forty-nine - whisper

James kisses her gently, tilting her chin with his fingers and brushing her hair back. Her hands grip his shoulders and stroke up and down his neck, run through his hair, across his back. He sighs as she peppers his jawline with kisses, and her name is whispered into her skin.

She shifts under him and he pulls her hips closer to his. Lily wraps her arms around him, fingernails pressing gently into his skin. James tips his head back and looks at her, taking in the green eyes blinking at him.

Lily's fingers wind through his hair again, bringing him back to her, and she's breathing a yes and he buries his face in the junction of her neck and shoulder. James hears his name floating around his ears when he pushes his way inside her, and they rock together slowly, kissing, touching, fingertip to fingertip and forehead to forehead. He waits for the pink in her cheeks and the quickening of her breath and the sharpness of her moans, and their names come crashing out each other's lips as they find their release.

After, they lie together, tangled and entwined beneath the blankets, his arms wrapped around her bare form and keeping her safe in his warm embrace. Lightning forks outside, flashing through the window and illuminating their faces for a moment, and the following thunder booms, rolling over the roof and reverberating through their bones.

"I love you, Lil," he tells her softly, breathlessly, in the calm between rolls of thunder. She kisses him, bringing her hand up to curl against his cheek.

"I love you too," she replies, almost at once. After a moment, she smiles. "I do. I never really thought you could love a person. We're kids, James. What do we know?"

She presses herself closer to him and her gaze flickers over his face. "But I do know. I know that I'm in love with you and I will be until the day that I die."

A lump rises in his throat and he doesn't know what to say. He's almost grateful, in a funny kind of way; he wouldn't be able to say it, anyway. She always manages to render him incapable of speech. "Lily," is the only thing he can murmur, her name falling from his lips like a prayer. "Lily, Lily," and he scatters kisses over her forehead and dusts them over her cheeks.

(He still hasn't kissed each one of her freckles, and it's something he'd like to do.)

A comfortable silence settles over the two of them, broken only by the rumbling of the weather. Their fingers weave together, touching. Always touching.

"Do you know what my biggest regret is?"

Her head his buried in the crook of his neck and her lips brush his skin as she speaks.

"No," he says, "don't do that. Don't do that to yourself."

"Not saying yes," she continues. "Not saying yes the first time you asked me out." She lifts her head to look at him. "We could have had years already." Lily's fingers toy with the hair at the base of his neck. "What existence is this? We could have had years."

"Lily," he says sharply, fingers gripping her shoulders. "Don't talk like that. We will have years, okay? We're gonna have more kids and grow old and one day this - this'll all seem like a nightmare. Harry and me, we need you. Don't give up on us, Lil." And then, so gently, "Don't give up on me."

"I promise," she says, bringing their hands to her mouth and kissing each of his knuckles. He swallows.

"Don't give up on me, James."

"I promise."

And somehow, these whispered vows, made in the filtering grey light of a late October evening, mean more than any words on their wedding day; now, more than ever, it's James and it's Lily, and a promise to be together, always.

a/n: wait we're at number forty-nine already?