Cloud x Tifa - The Heat (FFVII)

The Heat

The Heat

The first time she felt the heat, she had been thirteen years old.

It pulsed inside of her when she put her makeup on in front of the mirror, quick swipes from a pencil of kohl that had belonged to her mother, found buried in an old cosmetic bag in her vanity that was still in her parents' bedroom.

She stared at her reflection, at the pretty seafoam dress and the ways her hair was a long, dark spill against her shoulders, and she turned to admire herself, knowing that in just a little while, she was going to be meeting the boy that made her want to get pretty and fancy, the boy who was so cute but so shy and so elusive. His invitation had so surprised her, and it was the moment that the threads of the heat had started to unspool inside of her.

She hadn't understood it then, didn't know what that feeling was. All she knew was that it beat inside of her when she stared at her image in the glass, that it raged when she sat beside him on the water tower, his knee inches from hers as he quietly told her that he was leaving.

Her heart was somewhere deep in the center of her chest, plummeting as it thundered. She turned to him, desperate as the heat gathered and rose, and impulsively, she asked him to promise.

She didn't feel the heat again for another seven years, when they were reunited, when he came back to her no longer as a boy but now as a man.

She knew what it was by then. She'd grown over the years to understand her own needs, but there was no man in Midgar who could satisfy them. Plenty had tried, flowers and candy and sometimes borderline crude pickup lines, openly lustful gazes on the lines over her shape. But there was only one boy who she still thought of, and when he returned to her, his memories broken but his eyes holding a hidden softness only for her, she felt the heat return and rise deep inside, a pool that was low in her belly but soon fanned out over her entire body, throbbing between her knees.

Those first few days in Sector7 had been torture. She had taken to relieving the ache in the quiet confines of her room late at night, sometimes in the shower or sometimes deep under her covers, her fingers sliding into the wetness in her panties. And she was usually quiet, whispering his name gently into her pillow.

But not that night. That night, he'd stared at her while she worked behind the bar, his eyes following her body as she labored over bottles and dishes. They were thick with mako, and every time hers accidentally met his, she felt the heat creep back up the insides of her thighs, searing her, and Cloud would offer her the ghost of a smirk as if he somehow knew.

But he never said anything about it, never embarrassed her or pushed her into something, remained respectful even as he walked quietly side by side to Stargazer Heights with her that night.

But she had been too loud that night.

She couldn't get the image of his eyes following her out of her mind, and, forgetting how thin these walls were, she cried his name into her pillow as she gently padded her clit, wishing her fingers were his. She was desperate for him, the fire scalding her insides as she conjured an image of him, blond hair and blue eyes and strong, well-defined biceps, his chest just toned enough to have his pectorals firm against his sweater.

"Tifa."

His voice was stern and low on the other side of the wall, almost a warning, a chastisement. She stopped, pulling her hand away from her underwear, mortified that he heard her. She knew he had, could tell from the deep tenor of his voice.

"Yeah?" she called out breathlessly.

"Can I come in."

It wasn't a question, and the tone he used had her entire face red and on fire. She sat up, pulling her covers to her chin as she stared in terror at the door, the heat pulling her insides apart, her clit throbbing above the leak she was creating on her sheets.