Disclaimer: Don't own.

A/N: There is a M rated version of this chapter is at katara_zuko and zutarotica on livejournal. I didn't want to bump up the whole rating for this fic for at least this chapter.

Katara had once heard heat described as being oppressive. Now she fully believed that assessment. Everyone reassured her this was one of the hottest summers recent memory but that didn't make her feel any better.

This wasn't her first summer here either. That honor belonged to the summer before Sozin's comet. It wasn't even her first as Fire Lady, she had held that title for two years now and lived in the Fire Nation for a year prior to marrying Zuko but she could not remember the heat being this intense. She did remember being told that her wedding day had been very mild for the time of year and now, now she understood why.

She'd forgone wearing silks for simpler linen but still she wasn't comfortable. Sitting through the maddeningly long dinner with the governors of the outer islands only added to her discomfort. Not only was the food spicy and warm but why was there so much damned fire in the room? Didn't anyone else feel warm? It took everything in her power not to freeze the water on the table and rub it all over her body. As their guests began to leave Katara's fantasy turned into one of her lying on the floor encased in ice. She happily sighed at the thought while Zuko looked at her curiously.

"Happy to see them leave?" He asked.

"I'm happy to not have to sit in that room anymore. Aren't you hot in that?" She didn't want to think of amount of layers he was wearing.

"You can help me out of it later, I have a few things I need to finish up before the morning. I'll try to be quick."

"Fine. I'm going to go peal off these clothes and run ice all of me."

He leaned in close and whispered in her ear "save some for me," sending a shiver down her spine. As appealing as that sounded she didn't want to think of how the heat he radiated being anywhere near her.

This was nice, this was even heavenly. Spread out on the floor she ran ice over her collarbone in just her wraps with her hair spread away from her neck. She could easily get out of them but the second her robes were off she collapsed onto the cool marble floor. The bowl of water next to her was left over from earlier when she had done the same thing.

Lost in her own little word she didn't hear Zuko come in or the rustle of fabric as he took off his heavy robe.

"I thought I could only make you sound like that," he teased plopping down next to her.

"Cold feels so good right now," she turned her head to see him only in his black training pants with a devious smirk on his face. "Would you like some?"

"Sure, I have a few ideas what I can do with it." She flicked her wrist and bent a stream of water over her head that she blew on to freeze. He plucked the icicle out of the air and began to mimic her movements.

Once again engrossed in her movements she jerked when she felt ice on her stomach. She propped her head up as much as she could to see Zuko running his ice over her. "What, oh," she moaned, "are you doing?"

"Writing my name." He bent his head to inspect what he wrote and blew on the water. She whimpered. "I think I need some practice. Now where can I do that?" His free hand stroked her cloth-covered thigh. "I think here would be good but I need to get raid of this," he began tugging on the wrap as he spoke.

"Too" breath "warm" pant.

"Then it's a good thing you can make ice." Katara could have sworn his eyes were on fire.

The next morning, as she lay tangled in the sheets, Katara felt the first cool breeze in weeks come through the open window.