entirely, right there, held against the wall by James Potter.
James stilled completely in her hand half a second later, the muscles of his shoulder impossibly tense under her touch, before he spilled out with a throaty groan, wet and warm and sticky over her fingers. His chest rose and fell heavily as he slumped against her, hands slowly sliding away from her arse and clit so that she could step down gently. She swallowed, unsure as to what to expect now, but James simply reached for the wand still tucked into the pocket of his drooping trousers, and used it to clean the mess from their fingers and between their legs.
And then, as if there hadn't been any pause at all, he picked her up again, giving just enough time for her to cross her ankles around his hips with a surprised yelp, and carried her towards his room.
This, she supposed, was for the better, because she didn't feel nearly done with him for tonight.
James set her down near his bed, and she didn't wait for any prompting before sliding her hands beneath his jumper, tugging up, up, up, until he got the hint and tossed the garment aside. Any plans to fully remove his trousers were thwarted when he suddenly grabbed her wrists, pulled her flush against his chest, and kissed her deeply, tongue gliding over hers. She would've felt astoundingly stupid for thinking that no one had ever kissed her like that before if her toes hadn't literally curled against the floor.
"Lily," James groaned, fingers quick and skilled as they popped open the buttons on her skirt, let it drop to the floor.
Her top joined the bundle soon after, pulled over her head in a movement similar to the one she'd executed just a moment ago on him. Before her hair had even settled between her shoulders again, James had an arm wrapped around her waist, other hand reaching behind her to unhook the bra that had somehow survived their debauchery outside.
She extracted herself just enough to allow the skimpy material to drop from her arms, and then pushed her breasts right into the wonderful heat of his body. James covered her mouth with his, lips bruising, and led her over to the bed, placing her down on the mattress.
And then he was leaning over her, glasses tossed aside, the weight of him fucking incredible, and she decided it was grossly unfair how he was more clothed than her. With a simple push of her legs, she had his trousers bunched around his ankles, which James kicked off with an amused breath of laugh. The sound quickly transformed into a moan, however, when she lifted her hips, pulled him tightly between her legs, and rubbed herself into his rapidly hardening length.
James grinded back just as enthusiastically, ripping a sigh of pleasure from her mouth, and then dropped his head to her chest, mouth closing around her exposed breast, tongue encircling her nipple, wet, open-mouthed. Brows pulling together in the middle, she felt arousal pool in her centre again, distantly alarmed by how good he was at pushing her there so fast. As James trailed a line of kisses to her other breast, repeating the ministrations there, she sifted her fingers through his hair, tugged slightly.
"James." She wriggled, voice nothing but an exhale of breath. "I need you inside me."
It became evident that he strongly shared those sentiments, because after a quick scrape of teeth on her chest, he was sliding down her knickers, and then his own underpants. She felt, for a moment, appreciative of her ability to push him there so fast too. But any thought thereafter became impossible to focus on because his tip was rubbing against her wetness, over the folds.
"Jesus Christ, Potter," she cried, pulling his face to hers again by the back of his neck.
"Lily," he whispered, holding himself steady right at her entrance even though pleasure was written over every inch of his features. James's lips brushed over hers in a moment of unveiled vulnerability. "You don't know how much you mean to me."
Something shifted inside her chest at those words. "I can guess," she replied, voice cracking a little as she caressed the edge of his mouth with her thumb.
A gasp, stolen from her lungs, perished in the space between their breaths when James finally pushed inside her, feeling amazingly full and perfect as he stretched her around him. He kissed her again, long and languid, the pace of his mouth a sharp contrast against that of his hips, which had taken to pounding against her in quick, sharp thrusts that had her mind reeling. Sweat dotted his hairline, the nape of his neck, as she clutched him to her, and she felt a similar stickiness clinging to her own skin as their bodies picked up rhythm.
"Merlin, Lily, you feel so incredible," James panted, eyes wide and dark in awed disbelief.
She assumed her expression mirrored his. "So do you."
His hand reached between them, found her clit once more, and rubbed short, quick circles on the bundle of nerves so that she was arching off the mattress, thighs winding tighter against him. "Fuck, don't stop, that feels so good. I'm close!"
"Me too," he said through clenched teeth, thrusting faster, harder, until she felt like her legs wouldn't ever work again.
It seemed like a reasonable sacrifice.
And sooner than she would've imagined possible, she found herself teetering on that edge again, muscles clenching around his length buried inside her, legs atremble as waves of pleasure crashed through her.
"James!" she cried, eyes scrunching closed as stars burst behind her eyelids.
He came soon after, joining her with a muffled groan a dozen or so strokes later. She let him ride out the aftershocks of her spasms, skin unbearably sensitive by the time he stilled above her.
"Fucking hell," he huffed, "you're—that was—"
"I know." She smiled, dumbfoundedly satiated, body heavy with delicious exhaustion.
James rolled off her with a quiet groan, landing with his head on the pillow next to hers. The entire room smelled of their sex and sweat. She could still taste some remnants of Firewhiskey on her tongue, though she didn't doubt she'd stolen the flavour from his mouth. Fuck, this all felt way too good, way too much.
She turned her head to the right, found James blinking sleepily. "Alright, Evans?"
"Yeah," she said softly, though a sudden panic had started to erupt in her chest. "You?"
"Fucking brilliant." He grinned, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her against him. She turned at the last moment so that he was spooning her, his head tucked gently between her neck and shoulder, soft hair tickling her ear.
But she could no longer locate the peace that should've graced her, too.
The shift that had taken place in her chest earlier suddenly seemed to have grown larger, all-encompassing, triggering a sort of pain she wasn't sure she liked. That they'd jumped right to shagging each other, no in-betweens, registered in her mind only belatedly, and the barrage of fears that followed had silent tears trickling down her cheeks nonsensically, trailing over the bridge of her nose.
James was her friend. They hadn't even taken the time to talk about where they planned to go after this, what they planned to do. She didn't even know whether he wanted to date her anymore, after all the rejections she'd dished out to him over the years.
Was the sex all that he was interested in? The emotion she'd seen on his face certainly didn't point to that idea, but she couldn't bear the thought of losing him if he did.
The feeling that had spread over her limbs, intense and strong, also brought forth an alarming bout of fear with it; she was in too deep, she'd overwhelm him, she'd scare him.
Sleep eluded her for an hour more as the thoughts whirled endlessly in her mind, drying the tears and deepening the bags under her eyes. But when she finally dozed off, it was with the decision to let James take the call come morning; she'd behave normally until he decided not to.
A/N - Fear not, there will be a part two! Leave some reviews, and drop by on Tumblr to say hi! I'm maraudersftw there xx