Chapter Text
It was hot out.
Heat was normal for New Orleans, true enough. But not like this.
This was a stuffy, sticky, swampy heat. Something mean and oppressive. It rose in waves off the ground at the horizon. It fried folks to a crisp on the street and steamed them like clams in the shade.
Local ice delivery men were temporarily elevated to the status of sidewalk heroes as they chipped popsicle-sized chunks off the frozen blocks melting away in the backs of their trucks and handed them out to kids across the neighborhood. Those blocks of ice wouldn’t have made it very far anyhow, not without turning the bed of each delivery truck into a swimming hole.
Speaking of which, the whole of Lake Pontchartrain was surely standing room only by now—and all of this before noon.
Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen had this inferno of a day off from the Palace. While that meant avoiding the added heat of an industrial kitchen (for which they were very grateful), they still felt like they were carrying the bayou around with them in all of their nooks and crannies.
“Faldi Faldonza!” sighed a weary—and sweaty—Naveen. “I thought Maldonian summers were hot…”
He leaned a little further out of the bedroom window in their apartment above the restaurant, and uselessly fanned himself with his hat.
Just as he was considering opening yet another button of his sweat-streaked shirt, Tiana entered the room. She was carrying a basin of fresh water and a couple of washcloths in her arms as she walked over to him. She set the large bowl between the two of them on the wide windowsill, then dunked and wrung out the cloths before giving one to Naveen. He threw down his hat and draped the damp towel across his face, indulging in its brief coolness—and it was brief. But with solace hard to come by under the blazing Southern sun, he took what little of it he could get.
Tiana patted her face with her cool cloth, too.“If Hell is hotter than this, I ain’t goin’,” she said with a shake of her head that made her loose curls sway about her shoulders.
“Ah?” the prince smirked. “Then you have forgotten who you are married to…”
He reached out and pinched the curve of her bottom through her dress’s pleated skirt and winked at her, the devil, underscoring where he presumed the two of them were headed.
“Rude!” she mock-scoffed and swatted his hand away with a flirtatious smile.“Wouldn’t a good husband call his wife an angel?”
“A better husband would make her sing like one every night, no?”
Tiana cut him a sharp, sideways glance. Naveen met it with a knowing grin.
Then they giggled together like schoolchildren. And by the time they were done, both of their faces were hot all over again.
“Anyway…” Tiana playfully pushed at one of her husband’s arms, lingering for a moment over the sweat-slickened skin exposed by his rolled up sleeves. “There’s gotta be somethin’ we can do till this heatwave snaps, sugah.”
Naveen nodded in agreement as his eyes glazed over in thought. He absently dipped his washcloth back into the basin and swept it across his neck with a slow, deliberate hand. He squeezed it delicately, stretching his throat out and giving over more of himself to the cool, liquid relief. Heavy droplets of water raced down his caramel skin and buried themselves in the thicket of his chest hair, which had been left fully on display by his half-open shirt.
He sighed in relief and meant it. The sound prickled the princess’s ear, and she stilled.
Tiana thought she had been innocently watching her husband from the corner of her eye. But at his wordless moan she caught herself imagining the taste of fresh salt on him instead. From her vantage point, the tensing veins and corded muscles of his neck now seemed like perfectly seasoned morsels of meat. She wanted to sink her teeth into them—into him.
She suddenly noticed that her lips had parted, and she quickly pursed them together to keep from licking them outright.
Seemingly unaware of the fire burning inside his already overheated wife, Prince Naveen began to offer ideas for how to cool down.
“Perhaps we could go to the shore of the gulf? Or the lake?” he suggested. “There is sure to be a breeze on the water, no?”
“That’s probably true…” said the princess, dunking her cloth into the basin again, and trying to keep her gaze somewhere safely away from her husband’s chest. “But I bet everybody from here to Baton Rouge had the same idea this mornin’. There’d hardly be enough space for us to lay out a picnic blanket by the time we got to either one.”
Her husband hummed pensively.
“Hmmm… you do not think people would make way for a Crown Princess?” He teased, “I could wire home right now and have such a law enforced…”
“Naveen!” Tiana played at being outraged. “You know we agreed not to throw our royal powers around while we’re livin’ here.”
“What?” He played at being sincere. “It is important for the future of Maldonia that we do not die of heat stroke… and that I can roll around with you on a picnic blanket wherever I please…”
Tiana’s cheeks swelled at her man's audacity, and she could feel him reading her innermost thoughts. Was her desire so obvious? If so, how could she hide it? She didn’t trust Naveen not to make a move if she seemed the slightest bit interested. She barely trusted herself in such a predicament. It didn’t help that their usual bedroom antics were a lesson in physical exertion. Mixed with the day’s record-setting temperatures, they were a perfect recipe for a dehydration-induced disaster.
Against her better judgment, however, she risked another glance at her prince’s unbuttoned shirt. And she was rewarded by the sight of his chiseled collar bone and Adam’s apple. By his smooth, brown skin and chest hair shiny with dew.
She cursed under her breath.
The princess wanted to turn the entire contents of the basin upside down over her husband’s head and drink the subsequent waterfall off his fine frame. She imagined them both, parched and delirious, fretting about in the wet mess of it afterwards. Their naked bodies writhing. Slippery against each other. Forever ruining and warping the wood of their bedroom floor as the puddle of their lovemaking spread and spread and spread.
That sort of romp in this sort of heat would certainly lead to exhaustion. Maybe even hospitalization! But staring at him as she was now, it was all the princess could think about. Sweat blossomed between her shoulder blades, staining its way through the back of her thin, linen dress so profusely that she was sure Naveen would be able to decode her lust in the Rorschach inkblot it made. She angled her back away from him just in case he could.
“We’re tryin’ to cool off. Remember?” she said, attempting to steer the conversation back on course.
“Speak for yourself…” He leaned in close then, gruffing lovingly along the inflamed shell of her ear, “I take my responsibility to provide an heir very seriously…”
He slid one instigating hand to the small of her back and pulled her close with a force that made the basin teeter and slosh on the windowsill beside them. Tiana’s breathing stopped as she realized she’d been swept up in her man’s swift embrace. She looked up at him just as quickly—hopeful and waiting—her dilated pupils tracing the full lines of his lips, the depths of his dimples, the shimmering gold love in his eyes.
Maybe heat exhaustion wouldn’t be so bad…
The prince spoke again, “But I need one of those icy, fizzy drinks first.”
“Oh, you!” Tiana huffed disapprovingly and splashed a handful of water from the basin at him, sending them both back into uncontrollable laughter. Naveen held her firmly against him, though, through their lighthearted teasing and fun.
“Let us find an ice cream parlor or soda fountain,” he rasped. Then he lidded his gaze at her before speaking next. “I promise to ravish you afterwards, miamoza.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Who wants to be ‘ravished’ in this heat?” she asked—a lie.
Tiana pushed the heels of her hands against Naveen in an effort to wrest herself from his desirous grasp. But secretly, she indulged in the feel of his torso, hot and hard and heaving, under her touch. Whether from habit or lust or marital familiarity, their breathing synchronized. And every point where her body met his melted into him a little more.
She couldn’t bring herself to leave his arms.
The prince leaned in even closer to his princess. His eyes followed the salty beads of sweat that formed in the curls at her temples. He kept watching as they drew slow paths down her cheeks, past her quivering lips. He lifted a come-hither finger to her face and caught the juiciest of drops that threatened to fall from her prim little chin. Then he brought her fresh sweat to his mouth, and he tasted it.
“You’re right…” he finally answered her, sucking his finger clean. “We’re much too sensible for that.”
The narrowed amber gaze that returned Tiana’s was haughty. Promising to make her swallow her words much like the sweat that had been swallowed right in front of her. A part of her prayed the moment would present itself, so she could.
For now, though, she pulled herself together.
“Well…” she exhaled, “button your shirt, Hop-along. We oughta go now before all the ice cream and cold drinks are sold out.”
She dipped her washcloth into the last of the basin water and slowly dabbed it around Naveen’s brow, smoothing his sweat-soaked locks out of the way so she could plant a small, chaste kiss in the middle of his forehead, intending the gesture to bring their flirtations to a close. But when she pulled back, the simmering look they shared was more than enough to spark a fire to life with the right kindling. To keep it alive and burning for hours on end with proper tending and care. Heat was funny that way. Sudden and all-consuming, but fragile and needy as well. Theirs was all those things and more. And it didn’t seem to be dampening one bit.
“Alright then,” the prince said, not satisfied with the politeness of Tiana’s kiss.
He brought his wife’s heart-shaped face to his and pressed his mouth sumptuously to hers. They were both too hot. Too bothered. Too playful together with their purrs and the tips of their tongues.
But the summer air was suffocating. It left them panting prematurely. The royal couple withdrew from one another, defeated, as a series of sharp, gasping breaths escaped their lungs.
“Perhaps I misspoke earlier,” the prince said with a husky laugh.
“How so?” Tiana huffed.
“If Hell is hotter than this, I do not wish to go either,” he answered. “What use is an eternity that is too hot to kiss you?”
Naveen hovered a finger sensually over her pouty bottom lip. It was clear they shouldn’t carry on so recklessly. But desire wouldn’t loosen its grip on him. His other hand seemed to float down the back of Tiana’s dress without his making it do so, and it cradled all the thick, womanly curves that would be his demise if he continued tempting fate in this heat.
Feeling his sly groping through her skirt, the princess raised an eyebrow in her husband’s direction.
“This is how you plan to get into Heaven, huh?” she sassed, nodding back at the wicked handful of her that he held. His recent words weren’t exactly matching his deeds.
He tilted down to her, pressing their wet foreheads together, his begging, half-open stare speaking volumes.
“If I am good… I’ll be let in?” He squeezed her ass emphatically. “That is how it goes, yes?”
Tiana ignored Naveen’s double entendre in an act of sheer self-preservation, choosing instead to hand him his hat, which he placed begrudgingly on his head. Then she buttoned his shirt for him, removing temptation for herself.
“Heaven’s gonna hafta wait a little bit, shug…” she crooned and patted his now covered chest.
He blew out a breath that trilled his lips. “You are no fun, princess.”
“You’ll thank me later, angel mine,” she replied with a dimpled grin. Then she shooed him across the room to their chest of drawers. “Now, fetch us a few more handkerchiefs,” she told him. “No tellin’ how many we’ll sweat through today.”
“A killjoy and bossy to boot…” the prince sighed under his breath.
“That’s the boss to you,” she corrected as she sauntered by him with the now empty basin.
Naveen obediently bent down to a drawer and grabbed a half dozen handkerchiefs like he was told, and Tiana pinched his ass as she passed by on her way out of the bedroom door.
“Good deeds’ll getcha into Heaven mighty fast, sugah,” she teased and winked at him over her shoulder.
He grinned lopsidedly as he watched her disappear into the other room, a jolt of hope surging through his veins. He stood up straight so he could fold all the handkerchiefs into smaller squares and tuck them into the pockets of his pants. Then he grabbed Tiana’s wide-brimmed hat for her as well.
“Are you ready, miamoza?” the prince called out.
Tiana moseyed back into the bedroom a moment later. Naveen extended her hat to her, and she graciously put it on as she searched the bedroom for a few final things.
“Just let me fetch my pocketbook,” she answered him coolly. “Your ‘icy, fizzy drink’ is on me.”
There were quite a few other things Prince Naveen could imagine on his wife. Quite a few things indeed. He kept them to himself as he opened the front door of their apartment for her, as he escorted her down the stairs, as he strolled the summer streets of New Orleans with her on his arm. Patience was a virtue he failed to muster in her presence time and time again, but when he committed to it, it was also the one that rewarded him most greatly.
They made a steady path to the nearest soda jerk counter, the sidewalk underneath their feet burning like the surface of the sun every step of the way. But what truly had the prince’s blood boiling on this inferno of a day was the promise of heavenly things to come.