"Potter!"

She stands so close to him that her body is a breath from being pressed into his, soft where he is hard. Her exhalations come shallow and fast, her jaw clenches. She tosses her head. Long red curls cascade down her shoulders in sensual disarray, touching her in all of the places he yearns to touch. He doesn't. He waits on baited breath, knowing what is about to come and reveling in the erotic anticipation. There is something between them—a hopeless fascination, an undeniable tug. A tug he doesn't understand. He doesn't try to. She feels it too. He's sure of it.

"Evans."

The tip of her pink tongue traces her lush lips, causing his every muscle to bunch in expectation. She looks down, inky lashes dipping over the sensuous planes of her cheek bones--soft, fragile, and utterly beautiful. His gaze wanders from her face, no longer entrapped by the seductive allure of her eyes. He allows it to travel down the slender curve of her neck, the slope of her breast and over her thigh. She dresses modestly, tastefully, as school regulations mandate, but all it takes is the barest hint of creamy white skin to set his heart to thumping wildly in his chest.

"You—"

She's speaking, but he doesn't listen, not really. He's entranced by the huskiness of her voice, like the rasp of silk against bare skin. He stares at the too-red bloom of her cheeks, which flushes with passionate intensity. He's too busy watching her to notice the sudden silence thickening between them.

"Well?" She demands.

At first, he doesn't answer her. Her eyes are upon his again, the captivating green somehow darker and more exotic—penetrating. He's caught, ensnared in her emerald depths and incapable of a characteristically suave and witty retort. His tongue flicks across his lips, mimicking her earlier gesture. He longs to taste her, to press his lips to hers in a soft caress or a tumultuous crash. He wonders what it would be like to slide his tongue past her lips, her teeth, to penetrate the moist, slick cavity of her mouth. He sucks in a shuttering, ragged breath.

He should answer her.

"I…"

He stops. He can't continue. He hates that he sounds so uncertain. He's distracted by the profound desire for her that he's only just admitted to himself. She presses her hand to his chest. He swallows, skin growing increasingly warm, nerve endings increasingly sensitive.

She shoves him, hard.

"You're getting off on this, aren't you?"

"Beg pardon?" He watches her carefully, brow raised in a seductive arch.

A sigh pushes past her parted lips--her breath is whisper against his cheek. "Me. Getting onto you. You get off on it!"

A sizzling pause.

"A bit." He admits with a smirk.

Her mouth rounds into a perfect O of astonishment, her tirade terminated by the sheer audacity of his admission. Her bright green eyes widen. She takes a step backward. She says…

Nothing?

He, James Potter, admits to becoming hopelessly aroused by their interactions, by her scolding, and she, Lily Evans, says nothing? But why…? Realization crashes down on him like a wave. He smirks at her. She wants him. She wants him as desperately as he wants her—he hardens painfully at the thought of it.

He advances towards her.

"You want me."

She doesn't deny, doesn't move or try to escape, though he gives her ample opportunity. He closes the remaining distance between them in a few short strides and grabs her roughly. She gasps as he wraps one arm about her waist, coils the other into her hair and pulls her into him. Their bodies collide. He looks into her expressive eyes for a moment, letting the musky scent of her ravage his senses, before claiming her mouth as his own. His tongue thrusts past lips still parted by her gasp of surprise. The innocent taste of her explodes on his tongue—tangy sweet. He groans and tugs her closer, wanting to feel every part of her pressed against him. Her back arches as she kisses him back, her heated lips searing his skin. Her kiss is everything he's secretly dreamed of, the kind of kiss that causes a man to lose all sense of self; amazingly enough, he doesn't mourn the loss. He's wanted her, only her and no one else, for so long that it hardly seems to matter. She owns him, wholly and completely. She always has.

They break apart, flushed and panting.

The fiery red of her tresses is an erotically tangled mass around her face. She pushes at it, hopelessly trying to tame it. He catches her hand.

"Leave it." He urges in a breathless whisper.

She freezes, staring at her hand, clasped in his. She blinks.

"What…?" she chokes out.

She's dazed, stunned by her own actions and, he suspects, by the intensity of her own desire.

"I kissed you." He explains patiently, raking a hand through his untamable hair.

Her eyes narrow dangerously and he realizes that she may have interpreted his tone as patronizing.

"I realize that." Her voice is honeyed steel.

He smirks. "You liked it."

Her expression hardens further, but she doesn't contradict him.

"You're a right bastard, Potter," she asserts, pressing trembling fingers to swollen lips.

"What?" He wonders what she's on about. She enjoyed it, didn't she? So why…?

"How long?" Her hand is on her hip.

"How long?" He repeats, dumbly.

"How long have you been doing this?" She demands.

"Doing this?"

She sighs in exasperation. "This!" She gestures wildly between the two of them. "Making me angry to get your jollies!"

His jaw drops and he realizes that he needs to avoid answering her at all costs.

"Er…"

"The whole time then?"

She's watching him carefully, trapping him with her eyes. He knows he should look away. He knows he what he should do, what he has to do to save the situation. He can practically hear Padfoot whispering in his ear, deny, deny, deny!

"Yes."

The word is out of his mouth before he can prevent it, the truth coaxed from him unbidden. She blinks, speechless. He's amazed her for the second time--she'd clearly not expected an affirmation.

"So all this time, every time you've provoked me by being a complete and utter prat…"

She trails off.

"Was because it turned me on," he finishes for her.

She shakes her head as if to clear it. "So you're not…"

"An absolute bastard?" He shrugs. "Nope. Just…"

"Disturbingly aroused by angry redheads?" She cuts him off.

"No," He retorts. "Adorably smitten with a particular redhead, who happens to look exceptionally smashing when she's yelling at me."

She responds by kissing him, a slow, famished kiss that leaves him breathless, hungry for more.

"I'm sorry." He tells her when they finally break apart.

She seems stunned. "Why?"

"For hocking you off. For provoking you." He says this as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

She shrugs and smirks at him. "It's ok."

He stares at her in astonishment. "What? I tell you that I've been starting fights for all the wrong reasons and all you have to say is 'ok'?"

She raises a sensual brow. "Yes."

He makes no reply. He can't. He's too stunned by his good fortune.

She turns to go, and he lets her, watching as she walks back towards the Head's dormitory, her hips swaying slightly. She stops suddenly and turns around.

"Oh and James?"

She fixes him with a gaze that makes his stomach flip and his heart flutter.

"Yeah?"

"It turns me on too."

Then she was gone, vanished out of sight around a bend in the hallway, leaving an astonished Head Boy in her wake. Padfoot was never going to let him live this one down.