"I can handle myself."

"No, you can't."

No, I can't, Lucy thought, but she was stubborn enough to never verbally agree with Natsu's argument. Instead, she let his hand wrap around hers, her frail body trailing behind his protective one as they walked to, well, somewhere. Lucy wasn't entirely sure until they arrived back at their apartment building.

Elevator doors opened, stepped inside: silence on the way up, terrible music flowing out the speakers at a barely audible volume. Lucy's hand tugged away from Natsu's grip.

"He's my friend." Lucy said blatantly, her voice dripping with as much spite as she could. She was a grown woman who could make her own decisions and chose her own friends. She did not need Natsu to dictate for her.

"Yeah, he used to be mine and Gray's, too." Natsu said. His tone was edged with a sarcasm that undermined Lucy's own attitude. "Then he started hurting people."

The blonde huffed. She didn't bring herself to look at Natsu. Instead, she glared ahead of her at the brassy doors as they went up another level. "He won't hurt me."

Natsu scoffed. "He once said he'd never hurt Gray."

This boy's adamant feelings weren't going anywhere, yet neither was Lucy. They were both too stubborn for their own good. Lucy's thin arms tucked into each other as she crossed them over her chest. "Gray is strong. He can hold his own if he and Loke want to be immature."

The elevator doors opened onto their level, though Natsu nearly burst into a fit. His palm hit the wall beside Lucy's head for added effect even though he would never hurt her. Would he?

"Immature? You think they were being immature?" Natsu's voice was gruff and loud as his lips pulled into a tight sneer, the lips she dreamed of kissing so often. "Sure, they were kids. But stop talking about it like you were there. You don't know anything."

Natsu turned his back to her. She wanted to scream at him even if she had no words, to just do anything. She had spent too much of her life being bullied into keeping quiet. She wanted to change, but today was not that day.

Taking a few quick steps out before the elevator doors closed again, Lucy followed the pink haired boy down the hall. "That's easy for you to say. Maybe if someone actually told me something then I'd be able to have a rational and mature conversation about this."

Natsu was far from mature; he made it clear in the way he silently mimicked her words, miming her like a child does their sibling as he fiddled angrily with his keys. His hands were unsteady, his head flustered. It took a moment to finally get the keys in the door.

"I don't care, Luce." Natsu snapped once the door was open and he slipped inside. Despite his obvious state of distress, he held the door for her. "Loke is still not someone I trust to be around you and not doing anything stupid."

The door closed with a careless thud as Lucy shimmied off her jacket. "Stupid? Do you realize that's all you and your friends are, is stupid?"

Natsu's mouth fell open to protest, but Lucy kept arguing. "Gray is a maybe-maybe not stripper who gets into fights wearing minimal clothing. Erza is absolutely controlling around you guys and keeps more secrets than anyone I know! And you, you-"

Lucy paused. She had no idea what to say when it came to Natsu. They hardly knew each other, so how could she judge someone she wasn't familiar with? She knew the curve of his smile and the very shape of his body, but there were the little things about him she lacked to know, simple things.

"You just can't stay away from girl's who are obviously bad for you." She muttered. She tossed her coat as Natsu before her legs carried her into the rest of the apartment.

Only then did it dawn on her that this was indeed Natsu's apartment and not hers. It was the same layout, being in the same building and all, but it was surprisingly clean for a college boy. It was actually empty, if anything, making it look like a mansion compared to Erza's crowded home.

Regardless of how badly they wanted to fight, Natsu still took the time to hang up Lucy's coat on a wire and stick it in the closet. "I can't believe you're just going to stand there and call me stupid. You're such a hypocrite."

Lucy's pair of rich brown eyes widened into saucers with disbelief. Eyebrows raised, Lucy gave him a clear look of disdain. "I'm stupid?" She felt her jaw tighten in both anger and sadness, biting back the unhappiness she had surely brought on herself.

Natsu nodded. He took steps so painfully slow towards her that she could see his attitude leaking out at the seams. "You want to put all the blame on me and Erza and Gray for not telling you anything? It's because we don't know you, Luce. You've been here for what, a couple months? And the only time we see you is in class or when Erza invites you out."

"You're an outsider, and they can't trust you." Natsu added, his arms crossed over his chest as well, veins prominent as he clenched and unclenched his fists. "I want to trust you, and I want you to trust me, but it's impossible when you don't want to do anything other than sit at home and bathe in your self pity."

Lucy's eyes watered, although it was anger that brought it on more than anything. Anger at herself for letting it happen, for letting Natsu be right about her. "So what? It's better than chasing some sad girl and trying to get in her pants because I'm that desperate."

Natsu's lips curved back into another disdainful sneer. "Prude."

"Easy." Lucy retorted.

"Crybaby."

"Immature."

"Stuck-up."

"Rash."

"Coward."

"Stupid!" Lucy and Natsu growled at each other at the same time, hoping stupid was still as good of an insult now as it was when they were toddlers.

It was simultaneous the way they cut each other off, the way Natsu backed Lucy into the wall and the way she took a few steps back to let him do so. Her back hit drywall along with the thumping of Natsu's palms planting on either side of her. His head dipped down, hers tilting up, and smashed their lips together in a terribly indecisive way.

All Lucy could think about was backing away. She didn't want to be cornered like an animal while some man hovered over her and took advantage of her again. Though Natsu wasn't taking advantage of her; she wanted the angry growls and the possessive grabbing and the way he held her like she was his and no one else's.

Was that love: wanting someone so badly you'd let them hurt you for it, just a little?

Lucy's leg drifted up and pressed against the side of his body; in turn, his hand drifted down and grabbed onto her leg, squeezing roughly as he dragged their bodies closer together. Her stomach pressed against his, her chest mashed so tightly with Natsu's she could feel his pulse. Her hips ground up against Natsu before he finally grabbed her and pulled her up into his arms.

As soon as he did so, her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. She felt like she belonged there, in his arms, even if right now she was so simply mad at him for trying to control who she chose as friends and who she didn't. She was angry, but she could push that feeling aside like she did everything else.

Her hands rose up to sift through his hair, tugging at the mused locks of candy floss colored tufts. His lips were warm against her own; Lucy could taste his warmth, as strange as it sounded. She could feel every bit of bliss in more than one way, more than just with a kiss or a few words. She experienced it in all her senses, the desire overwhelming her.

If this was love, where had it been all her life?

Lucy's chest rose and fell heavily as she noticed Natsu walking down the hall. She was curious to see Natsu's apartment for the first time, but the taste of his lips was more alluring. Her palms slid over the sides of his face, only to fall back as Natsu dropped Lucy from his clutches and onto the mattress, standing before her so tall and intimidating.

But Lucy wasn't scared. Her legs wrapped around his hips with a greedy vigor she so rarely experienced and pulled him down with her. Without further hesitation, his body moved on top of hers. Natsu's hands slid over the sheets on his bed in order to dip down and pry at the waistband of her pants.

Lucy's hips arched up to help him: a sign of consent she never quite gave to anyone except the boy over her right then and right there. Her head tilted backwards as Natsu's body settled in comfortably between her legs.

Natsu's hands slid along her thighs, mapping out the terrain of her body before grabbing her hips and turning her over onto her stomach so he could delineate over other regions of her skin. Lucy's head fell forward into the mattress, her arms sliding over the sheets to grip at them as she felt his fingers so gently charting out her body for further use.

And there were aching feelings in her stomach that Lucy only felt with Natsu, animals scratching at her icy walls in order to break free and experience true pleasure, craving release in the way she craved his skin beneath her palms, or perhaps vice versa.

"Natsu," Lucy's head turned over her shoulder, her eyes tracing the indents of his muscles before looking up into the night skies of his irises, "I want to."

The animals in her stomach ached to set free, already swimming in the dripping excitement between her legs and begging for more. The butterflies never ceased, not even when Natsu grabbed her and shook his head.

"Not like this."

Denial from a man-something Lucy was not too familiar with. She was used to the roughness and the possession and she hated it, all except for now, simple because the man before her wasn't like the one she had before.

"You're angry at me, Luce. I know." He said, and it was true; the blonde just chose to suppress the thought considering the moment was rather special, for her at least. "I don't want our first time to be out of spite. Especially while that spite is while I'm picturing Loke and I just-"

Lucy's body wiggled slightly in order to face him again. Her hands rose forward and pressed against that stomach of his she had stared at so hungrily, so deeply. "I'm not mad." She huffed, her stubbornness overriding her systems and adding an unnecessary confusion to the air. Again.

Natsu just smiled and shook his head, too used to her confusing antics to mind them much anymore. "Yes, you are." He said sternly. His hands still gripped her thighs, pulling them out to either side of him as he leaned down and kissed her stomach.

"Well, why-" Lucy found the words hard to manage; her mind was hazy. "-why would I want to do it if I was mad at you."

Natsu only laughed more as he fleeted another trail of sloppy, open-mouthed kisses below her naval and over the thin covering of her undergarments. "Because angst-y sex is really good. Uncovered mystery, so don't ask why."

She could have smiled or hit him or maybe both, but Lucy had no desire to at that moment. All she could focus on was the breath of Natsu's lungs passing his lips and seeping into her center as his mouth pressed up against her, his teasing actions only the beginning of many more to come.

Nalu Lemon Novel
Exy Koroleva © 2016
Thank you for reading.
Some triggering scenes
to be included, so please
do not report. Comments
& votes are appreciated.