A/N: Smut ahoy!
the first time
She'd never been carried up a set of stairs before. Another first to add to the collection.
His lips trailed fire down her neck, lingering where it curved to meet her shoulders as she fumbled with her keys. Every touch, every taste was a sensation that made her want to moan his name—something she didn't think Mrs Patterson in the next-door flat would appreciate, somehow. "James," she mumbled; he tightened his grip on her arse accordingly. "I—how am I supposed to—ohhhh god…"
He laughed softly into her skin, pausing to nip at her collarbone before lifting his head. His face was flushed a glorious pink, lips already kiss-swollen and nothing but heavy promise in his eyes. "Why are we still outside your flat, Lil?"
She huffed with some irritation. Okay, mostly arousal, but there was irritation in there, too. "I can't focus on finding the right key when you're—" She gestured vaguely to her neck. "I can barely remember my own name when you do that."
Another fond laugh, and he gently lowered her to the ground, stealing a quick kiss from her lips before he took the keys from her hands. "Here, let me," he said; as he moved, she took the opportunity to admire his broad back, the way his shirt stretched over his shoulders. Even his back was a turn-on: she really was in trouble, here.
A moment later, the door swung open, and he stepped aside, reaching for her hand. "Have you remembered your name now?" he asked; she smirked, sliding her free hand briefly up his chest, mainly because, well, she could. "If you need any help with that—"
"It's Dr Lily Evans," she told him, faux-prim as she tugged his hand, leading the way into her darkened flat.
"Doctor," he repeated, sidling up behind her as she switched on the lights; his arms slipped around her waist, drawing her in against his body. A pause as he let his lips once more find their favoured spot at her neck, and her eyes fluttered shut. "That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it…"
One of her hands rested on his arm around her; the other slid up to bury her fingers in his hair. "Someone wise told me—" A gasp spilled from her lips; she practically swooned in his arms at the sensation. "Told me I should be proud of it."
"This wise person sounds like he knows what he's talking about," James smirked, his hand sliding up and under her top, a delicious, heated path she was more than happy for him to take. "I think you should listen to him."
She couldn't help but take a tighter grip of his dark locks as his fingers found the lace edge of her bra, skimming with wanton precision along the curve of her breast. "He—oh, fuck—he hasn't had anything else wise to say yet…"
"What about…" His arm brought her somehow even closer to him, and the feel of his arousal pressed against her sent shivers of anticipation down her spine. "What about going to the bedroom? Seems wise, don't you think?"
She didn't even bother to find words to reply, just took tighter hold of his arm and dragged—dragged really was the right word, here; simply walking was not going to be enough—him towards her room. By the time they got there, she had spun round into his embrace again, her lips finding his in a heady kiss, laced with need and something that ached—no, throbbed, in the deepest parts of her.
With other men, she'd always felt a certain level of shyness, an uncertainty of what they were really getting into, of what they would expect from her. No doubt that was all coloured by her experiences ten years ago: the sense that at any moment, the floor could disappear out from under her.
Not with James. She knew what she wanted, she knew what he wanted—his every word from the pub, his beautiful, heartfelt words, had sunk into her soul and left her with an innate sense of trust, of love, that she'd never felt with anyone else before.
As for shyness? How could she feel shy, when he adored her so deliciously with every touch, every kiss, the way he drew her so close that they practically became one?
Oh, god, she was starting to think like a Spice Girls song again.
His hands finding their way back under her top distracted her—thankfully—from this train of thought, and she pulled back from the kiss, smiling, at the look of genuine disappointment on James' face. A look that didn't hold, because she slowly removed her top, casting the black fabric off across the room. Now was hardly the time to be tidy, after all.
His gaze caught, there, at her black strapless bra. "Well," he said, his voice hoarse.
"Yes," she smiled, watching as his hands were drawn back to her waist, pulled there like they were magnetised.
"Those are…"
"My tits, yes."
He met her gaze, an embarrassed grin crossing his lips. "Give me a second," he requested. "I never got this far back in sixth form."
She laughed fondly. "Your hands went there all the time."
"Yes," he allowed, "but I never got your top off. Regrets, I have a few…"
"Well," she said, reaching up to skate her fingers across his jaw, "you have my top off now, and I don't want to be critical, but you are wasting the opportunity."
"You're right," he agreed, face a solemn thing, and only paused a moment before he bent down to scoop her up—a dignified shriek her only reply—and carried her over to the bed. "And what a waste it would be…"
She barely had a chance to sink into the soft cloud that was her duvet before he crawled over her, his lips now painting a path from her clavicle, down her chest. "That…" She took a moment to gasp, to sink her fingers into his hair again. "That seems a good start…"
His mouth had reached her hips, where skin met denim, when he spoke again. "Never got in your trousers, either," he murmured, his fingers making nimble work of the button and zip at her waist. "Christ, Lil, are these things painted on? Your arse in these jeans…"
She giggled, lifting her hips as he painstakingly peeled the offending garment off her. "Skinny fit is the fashion," she replied. "If it makes my arse look good, then so be it."
"Good?" he repeated, pausing to throw her jeans over his shoulder. One hand rested teasingly at her thigh, fingers brushing the edge of her lace knickers. She took a moment to thank whichever higher power told her to wear decent pants that evening. "Good is an insult to your arse. Great—epic—the eighth wonder of the world—"
Lily propped herself up on her elbows. "You're getting distracted again."
"Right." A grin, and a wink, and he turned his attention back to her knickers. "I think eighteen-year-old James has died and ascended to a higher plane…" His lips brushed the lace edge at her hip; her head tipped back quite of its own accord. "Fuck, you're beautiful…"
"James…" His name came out as something between a whimper and a moan, her elbows giving way to let her fall back against the bed again. "Please…"
"You should know how beautiful you are," he murmured, sliding her knickers gently, painfully slowly, down her hips, down her legs. "You should be—celebrated, every year…"
"With what?" she asked, a gasping sound: his mouth was moving, now, up her inner thigh. "A parade?"
"I'm thinking something more…" His lips, at last, at the apex of her thighs, a million and one sensations that sent her back arching off the bed in delicious, agonising desire. "…private."
The fact that he would be good with his mouth was no surprise: he'd always been an intoxicating kisser, and his way with words had caught her at the tender age of eighteen. His ministrations, then, his tongue moving in beguiling circles at her centre, a pattern traced and retraced with the kind of open reverence of a master artist at his easel, left her breathless, writhing in the sort of ecstasy that she'd never felt before. A string of words, nonsensical and heated, spilled from her lips, intensity only growing as he moved his fingers to curl inside her. "Oh, fuck, yes, yes, James—"
And every word only pushed him on; he seemed to relish every ounce of her pleasure, delighted in coaxing more from her—for once, silent, no smart-arse comment or remark on her beauty, but it wasn't needed: she knew all she needed to know, with every flick of his tongue, with every twist of his fingers.
That pressure, building up inside her, a whirlwind of sensation like being set alight, every nerve ending burning, for him, and holy shit this was not what she was used to, and—
Her orgasm crashed through her, relentless and divine, a cry falling from her lips that felt like it was coming from someone else: she was outside of her body, too awash in that intense pleasure, his lips still working at her core to guide her through every wave, that delicious ebb and flow.
It felt like it could have been hours later, but was probably more like minutes, when she turned her face a little, finding James at her side now. Her chest still heaved, catching her breath like she'd just ran a marathon, and she used her remaining energy to pitch forward, to kiss the smile from his lips, to sink her hands into his hair again. "Holy shit, James," she mumbled into his mouth. "That was—fucking hell…"
"That was hell?"
She could taste his smirk. "You know it wasn't," she tugged his lower lip briefly between her teeth, eliciting a groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep within him. "I mean…fuck…" She still felt her heart pounding in her chest, her whole body still abuzz from what it had been through. "I didn't realise… I've never—it's not been…"
His fingers stroked along her jaw as he pulled back a little, catching her gaze; she knew she was flushed from exertion, as well as just, well, blushing at what she was telling him. "You've…" He paused, choosing his words with care. "Not come like that before?"
She shook her head, lowering her gaze to the collar of his shirt (and how was it even possible that he was fully dressed by this point? She was stripped down to her bra, and she assumed that remained only because he'd become distracted down below). "Um, well—no…"
"Lil." A pause, then repeated, with a little more insistence. She forced herself to look up, hoping her cheeks weren't flared as red as they felt. "I'm sorry that things have been…lacklustre in the past," he told her, sinking his hands into her hair; he looked, for a moment, distracted by the sensation. "But I'm glad you feel safe enough, that you trust me enough, to…let that happen." She may well still have been blushing, but she couldn't help the smile that blossomed now, too, as he leaned into brush his lips against hers, something gentle, a whisper of a kiss. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about here."
How easy it was, to be lost in his gaze, in his lips, in his words. She slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, the kiss a languid, lazy thing for a few minutes before she became aware, again, of the fabric of his shirt against the bare skin of her stomach. "James," she whispered.
"Hmm?" Distracted once more, it would seem, as his lips took a detour along her jaw, down the slender column of her neck.
"You're fully dressed," she pointed out, voice husky. "It's not just you who's been waiting to get under the clothes for a decade, you know…"
He chuckled, pausing to suck gently at the spot at the curve of her neck he'd discovered earlier, the spot that made her want to tip back her head and give herself to him entirely. "Sorry," he murmured. "I got waylaid with my head between your legs."
Now that was a statement that gave her palpitations. "So let's get them off," she prompted, her hands moving to the first fastened button on his shirt. "No time like the present."
At that, he hesitated, and so she did, too: everything they had done so far had been without pause, nothing holding them back. Oh, god, what if she'd said something wrong? Done something wrong? What if—
Luckily, James spoke and cut off the rapid cycle into despair. "We don't have to…do anything else," he told her, his face desperately, beautifully sincere. Fuck, she thought, something like a clenching in her chest. I'm in love with this man. "We don't have to rush, I don't—I'm not expecting anything, Lil."
"James," she said, her voice soft but sure, a steadiness there that brought his gaze into sharper focus. "I've been waiting to have sex with you for ten years. Don't make me wait any longer."
A smile, then, slowly dawning on his face, like he almost couldn't believe the situation he found himself in. "Are you sure? Like I said, I—"
"James," she said again, her hand slipping down his chest to rest on the insistent bulge at his jeans. "Will you fuck me, please?"
He groaned, a sound that sent heat throughout her body. "Fucking hell," he muttered, and surged forwards to kiss her. "Since you asked so nicely."
They made quick work, then, of his clothes, her words apparently enough of a catalyst to burn away any doubts. His shirt, jeans and boxers were flung haphazardly around the room in short order, and he allowed himself a few minutes of teasing through the soft satin of her bra before that was removed too. "Look at you," he murmured, his gaze roaming the pale planes of her body in open appreciation. "You're—fuck, you're a dream…"
She reached down to give his bum a squeeze, and he grinned at her, eyebrows raised in question. "Just to let you know you're not dreaming," she teased, and laughed with delight as he rolled on top of her, a simple and wordless reply with his lips finding hers once more.
One hand slipped down her front, finding that pulsing need between her legs again; his fingers, nimble and deft, slid into her centre as his thumb brushed her clit, sending her back arching, her hips lifting almost against her will. "James," she hissed, her fingernails digging into the taut muscles of his back that she had so admired earlier, now bared and hers to touch, to caress, to cling to as he pushed her closer, ever closer, to that fevered edge. "God, James—I need you…"
If she had hoped her words would galvanise him, she could only be disappointed, although given his efforts between her legs, disappointed wasn't really the word for it. His kiss was thorough, enchanting, enough on its own to make her lose her head a little, but then a flick of his fingers, a circling of his thumb, and she bucked against him again, moaning his name with what little strength she had left—undone, irrevocably, and deliciously weakened by his every touch.
She was so much closer now, she could feel it in a way she hadn't been able to last time—that pressure, intense and engulfing, but it was infuriating, because she could feel his erection pressed against her stomach, a taunting thing that she couldn't ignore—the need in her felt like an inferno, sweeping up everything in its path, and if he didn't—
"Condoms?" he mumbled against her neck, and she knew he heard her sigh of relief; she could feel his quiet laughter, against her chest, between her legs. "Please tell me you have—"
"Top drawer," she managed to gasp out, closing her eyes in blissful agony as he withdrew his hand and shifted over to her bedside table; at least she knew she wasn't the only one feeling the need to hurry, because his every movement was tinged with a frantic kind of urgency. The drawer was yanked unceremoniously open, tissues and tampons and a half-empty tube of hand cream cast to the floor until he found his prize. "You can clean that up later," she told him, and he shot her a grin so lascivious, so wanton, that she instantly reached for him again.
He moved willingly back into her arms, pressing a kiss to her temple, her cheek, her nose, her lips; her hands joined his in opening the condom wrapper with as much pace as decency would allow, and then he was above her again, his arms bracketing her as he found her gaze, hazel eyes a beacon. "You're sure?" he murmured, and she nodded, words now near impossible. He nodded, too, his face soft and serious as he leaned in to kiss her again. "God, I love you, Lil…"
Her reply was lost to the moans they gave in unison as he sank into her, a slow kind of stretch that sent her heart racing.
With the kind of build-up they'd had—a decade's worth of build-up, even if some of that was in the background during their years apart—she could imagine that it could be a let-down. That it could never live up to their now sky-high expectations of each other. It had been a worry, she could admit, that they wouldn't be worth the wait. That she wouldn't be worth the wait.
But she needn't have worried. Should've trusted in that rippling chemistry that had always existed between them, the shared heat of not just want, of lust and desire so intense it could blind her; but also of affection, of care that could bring tears to her eyes if she let it. The way he moved with her, his thrusts long, luxuriating in her body: she was an altar, and he was venerating, worshipping, exalting.
"Fuck," he mumbled, a word which was quickly becoming part of their sexual vocabulary: she'd already gasped and groaned it at least a dozen times. "Lil, you feel…incredible…"
He shifted his hand at her hip, sliding it along her thigh to bend her leg at the knee, and the new angle was enough to make her feel like she was spinning apart, an implosion so completely heavenly that she took a moment to mourn, briefly, the recent months they had spent not doing exactly this. "Oh, god, there," she moaned, canting her hips up in brazen encouragement; everything about him, about his touch, made her feel needy to the point of desperation. His answering thrusts, somehow deeper still, increasing now in pace, made her feel certain that he felt the same. "Please…"
His lips found the pulse point at her neck, pausing there a moment to suck, to lick, as if that was all that mattered, before he trailed them back up to her lips, catching her again in a deep, breathless kiss. "Evans," he murmured, and she smiled, a dazed, sweaty smile that she couldn't have held back even if she'd wanted to. "I'm—fuck, I'm not going to last much longer…"
She was close, too, teetering on the edge once more of what she knew now was overwhelming pleasure, of a feeling she thought she might want to chase for the rest of her life. And it wasn't just the impending orgasm—although that was part of it—and it wasn't just the heat of his taut body against hers; it wasn't just the way he knew to slip his other hand down between them, to find her clit again, that he already knew the touches, the patterns, that would drive her wild. She would want those things forever, of course she would.
But it was also the way he looked at her, his eyes dark, intense, but so loving; it was the way he tugged one more kiss from her lips, like he couldn't get enough of an action that they had damn near perfected aged eighteen; it was the way she felt, there with him—that life might be hard, there may be challenges, there may be times when the tears and the memories overwhelmed her, but no matter what happened, she would always find safety there, in his arms. In his gaze. In his heart.
She came for the second time with head tipped back, eyes closed tightly as she cried out his name. He didn't let up: coaxed her through it with every thrust, every touch, until she was putty in his hands, and he finally found his end, too, with a long, guttural groan, his face buried in her neck.
Maybe days passed, laying there with legs tangled, their heartbeats slowly returning to a steady pace together. She no longer cared about time—why would she? She had him.
He sank to her side, not wasting a moment before he drew her in close to him, his fingers skating up and down her spine. She tilted her head back to catch his gaze, seeing the whole world there, all for her. "I love you," she murmured, a sleepy smile spilling from her lips. He knew it, she knew it. Three words that meant more than anything she'd ever said. "So much…"
He kissed that smile, gifted her one of his own. "I love you, too," he promised, something else they both knew already. Knowledge inherent in every caress, every breath. "Worth the wait?"
One more kiss, before she settled against his chest; there, able to hear his heartbeat, a soothing sound, something she thought she could listen to for hours. "Worth the wait."