8I never saw James's hands coming. When I was sixteen and 'absolutely not falling for him, ohmigodshutupMarlene, Potter?! I would never' I used to dream about his eyes and his hair and his biceps and his lips, but I reckoned he had rich-boy hands. Smooth and soft and never-done-a-hard-day's-work-in-his-life hands.
Boy, was I wrong.
They're big, James's hands. One can span my whole back at the waist, cradle my entire head, wrap around my thigh while one finger stretches to play a very different game.
His fingers are long, the pads heavily calloused—from Quidditch or from nights as Prongs, I don't know. Both, probably. When they hold me, I feel small and precious and safe. When they touch me…sweet Circe. Let's just say, he keeps his nails short.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Three hours, ten minutes ago.
"We could be late." James waited to make this suggestion until we had already Apparated into an alley just down the road from Chez Clive. I gave him a flat look and he grinned, waggling his eyebrows. "I might do a shit job of The Plan if I don't get any practice."
"You've had plenty of practice, Potter. You're practically the Karate Kid, all the practice you've had. You're just an exhibitionist."
"Can you blame me?" he grabbed my hand and twirled me across the cobblestones, the skirt of my backless yellow sundress fluttering out around my thighs, then pulled me into him. "I've got a lot to show off, Evans."
It's absurd, the way he still makes me melt.
"Nooooo," I said, drawing out the word because his suit and his cologne and the fraction of chest peeking out from his unbuttoned collar was making it difficult to remember why I was saying no at all. "We made a deal, James. We're going to do everything right, and then if—"
"When."
"—If they're still awful…then The Plan." He wiggled his fingers against my back and I almost gave up and jumped him right there. I stepped out of his arms, though—look at me developing self control! Somebody give this girl a medal—and tugged him out of the alley and down the street toward 137 Pembrooke.
We approached the house, a gargantuan McMansion in white stucco, looking for Vernon's car. James, who found the whole secret-gift-drop-off concept hilarious, kept yanking me behind trees and muttering things like "Prongs to Bambi, Alpha Epsilon Zimbabwe, do you roger?"
When we found them and Vernon handed James a bottle of wine, he rolled it up in his suit jacket and hissed, "The package is secure. Commence Operation: Clive-alicious."
Vernon was not amused, but my eyes were on my sister. Petunia had a look on her face that I recognized a little too well. It was 'Lily's about to get in trouble' in shifty eyes and turned-up lips—the look she used to wear after tattling as she waited gleefully for the fallout.
"How much do we owe you?" I asked her carefully.
"Oh, don't worry about it." Her smirk grew wider as she waved an airy hand. Now I knew something was up. Last time that woman picked me up from the train station she mailed me an invoice for the petrol.
I touched James's arm. "Love, can I see the bottle?" My tone mirrored her feigned disinterest, and his eyebrows rose as he passed it to me. James knows my 'about to cut a bitch' voice all too well.
I looked down at the bottle, and right there, unmissable, covering half the brand name, was a bright red sticker.
50p.
I expected it to hurt; I didn't expect it to feel like a punch in the gut. I should've known picking our gift for us was just an excuse to make me look cheap or tacky or inferior or whatever it is that Petunia's set believes about people who don't flaunt their cash with Rolexes and Mercedes and hideous white stucco McMansions. For all her talk this morning, Petunia never planned to treat me better for a moment.
"Fifty pence, Tuney?!" I hissed, and she blushed. She didn't think she'd be caught until we were in the party, I reckon, where the stiff upper lip British politeness engrained in me since birth would've made it impossible to really get into it.
She recovered quickly though, throwing her shoulders back and pointing her nose snottily in the air. "I didn't think you'd care. I thought you were too good to care about material things like us mortals."
"I don't care," I said. "I'm nineteen. I'd happily pour two buck chuck on my breakfast cornflakes. But you care, and you knew they'd care, and that's why you bought it."
"Sounds to me like for somebody who's always calling me shallow—"
"Oh my God, I said that one time—"
"—you care quite a lot about appearances after all—"
"—because you kicked your maid of honor out of the wedding photos—"
"—when I was just trying to do you a favor—"
"—for having an acne breakout!"
"—since we both know you couldn't afford anything better!"
I've never wanted so badly to blurt out that James is rolling in the stuff. You might think Petunia would've worked it out given how much she cares about money, but our lifestyle hides it quite by accident. We all share Sirius's shit London flat. We can't go on nice vacations because we haven't had a joint weekend off in a year. The lads have gorgeous dress robes but only two Muggle suits that they share between the lot of them with stretching and shrinking charms.
I get the urge to tell her sometimes, when she's at her smuggest and most unbearable, but I don't want to play her game. I don't want to be the sort of person who brags about my fiancé's wealth, and I really, really don't want Vernon to suddenly start sucking up to us in a bid to get his hands on it.
"We both know I could've managed 15 quid for a bottle of wine that they wouldn't take as a deliberate insult," I said instead, and turned on my heel, grabbing James's arm and dragging him toward 137 Pembrooke.
"Er, love, are you—?"
"I'm absolutely bloody dandy," I said through gritted teeth. "Doing so, so great. Really. I'm just so unbelievably glad we planned ahead."
His eyes widened and he bolted forward, swinging around in front of me to squeeze my shoulders with both hands and grinning from ear to ear. "We did? Really?"
"Looks like it," I snapped, fury still coursing through my veins. 'Please come'…'I won't let anyone'…'You're my sister.' We'll show her. My nose clogged and my eyes heated, telltale signs that tears were coming, and that just made me angrier. After everything, how was I still stupid enough to think she would pass up an opportunity to humiliate me? How was I still weak enough to be hurt when she didn't? How—
James seized my face in his hands and kissed me hard.
It was a brilliant bloody kiss. It was a soaring, swooping, flying kiss, a bend-you-backwards-in-the-heat-of-passion kiss, a God-I-can't-believe-I-get-to-marry-this-man kiss. It was the kind of kiss where you open your eyes to find you're clinging to his collar and your foot has popped up in the air like a bad romcom.
"Hi," he murmured, and I bit my lip.
"Hi."
"I don't want to do the Plan because you want to piss off Petunia. I want to do the Plan because you want to do the Plan."
I blinked. "Who's Petunia?"
He grinned and pecked my lips one more time. "Right answer, Evans."
"Welcome to our home. It's lovely to meet you both. My name is Clive, and this is my wife, Gertrude."
I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing. Thank Merlin that James has spent his entire life taking the mickey out of rich, pretentious people with a straight face. His polite smile didn't give a thing away, even as he reached down and squeezed my bum.
"You'll have to forgive Lily," he ad-libbed earnestly. "Petunia and Vernon told us your names before we came, but on the way over, I got confused and thought your name was Gladys. She simply adores winning."
Clive and Gertrude nodded, non-plussed, and I pulled myself together enough to smile. "That I do," I said. "Now, the question is, what's my prize?"
"Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something," James said.
"O?"
"O, yeah, Evans." He trailed one finger up and down the small of my back, and I very nearly moaned aloud.
Three hours and twenty minutes ago.
'Chapter IV: Saucy Spells for Public Pleasure
Digitalis Procule: This nifty little incantation takes the caster's hand and puts an invisible copy of it anywhere you want, while it stays right where it is. The caster can feel whatever there is to feel, and if he decides to transport his hand to, ahem, touch someone else…boy, will they feel it too.
Simply select a gesture and a place for your invisible hand at casting time, and until you cast the counterspell, repeat this gesture at any time to create or dispel the invisible hand.
Customer testimonials…'
I looked up from the book with wide eyes to find James watching me closely. "We can't…"
He took a deep breath. "Evans, I'm nineteen," he said. I blinked. "My girlfriend is unbelievably fit, and I'm head-over-heels in love with her. She risks her life daily to save the world, which is real fucking sexy and also makes me want to kidnap her and hide her away somewhere no one can ever touch her."
He stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist, mine curling around his neck automatically. "I'm a teenage boy, and you look…" he pushed me out to arms' length to drag randy eyes up and down my body. "like you. I want…Lil, I want you wet and naked in my bed all the time. And instead we've spent three of only four nights we got together this month with this woman who refuses to see how incredible you are, and it's killing me watching her hurt you. If you think there's a chance that tonight will make you happy, then we'll go. But when it doesn't…I want to make you happy."
Two hours and forty minutes ago.
Quick highlight reel from the first twenty minutes of this event:
At 7:03pm, it was casually dropped into conversation that the dinner part of this dinner party would not be happening until 8:30. We were expected to mingle with six couples from Vernon's work plus (bonus!) Marge Dursley for an hour and a half with only a cheese plate for comfort.
At 7:06, Vernon's married boss (Grunner? Grunting?) leered so lecherously at my neckline that James's hand slid from the small of my back to curl around my waist.
At 7:08, a bloke called his ex-wife a slut in casual conversation.
At 7:11, Gruntazoid asked James what business he was in and Vernon interrupted gleefully to announce that he was "on the dole." Mrs. Grunt looked me up and down and sneered, "that explains a lot."
At 7:12, the men began to discuss drills and every woman simply fell silent at her husband's side, as if someone had cast a gender-selective Silencio.
James's hand never left my back, and I appreciated it. Vernon, five years Petunia's senior, was by far the youngest bloke there besides James, and his slimy, potbellied old colleagues seemed unable to take their eyes off the teenage girl in their midst.
While James never stopped touching me, though, he made no move to touch me. I found myself halfway between disappointed and relieved that he hadn't been serious about the insane plan.
Okay, maybe 60% disappointed, 40% relieved.
80/20.
At 7:18, in the first positive development since we arrived, the peppy opening chords of It's Not Unusual drifted out of the stereo (which had until then been playing exclusively smooth jazz). James and I turned to each other in unison, identical grins on our faces, and he grabbed my hand and twirled me across the living room.
The rest of the room watched with a mixture of horror and disgust but, frankly, so what? We weren't doing anything inappropriate. I dropped his hand to mime holding a microphone, stepping from side to side and swinging my hips with the level of goofy camp that is Tom Jones's birthright. James shimmied his shoulders and crooned 'It's not unusual to see me cry,' and joy warmed me up like a hot drink on a snowy night.
Even surrounded by boring, bigoted blowhards at this god-awful party, he is my human hot chocolate, sugar rush made (gorgeous, brilliant, lovely) man.
At 7:19, Callous Clive abruptly turned off the stereo.
Which brings us to 7:20pm, when Petunia clutched my arm and forcibly reintegrated us into her little clique (though not before accusing me of "obscene cavorting," "erotic gyration," and, my personal favorite, "carnal frolicking").
"...had to fire the cleaner because Lucinda's necklace went missing," one of the men was complaining.
"You can never trust the help," another grunted. "Good for nothing, the lot of 'em."
"It's like I always say, everything that's wrong with this country..."
We'd been duped. This wasn't a family home, it was the factory where they make Vernon Dursleys.
As they grumbled on, simultaneously saying nothing and conveying everything I'd ever need to know about them in every sentence, I noticed that I wasn't the only object of slimy, lecherous lust. The women's gazes kept sliding back to James's lush chest and frankly glorious arms, and in return, their husbands' distaste for him only grew.
I reached up and adjusted his perfectly straight collar, and he smirked at me. 'Just pee on me next time,' he mouthed. I hid a grin and shimmied my back against his hand, a silent reminder that he was just as possessive.
"You're showing far too much skin, you hussy," I teased in his ear. All of the other blokes' shirts were buttoned all the way to the collar, while James's two loose buttons revealed just a hint of his broad brown chest. And though Petunia had not seen fit to mention a tie, James was the only man without one.
"Hark who's talking, braless," he muttered back.
"Noticed that, did you?"
"If there's something to notice about your body and I'm not unconscious, Evans, it's safe to assume I've noticed it," he murmured, pinching my waist and sending a shiver down my spine. Then he paused to touch my forehead where he had Healed me this morning, and his voice softened. "Speaking of which, how's your head?"
Ladies, get you a man who can do both.
I swallowed and then rose on my tiptoes to kiss him hard. When I pulled back he grinned, looking a little dazed. "What was that for?"
"I just really bloody like you, James Potter."
"Language," hissed one of the wives before he could reply, popping our little bubble. James smirked.
"Yeah, why are you so fucking uncouth, Evans?"
This line made me laugh, Vernon growl, and Gertrude loudly suggest we all take a tour of the house.
"Yes," said Vernon self-importantly, "This is just the sort of place Petunia and I are looking for. We'd love to see how you've decorated it."
"Simply gorgeous, Gertrude," Petunia gushed. "Exactly the sort of place a successful man wants to raise a family. It's such a shame some people don't work hard enough to achieve it."
"Some people are just born wrong," Marge put in. "Bad blood, I always say."
I gripped James's hand very tightly and fantasized about blowing her up.
As Clive started the tour in the kitchen, James followed his every word, interrupting to ask Real Adult Homeowner™ questions like 'would you say the counters are sturdy?' and 'how effective are the shades?' and I started to get nervous. We ended up behind the others as Clive left the kitchen, and I tugged at James's sleeve.
"Please do not buy this massive, hideous house to impress my sister," I muttered.
James grinned, turning to face me. "Evans, I solemnly swear that if I buy this massive, hideous house, there's only one bird I'm trying to impress."
"It's Marge, isn't it?"
"Dammit, how'd you guess?"
We both laughed, but…"Don't buy me this house. I solemnly swear I would not be impressed."
"I don't know, it has its charms."
My eyebrows made a break for my hairline. "It has a three-automobile garage with gold-plated doors. A glass spiral staircase. A fake fireplace built into an exposed fake-stone wall. James, one of the bathrooms is carpeted. Which of those are you calling a charm?"
He gazed silently at me for a moment, then seized my hips and lifted me onto the counter. I let out a startled little 'oh,' but he ignored me, sliding his hands down to pull my thighs apart and then stepping between them. He leaned in until my tits brushed his chest and his lips brushed my ear and then murmured, "If I bought you this house, I could fuck you senseless right here."
Then he stepped back, grabbed my hands, and pulled me off the counter. The whole thing had taken four seconds, and James's face was a bland smiling mask as he tugged me toward the stairs, following the crowd. The only indication that anything at all had happened was the uncontrollable rush of heat in my face and between my thighs.
James loves talking dirty to me, and he knows I love it too, ever since I got drunk three months into our relationship and asked him to tell me how it felt to be inside me. He's never done it in public before, though.
I…didn't hate it.
I didn't hate it at all.
"Wh-what was that?" I managed to gasp as we ascended the stairs, James a few steps behind me.
"Don't tell me you forgot the Plan, Evans?"
"I—but—that was not what we discussed!"
He smirked. "If I've learned anything from my time as a Marauder, it's that any good plan takes"—he reached up and trailed a finger up the inside of my thigh, pushing the hem of my dress up just an inch—"prep work."
Sweet Merlin.
"But—but—but we've been here half an hour, and…nothing. I thought you weren't doing it!" I faced him at the top of the stairs, wide-eyed and flushed and more than a little aroused. His smirk just widened.
"Well, I wasn't about to get started while we were all standing in that circle. Jesus, Lily, I'm not an exhibitionist."
I laughed in spite of myself as we followed the crowd into a needlessly fancy bathroom. I was still giggling when he pulled me in close, pointed at the shower and whispered, "This is where I'd get down on my knees and put my head between your thighs and make you see God."
I stopped laughing.
In the master bedroom, he wrapped one hand around my wrist and circled my throat with the other. "I'd tie you up and make you beg for mercy here."
In the study… "Bend you over the desk and take you from behind 'til we broke it in half."
Sweet Merlin.
We finished the tour in a second living room (why are there two living rooms, you ask? Hell if I know), where Clive drew special attention to a truly appalling tiger-skin rug—one of those "statement pieces" with the head and the claws somehow still attached, the sort you only ever see in low budget horror films.
James took one look at it and shook his head, shuddering. "Sorry, Evans, but I can't perform with that wanker looking at me. This can be Sirius's room."
I smiled mischievously. "What, and give up our time-honored tradition of banging in Sirius's bed? No way, Potter. Here you lay back, use that tiger skull for a pillow, and watch me ride you."
His pupils doubled in size, and he groaned in my ear, long and low and hot as hell. "I am going to marry the shit out of you, Lily Evans."
Back in the seventh circle of hell, Clive made a crap joke, and several people tittered. I saw James's hand move subtly out of the corner of my eye, and then subtlety was an ancient memory because his finger was inside me.
"Hah!" I yelped, exploding at the tail end of the polite laughter to cover my gasp, and thank God I did because James groaned loudly.
"Fuck, you're dripping," he growled in my ear, and the finger-twirl that accompanied it made my knees tremble.
Two can play at this game, though. "Since before the kitchen," I murmured back.
He added another finger.
His hand found its way back to my lower back, so as he pumped two fingers into me and fondled my clit with his thumb, the same three fingers slid along my spine, and God it was torture, feeling him move in two different places on my body. I was such a fucking hypocrite for calling him an exhibitionist. The fittest man in this room was fingering me in front of all of them and I could come just thinking about it, even if he weren't—oh, God, oh, God, oh, oh, ohhhhh—
"Are you alright, Lily?" one of the women in the circle asked. James's fingers vanished, and I could have killed her. It was a reasonable question—my legs were trembling; my breath was coming in pants; my hands were fisted in my hair and James's jacket just to have something to hold onto.
"Y-y-yes," I managed shakily. "Just, er, holding in a sneeze." Or eight.
It kept going like that. Some asinine comment would get a laugh, or a gasp, or a grumble, and under cover of the noise, James's fingers appeared, sometimes toying with my clit, sometimes pumping into my throbbing, clenching pussy, sometimes both. He'd play until somebody started to look at me funny, and then instantly he was gone. He kept kissing my temple and my cheek, all excuses to lean in and whisper sweet, filthy nothings.
Once, I felt him stroke a single line down my center and then disappear, and then he stuck his whole finger in his mouth and sucked on it, staring straight into my eyes. I very nearly orgasmed right then.
Fifteen minutes in, I was trembling and gasping whether his fingers were inside me or not, and he'd started telling people I was allergic to the cat.
"It's not fair," I muttered as soon as I had a moment alone with him, "I can't touch you, and you're torturing me, and you don't know what it's like. You're not even hard," I complained with a glance at his un-tented trousers.
"Not hard?" James hissed, and pulled me against him abruptly, my back to his front. I sucked in a breath when I felt a massive bulge push against my arse. "I charmed my trousers to hide it as soon as I saw you in that dress."
"Oh." I blushed, trying and failing to think of a clever response. "Impressive magic."
He kissed my ear. "I've had some practice."
Gordon Runtley had probably never captivated an audience like this in his life. As Vernon's colleague (assistant? boss? partner?) described his twenty-year career in excruciating detail, I ooh'ed and aah'ed like a one-woman Greek Chorus. Of course, that's because James was pumping two fingers into me every time Gordy reached a turning point in the story.
"…And Anderson said, "Runtley, you're the only man in the world I trust for the job."
"Oh…"
"Impressive, right? Of course"—he leaned in conspiratorially—"I already knew nobody else at this bloody company could hold a candle to my record…"
"Yes…"
"Obviously. You get it. And now," he finished, puffing out his chest, "Everyone's just waiting for Clive over there to finally kick the bucket so I can get up to bat and turn the ship around."
"Oh, God!" I all-but-screamed as James pulled his fingers all the way out of me and then plunged three back in, hitting a new angle and sending a shockwave of pleasure rocketing through my body.
Runtley leaned in farther. "You liked that story, little lady? I thought so. A real man, you see, muscles his way up the ladder to provide for his woman—"
"Beep! You've hit your mixed metaphor quota, Gordo," James interrupted loudly, grabbing my hip and steering me away. "It's been real!" Then he pressed against my back, mouth at my ear. "Moan like that again and I'll tear your pretty new dress in half and fuck you over that dinner table," he threatened casually. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose.
I need to finish, I need to finish, I need to finish. I couldn't hear a word anyone said, and I'd stopped even trying to hide the shivers running over my whole body every time James touched me. It didn't help that he was just as focused on me, that he'd pulled my back into his front, both hands on my waist, and I could feel his hands clench and his cock twitch every time I moved.
I was more than ready for him to take me over the edge, had been for ten minutes, and he knew it. I figured he was worried about getting caught (I'm…not quiet. He knows this too) so I squeezed his bicep and raised my eyebrows meaningfully, twisting my neck to make eye contact. "Bathroom?" I said in his ear, my voice a plaintive whine.
James smirked and shook his head.
"Please?"
"I like you like this," he murmured. "Gorgeous and needy and mine."
I glared. He stroked. I melted.
Where the bloody hell was James? He had headed to the loo, taking his smoldering eyes and magic fingers with him. He hadn't come back in one minute, or two, or five, though. Now he'd been gone nearly ten minutes, and my sloppy, aching arousal and I had somehow been roped into conversation with Clive's sons. Three large, obscenely muscular blokes around my age, they tended those muscles with slavish devotion, and woe betide the walking pair of tits (me) who politely asked how their day had been.
Since that innocent question, I had learned every single meal they'd eaten since 7am (four egg yolks, two slices of turkey bacon, and three protein powder shakes per bro), how many kilos each of them benched, and (this from the youngest, who could not be out of secondary school) received an invitation to have a seat on his dumbbell and add my "tight little self" to his weight routine.
When, at long last, they all happened to pause for breath at the same time, I crammed in an apology and scurried into the hallway James had used.
I set off down the quiet hallway, turned left, then right at random, and suddenly—praise Merlin—there he was. He was stuffing something into his back pocket when he caught sight of me and grinned.
"Where have you been?" I demanded. "I just spent four straight minutes listening to a bloke talk about his body mass index."
"Sorry, love. Got distracted by—wait, what bloke?"
I gave him a look. "Potter, I recall being promised an orgasm. Where the bloody hell is it?"
"Ohoho! Pushy tonight, Evans."
"Finish me off, James, or I swear to God I'll find a loo and do it myself."
"No, you fucking won't." He grabbed my wrists and shoved me into the wall, eyes black, every hard line of his body pressed in one motion against every soft curve of mine. I gasped, and his long, hard cock, almost exactly where I wanted it save a few layers of clothes, twitched at the sound.
Damn if it wasn't the hottest thing he'd done all night.
"When I make you cum tonight, you're going to shake and scream and do that thing you do where your pretty pink lips make a perfect little circle."He leaned in then and kissed me hard, pushing his tongue between my teeth. I responded eagerly, but before I knew it he was pulling away, resting his forehead against mine. "And I'm going to watch you fall over the edge for me."
His eyes raked over my face, and mine over his, and a jolt of emotion hit me in the gut. There's a long thin line along his left cheek that wasn't there three days ago. For a split second as I gazed at the battle scar, randy teasing James disappeared and he was stumbling by Sirius's side again. Hair matted with blood, half his cheek hanging nauseatingly from one shred of skin, jaw off-kilter and eyes empty. The specter that has woken me up screaming every night since.
I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. When they opened, his brow was furrowed and he watched me intently.
"Lily, do you not want…?" With a jolt, I realized he had misread my flashback as misgivings about what we were doing. I try to forget that there was a time when he loved me and I hated him. I am always caught off guard when he remembers, when he imagines that could ever happen again.
"I do want," I whispered. "Of course I want." I thought about telling him where my mind had gone, but then he'd be sweet and tender, and I didn't want that. I wanted him to claim me, to shag me ragged, to prove he was real and mine and alive.
"Good," he said, then with slightly false bravado: "I figured, since you're a lake down there."
I grinned and licked my lips, eager to prove it. "You can take a boat out any time."
"Keep talking like that, don't expect to walk tomorrow."
"Promise?"
"Have I ever let you down, Evans?"
No. He would never. He talks the talk—all night, every night; he's really, really good at the talk—but he backs it up with earth-shattering orgasms. "Let's do it. Take me home, James. Let's Apparate right now and make love in our bed—"
"Nah." Cocky James was back in full force now, and God that smirk drives me wild. "You wanted to come to this party, Evans, so we came. Now, we're doing what I want to. And I want to watch you cum for me in front of everybody."
I couldn't help the desperate little gasp that elicited. "What? But—"
"They won't know," he promised, before I could get the words out. I felt his hand twist against my wrist and then it was in my panties again, stroking my palm and my clit at once. I closed my eyes and moaned, sinking into his touch after ten minutes that had felt like hours without it. He leaned into my ear so that his next words vibrated through my whole body: "All those pricks trying to get up your skirt, they won't have a clue that I'm already there, that I'm the one making you writhe like sex incarnate."
"Ohhhh," I really was writhing against his hand. There was no other word for how I humped his fingers, toes curling, legs shaking, stomach tightening. "Harder, James, faster, harder, OH!"
"Bad girl," he growled, and his hand disappeared. "I make the rules tonight." My eyes flew open to find him staring at me with undisguised intensity. "Tell me you love me," he whispered.
"God, James, I love you so much." I tried to pull my hands free in order to hold him, but he tightened his grip. I gasped and leaned forward, kissing his lips, his jaw, his neck, anywhere I could reach. "I love you, I love you, I can't breathe without you. It's only you always."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Tell me you want me."
"Want?" I twisted one wrist in his grip until I could interlock his fingers with mine. I pulled our hands down, and this time he let me lead, let me hike my skirt up, guide his hand to feel my heartbeat pound in the swollen folds between my thighs. His hips bucked and his eyes closed again. He wanted to drive into me then and there, I know he did, but he dropped his mouth to my neck instead and sucked hard. Like he was gaining strength from my skin, he pulled his mouth away, stroked up and down my center until I writhed against him, and then drew his hand away too, only to shove his finger in my mouth.
"Taste it, Evans. That's how good you taste for me." I sucked clumsily, tongue running up and down and then wrapping around his finger, and he gulped.
I traced my free hand down his chest and stomach to stroke his cock through his trousers, and it twitched at my touch. "Lily," he groaned into my mouth, and I smiled, teeth scraping his finger by accident.
That seemed to jolt him, and he pulled his finger out of my mouth. He grabbed my hand and slammed it back against the wall next to my head. "Follow the goddamn rules, Evans."
Hell, he was hot when he was angry, jaw clenched, muscles taut, eyes flashing. "Please," I whined, so far beyond caring about Petunia or Clive or my dignity or any of it. I arched my back, pressing my breasts up against his chest, and hitched my thigh over his. "Please get inside me. Take me, fuck me, I want you, I need you, I need your huge cock in my little pussy, Prongs—"
The nickname did him in. He groaned and drove his hips into mine, knocking me back against the wall. "You're so fucking hot when you beg."
I whimpered, and he kissed me. "So pretty, so sexy for me," he continued between kisses. "I'm going to fuck you, baby. I'll make you come staring into my eyes, and then I'll flip you over and shag you from behind, just the way you like it. I'll be so deep inside you, you won't be able to breathe to scream my name."
"Yes," I moaned, and he smiled wolfishly.
"But first, you're going to walk back out there in this teeny tiny dress, and I'm going to make your body sing for me. I'll make you cum from across the room, while all of those idiots watch with no idea."
It wasn't bloody fair. He was far too in control of himself, far too able to postpone pleasure, far less drunk on me than I was on him. After all, I hadn't been giving him a handy on-and-off for the last hour, edging him and then refusing to finish him. I hadn't wiped out his self-restraint and then reason and then, frankly, sanity.
I hadn't come within an inch of a jet of green light that made every moment feel sacred, every brush against my skin vital proof that I was still his.
Like he sensed what I was thinking, he nuzzled my nose with his, suddenly gentle. "Merlin, you're beautiful."
I couldn't help the small, shy smile that word always elicits.
"All I ever want to do is watch you fall apart in my hands, Lily Evans. Tell me you want me to watch you cum."
"I do," I breathed. "I want you to watch me. I get off on you watching me. When I'm alone, when you're on missions, I think about you coming home and finding me touching myself…"
"Fuck, yeah," he thrust his hips against mine and shuddered. He shifted his hands so that one trapped both of my wrists against the wall and reached down to squeeze my bum with the other. "I think about that. You naked and spread-eagled on our bed. Touching your tits, creaming on your hand, moaning my name. Sometimes I'm jumping around in the middle of fighting a Death Eater, and I see you riding your own hand, tits bouncing, missing me inside your tight, wet pussy, and I get hard just thinking about it."
"I have this fantasy." I didn't know quite why I was saying this now, except that usually we pretend sex and war are so far apart, and they're not. They never have been, not for us. He almost died three days ago. That's real, that happened, but he lived, and I need him inside me over and over and over to prove it.
"Yeah?" he panted. I knew this face—he was close to the edge, just from thinking about me naked, and hell if that's not an ego boost. We own each other, James and I. He paused, pulling himself together, then: "If I let you go, will you be a good girl?"
I bobbed my head frantically, and he slid his hands down my arms, over my shoulders, gave my breasts a quick, greedy squeeze, and then seized my thighs and picked me up. My legs wrapped around his waist immediately, ankles crossed in the back. My dress flipped up so the rough material of his trousers rubbed against the tiny, soaking wet scrap of lace covering my clit, and we both moaned at the new sensation as he kissed me.
"Now tell me the fantasy." He rolled his hips against mine again, the friction so savagely good from this new angle.
I nodded, running my nails reverently over his chest and his neck and then tangling my hands in his hair. "Okay. We're at a Death Eater's house, and we're looking in the bedrooms, searching for something they've got hidden."
"Are all your fantasies this plot-driven?" he teased. I dug my heels into his butt, and he grinned.
"Hushup, Potter, or I'll stop. So we're searching, right, and we think we're alone. We were told there's nobody else in the house, but then this guy comes out of nowhere—"
"It's a fantasy, love, not a fantasy novel…"
"Oh, bite me."
"Now, that's what I'm looking for…"
"Then this guy comes out of nowhere, wand aimed for me. And you, James, you don't even think about it, you forget your wand's even there, you just punch him in the face and knock him out cold. You turn to me and you're sweaty and panting and God, your arms, every muscle flexed."
He was getting into this now. Through his suit, I could see his biceps tense, showing off. When he spoke, though, his voice wasn't cocky and playful, but a low, serious growl. "I would, baby. Let them fucking try."
My eyes fluttered closed and I leaned the back of my head against the wall with a sigh. He followed me, dipping his head to run his tongue along my neck, and I shivered and tugged fitfully at his hair.
"Keep going," he growled in my ear, shifting to hold me up with one hand and kneading my breast through my dress with the other. "I haven't even seen your perfect fucking body in this story."
"Okay. Okay, so you punch him, and…well…"
"And…?" he tugged at my earlobe with his teeth.
"I just…" I wriggled nervously against him, suddenly awkward. "This part sort of, um…objectifies you?"
That surprised a laugh out of James, and he pulled back to look at me. "Do I have to do the teenage boy speech again?"
"Okay, okay," I giggled, letting go of his hair to swat at his shoulder, but then winding both arms tight around his neck. I am so bloody easy. "It's just…you know I usually don't, um, want to be, like, in charge or whatever in bed…" After everything else we'd already said and done tonight, I felt silly getting nervous over this, but there's no denying that I was.
"I know," he purred, trailing his hand away from my chest, down my side. He smacked my ass hard and I squealed. "You like to do as I fucking say. You're a bad girl, Lily, but you're so very good for me."
Just like that, with those words, and the broken, panting breaths that proved what I was doing to him, and his eyes telling me I was all he wanted in the world, he lifted away all my insecurity. He started kissing my neck again, and I was ready. I smiled—smirked, really—and shook my head.
"Not this time. This time, you don't even get to see me naked, Potter."
"What?" he bit my neck hard, furious, but I didn't waver.
"I keep my Order robes on, but I make you strip for me."
"No fair. You're in all those layers and I'm totally naked?"
"Well, not…totally."
Intrigued: "Oh?"
"Your tie. The one with your family crest—with the lion and the sword and the weird triangle-circle-line thing. I want that tie on."
"Oh." He pulled away from my neck to watch me carefully, and I suspected he had an inkling of what this was about. That made me nervous, but I wasn't about to back down now.
"Mhm," I said, kissing his jaw and raking my nails along his scalp to distract him. "And then, naked and gorgeous and mine, you get down on your knees and put your head between my thighs until I scream your name."
"Mmm…that part I like."
"I thought you might."
His eyes narrowed a little, his brow furrowed in thought. "When you scream my name…you call me Potter, yeah?"
I bit my lip and avoided his eyes. He was onto me. "Ye…es."
"Naked and gorgeous and yours…and Potter."
"…Uh-huh..."
"…and pureblood, that is."
"Er."
James started to smirk. "So, let me get this straight: you like the idea of me naked for you, licking you, making you come so hard you see stars…"
"Mmmm…" I pressed my chest against his.
"…in a Death Eater's house. Because it turns you on to prove to them that I'm pureblooded and you own me." You own me. There's no question he meant it, the way his voice dropped and his eyes bored into mine.
"Y-yes."
"And," he said slowly, starting to chuckle, though I didn't understand the joke yet, "you thought I'd be offended to hear that…while I magically edge you in the middle of your anti-magic sister's dinner party?"
Oh.
Oh.
I blinked, and then grinned, and then we were both laughing, guffawing harder than I can imagine anyone has had cause to laugh in that house for a long time. Our bodies shook with it, pressed against the wall and each other, building delicious friction that overwhelmed my thoughts until there was much more grinding than laughing, and then I slid my hands over his jaw and pulled him in for a long, deep kiss.
When we finally pulled back, his hazel eyes were almost black. All the lines of his body still pressed me against the wall, his fingers tight enough on my thigh to bruise, biceps taut and shaking from holding me up this whole time. He bent to run his tongue along my breasts, just above my dress's neckline, and a wicked, dangerous, stupid idea occurred to me.
The rational part of my brain that should've shut it down was gone. It Disapparated sometime between 'I'm going to watch you cum for me' and 'let them fucking try,' or possibly before we even got here, with 'I think I know how to make this a real party.' Somewhere, vaguely, in the back of my mind, I knew we were dry humping against a wall in my sister's husband's boss's house and this could only end in disaster, but God, I couldn't care less, not when he was so beautiful, and insatiable, and alive.
I murmured his name, then licked my lips, and his eyes followed my tongue hungrily. "Do you want your magic cock in my mouth?"
His eyes glazed over, and he slammed a fist against the wall behind me as he groaned deep in his throat. Once upon a time I was sloppy, needy, desperate, and he was the one with all the control, but ten minutes of dirty talk and he was gone, begging me to blow him twenty feet from Vernon's executive buddies.
I hadn't even touched it. Merlin, I must be irresistible.
Giggling, I dropped my legs from around his waist (though not without one more glorious body roll) and landed on the ground. I pushed him gently, steering us until his back hit the opposite wall, and then fell to my knees in front of him.
"Yes, baby," he slurred, grabbing fistfuls of my hair as I popped the button on his trousers and then pulled down his fly. "Suck it, suck it, suckitsuckitsuck—"
"What the devil?!" roared a horribly familiar voice.
James's head jerked up, and he yanked me to my feet, instinctively turning us to put himself between me and Vernon Dursley's clenched fists and bulging eyes.
"What the hell are you doing?" Dursley snarled again.
"I was tying my shoe!" I squeaked desperately. I gestured to my foot, only to realize I was wearing heeled sandals. "His shoe! I was tying James's shoe! I had to, because he couldn't bend over to reach it, because, er, his pants are too tight…" What? What the hell, Evans? And where the hell was James? He's the one who knows how to lie on command; I've always been shit at this.
I glared at him, psychically begging for a lifeline, but he was rubbing a hand across his jaw, eyes aimed unsteadily at my lips. His protective jump to shield me seemed to have pretty much exhausted his mental capacities. He hadn't even zipped up his trousers, and his cock still poked out, creamy white precum glistening on the tip.
My pet idiot was not going to be much help.
"You—what—never in my life—bloody disgusting—"
"What are you implying, Vernon?" I snapped, giving righteous indignation a go. It couldn't hurt, right? From the angle we were standing, he probably couldn't see James's dick. "I was simply—"
"—Petunia warned me about you, but I never—"
"—loose shoelaces are a health hazard—"
"—in the middle of dinner—"
"—wizard school doesn't teach the bunny ear method—"
"—like a cheap whore!"
A jet of white and blue light lit the hallway and caught Vernon straight in the face. He stumbled back, eyes suddenly vacant.
James's wand was in his hand, his whole body shaking with fury.
"What did you do?" I whispered.
"Just Obliviated him." James's lip curled in disgust. "Bastard's lucky the blood hasn't circulated back to my brain yet; it took me the whole time you were arguing to remember that bloody spell and then I couldn't come up with a hex to replace it in time."
I grinned a little at that, then turned to Vernon. "You have to go to the bathroom," I told him. "You didn't see anyone on your way…not even a cheap whore," I couldn't help but add.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he muttered to himself, and set off past us down the hallway. James stuck out a foot to trip him, but I kicked it back.
"No, Potter."
He smirked. As Vernon disappeared around the corner, James tugged a strand of my hair. "You never let me have any fun."
"Now, that's just a stupid lie," I said, raising an eyebrow at his groin.
He followed my gaze and snorted when he saw his boner winking at him. "Oops." He bit his lip hopefully. "Now that he's gone…?"
Honestly. Boys.
"No, Potter," I repeated. I grabbed his trousers and zipped them up myself, though not before accidentally-on-purpose brushing the tip of his cock with my thumb. I lifted my finger to my lips and sucked the white liquid off, and James groaned.
"Sodding tease."
"Take me home, and I'll kiss it better."
"You think you can trap me with your perfect lips and your magic tongue and your hard nipples, but it's not happening, Evans." With a flick of his wrist, his invisible hand was back, playing with my clit again, and I bit my lip to hold back a moan, back arching. "That," he murmured, voice deep as his eyes devoured me. "Watching you do that from across the room, knowing I'm the only one who can make you move like that, knowing every man in that room wants you and they have no idea you're creaming for me right in front of them…sexiest thing I've ever seen." His hand disappeared from my panties, and he kissed the anguished cry off my lips. "We'll go home, baby, just as soon as you cum on my hand at this party. Don't worry, though, I have a plan."
"A…plan?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," James sing-songed, winking. He placed his hand on my lower back and gave me a gentle push. "Now get back in there before I change my mind and rip your knickers in half with my teeth."
I skipped a few steps ahead and then turned back to face him, grinning, as a thought occurred to me.
"If only Dursley had caught you eating me out instead," I said. "I don't think he would've recognized it as sex."
James snorted and opened his eyes comically wide. "Are you suggesting Vernon Dursley isn't generous between the sheets?"
"I'm suggesting if you had a mossy Flobberworm growing out of your upper lip I wouldn't let your mouth anywhere near my fanny either."
James let out a shout of delighted laughter and I blushed, warm down to my toes.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him back toward the party, laughing as I did. "I still can't believe you just Obliviated my Muggle brother-in-law. That breaks at least eight clauses in the International Statute of Secrecy."
"Your Muggle brother-in-law had it coming, and he wouldn't have shut up if I hadn't. And…"
"And what?" I prompted, when he trailed off and ruffled his hair.
"…I think it might be offensive."
"Haven't we already covered that?"
He grinned crookedly. "Alright, it's just…primal, I guess. I don't like the idea of another bloke seeing you on your knees."
"But you want this whole party to watch me orgasm?" I raised a skeptical eyebrow, and his grin grew wider.
"Primal, Evans." We paused on the threshold of the main room, and James dropped my hand to throw his arm around my shoulders. "No logic can explain the line between what turns me on and what makes me want to beat the shit out of anything with a penis that ever comes near you."
I smirked up at him. "That turned me on."
"You're already turned on."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Yours." He let his arm slide down my back to pat me on the bottom, laughing. "How am I supposed to resist this juicy peach?"
Barely repressing a giggle and a squeal, I scampered off to the now-set dinner table to pretend I hadn't spent the last twenty minutes begging James Potter to fuck me against a wall.
One hour ago.
James's plan, apparently, involved leaving my pussy mostly alone throughout dinner. I couldn't decide whether to be grateful or furious about that. Instead, when Petunia somehow finagled us to opposite ends of the table—honestly, credit where credit's due: that was impressive manipulation—James conjured his invisible hand and then slid it up to rest on my upper thigh, where he traced gentle, innocent patterns for an hour.
When, at long (long, long, long) last, dinner ended and he still had barely touched me (he's a teenage boy. There was some petting), I figured he'd changed his mind and we were finally going home. Clive seemed to agree with me, stretching and sighing pointedly, and a few of the more socially adept guests started to hint at heading home.
"Thank you so much, dinner was delicious," I began, (a lie, incidentally: dinner tasted like the time Sirius lost a bet and had to make us breakfast in bed) intending to follow it up with an excuse to leave.
Alas, it was not to be.
"And now: charades!" James gleefully cut me off, and my eyes bulged out of their sockets.
I have a plan.
"Absolutely—" not, I never got to say, because he flicked my clit and stopped me in my tracks as I sealed my lips tight to hold in a moan. God, he knows me, inside and out, exactly what I would say, exactly how to stop me, exactly how to keep me swollen and sopping and desperate for him.
"Lil's in! Who else?" James asked, with a friendly smile for the room and a sharp pinch for my inner thigh. It took him thirty seconds to gather the entire table. Even Petunia and Vernon, spitting with rage (and definitely not creative enough to be fun in a game of charades), bit their tongues and agreed once Clive did.
Perhaps I should've been shocked by James's persuasive power over people who had been calling him a lay-about minutes before, but he's probably the most charismatic person I've ever met. Charm drips off him like…well, only one metaphor is coming to mind right now.
The next ten minutes were a whirlwind of "Obviously couples should be on opposite teams" and "Pulling random prompts out of a hat is so lazy, the game's much more fun when we choose who gets which clue" and "I've got a brill idea for Evans," and "Lily was soooo excited about this game…seems only fair to let her go first," and then I found myself standing by the fireplace, all eyes on me as someone named Garrett pressed a slip of paper with James's untidy scrawl into my hand.
I was terrified—and very, very excited—to open it. James stared at me like I was the only thing in the world. Eyes dark, lips parted, jaw tense. Fingers dancing debaucherously against his knee. They weren't inside me yet, but he wasn't going to let me forget what they could do once they were.
I hate him. I love him. I want him so bloody bad. I looked down.
'When Harry Met Sally,' the card read.
Sweet Merlin.
I looked up. My eyes met James's. I sucked in a deep breath, and my heart raced, and he gave me a very small, very sweet smile: 'hey, beautiful,' and 'Merlin, I love you' and 'you want this, right?' all in one silly, tentative grin. I nodded, his face split into a wide smirk, his hand moved ever-so-slightly…
…And the doorbell rang.
"GODDAMMIT," yelled James, forgetting himself completely.
Clive, understandably, gave him a very weird look as he crossed to the door and opened it, but all was forgotten when he stumbled back, hit in the face with a burst of white light that could only mean one thing.
Death Eaters.
James bolted to his feet, and we both whipped out our wands, ready to fight. I wanted to be freaking out about the attack, the risk to the innocent Muggle bystanders, what it could mean that Voldemort's followers had found us here, but all I could think was: If James dies before he can finish me off, I'm going to kill him.
But before anybody could make a move, fire a curse, bend me over a table and sort me out, Clive stepped back from the door and cried, sounding a little dazed: "We've been wondering where you'd got to! The Sheffield cousins are here, everyone: Stumpy Bumpkin, Ribbety Liberty, and Pingpong Patootie!"
Um, what?
I craned my neck but could see nothing; Stumpy & co. were still behind the door from my angle. I glanced at James, assuming I'd see my confusion mirrored in his face, but he was already wide-eyed with horror, one step ahead of me.
"No," James whispered, "He wouldn't."
For anyone who has not been paying attention: Yes, he absolutely would.
Clive pushed the door all the way open, and the newcomers came into view.
"HAVE NO FEAR, THE PARTY HAS ARRIVED!" bellowed Sirius Black, double-fisting spinning power drills and waving his arms like a naked hippie at Woodstock. "FUCK, I AM SO TURNED ON BY DRILLS!"
Jily is my jam but Sirius Black is my peanut butter. Anyway. Truly felt so weird about writing smut for the first time that I simply opted for 10K words of very chatty foreplay. You're ...welcome?