A/N - This chapter was difficult for me to write, mostly because of some shit I'm going through in my personal life right now. But I didn't want to keep a pause on the story on such a torturous cliffhanger so here we are. There are probably a billion mistakes here because I haven't edited properly. Might return later and fix the sloppiness. But this is me officially saying that the last few chapters may not be posted daily. Sorry.

Room Service

Chapter 27

Oct 25 | Part 2

The call comes around eleven p.m., a time by which Lily has already taken to second-guessing—and then triple, quadruple guessing—all her bravado from earlier, the way insinuation had laced every syllable of her phrase as she'd asked James to give her a call even before they'd sorted things out or had any of the conversations they desperately needed to.

But at least the two-hour break in between her bold move and his call gives her enough time to prepare what she's going to say, place a request to Amelia to hold the fort in her absence, and also corral the courage required to accept whatever James decides, regardless of the outcome—no matter that she thinks and hopes and prays for a specific one. When Remus and Peter arrive downstairs and say their brief farewells to Lily, she already feels anticipation flood her mouth and buzz annoyingly in her stomach.

And then, not even two minutes later, the intercom rings.

She picks up the noisy handset, palm sweaty, slippery with anxiety. "Front Desk. How may I help you?"

"Come upstairs, Lily."

She stumbles a little at the blunt edge to his voice, tone deep around the utterance of her name. But it's about time, and she knows it too. So there's no attempt at pretension; no need to mask the real reason behind the visit.

"Okay," she says.

When James opens the door to his room, a few minutes later, she notices that he's changed out of his jeans into grey sweatpants, and the combination of that with the t-shirt, his hair even more disarrayed than usual, as if he's been constantly running fingers through it, puts together a soft, frazzled, boyish image that tugs mercilessly at her heartstrings. There's a half-smile on his face when he looks at her, something present but reluctant, and he steps to the side to let her pass. The faint brush of his warmth against her upper arm when she walks by almost makes her turn to him then and there, but instead, Lily keeps moving, holding onto hope that there will be time for that…

After.

Once she's stood near the foot of the bed, in the middle of the room, recalling memories of the last time she'd been there, nerves take flight in her stomach, muscles coiled with tension as she rubs hands over her thighs, breathes noisily, shifts feet around.

"Do you want to sit?" James offers, fingers tugging at his hair. "You look really jittery."

"Yeah." She nods, sits down for a beat—and then immediately shoots to her feet again. His brows climb high. "No. Actually, I'll stand, if that's okay."

A smile twitches at the corner of his lips. "Okay."

"You should sit though."

"I'm alright."

"James, please, sit," Lily begs. "It's less nerve-wracking when I don't have to keep craning my neck to talk to you."

For a second, he looks like he's going to be difficult just for the sake of it, but then he moves to do as asked. Arms resting on knees, hands folded in between, he leans forward, and hazel eyes look up at her from below a sweep of dark fringe. The question shines clearly on his expression, and Lily forces herself to focus on the issue at hand instead of getting distracted by how much she wants to kiss him.

"Okay," she says, clears his throat. "Okay. About Saturday… I wasn't blowing you off."

His eyes remain guarded, so she exhales heavily.

"I really wasn't, James. I can see why you'd think I was, but it really was just terrible fucking timing. Petunia was already mad at me because I'd forgotten about the dress fitting—and I only noticed that my phone had run out of battery when it was too late and I'd left home." She nibbles on her lip, takes a step closer to where he sits. "I swear I wanted to—I wanted to talk to you, the whole day, or at least tell you that I wasn't going to be coming in to work because I'd offered to spend the day with my sister to make it up to her, but I just… couldn't."

He blows out a breath from between the fingers that have moved up to his mouth now. "You were... gone for almost twelve hours."

"I know. It was—it was a lot. There was the dress fitting, and the food tasting, where we took an age, and then Petunia lost her ring there—which we eventually found so it was a crisis averted—and… it was just a mess that I don't want to get into right now. But what I said stands."

Here, she pauses, waits for him to say something. James does, after two seconds of aching silence during which a million scenarios play out in her mind, each worse than the last. "You really did?" He asks, quiet. "Want to talk to me, I mean?"

An embarrassing rush of air falls from her lips. "Of course, I did. I know I haven't been exactly—forthcoming about my feelings in the past, but I wouldn't… you know, sleep with you and then not talk to you, or ignore you, James. I'm not that kind of a person."

He licks his lips, one hand reaching out to slip into hers, thumb brushing warmly over knuckles. A sigh fills his lungs. "I know. I know that, I'm sorry, I've not been fair. It's just—it's not always easy to think straight around you."

Lily laughs softly, the sound humourless. "Tell me about it."

That gets a small smirk out of him. James tugs on her fingers with his, brings her closer until her legs can slot between his thighs. Heart hammering, swallow dry, she uses her other hand to sift through the mess of his hair, neck warming when he releases a gentle hum of satisfaction. "Lily." She looks down, holds the hopeful stare he directs. "What now?"

"Whatever you want."

"What—" he chuckles under his breath. "Whatever I want? That's—"

"Yeah. I mean it."

The amusement extinguishes, and she watches with her heart in her throat as James leans back slightly, looks at her better, mouth tensing. "What are you saying?"

The heat spreads from her neck to her face now, blazes in her ears. "I just meant—"

"So you can stay?"

She hears the echo of the question from the last time they'd been here, and she understands. "Yes." Lily smiles, bites the inside of her cheek. "I mean, I'll still have to return downstairs for work, but—yes, I can stay. For a bit."

His gaze roams over her face, quick and sharp, still too disbelieving for her liking. When the skepticism makes her roll her eyes, James seems to snap back into himself, and pulls her down by the arm until she roughly stumbles into his lap with a light "mmf".

"Ouch! What—?"

But he cups her face, hands warm on her cheeks, guiding her so that he can look at her straight. "What. Are. You. Saying?"

Anticipation bubbling, Lily smirks, slow and secretive, and gently pushes at his chest to get him to shift back, to give her enough place to sit comfortably on the bed, legs tucked underneath. James looks frozen in time, eyes unable to leave her face, body pliant under her touch; every single cell wired to whatever she's about to say. "I'm saying…" she brushes fingertips over his jaw, glancing up at him softly, "that I spoke to McGonagall. And I told her… about us."

He blinks.

Once.

Twice.

"You WHAT?"

Brows arching high, she leans back the barest distance, thrown by the vehemence in his tone. "I told her about us." A frown forms over her forehead. "I'll admit this is not the reaction I was hoping for."

"What did you tell her exactly?" James presses, ignoring her petulance.

Lily huffs, cheeks warming as she glares at him. "That I have feelings for you, obviously. That I've had them… for a while."

He looks a bit harrowed now, eyes as wide as saucers behind glasses, jaw hanging in shock. "You told McGonagall, your manager, about us?" She nods. "Are you absolutely mental?"

She twists away. "Okay, I'm leaving—"

But he's pulling her back immediately, hand around arm, loud laughter spilling with disbelief. "Evans, what the fuck?!" he barks, and then, before she can react, presses a firm, quick kiss to her mouth. A barrage of emotions fight to take over his expression when she looks at him again. "You're… I thought you didn't want to compromise your reputation as a professional?"

"Yeah. I didn't." Lily shrugs, mind a little woozy from the feel of his lips on hers, still. "But I couldn't just… not do anything about it."

"You could have told me first. We would have worked it out together. Held on until I left."

The intensity of his gaze makes her strangely self-conscious, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, willing herself to be honest. "The way I saw it, trying not to fancy you or staying away from you turned out pretty miserably for me—"

"Us."

"—Us," she corrects, and he flashes her a grin, "And I figured I had to come clean about what I was feeling if I wanted to even stand a chance at sorting this out. Besides…" Pulse jumping, she leans a little closer, watching as his eyes drop to her lips, column of throat bobbing. "There's no way McGonagall wouldn't eventually find out if we…"

"If we?" His voice cracks, low.

"...if we made this work."

A breath whooshes out of him at her words, and almost as if bereft of the tension it carried now, his spine curls forward, forehead dropping on hers, glasses nudging against her nose. Right before she thinks he'll close the gap between them, however, she blurts, "James?"

"Yeah?" he sighs.

"Do you forgive me, then?"

Warm fingers curl around the back of her neck, lips pressing onto the tip of her nose. "There's nothing to forgive. If anything, I should be the one apologizing for all the pain I put you through," he says, and she feels her chest fairly cracking open with affection, light spilling, bright and gold, for this silly, annoying, beautiful, perfect man. "Evans?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I kiss you now?"

A deep inhale. "Please."

His palm is immediately slipping warmly over her waist, pulling her closer to him as her own hands reach for the edge of his t-shirt, tug at the fabric until she's got it up and over his head. And then her mouth is on his, feet kicking off heels, tongue hunting down the familiar warmth of him, as she presses a hand to his chest, pushes him back onto the mattress. James's grip around her brings her right on top, fingers of his other hand hooking over her thigh and pulling her legs astride his hips. A soft "ah" flies from her throat, lips halting over his as she feels her center rub over him, through the soft material of his sweatpants.

He groans, eyes fluttering behind glasses as he slides both hands to her hips, presses down on them purposefully, and drags her forward again, over him, slowly. "Oh, fuck, Lily—that feels—"

"Amazing," she moans.

Palms drift over her torso, round her breasts, squeeze gently. "Shit," James huffs, lips latching onto neck, tongue swiping hotly over her thudding pulse. "Shit, shit, I need this off—" the words fall half-pained against her throat, and then he's wrangling with the buttons of her blouse, and she understands the urgency, finds her own fingers fumbling, clumsy and impatient, over the clasp of her trousers. Once he's gotten her top out of the way, and notices her intention, a burning warm hand envelops hers. "Wait, I—"

In the span of all but a breath, he's got her flipped over, mattress at her back, James pressing into her front, his chest flushed against hers, skin scorching even through the barrier of her bra. His lips descend on every inch of skin revealed, words falling from between gentle nips and flicks of tongue. "I—want to—be the one—to take—it—off."

Lily sighs through a spilling grin, hips lifting as he drags her trousers down her legs, placing kisses over her stomach, thighs, knees, and then making a slow journey back up. She jerks off the bed slightly when his mouth presses gently, surprisingly over her knickers, right where she aches for him the most. But he's just hooked a finger around the lacy edge when she makes a soft noise, tugs him back to her with a grip on his hand.

"I need you inside me right now."

He empties a pleasured groan into her lips at that, tongue gliding over hers, disorienting thought and action as she struggles to rid him of his sweatpants and boxers through dazed motions. But even through a mess of intertwined limbs and fumbling hands, they manage to get the job done between them. And as James reaches for a condom on his bedside table—"I bought a few more after we… you know," he says through red cheeks—she rids herself of her bra and knickers, tossing the garments on the other side of the bed.

"Jesus, fuck, I'll never get tired of looking at you." His breath fans hot over her cheeks, fingers coming up to roll a nipple underneath his thumb as he finally, finally guides himself into her with his other hand. She feels her neck arching back, kiss broken, whimper vibrating in throat as he starts moving in quick strokes inside her. "Fuck, Lily—you feel—so fucking good!"

"Ah, God, yes," she cries breathily, fingertips digging into his shoulders, heels locking around his waist, back lifting to match each of his thrusts. James's face falls into the crook between her neck and shoulder, teeth gently clamping down, hand drifting low to find her clit. The barrage of sensations emptied onto her right then prompts Lily's eyes to fall shut, for a strangely agonized sound to filter past her lips. "James, fucking hell—"

His answer is a deep groan buried inside her mouth, and hers is the ruthless tugging of his hair between her fingers as their bodies continue moving together. Rather incomprehensibly, she thinks, this time with him might actually be even better than what they'd shared a few nights ago—a consideration, which, up until now, Lily hadn't even thought was possible. And why would it, when that one had followed a culmination of emotions and tension and attraction built over weeks and days and hours of torture?

And yet, despite the fact, now, with James's movements slowing inside her to become something languid, deep, intense, hazel eyes dark and locked onto her with something akin to wonder—it feels immeasurably better.

It feels a lot like making love.

When she unravels around him a few minutes later, limbs shuddering and wonderfully used, and he follows soon after with her name on his lips, an acute ache builds behind Lily's ribcage. James looks up with a soft smile on his face, fingers brushing over her cheekbones, a kiss placed on the corner of her mouth, and—

She thinks, just maybe, he feels it too.