An orange is a sweet citrus fruit. Did you know that all citrus fruits around the world are part of the same genus, and the individual species hybridize readily? (Pineapple is not a member of the citrus genus, however, so it's technically not a citrus fruit!)
Once Lucy arrived back at her apartment, she decided she was going to try some tried and true methods to overcome her little "problem."
First, the old proverbial cold shower. She could only stand a minute of truly icy water, however, and finally had to settle for lukewarm.
That didn't help.
In fact, it made things worse for her, as she rubbed her body down with a scratchy loofah sponge, and her treacherous imagination began to picture Natsu's hands in its place. Teasing across her nipples. Nipping at her collarbone. Kissing inside her thigh…
She quickly shut the water off as soon as she was rinsed, and immediately put in as many layers of clothing as she could stand. That wasn't much, since she was still flushed and sweaty, but she was determined to be as modest to herself as she could be for the moment.
Her plan fell apart when the fabric chafing across her skin turned her on even more than her hands on her bare skin had!
This is bad, she thought, gritting her teeth in frustration as she stripped back out of her jeans and put on a comfortable mini skirt instead.
Even that proved to be too much for her overheating body, so she found herself wearing an old bikini bathing suit and trying desperately not to think about all the skin that was exposed.
"I need a distraction," she said aloud, and decided to try writing for a bit. If she could drown out the sensations of her body and just focus on the world that her characters inhabited, she could quite possibly ignore the visions of Natsu in her mind. Natsu, groping her. Natsu, kissing her. Natsu, his salmon colored head in front of her as he knelt, his little pink tongue extending…
"Moooou!" she cried, and dropped her head onto her table, her pen clattering to the floor. Her characters refused to come out and play while Natsu was occupying her thoughts, it seemed.
Standing up, frustrated and miserable, she made her way over to her couch, where she plopped down and treated herself to the luxury of a good cry.
She must have dozed off. The sun was much lower in the sky now. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was past dinner time. Her stomach growled.
Well, Lucy thought as she plodded to her kitchen, maybe food will take my mind off –
She cursed herself, as she actually had not been thinking of Natsu until that very moment. As soon as her brain latched onto an image of the pink haired idiot, the feelings returned in full force, and her legs began to shake, so great was her need.
"Natsu," she whispered, wishing he would defy her orders and come visit her so she could throw him onto her bed and ride him into the sunset.
She fixed herself a light dinner, just enough to satiate the craving of her belly. A few pieces of chocolate gave her a nice temporary satisfaction fix as well, but it really only whetted her appetite for a meal that involved certain parts of a dragon slayer's naked body.
"I wonder," she mused to the wall. "What if the only reason I'm thinking about Natsu is because he's the only guy I've been around lately?" Maybe she should try to think about the other guys of Fairy Tail.
She plopped back onto the couch, and closed her eyes, concentrating as hard as she could about the men she knew. There was Gray, whose naked body was equally as splendid as Natsu's. She'd gotten that particular eyeful more times than she could count, thanks to his bizarre stripping habits.
Try as she might, though, the half remembered pictures of Gray with no clothes didn't give her the dry mouth and heart palpitations than images of Natsu fully clothed did.
Oh well. Juvia would kill her anyway.
Elfman, Laxus, Gajeel, even the non-Tenrou men, and men outside of Fairy Tail like Jellal, all fell victim to her mental scrutiny. And all fell short compared to the dragon slayer.
Maybe… it was because she'd shared that kiss with Natsu. Maybe the potion just latched on to the first person she saw after it was tossed on?
Maybe she needed a real life male in front of her when Natsu wasn't around to cause the sensations to switch to that male?
Bah. She couldn't exactly go back to the guild and start groping one of the guys randomly, hoping to suddenly become sexually attracted to them. That wouldn't solve anything. At least fantasizing to Natsu was safe.
Were there any guy members of the guild she had missed in her list…?
Oh, of course!
She grabbed her keys, kicking herself for not thinking of this sooner.
"Open the gate of the Lion! Leo!"
In a flash of magic, her strongest Celestial Spirit appeared in front of her.
"Hey baby," he said smoothly, and reached forward to take her hand and kiss it gently. "I like the bathing suit, is this a private fashion show just for me?"
Lucy's heart began to thud in her chest, but it was different from the palpitations she had been experiencing since that morning.
"I needed to ask you a favor," she said, taking a deep breath.
"Anything for you, babe."
"Would you kiss me?"
Loke's eyebrows shot up in astonishment, and his face split into a wide grin. "Oh, Lucy, I knew you'd come around to me one of these days!"
Now her heart was thumping wildly in her chest, as Loke stepped toward her, looking for all the world as if he was about to grab her, sweep her off her feet, and make out with her seriously on the couch. But her heart was pounding in abject terror, not arousal, and she immediately regretted her decision to summon the lustful lion when she was in such a vulnerable state.
He loomed closer, embraced her fully, bent her backwards, his lips just an inch away from hers… and then he bopped her on the nose.
She blinked up at him.
"Just kidding," he said, and then pulled her back so that she was standing up right.
"Why not?" she said, ready to burst into tears again.
"Because you're not in love with me," he said evenly.
"H-how do you know?"
Loke sighed and put his hand on his forehead. "How could I miss it, you mean? I'll always be second best in your heart. You're madly in love with Natsu, and as long as that's the case, I can't horn in on another guy's territory."
Madly in love with Natsu…. Madly in love with Natsu…
"I don't love Natsu," she said, sounding like a petulant child in denial.
"Heh," Loke said, and reached up to tweak her nose again. "Keep telling yourself that, princess."
With that, Loke waved to her and closed his gate, the grin never leaving his face.
Dammit.
She plopped back on her couch, feeling quite flummoxed by that entire little scene. Well, Loke had given her a possible explanation for her inability to fantasize about any of the other guys, even if she didn't really believe it.
Did she love Natsu?
Of course not. He was a pig headed, fire brained, childish brat. He had no respect for privacy or personal property. He didn't care for strategy or planning, just fighting and winning.
He took care of her like no other. He protected her with all his strength. He was always there to hold her when she needed it, and sometimes he even left her alone when she asked for it… like today.
"Oh Mavis," she moaned, and fell back onto the couch, all the desire she'd been holding at bay coming flooding back to her at once. "I'm thinking of Natsu like this because I'm in love with Natsu."
This sucked.
Suddenly feeling exhausted, she dragged herself to her bed. It was almost dark outside.
Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd wake up tomorrow and this day would all be a bad dream.
She woke up when Natsu opened her window in the middle of the night.
Mentally, she cursed at him, although she didn't dare move or otherwise indicated that she was awake. Her uninvited visitor crept in quietly.
She almost lost it when he sat down on the bed, and began sniffing her.
Oh Mavis, she though, suddenly incredibly turned on all over again.
"Levy said you were sick," he whispered to her, probably trying to see if she was still awake. "But you don't smell sick. In fact, you smell," he inhaled deeply, "really good."
Go away go away go away
"I remember something that Igneel told me when I was a little kid," he said, sounding apologetic. "He told me that I should never kiss a girl unless she wanted to be kissed. I'm sorry I wasn't able to stop the bad guy before he… made us do that."
I'm not, Lucy answered silently. Desperate to touch him but also terrified of the depth of her feelings and just how incredibly horny she still was, she made a show of yawning and tucking herself deeper into the bed covers.
"Ah, you really are not feeling well," he said, and reached up to stroke her bangs away from her face. The gesture was meant in all innocence, but where his fingers touched her skin felt like fire.
She needed to send him away now.
She made a great show of pretending to wake up from the contact, and yawning and stretching.
"Natsu?" she said, blinking at him sleepily.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her, and placed his hand on her forehead. "Oh no, you're burning up. Is it a cold?"
"No," she answered, her voice low and earthy. It was taking every ounce of her self-restraint not to grab him and kiss him senseless. She closed her eyes as another wave of desire rushed over her. "I'm not sure what it is," she lied, "but I don't want you to catch it so you'd probably better go."
"I think I'll be fine, I never get sick," he said, and gave her that grin of his. That grin. It caused her already pounding heart to beat even harder.
"Your heart is racing," he said, probably hearing the thudding from inside her chest. Damn his super senses. At least he couldn't hear her very thoughts, as some dragon slayers could. Or so she hoped.
She looked at him, looked into those dark olive eyes that sometimes flashed the fiercest yellow. Right now they were onyx, darkened with only the light of the moon spilling in from her window.
Lucy sighed and struggled to sit up. Every iota of her being was screaming at her to grab him by the shoulders, shove him onto the bed and… well, she had a pretty good idea of what happened next from all of Levy's naughtier books, but she was a bit fuzzy on the exact details. All she know is that it would involve a lot of devouring of various bits of Natsu.
"Lucy, do you think you should go see Porlyusca? You really don't look well. And why are you wearing a bathing suit?"
She was practically panting with want and need. Why on Earthland wasn't Natsu picking up on it?
Dragon magic is built for fighting dragons, not mating with them, Levy had told her. And yet, things seemed to be working out quite well between her and Gajeel, even if the script mage had had to take that first tentative step.
Maybe Natsu would only respond if Lucy took a first step, too.
Slowly, she leaned toward him, her eyes flicking down to his mouth to make sure she was lining things up properly. Natsu's own eyes widened as she brushed his lips carefully, briefly, with her own. As he did not recoil in horror, she closed her eyes completely and sank into the kiss, trying to convey to him just how much she loved him and wanted him in that moment.
He went as stiff as if he had been taken over by the puppet magic again, but did not refuse her as she really did grip his shoulders and pulled him closer to her. He ended up seated on the edge of her bed, beside her legs.
As he neither reacted nor resisted, she paused, uncertain. The ravenous beast inside her raged as she broke the kiss, leaning away from him a bit so she could study his expression.
Finally, he spoke.
"It's different when you're not being forced to do it," he said, his voice cracking a bit, betraying his emotions. Huh. Maybe the dumb fighting machine had some hormones in him after all.
"Yeah," she agreed, looking away, trying to keep her breathing under control. "I'd like to do it more often."
"Really, Lucy?" Natsu sounded surprised. "I thought you weren't into that girly stuff."
"Kissing is girly stuff?" She raised an eyebrow incredulously. "You really are nineteen going on nine. Come here."
This time she pulled him into a kiss that was so heated and so searing she would not have been surprised to see steam radiating off him. She grabbed his hands and placed them at her bare waist, and ran one hand through his hair while the other gripped the front of his shirt for dear life. She used the leverage of her hand on his head to push his mouth into hers, probing with her tongue until she'd coaxed him into opening his lips for her.
Funny how well instinct served sometimes, she though, as he gradually learned the rhythm of the kiss. He tasted sweet and faintly smoky, like a camp fire.
Feeling much calmer once he had started participating directly, she finally broke the kiss and trailed little kisses along his jaw line.
"Uh," Natsu said uncomfortably, his voice pitched a bit higher than normal, "are you sure this thing of yours isn't contagious?"
Her answer was to hum against his neck. "Still think kissing is just for girls, then? There's a reason your Igneel told you never to kiss a girl who didn't want to be kissed. He expected that someday you'd want to be the one doing the kissing."
"I guess," Natsu said, sounding painfully confused.
Lucy sighed. She'd made progress, but it seemed as though getting Natsu any farther tonight was going to be impossible.
"You'd probably better go," she said, and gently pushed him away. Her libido protested strongly, but fortunately her executive mind was still in charge of her actions. "I never even asked how Happy is."
"He's fine," Natsu said, and then stood up hurriedly. Lucy had to smile a bit to herself as she saw a telltale bulge in Natsu's pants. "Will you be at the guild tomorrow?"
It would be a bad idea for Lucy to go to the guild with Natsu.
But now that she managed to make him flustered, even if just a little, she didn't want to stop.
"Yes," she said. "Let's go on a quick mission, if we haven't heard where our robber mage has moved to yet."
"Okay." He scratched his head nervously, and then jumped out the window quickly before she could say another word. She stared after him, thoughtfully.
Natsu had left the window open, and the cool night air was a welcome relief to her overheated skin.
Sadly, she touched her lips, and wondered if she should cave in to the humiliating act of self-pleasure just so she could get some sleep.
She only thought about it for a few moments before she closed her eyes and just gave into the fantasies of Natsu. His erection had not been her imagination. He was beginning to pick up on the passion she'd harbored for him that night.
At least our friendship hasn't exploded into flames, she thought, as she hugged her pillow and pretended that it was him.
Well, not yet, anyway.
Thanks for all the reviews and favorites! Please look forward to the next section, Grapefruit!