Scent of Sunshine
Author's Note: As always, they aren't mine, and I'm making no money. This was for a word use challenge on an email list...Lemonade and a lemony interlude. Plot, what plot? I don't see any plot....(grin)
We are standing in the kitchen making lemonade. It's a hot day... Cooling Charms notwithstanding, the air is saturated with moisture, and we are all sweating, not moving. It feels that we will go up in flames from the simple friction of movement. The boys don't have energy for much beyond lying around and sniping at each other. I don't have energy to pretend anymore.
She is slicing lemons. The smell, sunshine and sensuality, rises up as she cuts. "You juice them as I get them cut," she says, tucking a tendril of curly red hair behind one ear. Her hands are dripping with the juice.
As I press the halves down onto the juicer and pour off the juice into the pitcher, I steal glances. She is very nearly naked in the thin summer dress she wears. It is strange...I've seen her naked often...we live like sisters here...but this almost nudity is tantalizing me painfully. Such a demure dress, all pintucks and delicate lace, and light, floating fabric. On her, though, it is the sexiest thing I can imagine. The thin cotton, damp with sweat, veils her breasts and belly, the curves of hip and thigh, showing glimpses of skin as she moves. And I don't think she's wearing a damn thing under it. The heat of the dripping air on my skin is nothing to the heat that is surging up my spine. As I squeeze the last lemon, I watch a small bead of sweat trickle down into the valley between her breasts. My mouth goes dry.
She wipes her hands on the skirt of her dress, and now she will smell like lemon all day. It suits her, somehow. I inhale again...Lemon, and the spicy scent of her shampoo, and there is a deeper note within her sweat that teases at my nose and speaks of something that I don't quite understand yet.
But I want to.
She is stirring in the sugar, damp cotton swirling about her calves as she turns to scoop from its container. She licks a drop off the spoon, and I feel adrenaline surge through me, making my skin too tight. She stirs again, and hands it to me. "Taste...Is it right? I always think it's better if it's not too sweet."
I take the spoon in a daze, and the sweet and sour sunshine flavor burns across my senses. "It's fine," I manage to say. It isn't, though. And then she cocks her head at me, and smiles at me. I feel myself blushing. Her smile changes, and she drags her finger, still damp with lemon juice, through the sugar spilled on the counter, and raises it to her lips, mock-absently sucking it clean, and watching me. I stop thinking, and now my lips do part, and I can't hide my thoughts, not for all the gold in Gringotts.
"It's too hot right now, " she says, and I realize that my thin cotton shirt and shorts are as soaked and as transparent as her dress, that her eyes like mine are hooded with desire, and she is licking her lips and looking at me as if I were an ice pop, melting in the heat of her eyes.
We carry the lemonade out to the boys, and she looks at me while they drink, and says softly, "Tonight." And her smile is brighter than the sun.
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