A/N: And, just like that, it's over. Love to you all.
Part III
If the first time they'd undressed each other was 'tender,' and the first time they started going down on each other was 'shatteringly euphoric,' the first time they actually had sex was—
James never could decide. If the words existed to explain all of the loving, lustful, longing, frantic, heated, desperate, impatient ways he felt in the midst of it all, he didn't know them.
If the words existed to explain all the further loving way he felt when it was over—but with a good portion of pure fucking contentedness added too, and a desire to do it all again as soon as possible—he didn't know them either.
He'd already loved her, and he known he'd already loved her for ages too, but he fell in love with her a little more that day—and not just because shagging her had immediately become his favorite pastime even after he'd only done it once. It was all in the way that she looked at and spoke to him, sights and sounds he could get lost in, and did get lost in them. He stopped understanding where she ended and he began, because they came together so easily, so perfectly, that he knew that she was it for him. He'd already known it, and she'd already reconfirmed that in a dozen different ways at a dozen different times, but she really reconfirmed in that day, because that day he wondered for the first time if she might love him too.
He also just hadn't seen it coming—the sex, the possible love, any of it—and that meant it floored him all the more.
She patrolled with him that night, which didn't guarantee that he would end up undressing her somewhere, but it did often enough for him to get a little aroused just from holding her hand and walking the corridors. He didn't hesitate to tell her that. Transfiguration, patrolling—what else could she make strangely erotic? He couldn't wait to find out, and he told her that too.
She laughed, but she cast him one of Those Looks that continued to hit him hard no matter how many times he saw them. "I was actually hoping you could clear up something that confused me about the match between the Cannons and the Kestrels last week," she said, her thumb stroking the back of his hand, and she said it like she had no idea what that would do to him.
He told her, of course.
"Evans, that's not exactly making me want you any less," he said, and she smacked at his arm lightly with her free hand. "I mean it! You know I love listening to you talk Quidditch! C'mon, you know that. The first time I caught you reading Quidditch Through the Ages—"
He'd taken the book out of her hands, thrown it over his shoulder, and snogged her senseless, because he knew she'd wanted to learn the game for him.
He hadn't just done it the first time he'd caught her reading it, either. It had happened again the second time, and the third, and finally she'd just taken to reading in her dorm so he'd stop impeding her progress, although that hardly helped matters. All that did was make him imagine her reading it in bed, and he'd never hated the girls' stupid enchanted staircase more in his entire life.
"Don't be dramatic," she said, that constant refrain. She didn't even give him the chance to interject that it wasn't dramatic to want his stupidly attractive girlfriend every moment of every day, but she also didn't need to hear it, because he'd already told her that several times over. "So, the announcer said something about one of the Kestrels' chasers using the 'Chelmondiston Charge,' and I just don't get it. I understand the concept, but who on earth would—"
They talked about Quidditch for five castle floors.
He could hardly think about much more than how much he loved her. She knew Quidditch by then, like she'd been a fan for years upon years, and not as if she'd created her own crash course on the subject because it was his life. Three months before, he very much doubted that she could have almost convinced him that the Kestrels would pull a better performance in their next match, but her logic behind it—location of the match, the stats behind each player, and a comparison to the previous year's season—had him nearly there. Three months before, she wouldn't have known enough about the Arrows' disastrous performance in the British and Irish League Cup three years prior to tease him over it, but she did by then. Three months before, if he'd said the terms 'haversacking' or 'stooging,' she would have looked at him blankly, but she brought the fouls up on her own without prompting.
He wasn't the only one who had noticed. By midway through the evening of the match between the Cannons and the Kestrels, Sirius had taken to listening to Lily and James discuss the match more than he'd paid attention to the announcer's voice blaring from the radio. He had fucking gawked at Lily curled up on James' lap, her head tipped back to argue points of the match with him, and it had taken everything in James not to laugh at the look on Sirius' face. "See, this is why I can't tell if you're more into her or if she's more into you," Sirius had said that night in the dorm. "She's done all that for you. When you first locked her down, I really expected her to have to ask me what a quaffle was at some point. Now look at her. It's mad."
James had fallen asleep smiling that night, lovesick fool that he was.
Yeah, she'd made Quidditch strangely erotic too. That was going to make his potential future with the Arrows very interesting, because how the hell would he cope with associating playing with wanting her?
He asked her after her Healing exam prep eventually, and she heaved the longest of long-suffering sighs—dramatic in its own right, in his opinion, although he didn't tell her that. She went on a brief tirade about the idiocy of some of the things they expected potential Healer candidates to know—how did a section on Care of Magical Creatures apply to the profession broadly, not just a single department?—and he halfway listened. He mostly just admired the expression on her face as she went off, because it reminded him of the irritated looks she had thrown his way for years, and he'd always liked watching some intense emotional display from her. He'd once considered it the height of entertainment, although snogging and touching and holding her had become his new height of entertainment. Nothing else really compared to that, because he loved those new intense emotional displays from her much more than irritation.
Did she agree? He thought she must, because after he'd laughed her out of her irritation—which he'd gotten rather good at, to his intense pride—she sent him another one of Those Looks, and his heart rate skyrocketed instantly.
She broached the subject on the third floor, near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where she'd snogged him weeks earlier after he'd just meant to quickly kiss her goodbye. He would never forget that spot, just like he would never forget where they were that night when she asked the first question that would seal it all. He would think on it every time he used that corridor, and for the rest of the term, just walking near there would leave him grinning
"I know we've talked on it a little, but what are your thoughts about sex?" she asked fucking casually, like she'd asked him a further question about Quidditch fouls.
He hadn't seen it coming, and he nearly tripped over his own feet.
They hadn't discussed actually doing it past vague references to the future, not since he'd first told her that he wanted to go that far if she did, but that he wouldn't push her. He'd meant it when he'd said it, but he'd meant it even more in recent days, because he couldn't imagine ever pushing for more when everything that they did do was so unreal. Maybe a world existed where he'd complain about not shagging her when she was so happy to use her hands and mouth, but he very much doubted it.
His voice refused to work for the span of several breaths. "Hypothetically and in general, or literally and with you?" he asked as soon as he could, his heart hammering painfully in his throat.
He didn't need the answer. She wore that look that he'd seen before, the one that came with all major decisions in her life, and he knew.
She hadn't looked at him until then, and he saw a faint flush on her cheeks just visible in the light of his wand. "That's up to you, I suppose."
His brain exploded.
It wasn't the sort of explosion that often came in the midst of fooling around with her, which happened typically when he climaxed. That explosion was a soundless explosion, one of physical release and blessed blankness, like his mind just stopped working.
In contrast, his brain shot into overdrive as he looked at her, ratcheting up to meet the speed of his pulse. About eighty different things flew through his mind at once, none of them a complete thought. He caught glimpses of things—fuck and yes and wait and Evans and holy fucking shit—but nothing concrete.
"I'm going to need you to spell this out real clear for me, love," he said eventually, and he only just kept his voice even. It was a struggle. "Are you saying—" Unwilling to put words in her mouth, he stopped short. Let her finish that.
"I'm saying I would really, really like to shag you," she said, and he had to stop walking at that. He would fall otherwise. He knew it. "You know." Her mouth quirked in the corners, and then she bit back a smile. "If you'd like."
He laughed out loud.
It was that sort of giddy laughter she still inspired in him, that holy-shit-this-is-Lily-Evans-saying-or-doing-this feeling that came frequently with any sort of close contact with her. It didn't even take much. Hell, he'd laughed a few days prior when she'd just kissed him in full view of everyone in Great Hall, because he'd only ever once dreamed of such a thing.
He also laughed because it was just her, her all over, to joke even then. No, it was them all over, because he couldn't help but ask, "Was it the Quidditch talk? Does that do it for you too?"
She couldn't hold back her smile at that. "It was actually when you almost admitted that I was righta bout the Kestrels. Hearing you admit defeat? That does it for me."
If that were truly the case, he would happily admit defeat every hour on the hour for the foreseeable future. He'd find things to defeat him. He might even lose a duel with Snape or two, just so he could verbalize that defeat to her.
If that had actually worked—if he'd lost a duel with Snape and had to deal with Snape's stupid smug looks for weeks, but it meant that she shagged him because of it—oh, that would mean he'd peaked, because he knew nothing would have upset Snape more than that. Even though Snape wouldn't know, James would know, and he knew his self-satisfaction would shoot through the fucking roof.
Those thoughts didn't exactly help his laughter, but that faded quickly when he drew her face up to kiss her, because anything and everything that didn't revolve solely around her flew from his brain. "When?" He didn't even care how eager that single word sounded. He was eager, so fucking eager. He couldn't hide that. He didn't want to hide that.
"Now, if you'd like."
For the first time—the first time ever—he didn't brush away the 'if you'd like.' For the first time, it gave him pause.
Fuck, he wanted her, and the need for her was more powerful than ever. His body had quickly reacted to his mind's realization that he was about to shag Lily Evans for the first time, and he'd already started to get hard.
But—
"Where?" he asked, and she caught the change in his voice. The playful smile faded off her face. "I've never wanted anything more in my life—that's not dramatic, it's just fact—but—"
He wanted to do it right. He'd meant it when he'd told Sirius that he didn't want their first time to happen on the heels of some Quidditch victory, pounded out in his dorm while his mates waited to ask him about it and take the piss out of him afterwards. He also didn't want to just shag her on top of some desk in some classroom (although that held its own appeal for another time, which he made sure to mention). He wanted to make it mean something, because she deserved that, and he wanted to give it to her.
He tried to tell her all that, although it probably came out more confusing than illuminating, because his mind—the traitor—had already started imagining what could come, and it made processing thought incredibly difficult. Still, she listened, and a little of her smile returned by the end.
"You do understand that this sounds a lot like you're laying out your terms, right?" she asked. "Go on, then. What are your terms?"
He exhaled a significant amount of tension. He could talk terms. He knew how to banter that way, and he would probably end up expressing himself better if he could lean on something known.
"Not in my dorm—at least not while my mates are hanging around the common room. Not in a classroom. I want a bed." He paused long enough to take a deep breath. "What are your terms?"
She hooked a handful of hair behind her ear. Her eyes looked impossibly green. "I don't have terms. The only thing I really want is for it to be with you. That's it."
If he had resolve—and clearly he had some, at least, even if it felt like a thread in that moment—it broke at that.
She hadn't even meant to break him. He saw that on her face in the brief second between when he swore and when he grabbed her to kiss her. Like so many other times, she really didn't seem like she knew what she did to him. Sure, sometimes she did, but when she didn't, it floored him.
He had her up against the wall in seconds, just a few yards away from where she'd dragged him after Defense Against the Dark Arts weeks before, only he pushed her then. It was all him at first, from the furious way he kissed her to his body pressed hard against hers to his hand reaching immediately under her skirt. It took her a little bit to catch up, but when she did, she did her best to temper him. Her hands were soft against his face, and she kissed his back almost gently, slowing things down.
"James, I'm not—" she began, and he knew where she meant to take things. 'I'm not making you do this,' he could almost hear her saying. 'We'll wait until we can meet your terms.'
"If you want this, I want this." His throat felt raw. "I've wanted this for years. Fuck it. I don't care where it is, as long as you're okay with it. Hell, Evans, I'll shag you here, if you'd like."
The second he said the last three words, she began to laugh, her face bright and brilliant. "Don't you dare—" The words died in her mouth when he slid his hand in between her legs, and she licked her lips when he began to stroke her over her knickers. "Oh," she breathed, just a single, soft word, and then the laughter crumbled off her face. "James—" It was a protest, but a feeble one at best. One of her hands dropped from his cheek to grip his shoulder, and she shifted her legs further apart. Her expression had changed utterly, from amused to raw, open desire, and it was that look of want, of need, of pleading, all those things he loved.
"Compromise." He had no idea where he pulled the strength from in order to speak, but he managed it somehow. "Classroom. I'll conjure a bed." If he had the mental capacity to perform magic at that point, at least. "And then I'm going to have to get you close, because I can't—I'm going to last ten seconds. That might be pushing it, honestly. I've wanted this for way too long to make it last, and I'm sorry for that in advance." He paused, a new spark in his brain. "Do you—there's charms for contraception, right? That's your wheelhouse. I don't fuck with Charms."
She gave a soft, breathless moan, and it took everything in him not to push her knickers aside then and there. "Yes, but—there are potions too, and I started that weeks ago. What—" His hand had frozen, and the hazy longing on her face faded as she looked up at him. "What?"
"Weeks ago?"
"Yes."
"Because you thought—"
"I thought I might end up losing my head and begging you to shag me when we were in the middle of something, because that almost happened so many times. I told you, you're dangerous, Potter. I knew this would—oh." She looked surprised when he gave up and gave in and moved her knickers aside so he could slide his fingers inside her—and it was genuine surprise, somehow. He could tell that just from the expression on her face, like she hadn't considered how that might hit him, and then her eyes closed and her hips lifted. "If we're caught—"
If someone came upon them in that moment, he would personally Confund them. It didn't matter who. Hell, he'd Confund Albus Dumbledore himself.
The idea of that entirely expellable offence got to him a little. It cranked his adrenaline up even higher, and he'd become an adrenaline junkie as a child. That feeling had made him fall in love with flying the first time he'd gotten on a broom, and then further with Quidditch, because the game was all speed and potential for disaster and chaos. That perfectly described feeling her up in a public corridor. The risk had his stomach twisting with further anticipation.
Yeah, he was done for. He'd known it for months, but comparing her to Quiddtich yet again—and realizing that she would indeed win over Quidditch in his affections, if he was honest with himself—just rubbed it in further.
"Tell me you want me again," he said, thumb brushing her clit, and she gave a faint sound of impatience. "Just—I just want to hear it again. One more time. Well—no, tell me as much as you want, but I need to hear it at least one more time."
She followed his instructions immediately, as she never did except for during intimate moments when she wanted something. Nothing made him feel more powerful than he did when she opened her eyes and looked eager to follow his request. "I want you," she said, the words all rushed together. "It's all I think about sometimes. I've wanted you since we first started really snogging, and—I've never felt like that before. Not so soon or so badly, because I never wanted this to happen with anyone else, but—it's you. It's just like that with you, and I wanted it right away, so much that it almost scared me."
Fuck, she was good. She meant it—he didn't think she had it in her to lie just then—but that didn't mean she wasn't good at giving him what he wanted at the same time.
When it came to her, his ego was connected to his cock. He'd discovered that months before with hands on experience, but years earlier without her needing to do a thing. Every time she'd sent any kind of positive vibe his way—very, very rare back then—it had instantly made him want her. So to hear her say something like that? His ego roared in his chest, pleased beyond measure, which only increased when he began to trace small circles on her clit and she looked like he'd given her the fucking world.
She whimpered, that noise he loved, and her nails dug gently into his shoulder. "You were worth the wait," he said. Had he told her before? He'd told her that she'd surpassed his wildest hopes and dreams, sure, but he wasn't sure if he'd ever phrased it in quite that way. It came out tender, because, fuck, he felt that way towards her, his fierce, desperate need for her complemented by the fact that he loved her so much that it sometimes hurt to breathe. "I wanted you so fucking bad for years. It drove me mad sometimes, but—you were worth the wait and all the lovesick moping and all the times you yelled at me because I wanted your attention. You're worth it and then some. I've always been yours, even when you didn't want me, but I can't believe you're actually mine. Fuck, I can't believe you're mine."
Watching her enjoyment of his words play out over her face—and feeling her enjoyment of his words between her legs—would go down as one of the single most gratifying moments in his entire life.
"Where?" she asked, her voice tight, and he knew what she meant immediately without her going any further, but she did. "Where, because you can't touch me like this and look at me like this and talk to me like this and not expect me to want you to take me somewhere and show me all that."
He wrenched himself away from her, cock aching and mind racing and body pleading with that racing mind to push himself back against her. Third floor. Defense corridor. If he had the Marauders' Map in front of him so he could hunt down a room so he could shag the girl of his dreams because she was begging him for it, where would he go?
He had Hogwarts' layout more or less memorized by then, but it took him longer than it normally would have for his mind to locate an empty room. Still, he managed it in the end.
Then he managed to somehow resist grabbing her again while he led her there.
Then he managed to conjure a bed while she locked the door and silenced the room, although that took considerable effort. She just made magic hard, because he could hardly concentrate on anything other than what he knew waited for him once he managed his task, and conjuring wasn't easy magic.
Her ability to shut off his magical abilities had become rather commonplace, it seemed. She'd never stop taking the piss out of him for forgetting to silence his dorm. Really, that was probably why she'd offered to silence the room herself, and honestly? He couldn't blame her for that.
Still, he managed a lot, if he said so himself. The fact that he could do any of that when he knew exactly how wet he'd made her was pretty damn impressive. Yes, he did give himself credit for functioning in basic ways around her—thinking, walking, casting. She made all those things so fucking difficult.
Then he had her, and he literally threw his wand aside to take her to the bed that had finally materialized. He threw everything aside—his glasses, her tie, his shoes, her skirt—completely uninterested in where it all ended up. His tunnel vision had zoomed down so solely on her that if someone had asked what he planned to do after shagging her, he wouldn't have had an answer, because he wasn't even sure if time existed outside of that moment with her. It certainly felt like it didn't, like nothing else—past or present—had any impact on him or her or them.
Having her wasn't just about shagging her, although they'd become unintentionally entangled in his thoughts. When he said he wanted her, he absolutely meant physically—as any idiot would have known by looking at his trousers—but he also meant that he wanted something more than that that. He wanted her body and her mind and her heart, all of it, every piece of her. He'd basically offered all of that up to her on a silver platter from the moment she'd agreed to go out with him—or sooner, honestly, because he hadn't joked when he'd told her that he'd always been hers. She'd given him pieces in return, and he knew she didn't take any of it lightly. She took confiding in him seriously, something she didn't do with most, and she'd slowly opened up to tell him about things like her fears for the future, and her sadness over her sister, and her little hopes for their time after Hogwarts—their time after Hogwarts. She'd given him pieces of her body too, much in the same slow, methodical way, more than she'd ever given anyone else. He knew she took that seriously too, even if they bantered about it much of the time. Still, he wanted her heart most of all—and fully. Somehow, that had become connected in his mind to fully having her body.
She wouldn't shag him until she was sure about him—about them—something he knew even though she'd never put it in those terms.
Apparently she'd become sure, and he couldn't see that in any way except her either falling in love with him or maybe loving him already. Maybe that was stupid and deluded and he'd read way too into things—he'd always done that with her—but at the same time—
At the same time, when he lowered her gently to the bed and told her that she was so beautiful that it was almost criminal (and that it had felt like a personal crime against him for years, her looking like that when he couldn't do a fucking thing about it), she looked at him with such tender fondness that he just knew.
She loved him, or teetered so close on the edge that he probably would have taken it that way even if she wouldn't have qualified it as such herself.
"Dramatics," she said as he knelt between her thighs to drag her knickers down her legs, the last bit of clothing between them. He could see her smile in the moonlight that filtered in through the windows, but he didn't need to see it to know it was there. He could hear it in her voice.
"Evans, you haven't even seen dramatic." She laughed, but he knew he'd show her that he wasn't joking, and probably in short order. "Don't let me rush things if I get too excited. I want to remember this."
That was a lot easier said than done, because it was much harder to remember that when he really looked at her. She'd laid on his bed in his dorm in an identical manner—flat on her back, legs bent up at the knees and spread to make room for his body—but it looked entirely different knowing he would soon fit between her legs in a totally different way than he ever had before. He ran his hands up her legs, skimming her inner thighs from her knees on up, a path he'd painted dozens of times by then. It still held its allure, like everything with her still held its allure, but it looked even better than usual, because—
Yeah, because he was going to finally shag her. He'd think that with every part of her, every way he touched and kissed her until the final act. Hell, even just watching her bite her lip was better than usual. Every little bit seemed new again and better than ever, which almost alarmed him, because he still hadn't even gotten used to hearing her say his name or say 'fuck' in a pleased way. How could things get better than they already were? What kind of obsessive monster would he become after that night?
He couldn't wait, honestly. That obsessive monster might just be his final form. It certainly felt like it could be.
Still, he wanted to take his time. He did. He wasn't going to just collapse on her in a sweaty heap sixty seconds from then and have her wonder, is that it?
She wasn't about to make that easy—although he doubted she even knew that she tested his patience. She lifted her hips as his hands trailed higher, offering another impatient noise, and the need to just give her what she wanted overwhelmed him. He bent to kiss her, fitting his body neatly over hers, but it hardly helped matters even if he could no longer see her. He could feel her, every bit of her skin on his and her legs gripping his hips and her hands in his hair, and—
"James."
Holy shit, she was going to kill him just with her voice.
He shifted to kiss her neck, determined not to look at her when she sounded like that, all breathless and longing. Her arms had moved down around his back, and she clutched his shoulders in the way that had always felt admiring without her saying a word.
"James, you were touching me in the corridor and now you're not and I'd like to know why."
Fuck, he loved her.
The longing in her voice had faded into a sort of vague crossness that sounded no less breathless, and he did look at her then, although he immediately wished he hadn't. He'd started laughing against her neck, but that stopped the second he saw her face, because she looked almost upset from wanting him so much. She was all big eyes and bitten lip and, fuck, he was only human. He loved her and she looked like she needed him. What else could he do?
"Whatever you want, love." He brought the hand that had lingered near her side back down between her legs, and she gave a sigh that sounded like relief when he resumed what he'd started in the corridor, those small circles to her clit and his fingers inside her. "I'll give you whatever you want."
The pleading on her face cleared immediately, that nearly-sad look replaced by something so eager that it strangely reminded him of her excitement when she spoke of something she loved—brewing or Healing or her friends or some new book. Apparently he'd somehow managed to rank up there with those things, just another perfect stroke to his ego.
"Will you use your mouth?" she asked, and that told him everything about where she was at in terms of arousal, maybe even more than the way she felt between her legs. She offered no hint of embarrassment, just all fervent desire, which meant she'd surpassed the threshold to blush or hold back. Every time he got her there, it felt like yet another stroke to his ego.
"You know I will," he said. Watching her fall apart under his mouth, transforming from the brilliant, intimidating, powerful woman he loved into a pleading, shaking mess, had quickly become a favorite pastime. It was power, and pleasuring her always felt that way, like he'd somehow achieved some great feat. Only he made her feel that way. She said his name like she'd forgotten all other words that existed. It was territorial and he knew she'd call it as that if he admitted it, but he fucking loved knowing that he had her. She was his.
He knew he said that to her more than once as he made his way slowly down her body. I can't believe you're mine, I can't believe you're mine, he said as he spent his time on each of her breasts. It was all interspersed with other things bits of heated compliments—she was beautiful, she was incredible, she was amazing—because once he started he couldn't stop.
"I just want you to get it," he said as he kissed his way slowly down her hip. She'd buried her hands in his hair by then, and he could feel the tension in her hands that ran up her arms. She clearly only just held back from just pushing him down to join the hand that still worked between her legs, and she made a quiet, strangled sound when his lips finally brushed her clit. "You don't understand how much I want you, Evans. You don't even have to do anything—"
"James, this is me officially begging you." When he glanced up at her, he found her looking back, her expression pleading. "Please. Please use your mouth. I—fuck, baby, I need it. I need—"
Later, looking back, he would feel rather proud of himself from holding off after that initial 'please.'
He gave up and gave in, and she rewarded his capitulation with a sort of broken cry. The second he heard that sound, he knew he could get her close quickly. She needed him, as she'd just said, and with such ferocity that he had to wonder if she'd spent most of their time patrolling trying to summon the nerve to ask him to shag her, and had gotten herself excited in the process. It wouldn't have surprised him one bit, just as it didn't surprise him that he really, really liked the idea of her getting wet as she thought about shagging him while they talked about Quidditch.
Yeah, Quidditch was going to get attached to shagging her real quick.
It really hardly took much to get her where he wanted her, which was close but not over the edge of climax. He wanted to be inside her when she came—how many times had she come on his fingers and he'd imagined how it would feel on his cock?—but he also knew the hair trigger he would have the second he actually got inside her. Eventually, when the pressure of her hands in his hair behind more insistent and he knew he'd have her there in another thirty seconds or so, he pulled back.
She protested. Her impatience noises returned, redoubled, but she could hardly speak from the pace of her breathing. His own chest rose and fell just as rapidly.
"Please make me come," she said the second she could, and he was fairly certain he never needed to hear any other words in his life. He could live and die happily with just those words. "James, please—"
"You're sure?" He moved back up to kiss her, and his cock replaced his hand and mouth, slipping between her thighs—literally slipping, because she was so wet that he could slide his cock over her again and again, never quite inside her, but nearly. They'd played that game before, walking that line of how close they could get, and it always left him dizzy with desire by the end of it.
He no longer felt dizzy. He just felt frantic.
"Tell me if you want me to stop," he said, words forced past the tightness of his throat. "I will." He meant it—he really, really meant it—but he also knew how badly he'd hurt to call things off there. His entire body—his mind—his soul—ached from wanting her.
"I want you."
Oh, thank fuck. He didn't need to hear more than that.
It came quickly after that—his hand reaching down to line his cock up with her entrance, his eyes locked on her face to take in every second, her hands already traversing his back, and then—
Then he was inside her.
He went slow, as slow as he could, set on giving her time to adjust and going at her speed, but the slow pace almost made it harder. He could feel every centimeter that slid inside her, the pleasure agonizingly, wonderfully drawn out, so good it was almost painful.
One of her hands clutched his shoulder, and she drew the other one up to touch his face. The cup of her hand on his cheek felt gentle, again all tenderness, and he was already gone just from the physical sensation of it all, but the intimate look on her face sent him even further out of his head.
He knew he said her name, and more than once. Each time, it hit him all over again.
He was inside Lily Evans.
Nothing—nothing on earth—would ever compare to the way that first time made him feel.
"Are you—are you alright?" he asked, and his voice sounded thick. "Does it—"
She didn't look like she hurt, and she shook her head to the second, unasked question. "No. No, just—give me a second—"
He would give her all the time in the fucking world if it meant staying inside her.
It took her a few seconds, but she adjusted quickly, and she nodded at him, lifting her hips slightly. Just that, the smallest shift in angle, sent shockwaves up his body and made him groan.
Thank Merlin no one could overhear him that night, because he was going to lose his head. Dramatically. He just knew it.
"Slow," she said, and her fingers contracted tighter around his shoulder when he began to move. He heeded her instructions.
That first thrust inside of her was indescribable.
The second thrust felt good.
The third felt great.
And the fourth—
By the fourth it felt so fucking good that he immediately rethought his plans to play for the Arrows—assuming they'd sign him. No, he'd much rather devote his time to shagging her. He'd devote his life to that if he could.
He started to fall apart even then. After the first few seconds, he knew that he'd already started approaching the beginning of the end.
The way she began to talk didn't help matters at all—although, fuck, he loved it.
"Jesus Christ, Potter," she said.
Potter.
He couldn't look at her after that. Hearing her call him that casually still gave him a little thrill even in normal conversation. To have her call him 'Potter' while she spoke words she'd once hurled at him in anger all the time, and to hear those words sound brand new with something that encapsulated pleasure and wonder? That could make him come right there, easy.
He ducked his head into her neck to suck at her pulse point, and the hand that had previously cradled his cheek returned to his back. She continued talking, her voice heated. "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck—yes. Yes, yes, please—"
He'd sped up a little with each 'fuck,' and that had eventually drawn her yeses. Every rock of his hips hit her clit, and he could feel her tighten each time, dragging him closer and closer to the edge. She was right there along with him, which became even more evident when she wrapped her legs around his waist. That did it for her in a way he'd only ever dreamed about—and he had dreamt about over and over and over again—because her head fell back as she made a new sound, one unlike any he'd yet head from her. It was hot and hoarse and frantic, an unintelligible cry that didn't need words for it to be the single greatest thing he'd ever heard.
Fuck, he wished the whole common room knew about that and would spread it in the corridors. He wanted everyone to know that he'd made her sound like that—no, that his cock had made her sound like that, because even though he knew it was territorial and immature and ego-driven and ridiculous, that somehow made it better.
All the things he usually said to her had died in his mouth before they'd even started. He'd lost the ability to form the thoughts necessary for complex speech, which meant that he fell into the same things he'd told her when he'd made his way down her body.
She was beautiful. She was so fucking beautiful and it would never stop blowing him away.
She was incredible—and she felt incredible, better than he'd ever imagined, and he'd basically spent three and a half years imagining that very moment.
He couldn't believe that she was his. After all those years of wanting her—and thinking about her, dreaming about her, just generally losing his shit over her constantly—he'd somehow done it. He'd somehow gotten her to want him back, although he really had no idea how he'd done it, even then.
Soon—so soon, too soon—he'd gotten to the point where he knew the inevitable loomed just around the corner. Wonderfully—but horribly—he could tell she'd gotten to the same place. How many times had he gotten her close with his fingers and wondered what that telltale mounting pressure would feel like on his cock? Honestly, he'd probably thought about that literally every time he'd made her come, because he was certain, one hundred percent certain, that nothing on earth could feel better than her coming around his cock.
He was right. Well, half-right. He'd split that pleasure fifty-fifty with how it felt for him to come, although his climax was so entwined with hers that he couldn't really disentangle them.
"Love—" he said, the word choked out into her neck in a tone unlike anything he'd ever heard from himself. "Love, I'm—"
She didn't need him to finish to know what he meant to say. "I know, I know," she said, and her nails pressed into his shoulders promisingly. "Just—I'm so fucking close, baby."
With those five words, Lily Evans would forever be the only woman he'd let call him 'baby' ever again. The endearment became hers. Forever.
He swore into her neck, a heated string of expletives that still didn't encapsulate exactly how it made him feel to hear her say that. There weren't words to explain how it felt like her words seared his skin and went deep into his chest, where he would hold them forever just to remember exactly how he felt in that moment. "When I come, where—" Did he have to finish that question? Would she understand that it was more or less a warning that he'd finish inside her if he kept it up, and he wanted her to give him the okay or tell him no, just as when he'd warned her the first time before he'd come in her mouth?
She understood.
"You can come inside me. What—James—" His name came out without the pleasure that had colored her tone every time she'd said it before then. It was a protest, almost a scold, because he'd frozen, fucking throbbing inside her, so close that he had no idea how he held back.
He jerked his face out of her neck to look at her, which only made things harder. Once again, she looked so desperate for him that it made his soul ache—that wasn't dramatic, but just fact—and he saw none of the realization on her face of what her prior words had done to him.
Fuck, she still just didn't get it. She didn't know what she did to him, what kind of power she had, or how she could lord that power over him and bend him to her will if she wanted. She had no idea.
"Say that again." His throat felt raw, burned from the speed of his breaths. "Love, please say that again."
Was there anything he wouldn't have done to hear her tell him that a second time? In that moment he really thought not, which left him suddenly very glad that she didn't understand what she did to him. It was probably for the best—not because he didn't trust her with that sort of power, but because the extent of it was almost embarrassing.
One of her hands went to cup along his jaw, and he could feel her trembling a little. "Come inside me," she said, and just like that, it was no longer permission but a command.
He liked that even better, to his total lack of surprise.
"Fuck. Fuck. Evans—" It was all uninventive, just the only things his brain could even think. That difficulty suddenly redoubled, because the second he started to move again, she clenched so tight around his cock that he went almost dizzy from the sensation. "I know you're close. I know you're close." She only got closer still, her expression an open map of pleading need, and he knew he had to reflect that back at her as he spoke. She looked just like she had every time he'd spoken to her when working her up—like it was better than anything else he could do to get her there. He kept going, his words rambling and feverish and spoken without thought. "Come, love. I want to watch you come. I want to feel you come. It's been my fantasy for years, Evans. There. There, just—"
She came.
He saw it coming. Literally. He saw it written on her face, and he heard it in the very specific noise he'd started to recognize as something unique to just before climax, and he felt it as everything inside of her built impossibly high and just broke.
It was the most incredible thing he'd ever experienced. Every other thing they'd done suddenly took a backseat—still incredible, still things he wanted to do, but preferably as companions to what he knew he'd want every time he so much as kissed her from then on. And every other thing he'd done in life paled compared to any of those experiences with her—even Quidditch. Fuck Quidditch, really. Fuck everything except making her come. That was all he wanted to do for the rest of time.
Then he came, and it was curtains for his sanity.
He'd thought that had happened years ago when he'd first started fancying her, but he was wrong. He'd somehow held onto some semblance of sanity over the years—at least enough to function more or less as a normal person while he pursued her—but that fled entirely as he gave up and gave in and came.
He came harder than he ever had in his life, and he knew he'd never spend another hour not wanting her. He knew then that there was no better feeling in the world than coming inside Lily Evans while she pulsed around him and watched him almost hungrily—that wasn't dramatic, just fact—and he was already entirely addicted.
He kissed her after he came back down enough to move a little, but gentler than he had all night. His previous furious need had faded into a deep, solid warmth, something stronger than he'd ever felt towards her before. He knew enough to know that it came from how stupidly in love with her he felt at that moment, and not just because she'd given him something he'd dreamt about for years. He loved her more than ever in that moment because he knew that giving him that had meant something significant to her, something she only wanted with him, and it wasn't a declaration of love, but it was as close as he'd yet come.
She smiled against his mouth, and she had that look of sweet contentedness that always appeared after she came. "Your hair is a real mess," she said, her fingers heading that way.
And so the first thing they spoke of after their first time was his hair, and the first thing she did was try to right it for him.
He hadn't known what he'd expected or wanted to happen, but that was somehow perfect.
"I have this new theory," he said, and he kissed her again. He was fairly certain that he'd never stop kissing her. "I think you hated when I'd mess my hair up for all those years because it made you think of shagging me, and you wanted me even back then and hated yourself for it."
She tipped her head back as she laughed, and somehow that was perfect too.
"Sure. We can go with that, if you'd like. I'm sure your ego needs that boost. You have nothing else to be happy about right now." She gave up her efforts at his hair and dropped her hands. "Will you hold me?"
That meant pulling out of her, and as much as he hated that, he loved having her curl up into his side as he stretched out on his back. The silence that developed between them was more companionable than anything he could remember experiencing with anyone in his life.
He couldn't stop smiling.
She knew without even looking at him. She'd rested her head against his shoulder and left it there as her hand played across his chest. "If we go back to the common room with you looking like that, everyone is going to know—which, as I'm saying this, I'm realizing you probably wouldn't mind. That was a life goal for you, wasn't it?"
He'd never exactly told her that shagging her was one of his life goals—at least not in those words—but…it absolutely had neared the top of that list.
He tipped her chin up to look at him, and left his hand against her cheek. She was still flushed, and her lips looked exactly like he liked them best—red and slightly swollen from his mouth. "Everything with you is a life goal, love," he said, and she rolled her eyes, although her smile remained fixed. "I mean it. Getting you to agree to go out with me was a life goal. Kissing you was a life goal. Hell, even just holding your hand was a life goal. You've personally checked like three hundred different things off that list. Thank you."
"You're welcome, I guess, although it's mad weird to thank a woman right after sex, Potter. It feels very formal."
"I'm going to thank you every time now."
"I expect nothing less."
Fuck, he loved her.
"Did it hurt?" he asked—and he tried to stop smiling at that, really, but he couldn't, which made him feel like a real git.
"No." She pushed her hair away from her face, and it spilled over the arm he'd wrapped around her back. "It was different—uncomfortable at first, maybe, but nothing worse than that." She laughed softly under her breath. "Dorcas said it would probably only really hurt if I wasn't wet enough, so—that wasn't an issue."
He snorted. "Your dorm conversations sound way more interesting than mine."
What would that even look like, Lily talking about something like that with her mates? Would she get embarrassed and blush like she did sometimes with him? Was she more open and brazen? What exactly had she told them about her plans for him that night?
He only asked the final question, even though the others interested him just as much.
"I didn't tell them I was going to go for it tonight, but they knew it would be soon." There she gave that familiar duck of her head, something that looked almost shy, an emotion he still couldn't believe affected her. "They've had to listen to me complain a lot about how badly I wanted you, so they were very aware it was just a matter of time."
His face was going to start hurting from smiling soon.
"How do I get invited to these conversations? Because I'm pretty sure I've had that fantasy before—probably a lot, actually—where I overhear you telling your mates that you just can't resist me—"
"Fuck off." She laughed as she said it, and she looked herself again, the lift of her eyebrows familiar and taunting. "You're so—"
"I'm serious, Evans. I've definitely thought about—"
She kissed him, and he knew she did it in part to shut him up, but that didn't bother him. Really, it was kind of foolish on her part to show him that she'd employ that tactic if he annoyed her. It just made him want to annoy her more.
He ended up on his side, her pulled as close to him as he could manage and her legs tangled in his and one hand in her hair and the other on her arse while he snogged her for no other reason than just to snog her. He didn't expect it to go anywhere else—he knew it couldn't go anywhere else for him for at least a little while—but it was somehow every bit as good anyway.
It didn't matter that he'd just come harder than he ever had in his life. He still wanted to kiss her and hold her and touch her just as much as ever.
Yeah, goodbye any lingering sanity. He was about to become a man obsessed.
"Why tonight?" he asked, running his hand up her back. Even that still thrilled him a little—or a lot.
"I don't know." Her mouth was just removed from his, their faces so close that they almost touched. It made her a little difficult to make out clearly, but he didn't need to see her expression to hear the thoughtful cadence of her voice. She spoke like she often did when trying to puzzle out some bit of homework, as if she worked it out by trying to explain it to him. "I thought about it a lot the past couple of weeks—"
Holy fucking shit, thank Merlin he hadn't known that. He would have spent those weeks driving himself obsessively mad, waiting on pins and needles, unable to think of anything else.
"—but tonight you made me laugh about something—I don't even remember what—and I was kind of like…okay. This is it."
This is it.
He hoped he didn't read into the significance of that.
"You laughed me into bed," she said, her smile small and private and entirely for him. "It has nothing to do with how much I fancy you or how crazy I am about you or how happy you make me. Not a thing. It was the laughing."
His heart felt full enough to burst.
"I'm going to need all of that written down and signed for posterity," he told her. His face had officially started to hurt from smiling. "I want future generations to hear that—and this generation too. Oh, I really want this generation to hear you say that. Say it again."
"No." She ran her fingers through his hair, the motion somehow gentler than usual. "Maybe later. Make me laugh. Entertain me, Potter."
Oh, he would entertain her forever if she'd let him.
xxx
The first time they touched each other was tender.
The first time they went down on each other was shatteringly euphoric.
The first time they had sex was indescribable.
Yet James would swear then and later that none of that—none of it—topped how he felt the first time they exchanged the words 'I love you.'
It went nothing like he'd planned or imagined. Truly, he hadn't really planned anything—at least nothing concrete—but he'd imagined plenty. He'd never tell anyone—not Sirius, not Lily, no one—but he'd had that fantasy frequently since fourteen too. Right along with all of his dirty thoughts and ones more pure, like taking her to Hogsmeade or making her laugh or holding her, he'd imagined her saying I love you to him, because of course he had. He didn't know if that was normal or not for a lad at fourteen—and on and off until he hit eighteen—he didn't think so. Again, things with her had never quite made sense. His sanity shot right out the window even just thinking about her.
He'd imagined the exchange of love so many times that he knew that he wanted it to be special, whatever it looked like. He wanted to not just tell her he loved her, but show her, and he wanted it to be worthy of her. He wanted it to be every bit as incredible as she was, because she deserved that.
Yeah, he'd lost his head over her. Entirely.
Yet when it finally happened, none of that went to plan. Naturally. Everything was like that with her—nothing planned and all surprises, yet always the best moments of his life.
In the days that followed the first time they slept together, he wanted her more than ever. He wanted to kiss her, and stroke her hair, and make her laugh, and listen to her talk about brewing or healing or her mates or whatever she wanted—and he also wanted to tear her clothes off, of course. That went without saying. He could almost see himself becoming that new monster, his final form, in the way that he acted—just a man obsessed, a man besotted, a man in love.
"Ah, it's our friend Prongs," Sirius said a few days later when James returned to the common room from Quidditch practice. He glanced up from his chess match with Remus and then returned his eyes to the board. "You lads remember Prongs, right? Real bossy, has a new obsession with coursework, snores really bad when he's sloshed? Ring a bell? He was our friend once, I think, but it's been so long—"
He made his point. He really did. James knew his mates felt a little neglected, even if Sirius took to complaining through jokes. It helped that his friend group had merged with Lily's with surprising ease, but he also spent much of that friend time flirting outrageously with her—like he spent pretty much every moment he could, really.
So he tried. He tried to devote more time to his friends, time without Lily and Dorcas and Mary, like he and his friends had spent every hour of every day before he'd gotten together with Lily.
He explained all that to her one night perhaps a week after he'd made it his personal mission to shag her all over the castle. She held his hand as they patrolled together, as she had from the moment they'd started dating—it honestly still thrilled him a little—and she squeezed it gently when he finished.
"I'm not surprised that they want your attention," she said, her thumb stroking the back of his hand. "I get it, because I like your attention too."
Lily Evans said that. Lily Evans, who had once told him she'd rather date the giant squid than him, liked his attention.
He knew that by then. If she didn't like his attention, she wouldn't have even consented to their first date, let alone all the rest. Yet hearing her put it like that—fuck, would that ever get old? Would something like that ever not send a little thrill up his spine and make him smile one of those face-hurting smiles?
She could have called him out on that, because she certainly noticed his expression, but she didn't. The corners of her mouth quirked when she glanced at his face, but she went on as if she hadn't given him a verbal gift in that moment that held the happiness to sustain him for weeks. "I'm honestly surprised they've been as civil about it as they have been—well, I'm surprised Sirius has been as civil about it has he has been. He's never shared your affection like this before. I'm sure he's feeling sort of lost right now, not that he'd never admit it. Dorcas and Mary probably aren't real thrilled with me right now either, I'm sure, although they haven't complained. They've seen how happy you make me, so they're happy."
That was going to sustain him for another few weeks.
"How happy do I make you?" he asked, and she smiled at that, her eyes flickering towards him briefly.
"Oh, I'd rank it somewhere between the happiness I got from watching Nott trip all the way down that staircase the other day—which I know Sirius made happen, so don't act like he didn't—and the happiness I got from that recent 'O' on my Transfiguration essay. I mean, it's not like you're up there with the joy I felt from watching Remus lose his cool and curse Mulciber out the other day, because that was amazing, but you could get there, I suppose. Anything's possible."
He laughed with her, both at the memories that flew through his head—Nott falling head over arse down the staircase, his books flying while Sirius grinned; the look of intense pride on her face when McGonagall had handed her that essay with the 'O,' and how she'd thanked him for his help on it without any prompting; the red cast of Remus' face when he'd seen Mulciber hex a second-year student on a day that neared just too closely to the full moon for him to let it slide—and at the look on her face. She smiled at him so brilliantly, like watching him laugh along with her gave her a happiness that ranked pretty high up there, and then she lifted his hand and kissed the back of it. It was a gesture of mindless affection, sweet and simple, and in response—
"I love you," he said, the words tumbling out as he thought them. He'd thought them hundreds of times by that point, and never would have any idea why they fell out just then.
Panic exploded in his chest.
It felt like shagging her for the first time all over again—and not in a good way. He'd wanted to save the words so he could give them to her in a better way, something romantic that encapsulated the depth of his feelings, something he hadn't quite thought of yet. He wanted to do it right, like she deserved, and while he hadn't regretted shagging her—and had started patrol with her in the hopes that it would lead that way—he regretted his words immediately.
She stopped walking. They'd ended up somewhere on the fifth floor, near a tapestry of Mungo Bonham that rippled as the woven figure moved to heal the muggles embroidered around him—fitting, he thought later, given her plans for Healing in the future. Just like the spot on the third floor where she'd first propositioned him (and he'd taken to calling it just that—her propositioning him—almost immediately, just to tease her over it), he would never pass that tapestry again without thinking of that night.
"I love you too," she said, and he swore that the smile that lit up her face made her face glow, actually lit from within.
His regret vanished, just like that.
The words were too beautiful to be true, but he didn't question it. He didn't need to question it. He saw the depth and the truth and the sincerity in her expressive eyes, and that was all the assurance he needed.
There. There, he had peaked, and he knew it.
He grabbed her and kissed her with absolutely none of the careful thought that he would have weeks earlier. Grabbing her that way had become almost instinctual, something his body did and then his mind thought through, the opposite of all of his racing thoughts on following her lead and letting her set the pace. That worry had no place in a world where she'd given herself to him fully—body and heart—because she'd shown over and over that she wanted the same thing he did. She wanted him like he wanted her, and he doubted that anything more incredible existed on the face of the planet.
They ended up tangled together next to the tapestry of Mungo Bonham, her hands already at his tie and one of his hands underneath her skirt the second he could get to the hem. The other had flown to her face, where he cupped her cheek with all of the gentle tenderness his kiss and his touch and his body didn't express.
"Say it again," he said—no, begged, after they'd snogged so long that he'd forgotten everything on earth aside from her. "And then a third time, and a fourth, and—Evans, I've loved you for weeks, but I wanted to tell you in the right way. I never—"
"I love you," she said, and she wore a look that he knew reflected his own face: a smile more brilliant than he'd ever seen before.
She'd said some pretty dirty things to him since January, but nothing had hit him quite like those three words did. Blood rushed to his cock—more blood, really, because he was already hard—and his heart felt fit to burst out of his chest and his head fucking swam.
"I love you," she said again after his hand had closed around her hip to try to drag her closer to him, and he'd already sworn, but he gave a second vocal fuck at that. "This is perfect. This is exactly how I'd want you to tell me. It's just us, and—it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I wouldn't have cared how you'd said it, because all I care about is that it's coming from you."
He was done for. Officially.
If she'd gotten to him before with her cute looks and sporadic professions of feelings and mere existence, how was he supposed to cope when she said loving things like that?
A bit of that must have shown on his face. Something did, at least, because she bit her lip to try to hide her smile, but he tugged her lip out from between her teeth with his thumb. Her smile blossomed then, tender and fond and—yes—loving. She'd never looked more beautiful.
"You can take me somewhere a little more private," she added after she'd seen how words had clearly failed him. Her nose scrunched in that Lily way. "You know. If you'd like."
He couldn't help it. Stunned or not, he laughed.
"You're so fucking cute." He kissed her one final time and then pulled back, reaching immediately for her hand. "We'll go somewhere and I'll show you'd what I'd like."
And he did.
