Chapter 10
Lake
Life took on a whole new meaning after that first date, and for James, summer took on a whole new singular purpose: be with Lily as much as possible. July was zooming by faster than his latest Nimbus flew at top speed, and there were simply not enough hours in the day to sufficiently snog Lily Evans.
Seeing her everyday was suddenly not a fantasy but a given, as her and Mary made a routine of coming over to James's house in the afternoons that whole next week, sometimes even coming back in the evenings after dinner at home to sleep over in the sitting room, though James quickly found out that Lily's official story was that she was at Mary's.
They kissed in the broom shed, on the roof, behind trees, under blankets; they found moments of privacy long enough to sneak quick touches with frantic fingers; and they schemed—constantly—about how to get more alone. Lily was only allowed to take the car for fun on weekends, as her sister apparently needed it during the week, and though James's parents afforded him a general level of autonomy and there were many (many) rooms in the Potters' sprawling estate, the fact remained that his parents and Sirius were all usually at home during the day, and just the knowledge that they were there and could inadvertently chance upon them at any moment was enough to deter James from trying to hook up in the house. But Lily was insatiable for his fingers and James couldn't get enough of her hands on him, so it was really rather imperative they figure out a better solution than the desperate little trysts they were managing.
As luck would have it, Sirius was the one who actually came up with a workable idea for sneaking off.
It was a lazy Friday afternoon—a whole week since he and Lily had gone to the movies—and the four of them were lounging on the roof, sipping sweating bottles of Butterbeer, when Sirius said, "We should go to the lake this weekend."
Lily turned from smiling at James to look at Sirius. "What lake?"
James shared a knowing look with Sirius as his friend grinned and answered, "My lake, Evans."
Mary rolled her eyes as Lily's eyebrows drifted up her forehead. "You have a lake?"
James stuffed his fist in his mouth so he wouldn't laugh.
"I do," Sirius asserted proudly. "The Black Lake."
"Oh my god." Lily palmed her face.
"What?" Sirius feigned indignation. "It's named for me!"
Mary swatted his chest. "Shut up, you tosser."
Lily fixed James with an incredulous look. "He can't be serious."
Ale sprayed from Sirius's mouth all over a squealing and disgusted Mary as he gasped, "Evans! You've got to stop handing me so much material!"
She laughed good-naturedly and amended: "Fine. You can't sincerely mean we should go swimming at Hogwarts this weekend."
"Why not?" James grinned, feeling mischievous. "We have before."
Lily gaped at him. "But—how?"
Sirius shrugged. "Apparate to Hogsmeade and wander down to the lake. It's that easy."
"But we didn't even learn—"
"Ah." Sirius tapped her forehead playfully. "But I took my Apparition course in fifth year because I turned seventeen at the beginning of sixth year."
Lily's brow knit together in that adorable way she did when she was puzzling through something. "So that means you…"
Sirius grinned wolfishly. "Spent all of last summer Apparating these gits up to Hogsmeade? You bet."
Lily's mouth fell as she stammered, "But—the trace!"
The three of them laughed as James explained kindly, "Doesn't really mean anything for us. We live in magical households with parents Apparating everyday and House-elves doing magic all the time. And Sirius was Apparating us into a magical village next to a magical school, so our magic blended right in."
Lily looked outraged by this revelation as she glanced around the three of them, and it was Mary who spoke up next. "It's unfair as shit," she said apologetically. "We get to grow up around it all, and I mean, we're not supposed to do magic before we get to Hogwarts, or during summers, but of course we all do it."
James could tell Lily was some combination of annoyed and upset that would only get worse the longer they stayed on the topic of the patent unfairness of Muggle-born treatment, and though he knew she had every right to feel that way, he also couldn't stand to see her hurting in any degree.
"Hey," he said softly, hand clamping gently over her shoulder and giving a little squeeze. "So how about we flout their stupid rules and go swimming this weekend, yeah?"
A grin she looked like she was trying to suppress nevertheless forced its way over her face. "Yeah, alright, then."
And that was how James found himself—twenty-four hours, several owls, and multiple runs into Hogsmeade proper later—on the unused dock behind the train station, where first years would be boarding boats in only a month's time, surrounded by all their friends (including Marlene, returned from her family holiday to Greece), and utterly tormented by the sight of Lily Evans in a bikini (Here lies James Potter, struck down on first sight).
It was truly a glorious thing, that bikini: deep Gryffindor red, held together by the simplest of strings, and covering tortuously small amounts of her bum and those perfect breasts he'd once glimpsed in that maddening black bra.
There was a reason he'd spent most of the evening with his lower half underwater, especially after Lily sat on his shoulders for a solid twenty minutes and kept beating their friends in Hippogriff war.
By the time she unclenched her thighs from around his neck and fell backwards with a splash, he was at his breaking point.
"Hey." He caught her around the waist underwater as she surfaced. "Can we get outta here?"
She arched a knowing brow. "As in…"
His fingers squeezed into her waist as he pulled her closer into his side, and he jerked his head toward a curve in the bank. "As in, swim to the other side?" He nuzzled her ear. "Get out of sight for awhile?"
"Oi!" Sirius shouted from where he lounged back against one palm on the dock. "Get a room, you two!"
Lily teased, "I think that's our cue."
James sent Sirius a salute and shouted a grinning, "Aye, aye, Captain!" before turning to drift alongside Lily as they made their way around the bend, the cat-calling shouts of their friends fading behind them.
The moment they were out of sight, James pressed Lily against a small embankment, shivering as the heat of the lowering sun mixed with the slight chill to her skin as her body pressed along his. He kissed her, quick and a little haggard, as he told her, "Shit, Lil. I've been needing to—kiss you for—bloody hours."
Her arms looped tightly around his neck as she giggled into his mouth. "I thought it might just be me," she teased, which sent him spluttering.
"Just you? As if I could watch you in this…bikini all day and not be drooling after you?"
She only gave him a smug smile, like she knew exactly what that bikini had been doing to him—hell, like she'd planned it and he'd fallen hook, line, and sinker like the pathetic sod he was. Here likes James Potter, unable to survive a red bikini.
The next words out of her mouth made him do a double-take: "You're one to talk, you know. Looking fit as hell and keeping your torso above water so I just keep staring at your abs."
A slow smile spread over his lips. "Fit as hell, huh?"
She looked up at him darkly through her lashes. "As if you don't know."
He leaned closer, letting his lips just brush hers as he answered, "Maybe I just like to hear you say it."
Lily only mumbled something that sounded a lot like, "Fucking ego," before her kiss consumed him, her mouth soft and hot as her tongue teased his, and James kissed her back in utter disbelief. Not only was Lily Evans snogging his face off, but she was doing so in the sexiest scraps of fabric he'd ever seen, and she—Lily J. Evans, middle name unknown (he'd have to ask her about that—later), thought he, James F. Potter, was "fit as hell."
The bikini might be killing him, but at least he was dying happy.
Suddenly insatiable for her, he ran his hands along her hips and waist, breath hitching as he noticed the goosebumps that rose along her skin after his touch. She was smooth and slippery under the water, and James thumbed the knotted string interrupting his route up and down her side. Lily whimpered into his mouth at his touch, tightening her elbow around his neck, and wriggled against him, which did absolutely nothing to help the tent situation already happening in the front of his swim trunks. Not that he was embarrassed, because he'd spent enough time with Lily by this point for both of them to know he was so attracted to her that she had him aroused basically all the time. He just would like to last long enough to get a hand job instead of coming in his pants, was all.
Which, for the record, was easier said than done when Lily Evans was making out with him in a (red, skimpy) bikini.
Her chest pressed wetly against his, the division between wet fabric and slick skin noticeable where they touched, and as their bodies shifted under the water, mouths never leaving each other's, James started to notice Lily's leg hitching up by his hip. His hand went there instinctively, passing along her thigh, over her hip, and to her half-covered bum, which he palmed and squeezed while rolling his hips into hers.
"Oh," she whispered, breaking their kiss but staying close enough that their noses were still touching. "James, that—"
He rolled his hips against hers again while pulling her against him with his grip on her arse. "This?"
"Yes," she breathed, a little choked. "Gods, yes."
James rocked against her again, his own eyes squinting shut at the friction between them, and as Lily's legs wrapped more tightly around his waist, her hips moving in slow tandem with his as he kneaded and squeezed where he held her, the realization of what they were simulating hit him with enough force to knock the wind from his lungs.
"No, don't stop," Lily whispered. "That feels—"
"I know, but—hold on, see if this…" He trailed off as he executed on his sudden stroke of inspiration, maneuvering between them to shimmy down his swim trunks just enough to free his erection from its restraint. "Better?"
Lily kissed him hard as she twined her legs back around his middle and rubbed against him, pinning his length between them. "James," she whispered. "I'm getting—"
She didn't need to finish that sentence for him to know what it would be; hell, he was already starting to get close himself.
"Me too," he murmured. If he wasn't careful, her wriggling would undo him.
Her fingers knotted in his hair as she panted,"I want—fuck."
James nosed at her cheek, dotting kisses down the side of her face. "What d'you want, love?"
Lily paused a moment, then arched back against the bank behind her and pushed his head gently down toward her chest. It was as straightforward an instruction as he'd ever received, and he immediately dropped his lips to her collarbone with a groan.
This was new territory. He'd felt her up, sure, over her clothes and then under her clothes but over her bra. But kiss her there? That was the stuff of fantasy that James wasn't sure he was equipped to survive.
Being the daring and brave Gryffindor that he was, James nevertheless plunged ahead—or, rather, down—until his lips brushed over the gently heaving skin of her chest. Only then did he relinquish his hold on her arse, moving his hands instead to cup and squeeze those curves that had taunted him all day. Her breasts filled his palms, squished deliciously under his grasp, and, emboldened by her steady moans and the strength of her grip on his hair, he thumbed aside the scant fabric and lowered his mouth to a pebbled nipple.
Her reaction was immediate, body coiling, nails digging, whimper falling. Pride burned in his chest, and James swirled his tongue before giving her a soft little suck. Her skin tasted tangy with lake water, but James found he didn't care, not when her hips were bucking like that against his and her nails were scraping his shoulders and her mouth was moaning quiet little pleas of, "Oh, yes, James," and, "Don't stop, that feels so good," and, "Oh, I want to come."
That last one threatened to undo him, but it also reminded him of his other mission, the one he'd momentarily forgotten. So he switched sides, focusing his mouth on the pattern of licking and sucking that made her squirm, but also restarted the roll of his hips where they rubbed together underwater, separated only by the thin fabric of her bottoms.
"James." She clutched him tighter, back arching as she pressed her hips harder against him, and it only made him double-down on his efforts, flicking his tongue in the way she seemed to like and rocking his hips with a deliberate rhythm. He was determined to get her there, determined to make her shudder around him, and he was so lost in his own concentration on his simultaneous tasks that he hadn't even noticed her hand drift down until he suddenly felt his tip press into something soft and slippery and very much like skin.
"Lily," he gasped sharply, "what—"
"I just—I want to feel you."
He lifted his mouth from her chest and hovered by her face. "We're almost…"
"I know." Her breath hit his lips in warm little gusts. "And I don't want you to—not all the way. But I'm just so close that I—I want to feel you when I come."
His mouth went dry, but he managed to croak, "Like this?" as he took hold of himself and smeared his head around the top of her opening.
Lily shuddered and gasped, "Yes, gods yes."
James groaned then, nuzzling his face in her neck, but as he began guiding his tip around where he thought she wanted, Lily surprised him in covering his hand with her own. "Let me," she whispered. "And will you…"
But she didn't finish that request, so James nibbled at her ear and murmured, "Tell me what you want, baby."
He hadn't exactly meant to try calling her that—it had been more of a slip of the tongue, really—but Lily's soft little mewling noise made him think she liked it.
"Your fingers," she gasped. "Inside."
It had taken relatively little time over the past week for James to figure out that Lily's wish was his command, especially when it came to causing and witnessing her pleasure, so he pushed her bottoms back to the side and slipped two fingers inside her, curling and beckoning through her slick muscles while she maneuvered his now-very-swollen head where he'd normally be rubbing his thumb.
She arched, her exposed chest glowing in the soft moonlight, and through another whimper, she whined, "Please."
James took a moment to admire her, glistening like a grecian goddess, and then mumbled, "You're so fucking beautiful," against her skin before taking one breast back in his mouth.
"Yes," she cried as he sucked. "Fuck yes, James—"
Everything unraveled quickly after that. His symphony of touches overwhelmed her until her legs started to tremble around his hips, and then the rhythms of his own mouth and fingers became clumsy as her touch brought him closer and closer to his own edge.
"Lily," he said against her skin. "I'm close, love. But I shouldn't—"
"I'm on the potion," she cut him off. "It's okay."
His mind raced ahead of him, wondering when she went on it, whether that meant she wanted to do more someday, even if she didn't want to now, but before he could get too far in his own thoughts, Lily came, muscles clenching around his fingers and throbbing against his tip. Her body twitched in his hold, breast sliding out of his mouth, and he thrust up into her hand, length rubbing along her spasming opening, until his face scrunched to match hers and he followed her into climax.
Seconds passed sluggishly with their faces tucked in each other's neck, but eventually they gathered enough steadying breaths to be able to pull back enough to look at each other.
James started, "That was…"
"Yeah," Lily breathed, then giggled. "I might have to lay on the ground, my legs are so weak."
He chuckled with her, then boosted her up onto the grassy bank before righting his shorts and launching himself out of the water to sit beside her.
"Oh my god," Lily sighed as she flopped onto her back, eyes drifting closed. "I…maybe I was just that worked up for you, but…shit, James."
More of that familiar pride—something he was used to feeling now whenever it hit him, over and over again, that he was the one who had caused such pleasure—lit up his insides as he lowered himself beside her, propped on one elbow so he could gaze down at the way the grass tickled her skin and her hair—even darker now—spread out behind her.
"You're gorgeous," he said quietly.
Her eyes flicked open at that, dark green pools popping against porcelain skin as her lips started to curve in a playful smile. "Get down here."
He obliged, because how could he not? And when their kiss inevitably heated under the falling golden hour and her hands tangled deeper in his damp hair and she answered his hoarse whisper of, "Again?" with an equally eager, "Please," he slipped his fingers down the front of her bikini bottoms and wished he could pause time just to bask in this day, this moment, this light, this girl, who tasted like summer and made a lazy lake day feel a lot like love.
