Chapter 86: In the Bath
Lucy pushed him back. Not hard, just enough to create space between them, just enough to think. Her hands were flat against his chest, feeling the heat of him, the thrum of the fire that never quite went out. His skin was rough under her palms, scarred and raw in places, still healing from whatever he had done to himself in the forest. She could feel his heart beating, fast and strong, and beneath it, something deeper. Something that hummed like a furnace waiting to be fed.
"You need a bath," she said.
He blinked. "What?"
"A bath. You have been in the forest for two weeks. You look like you wrestled a volcano and lost. You smell like you crawled through a fire and kept crawling. I am not letting you in my bed like this."
He looked down at himself. At the soot ground into his skin, the ash caked in the lines of his arms, the black streaks that ran from his neck to his waist. He looked back at her with an expression that was half offended and half amused. "You were going to let me in your bed two seconds ago."
"I was caught up in the moment. Now I am thinking clearly. And thinking clearly, I realize that if you get into my sheets looking like that, I will never get them clean. I will have to burn them. I will have to buy new ones. I will have to explain to Mirajane why I need new sheets and she will smile that smile and I will die."
Natsu stared at her. Then he laughed. It was a real laugh, not the sharp thing he had been carrying since he came back, but something looser, lighter. "You are worried about your sheets."
"I am worried about everything. My sheets, my floor, my apartment, my reputation. I spent the last week trying to fix my reputation and I am not letting you ruin it with ash and smoke and whatever else you have been rolling in."
He reached for her again. "I can buy you new sheets."
"You cannot buy new sheets. You do not have money. You have never had money. You spend all your money on meat and fire and things that explode."
He pulled her against him anyway, ignoring her protests, ignoring her hands pushing at his chest, ignoring everything except the need to have her close. His arms wrapped around her waist. His face pressed into her hair. He smelled like smoke and heat and something wild that made her knees weak.
Lucy stopped pushing. She let herself be held. She let herself breathe him in, the fire and the ash and the thing that was underneath it all, the thing that was just Natsu. Her Natsu.
"You need a bath," she said again, but her voice was gentler now.
"Then come with me."
She pulled back. "What?"
"A bath. You said I need one. Come with me. We can both use one. Save water. Save time. Save your sheets." He was grinning now, that stupid grin that made her want to hit him and kiss him and never let him go.
"Natsu, I am not taking a bath with you."
"Why not?"
"Because. Because that is not something people do. Because that is not something normal people do. Because that is not something people do when they are trying to fix their reputation and not end up in another magazine with tomato seeds in their hair."
His grin widened. "No one is going to put us in a magazine. No one is going to know. It is just us. Here. Alone. In your apartment." He leaned closer, his mouth brushing against her ear. "I have been gone for two weeks. I want to be close to you. I want to feel you. I want to wash the forest off me and have you there when I do."
Lucy's face was burning. Her whole body was burning. She could feel the heat of him through her clothes, through the space between them, through the careful walls she had built around herself.
"This is ridiculous," she said.
"Probably."
"This is the stupidest thing you have ever suggested."
"I have suggested a lot of stupid things."
She pushed away from him. She walked toward the bathroom without looking back. She heard him follow, heard his footsteps on the floor, heard the soft laugh he let out when he realized she was not going to say no.
The bathroom was small, the way all bathrooms in Magnolia apartments were small. A tub, a sink, a mirror with a crack in the corner that she had been meaning to fix for months. The tub was old, the enamel worn thin in places, but it was deep and wide and had room for two if they did not mind being close.
Lucy turned on the water. Steam rose from the tap, filling the room with heat and fog. She tested the temperature with her hand, adjusted the flow, waited for the tub to fill.
Natsu stood in the doorway, watching her. He had not moved from the threshold. He was waiting, she realized. Waiting for her to decide.
She turned to face him. "Take off your pants."
He raised an eyebrow. "You are very bossy tonight."
"You wanted a bath. Take off your pants."
He laughed again, that loose, easy sound, and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers. They were the only thing he was wearing besides his scarf, which he had not taken off since he came back, which she realized he had never taken off, not once in all the time she had known him.
"The scarf stays," she said.
"I know."
He pulled his pants down and stepped out of them. He was naked beneath, of course. He was always naked beneath, the way people who grew up with fire in their blood did not bother with things that were not necessary. He stood in her bathroom with the steam rising around him and the light from the bare bulb catching the lines of his body, the scars from the tower, the burns from the forest, the smooth places where his skin had healed and would heal again.
Lucy looked at him. She looked at the length of him, the weight of him, the way he was already hard, already waiting. Her mouth went dry.
"You are staring," he said.
"You are standing in my bathroom naked."
"You told me to take off my pants."
She turned back to the tub. The water was almost to the top. She turned off the tap and watched the steam curl toward the ceiling.
"You are going to get in," she said. "And I am going to get in after you. And we are going to wash the forest off you. And then we are going to see what happens."
She heard him move. Heard the soft splash of water as he stepped into the tub, the sound of him settling against the back, the sigh he let out as the heat worked into his muscles.
"Your turn," he said.
Lucy took a breath. She pulled her shirt over her head. She stepped out of her pants. She unhooked her bra and let it fall. She slid her underwear down her legs and stepped out of them. She did not look at him. She walked to the tub and put her hand on the edge and lifted one leg over and then the other and lowered herself into the water.
It was hot. Hotter than she usually ran it, but he was in the tub and he was always hot and the water had absorbed some of that heat, had become something that was not quite water anymore, not quite fire, something in between. She sank into it, let it cover her legs, her hips, her chest, let it rise until her shoulders were under and her hair was floating around her and the only thing above the surface was her face.
Natsu was watching her. His eyes were dark, half lidded, the way they got when he was thinking about something that was not fighting, not training, not anything that could be solved with fire. He was watching her and the water was moving around him, small waves that lapped at her skin, that pressed her toward him, that made the space between them shrink.
She reached for the soap. It was on the edge of the tub, a small bar of something that smelled like lavender, something she had bought at the market because it was pretty and made her feel like she was the kind of woman who bought lavender soap. She lathered it in her hands and reached for his arm.
He did not move. He let her take his wrist, let her pull his arm toward her, let her run her hands up the length of it, from his wrist to his elbow, from his elbow to his shoulder. The soap was slick between them, the water hot, his skin rough under her fingers. She traced the lines of him, the muscles that had grown harder in the weeks he was gone, the places where the fire had left marks, the places where he was still healing.
He let out a breath. His eyes closed. His head fell back against the edge of the tub.
Lucy moved closer. She was washing his chest now, her hands flat against his skin, the soap making paths through the soot and ash, revealing the skin beneath. His chest was wider than she remembered. Stronger. The scars from the tower were still there, pale lines against the red of his skin, but there were new ones too. Burns that were still pink, still tender, still waiting to heal.
"What did you do to yourself?" she asked.
He did not answer. His eyes were still closed. His breathing was slow, measured, the breathing of a man who was trying very hard to be still.
She washed his shoulders. His neck. The place where his jaw met his throat. She washed the soot from his face, the ash from his hair, the smoke from the hollow of his collarbone. She washed him until the water was grey and the soap was gone and his skin was clean and new and shining in the light.
"Lucy," he said.
She stopped. Her hands were on his chest, flat against his heart. She could feel it beating under her palms. Fast. Strong. The same rhythm she had felt in the bed, in the hallway, in the dark of her apartment when she thought she had lost him.
"Open your eyes," she said.
He opened them. His eyes were gold. Not the gold of the dragon, not the gold of the thing that had screamed in the forest. Something softer. Something that was just him.
She leaned forward. Her lips touched his. His hands came up out of the water, out of the heat, out of the space between them, and cupped her face. His fingers were wet. His palms were hot. He held her like she was something precious, something he had been waiting for, something he had been burning toward for two weeks and had finally reached.
The kiss deepened. His tongue slid against hers. His hands moved from her face to her hair, her neck, her shoulders. The water moved around them, small waves that pressed them together, that made her aware of every inch of him, of the places where his legs tangled with hers, where his hips pressed against her thighs, where the hard length of him was waiting, ready, aching.
She pulled back. Just enough to breathe. Just enough to see his face.
"I missed you so much."
He kissed her again. His hands slid down her back, pulling her against him, pulling her onto him. The water was hot, too hot, the heat of it mingling with the heat of his skin, the heat building between them, the heat that was going to consume them both.
The soap slipped from the edge of the tub and hit the floor with a soft thud. Neither of them noticed.
Natsu's hands found her hips. His fingers pressed into her skin, pulling her closer, positioning her over him. She could feel him against her, the head of him pressing where she was soft and wet and ready. He was looking at her, waiting, his eyes dark and gold and hungry.
"Lucy," he said. His voice was rough, scraped raw by the fire he had been carrying, by the weeks of silence, by the need that had been building since the day he left.
She lowered herself. Just enough to feel him. Just enough to remember what it was like to have him inside her, to be filled by him, to be claimed by him.
"Now," she said. "I want you now."
His hands tightened on her hips. His breath came in a rush. He pulled her down and she let herself fall and the water rose around them and the world narrowed to the heat of his skin and the taste of his mouth and the feel of him pressing into her, filling her, becoming hers.
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Next Time: The Miss Fairy Tail Contest