#engulf

He needed space. He needed a moment. He needed to get a grip.

He saw the portrait hole open, stragglers from the other houses heading back to their own common rooms to leave the Gryffindors to finish this party on their own.

James bolted.

The portrait closed behind him and he fell against the stone wall, finally, finally taking a full breath. Panting like he'd been running drills at Quidditch practice and not standing next to the only woman who could affect him this way.

She was. No other woman could derail him. No other woman could wreck him. No other woman could get him this high.

And he'd never even touched her.

"James?"

James closed his eyes. Pressing his forehead against the wall. Taking just one more breath before returning to the depths of her presence.

"Alright, Evans?"

"James, what's wrong? You practically ran out here. Sirius thought maybe someone had run off with the fire whiskey."

James chuckled, still turned toward the wall, cold and hard and completely opposite of what he dreamt Lily would feel like.

"If he really thought that he'd be out here."

Lily laughed and James drank in the sound, feeling it trickle down his shoulders and back like beads of water sliding towards the ground.

"Marlene was whispering to him and that's when I came after you. They don't tend to have a problem with an audience."

"Sounds in character," James tried to focus on how hard the wall was against his forehead. How the dampness of the castle corridor made the air a little colder. Trying to ground himself in it.

"James," and then she touched him, perfect fingers gripping gently on his bicep.

She was so close.

Not even the chilled stone could help him draw breath.

"James, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," his voice croaked.

"James, look at me."

Her gentle voice might as well have been the Imperius Curse as his neck turned without his consent and his eyes opened on her command.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

His lungs ached for want of air. His mind was spinning with every dream he'd ever had of her. His senses were overwhelmed with Lily. Her scent. The sound of her breathing. The heat from her hand against his arm. The sight of her concerned face looking up at him as her chest rose and fell.

"Sure," his voice cracked and he winced at the sound.

Her fingers left his arm and moved to caress his face.

She was too close.

His hand snapped up with the speed he used to snag Quaffles from the air and caught her wrist.

"Please," the strangled whisper left his lips.

"James," she tried to pull her hand free but he shook his head.

"Please, Lily, I just need," he swallowed, trying desperately to get a grip. "I can't."

Her other hand moved to hold his as it wrapped around her wrist. "You can't, what?"

He stared down at her fingers over his. The torture of slowly drowning in her was consuming but he couldn't bring himself to end the physical contact.

"Lose you."

"I'm not going anywhere, James. We're a team, remember?"

Her hand gripped tightly around his as she spoke and there was a fierceness behind her voice. He knew her eyes would be shining with determination. That her eyebrows would be furrowed slightly. That her mouth would be pursed, making her lips look fuller.

This was the thought that did him in. This was the thought that pushed him to look at her perfect mouth and he felt his own mouth go dry.

In his plight to avoid this hold she has over him, he'd missed her moving to stand right up against him. Her face was just inches from his own, those perfect lips closer to him than they'd ever been in real life.

"Lils."

He couldn't stop himself, his arm that had been pressed against the corridor shifted and his hand reached for her skin, aching to touch the softness of her cheek. To slide along her neck. To feel the silkiness of her hair.

He felt her breath catch under his hand and her eyes locked on his. He moved his hand from her hair to her shoulder and she stepped closer. James couldn't breathe. He was suffocating in this moment. And he was prepared to die in exchange for touching her, feeling what he'd only ever dreamt of.

Her eyes fluttered closed as his hand traced her shoulder blade and followed her spine back up to her neck. Her lips parted and James was starting to see stars. He was going to pass out. He was going to die. And he didn't want to leave this life not knowing how she tasted.

He tipped forward. Gently bringing his lips to hers.

And he could breathe.

Air was pulled in so fast through his nose he thought he might float as his lungs filled.

His grip on her wrist dropped to come to her back, pulling her closer as she reached for him, hands sliding around his neck to play in his hair.

He angled them to press her into the wall. His veins pulsed with this new rush of oxygenated blood. Her tongue slipped across his lips and he parted for her, a spike of Lily running through every neuron in his brain causing them all to fire at once.

He began pressing kisses to her cheeks, her chin, her neck, by her ears. Every kiss pulled more from her. More sighs. More fervor. More Lily. James was sure every sound she made pumped another five years of life into him.

He wanted to live forever.

"James," his name on her lips was the source of all the good he had ever experienced.

"Lils," he brought his lips back to hers, pressing feather-light against them.

"Snog me somewhere warmer?"

He could feel the wicked smirk on her lips, his chest rising and falling in full breaths, having finally learned to breathe the enveloping presence that is Lily Evans.