Just once, as he walks her home from the pub after her eighteenth birthday party, while she's warm and loose from drink, Lily holds her brother's arm and rests her cheek against his shoulder. Their steps fall in rhythm on the rain-slick footpath, and the thought weaves across her mind with an anxious, fluttery delight that all the raucous Muggle uni students careening past them must think that James is her boyfriend.
Just once, when she leans over to pick up the potatoes at a family dinner, James looks down his sister's blouse. As he lets his gaze linger over the lacy edge of her bra, over her soft hanging breasts and the gap between, she catches him, and he meets her wide, startled eyes. He should be mortified. She should be angry. But instead a moment of breathless truth passes between them—just long enough for both to realise, as she straightens up and fixes her neckline with a quirk of a sidelong smile, that neither reacted quite as a brother or a sister should.
Just once, in the quiet solitude of the flat she can still barely believe is all hers, Lily slides her trembling hand down between her thighs and allows herself the luxury of sinking into the dreams that she's tried so hard to deny. Her breath is ragged with both desire and fear, worried somehow that her thoughts are too loud and someone will hear her secret: that when she imagines it's her brother's fingers touching, rubbing, dipping into her desperate wetness, it makes her come dizzyingly, terrifyingly hard.
Just once, as James drops her off beneath the pale porch light, he leans in to drop a peck on her cheek, but at the last moment she turns and he catches the side of her mouth. It's quick and surely accidental, and they laugh it off. But as he's flying home, again and again he relives the instant when he and his sister kissed, and then after, the curious way she bit her lower lip, eyes half-lidded as she disappeared into her building.
Just once, late at night, Lily finds herself at her brother's doorstep. And just once, James invites his sister in, knowing now that each once is just a stepping stone to once more.
Just once, as he walks her home from the pub after her eighteenth birthday party, while she's warm and loose from drink, Lily holds her brother's arm and rests her cheek against his shoulder. Their steps fall in rhythm on the rain-slick footpath, and the thought weaves across her mind with an anxious, fluttery delight that all the raucous Muggle uni students careening past them must think that James is her boyfriend.
Just once, when she leans over to pick up the potatoes at a family dinner, James looks down his sister's blouse. As he lets his gaze linger over the lacy edge of her bra, over her soft hanging breasts and the gap between, she catches him, and he meets her wide, startled eyes. He should be mortified. She should be angry. But instead a moment of breathless truth passes between them—just long enough for both to realise, as she straightens up and fixes her neckline with a quirk of a sidelong smile, that neither reacted quite as a brother or a sister should.
Just once, in the quiet solitude of the flat she can still barely believe is all hers, Lily slides her trembling hand down between her thighs and allows herself the luxury of sinking into the dreams that she's tried so hard to deny. Her breath is ragged with both desire and fear, worried somehow that her thoughts are too loud and someone will hear her secret: that when she imagines it's her brother's fingers touching, rubbing, dipping into her desperate wetness, it makes her come dizzyingly, terrifyingly hard.
Just once, as James drops her off beneath the pale porch light, he leans in to drop a peck on her cheek, but at the last moment she turns and he catches the side of her mouth. It's quick and surely accidental, and they laugh it off. But as he's flying home, again and again he relives the instant when he and his sister kissed, and then after, the curious way she bit her lower lip, eyes half-lidded as she disappeared into her building.
Just once, late at night, Lily finds herself at her brother's doorstep. And just once, James invites his sister in, knowing now that each once is just a stepping stone to once more.