Slip of Tongue

Lily wonders if, perhaps, you have to be mad to consider what such a thing as another person's sweat would taste like against your own lips.

She certainly feels mad. As though she's crossed over into some sort of state of insanity that involves James Potter and a sweat-drenched Quidditch uniform. She knows she's mad when every Thursday night she waits for him in the common room of their shared Head's dorm to return after a long, grueling Quidditch practice just so she can catch a glimpse of slick hair against sweaty forehead. To watch him tug his shirt over his head, watching it stick, watching him have to nearly peel it off just to see what he looks like bare chested.

To see the sculpting of his torso, to see the flex of the muscles in his arms.

A normal, sane person wouldn't do that.

They wouldn't arrange their books and parchment in such a precise way to make it look as though she is having a particularly long study session just on the one night a week he has late night Quidditch practice.

They wouldn't nearly miss a mark in Charms because she actually did forget to do her essay last Thursday night, and skip breakfast to hurriedly scribble three pages worth on the nature of the Patronus Charm.

She suspects that if she possessed even an ounce of sanity, she certainly wouldn't squirm against the mattress of her bed late at night, her mind on James Potter, sweaty but this time above her, her fingers slipped inside of her instead of James himself like her mind envisions.

No, a sane person wouldn't do such things.

But Lily thinks that perhaps she doesn't mind being a bit mad, for James Potter has just entered their dorm room, - the portrait of Hamnet Shakespeare laughing at what Lily assumes is something clever James has just said - and he's positively glistening.

"Alright, Evans? What's a nice girl like you doing up at an hour like this?" asks Potter when he reaches her. This time it isn't just the tugging of his shirt that does Lily in, but rather, the added effect of his glasses being knocked askew as his shirt gets pulled over his head, one of the ear pieces tangling itself in his hair, making him look even more scruffy. Lily bites her lower lip. "Evans?"

Shit, she blinks and thinks to herself. She's completely forgotten how to speak, how to make any sort of sound that's not a squeak, and now James is standing there - bare chested and glasses completely wonky - and she's not sure what she's supposed to say.

But it certainly isn't the words that come out of her mouth; nice girls don't say what Lily says next.

"Fuck me," she breathes.

James pauses, his shirt still slung around his arms, and his eyes wide. "What?"

"Um - that's not -" shit, shit, shit! " - I don't remember what I just said."

It is a horrible attempt at covering her own blunder. Completely ridiculous. She knows it, and so does James. Lily watches - her heart somewhere in her throat- as James, just for the briefest of moments, appears to be taken off guard. But then time trickles, and a smirk unfurls across James' lips, spreading upwards to his eyes, and Lily knows she's done for.

Positively doomed.

"Fuck me," he repeats. Teasing, taunting. "That's what you said. Clear as day."

"That's not- it must have been a mistake," she says, hurriedly tossing her books into her school bag. This will be the absolute last time she waits for James to return from practice. "A simple slip of tongue."

"Hmm," hums James, deep and low. Lily wonders what it would feel like for him to make that sound against her throat. "If you say so, Evans."

"I do," she says, slamming the last of her books shut tight. She realizes it's her worn down copy of Emma as she's placing it in her bag. Not even a fucking textbook. She has gone mad, and she's quite bad at it, it seems.

"Right then."

"Right," she says, standing.

Lily glances out the window quickly, noticing that the sky has faded into blackness. She can see the tops of the giant trees in the Forbidden Forest swaying rapidly, and further out still a flash of light across the sky.

And then another.

Heat lightning, she thinks before she hears the rumbling of thunder, and wrinkles her nose.

"Were you really flying in this weather?" she asks him, her eyebrows raised.

"What's life without a bit of risk?" He quirks an eyebrow of his own, and Lily considers telling him that life without risk is a bit dull, she's figuring out. "I'm off to shower, Evans. Unless you have another slip of tongue to offer me?"

Lily pauses, clutching the strap of her school bag tightly, and allows her eyes to dart over him. And the sudden thought occurs to her…

"James," she swallows, "why do you always take your shirt off down here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she says, stepping closer to him, counting her steps. One, two, three, four. She moves slowly, and James regards her with his head cocked. "It's just the fact that you could always take it off upstairs. Say, oh I don't know, in the bathroom before you got into the shower? But you always take it off down here. In front of me."

Five, six, seven.

He smirks. "Does it bother you?"

"No, I'm just wondering," eight, nine, "if maybe you have some sort of ulterior motive."

Ten.

She's before him now, looking upwards at him as she normally does, always, always six inches below him. And she wonders if this - this mad, insane thing she's about to do - is really a risk. It certainly doesn't feel like a risk. Not when she feels his fingers graze her hipbone, not when his thumb works it way underneath her untucked shirt and she gets the smallest sensation of what their bare skin would feel like together.

And if it is, indeed, a risk, it feels well calculated.

Completely worth the repercussions.

"And what would that be?" asks James, his own eyes are dilated to the point that Lily can no longer make out the flecks of gold mixed in with the hazel. "If I did in fact have an ulterior motive? If you had to guess."

"Perhaps," she says, dropping her school bag and undoing the first two buttons of her blouse, "you'd like some company?"

James' eyes drop to where Lily's hands rest on the next button, and she feels her body quiver.

"I knew you couldn't be so clever for nothing, Evans."

A beat.

A breath.

Just enough to prepare her for what happens next. To give her just enough air to sustain her.

And then his mouth is on hers, crushing and bruising, and Lily thinks he tastes of salt and perhaps a bit of chocolate; and she thinks that perhaps she could easily form an addiction to this, but that James Potter would willingly be her fix. His hand, the one that's not preoccupied with jutting its thumb nail into her hip, twists its way into her hair, and his teeth are nipping at her lower lip, and Lily's hands quickly fumble with the buttons of her blouse, impatiently tugging at them until the last few pop right off and scatter across the room. She hears them bounce, hit the stone wall, and she thinks to herself, good riddance.

Lily wonders, somewhere in the back of her mind, a million miles away, if perhaps she knew that tonight would be the breaking point. As though his off-kilter glasses paired with his bare chest would be the catalyst to her bravery. To her risk taking. To making her not such a nice girl. Why else would she have thought to put on her matching black lace knickers and bra?

But whatever the reason, Lily is thankful for the bloody garment as her shirt falls to the floor, and James is, for the very first time in his life, or at least, since Lily has known him, rendered speechless.

His fingers twitch and trail up the length of her torso, and Lily takes in the feeling of his Quidditch calloused fingertips against her own prickling, freckled-scattered skin.

He's up to the lace of her bra, sliding two fingers underneath the thin fabric, when he finally finds his voice. "Fuck."

"Mmmm," she purrs. "What's that? A slip of tongue?"

Her cheek seems to elicit a fire within him. She can spot it there, burning brightly in his eyes, and she thinks it may consume her if it weren't for the very fact that she is made of ice. She must be, what with the way little goosebumps are popping up all over her skin, and his touch causes her to shiver.

"Do you have any idea-" his voice is huskier than she's ever heard, and her eyes flutter shut momentarily as it melts over her "-how many Thursday nights I deliberately rode the team just so I could come back here and see the way you look at me afterwards."

"Just for that reason?"

"Oh, you know, the Quidditch Cup, too."

"But," she opens her eyes, blinking through the stars, "how would you -"

"You only study late on Thursday nights, Evans," he snorts, cutting her off. "And half the time your books are upside down, you're trying to write with a sugar quill, and last week you spilled a whole thing of ink after I slung my broom across my shoulder."

"I wondered what it would be like to be the broom," says Lily before she can stop herself. "I mean - shit."

She's completely mental, but he doesn't appear to mind.

"Is that so?" He's smirking, his hands drifting lower, this time to the waistline line of her school skirt, and Lily feels the hitch of his thumb tugging at the material. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance then."

He undoes the clasp of her skirt with one hand in such a quick, fluid motion that Lily is surprised when it puddles around her ankles. But her shock lasts only for half a second before James scoops her up as though she's as light as his broom, and carries her, bridal-style, up the stairs, leading them towards the loo.

And perhaps it's the fact that his sweat smells sweet and tastes salty against her lips, or the way he groans while she nips at his pulse point, but either way, Lily feels completely intoxicated by the time they reach the shower. James drops her gingerly to her feet, pulls her in by the waist so they're standing skin to skin, lips brushing, breath intertwined.

And Lily notices that their hearts are beating at the same sort of furious rhythm.

As though they would leap out of their chests at any given moment.

"I always thought," murmurs Lily, her lips against his, "it was a horrible idea for them to stick us together, alone in this Head's dorm."

"Hmm," hums James, and Lily feels the vibration of it spread from her lips down to her spine, erupting in her a blossoming of tingles that reach her toes."A terrible idea, really. They ought to have known better."

Lily's thumbs hitch into the waistband of James' trousers, tugging the elastic down slightly where she can make out a trail of raven hair stretching lower than she's ever seen.

"Do you think that this is a terrible idea?" She isn't sure exactly what she's referring to. Whether it's the shower, their state of undress, them, or all the cracks in between.

"You and me, Evans," he says, dipping two fingers underneath her chin, and Lily feels the steadiness of them. "Never."

And, hell, if his certainty isn't just what she needs at that moment. She rises up on her tiptoes and crashes their lips together at the precise moment she hears another clash of thunder outside, though this time it sounds farther away. Muffled by either the length of miles or the fact that James Potter has flooded her senses.

Hands fumbling together, clawing at their last bit of clothing - bra, knickers, sweatpants, glasses- Lily feels as though the moment passes like a lightning strike, all too fast to take in, and suddenly they're in the shower with no real memory of stepping in, and the water is warming her chilled skin.

"Dammit, Evans," he groans, pressing her roughly into the tile wall of the shower and letting his mouth - his teeth - explore the valley of her neck.

"I like it -oh god - I like it when you call me Evans."

"I like you," he says. "I like you so, so much."

She would fall, she thinks, absolutely collapse if it weren't for the very fact that he is holding her up with a hand looped around her waist, what with his words like honey and the way his mouth has traveled impossibly lower, latching onto her right breast.

Sucking, nipping, kneading.

A slip of tongue in the best possible way.

Her hand threads its way to the back of his head, lacing and gripping at his tuffs of now- soaked hair, and Lily feels a heat bubbling in her stomach that's not caused by the heat of the water the bathroom.

She feels her mind cloud in a way that's not due to the fog steaming up the bathroom.

Nice girl, he had called her earlier, and she nearly snorts. Nice girls don't do these sort of things. Nice girls don't pull James Potter's head roughly off their breast so she can kiss him, swallowing the moans he makes while her hand runs up and down the length of his cock.

Touching, exploring him for the very first time.

Nice girls don't touch this way.

Nice girls certainly don't trail their mouth down James Potter's throat, stopping at the base of his neck to bite and suck until he's got the beginnings of a love bite blossoming.

Nice girls surely don't turn, hands pressed against the shower wall, back arched into James Potter while he pokes and prods her with his length.

"Fuck!" A nice girl wouldn't swear when he enters her. Wouldn't nearly get off to the way he's gripping her waist roughly with one hand, the other fisted against the wall next to her head. Wouldn't nearly finish with the way he's biting down on her shoulder. "God - James!"

"God damnit, Evans -" Lily can tell from the sheer growl of his voice, and the way his hips are rocking into hers with enough force to press her flat against the wall, that James himself is close. And the thought is thrilling, to know that it's because of her. "You're so fucking tight-"

No, nice girls wouldn't do such things.

But Lily doesn't mind being not so nice when he hits that spot just there, -right, right there- she especially doesn't mind it when their moans mold together, coming off as a mixture of sobs and breathless pleas. Echoing, bouncing, jumping off the tile walls until Lily is certain she wouldn't be able to hear the thunder from the storm no matter the distance, drowning out the now chill water of the shower head.

"Please, James - oh god - right there!"

"Fucking hell - so good - shit, Lily- you feel so good-"

And then she's struck by lightning and it courses through her body, and she see stars.

Her body tenses, goes limp, and she feels James slump against her; hears a ragged cry that she realizes a moment later is her own, though it's unrecognizable. She's never heard that sound come from her own lips before.

Almost primal, certainly not nice.

But every bit in ecstasy.

And it takes her a bit longer to realize that it's mingled in with another sort of sobbing cry, this time not her own, and she realizes James has finished, throbbingly so, right after her, and it's her name he's crying out along with a stream of curses that aren't in a spellbook.

And they're a mixture of shallow breaths, aching limbs, and pounding hearts.

And this isn't nice. It's better than nice. It's perfect. And it's all thanks to a simple slip of tongue... the thought causes laughter to bubble up in Lily's throat until tears are streaming down her face.

"What?" James is laughing too, not the sort of bloke that needs to be in on a joke to do so, and when he turns Lily to face him, she isn't surprised to see him grinning. "What's so funny?"

"I - I told you to fuck me," she giggles. "And you did!"

And Lily's surprised they have enough air left in them to dissolve into giggles.

It's later that night - much, much later - after they've toweled off from their extra long shower when a sudden thought enters Lily's head. And when it does she nearly smacks herself, though she supposes she can't quite blame herself for not catching on sooner.

It's not as though she is in any sort of thought provoking state of mind, what with James turning her brain to mush and all.

But now - curled up as she is next to James in his bed, her hair still soaked, his chest in just the bare sort of state that she likes it - she tenses and when he feels her rigid state, he raises himself up on his elbow to glance down at her.

"What is it, love?"

"James, the strangest thought just occurred to me," says Lily, her eyebrows disappearing behind her fringe. "Don't you have showers down at the pitch?"

"We do," grins James. "But where would that have gotten me?"