Chapter Text
The first time Hermione sat on Draco Malfoy’s lap, it was against her will.
It had been a dare, issued to her by Pansy during one of her and Harry’s ‘look, our friend groups are compatible, aren’t they?’ soirées which had become a common occurrence after their engagement.
Harry falling in love with Pansy Parkinson should have been the most shocking event of Hermione’s life but everything had gotten so shaken up in the wake of the war that she’d hardly even blinked when he’d asked her to lunch and shared the news. But what was shocking was how well the Slytherins and Gryffindors actually did get along, once Harry and Pansy had forced them all together a time or two.
It helped that over a decade had elapsed since they’d been sorted into rivalries and as many of them now found themselves as coworkers in the microcosm which was Wizarding Britain, their prior antagonism faded rather anticlimactically.
In fact, apart from Blaise, Pansy, and the youngest two Weasleys, the entirety of their combined friend group worked in one capacity or another at the Ministry of Magic. Being vessels of change at such a young age had imbued in each of them either an unending need to keep the momentum going or a sense of distrust in the entire establishment and therefore a need to go in and right some wrongs.
At least, those were the sides of the spectrum that Hermione found herself and Draco on. She’d gone into legislature, wanting to enact specific and pervasive change using the existing structure to make it happen; he’d gone in to International Magical Cooperation to sort out what the fuck had gone so wrong in Britain to let a megalomaniac take things over not once but twice and do his part in bringing them up to par with the continent.
(She knew this after he’d gotten spectacularly drunk at Pansy and Harry’s engagement party and talked her ear off, likely not realizing who he was lecturing. She’d never quite forgiven him for his passion, nor forgotten it).
But even though they were colleagues of a sort, they weren’t coworkers and they weren’t friends. He was polite to her now, at least, and she managed to not hold his childhood actions against him too harshly. He was trying and she’d always had a bit of a weakness for people who tried.
Though, it didn’t seem like he was trying very hard at the present moment, as she crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest, protesting Pansy’s dare for her to sit on Draco’s lap for the rest of the game quite passionately while he did nothing but sit back and watch. They’d had a few bottles of wine between the eight of them so perhaps he was subdued from that, she reasoned, because surely he’d be less than enthused at the thought of her in his physical space – on his physical person – for at least the next ten minutes.
“Pansy,” she huffed. “Come on, pick something else.”
“Don’t tell me this is too daring for you,” Pansy goaded.
Hermione looked to Harry but he was no use, snickering from just behind Pansy, his soon-to-be-wife and the current thorn in Hermione’s side having perched herself (willingly) on his lap. She glared at him then turned and narrowed her eyes at Draco. He blinked but otherwise didn’t move. Yep, she thought with resignation, drunk.
She turned back to Pansy and gestured behind herself to the useless blonde. “Look at him.”
Pansy’s eyes flicked to him then back to Hermione. Theo snorted but when Hermione glanced over, his head was tipped back to get the last of his wine. She narrowed her eyes at him all the same.
“I’m looking,” Pansy drawled. “What’s your issue?”
“He’s…well he can’t advocate for himself, can he? I mean, he’s not saying a bloody thing so he’s obviously out of his mind intoxicated or…or so exhausted that he’s unable to parse what’s going on.”
“Merlin Hermione, what are you planning to do to him once you sit down?” asked Harry with a faux-scandalized tone. She shushed him impatiently.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Pansy mused over her shoulder to Harry.
“Do not quote Shakespeare, Parkinson!” Hermione snapped. “Leave one thing just for me, can’t you?”
Pansy rolled her eyes but she was grinning. “Fine, Granger. Do you need his consent before you sit?” She looked over Hermione’s shoulder again. “Draco, darling. Can Hermione sit on your lap?”
Draco shifted in the armchair, spreading his legs a little to make more space for her and flicking his brows once in agreement, face mildly amused but still mute. He looked lucid enough but she couldn’t figure out his angle for being so silent now, of all times, when he was usually quite outspoken. Fucking useless, she thought fiercely.
But then there was no other reason she could find and so with a final glare at Pansy and her patented withering look at Harry, she stalked over to him. He looked up at her, amused, eyes sharper than she’d expected.
“How do you want me?” she asked petulantly.
Theo catcalled at her inadvertently suggestive phrasing but she didn’t care one whit because her question had finally sparked something behind Draco’s eyes. He swallowed and glanced to his right.
“Sufficient,” said Blaise and when Draco looked back at her, he was smirking.
“Sorry about that, Granger,” he drawled. “Penalty of not answering my last truth was to sit in silence until Blaise said so.”
She’d been in the kitchen opening another bottle of wine when Draco’d had his last turn. She wondered what truth he’d deemed too revealing that he’d opt for silence instead, but that was a mystery for another time as she was currently faced with needing to complete her own dare. She snapped her fingers at him impatiently and he snorted.
“However you like,” he answered her, leaning back and keeping his hands on the arms of the chair, inviting her into his space. She’d hoped he’d push back on Pansy now that he could talk but his continued lack of objection showed that her hope had been in vain.
“Useless,” she muttered to herself, then turned and sat primly on his thighs, maintaining a good few inches of space between her back and his chest. She appreciated that he didn’t try to close it, keeping his back against the high back of the armchair and his hands to himself. It did make for a rather unsteady seat without anything to stabilize herself with but she’d be damned if she asked Draco Malfoy to hold her.
“Right,” she said, looking around at them as if nothing at all was strange about her current seat. “Truth or dare, Theo?”
Theo glanced up from where he was knelt on the carpet in front of the coffee table, refilling his glass from the fresh bottle. “Uh oh. I’d better go with truth. Merlin knows what dare you’d sic on me in retaliation.” He winked.
He was shrewd and she let him know as much with a returning smirk. She thought for a moment and then tilted her head at him challengingly. “What’s something you’d do if there were no consequences?” she asked.
Theo’s eyes flicked behind her but then smiled teasingly. “Ah now, Hermione. I thought it was my turn to spill a truth.”
She frowned, confused. “It is. I just asked you one.”
“Right, right. Of course.” He re-corked the bottle and heaved himself back up onto the sofa beside Harry. “If I could do something with zero consequences then I would…snog the Chosen One.”
Harry chuckled as Pansy turned to point a finger at Theo, like he was a naughty child. “No, Theo. Mine.”
Theo sipped his wine, uncowed. “She said if there were no consequences, babe. I’m well aware of the very real consequences of stepping on your turf.”
“That’s right.” Pansy flipped her hair. “And don’t you forget it. Now, your go.”
As Theo surveyed the group, Hermione felt Draco finally encroach in her space. He still wasn’t touching her but she could sense his body behind hers in a way she hadn’t before, like all of her nerve endings were suddenly standing up and sending feelers out toward his. It made her vaguely itchy.
“Why’d you think I was drunk just because I wasn’t talking?” he asked quietly as Theo selected Blaise for his turn.
She wanted to turn around but the thought of facing him while on top of him was more than her over-excited nerves could take, so she made do with turning her head to speak over her shoulder.
“You’re usually obnoxious,” she said. “So I assumed that you’d finally had enough to dull you enough to sit quietly.”
He chuckled. “Obnoxious. Seems a bit dramatic.”
“Yes, you’re that, too,” she agreed with excess sincerity.
He poked her side and she squeaked, finally looking over her shoulder at him with a stern expression. He looked so unapologetic and almost boyish in his humor that she couldn’t help but drop her expression with a laugh.
“Stop it,” she chastised, “or I’ll fall off and lose my dare.”
“Mmm.” He finally touched her, a single tentative hand lightly against her side to steady her. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“No,” she said crisply, turning back around, burning. “We wouldn’t.”
●
The second time she sat on Draco’s lap was purely for convenience.
As Harry’s Worst Man and Pansy’s Worst Woman (their friends were original if not quite cheeky), Draco and she had been sent on an errand to pick up the trial cake from the bakery for the rehearsal dinner that evening. It didn’t seem like a two person job but they’d both stopped trying to insert logic into the whirlwind which was the soon-to-be Mrs. Potter.
Securing the cake was easy enough but when they clambered onto the bus to head back to Grimmauld Place (Muggle transport being the most gentle when trembling layers of chocolate chiffon and sponge were involved), they found it packed. A quick glance over the heads to the back rows confirmed it: there was only one open seat. Even the most subtle of stabilizing charms was ill-advised in such close quarters with Muggles, so she did what she was best at and found a quick solution which would ensure the cake made it safely to their destination. She gestured to the last open seat.
“Sit down,” she told Draco briskly.
He looked surprised. “Me? No, you should.”
Ever the gentleman, she thought wryly.
She gave him a look. “I’m going to, just—go on, you first.”
“Granger, I can stand—”
“Oi!” hollered the driver. “Sit down or hold on to sommit!”
She jerked her chin at the seat and after a final hesitation, he sat. When she turned and perched herself on his thighs, he made a little grunt of surprise but sat back to make room. She glanced over her shoulder at him.
“See?” she whispered. “Your chivalry is maintained.”
He laughed but, she noticed, was blushing. It was such a becoming look on him that she stared for a moment, mesmerized. But then the bus jolted forward and she had to look away to ensure the box didn’t slide, squeaking as she began to lose her balance. His hands jumped up to her waist, holding her steady as the bus lurched up and over a bump.
“I’ve got you, Granger."
“Thanks.”
She used every muscle in her core to hold herself straight but when the bus bumped again and began to make an aggressive left turn, she couldn’t fight the laws of physics and so angled her torso slightly to let her shoulder press back against his chest for a secondary point of support. His hands shifted to get a better hold, one moving to her hip and the other daring to brace her leg right above the knee. She was wearing trousers and anyway, his hand was perfectly polite in the way that only a helping hand in public could be, but even so the touch burned through her.
She was a fairly affectionate person – the sort who greeted her friends with full, enthusiastic hugs hello and lingering, fond hugs goodbye; who touched arms while chatting and looped elbows while walking – but apart from the feel of his thighs under her and his hand gently against her all those weeks ago at Grimmauld, she hadn’t touched Draco much. It made every contact between them noticeable in a way that her other touches weren’t. She couldn’t even begin to innumerate the number of times she’d hugged Harry, for instance, or squeezed Ginny’s hand. But she could recall precisely every single fleeting moment of contact between her and Draco, and that made them all the more vivid.
Which meant that she knew, with a certainty exclusive to him, that this, right here on the bus, was the most physical contact they’d ever shared.
She tried to sit very still, hands clutching the cake box and eyes fixed firmly out the window across the aisle. Another bump had her abs tensing in preparation for the fallback but Draco held her securely, his body moving with hers. She cleared her throat, blushing when a granny caught her eye and gave her a rather suggestive wink.
She’d never had a convenience turn out to be so very inconvenient.
●
The third time was entirely his fault.
She’d been distracted reading through the latest draft of her policy reform while walking toward the end of the queue in the Ministry refectory when suddenly she was no longer going forward but sideways and down. She yelped, scrabbling to catch herself before realizing that a pair of strong hands had already arrested her motion and she was sitting.
“Mind where you’re going, Granger,” came a teasing drawl and she realized instantly that she’d found herself back on Draco’s lap.
“Sorry!” called a young man from in front of her. “Couldn’t see you over the tray.” Indeed, he was holding a tray piled quite high with teas and cakes.
“Oh! No problem, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She waved him away and he nodded gratefully before scurrying off, likely an aide having been sent for refreshments and not wanting to be gone for too long and thereby forgotten.
“While I’ve got you,” said Draco casually, not making any effort to help her back to her feet. “A rather intriguing piece of legislation came across my desk this morning. What are you up to?”
She turned halfway to face him; he let her but didn’t move his arm from around her back, his hand now closing around her hip.
“Me?” she said incredulously, distracted by his question enough to not focus on his hand. “What are you up to? Draco, you simply can’t just write policies without following due process. My proposal gets your office what you want without skirting the boundary of the law.”
He gestured dismissively with the hand not on her, unbothered by her accusation. “That’ll take ages and we need the ability to permit egress now.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry, but no.”
He raised a brow. “No?”
“No. I simply can’t allow it. Look at my proposal again and if you can find a way to economize–”
“I’ve looked at it in depth, Granger. I have my redlines right here.” He jerked his chin to the table behind her but tightened his hold on her hip when she began to turn around to look. “Later. Hungry?”
He had some nerve, she thought, to imply he’d found corrections to her policy and then not even let her review them.
“No.”
That got the corner of his mouth up. “Is that your favorite word today? And you are hungry.” He leaned in – she wanted to lean back but couldn’t quite work out the motor control to do it. His eyes were very pretty and glinting with a humor she didn’t often see. She felt like a moth; a very silly, stupid moth.
“Do you want to know how I know that?” His voice was conspiratorial, low and private.
“How?” she whispered.
“Because we’re in the refectory and it’s half one.” He sat back again and she almost leaned forward to keep the closeness, except that his smile had gone smug. It brought her back to herself and their current surroundings.
She clucked her tongue reflexively, feigning annoyance, and pushed on the shoulder of the arm he had around her, something she ought to have done at least two minutes ago. She felt her cheeks warm at the realization that countless people had just witnessed her sitting on Draco’s lap without complaint nor, until now, any apparent plans to relocate herself.
He chuckled and slipped it off her, fingers trailing across her lower back in a way that would have earned any other bloke a stern reprimand but instead made all the hairs on her body stand to attention. She ignored it as best she could and pushed to her feet, smoothing a hand down the back of her professional skirt as she turned to inspect his table. She jabbed a finger on a folder beside his empty plate, looking back and raising her brows at him in question. He inclined his head in answer, still amused, and she snatched it up.
“Bye, Draco,” she said, as if he was the most insufferable thing she’d ever encountered and she couldn’t wait to be rid of him (he wasn’t, and she didn’t).
“Bye, Granger,” he called after her (like he knew it).
●
The fourth time hardly counted.
They had all gone to the park for a sunny Saturday picnic and she was taking a post-meal wander down to the pond while the others attempted a pick up game of what they’d coined Ground Quidditch. To her, it appeared to be a worse version of football and she had half a mind to show them how to play properly, but held off inserting herself lest she be cajoled to join in (exercise was all well and good, but not when it involved Ginny Weasley and a ball). And anyway, Harry was there and had been the one to provide the football, so he could sort them out if needed.
Down by the water, she took a moment to look around. There were a few colorful paper boats floating around by the shore, captained by two children with sticks and critiqued rather harshly by a gaggle of geese. She wandered a few steps closer, attention on the boats as they bumped together. She’d made similar vessels with her dad when she was small and seeing it again made her a little sentimental.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the goose until it was practically beside her. She wasn’t scared of geese, exactly, but when something large and loud and flapping suddenly runs right at a person, it’s only natural to shriek. She paired her exclamation with a reflexive leap backward, her fight-or-flight response kicking in in an extremely confused way, and tripped over something. That something turned out to be Draco’s foot, which she determined in a surprised glance backward. She hadn’t heard him approach, and he was standing rather close behind her, so it was hardly her fault when her impact made him stumble. He managed to catch her but then went down all the same, with her crashing down on top of him.
“Bloody fuck, Granger,” he laughed, wheezing. “It’s just a goose!”
She sat up hastily, looking around for it but it had gone back to its gaggle, nefarious mission complete.
“They bite!” she insisted, embarrassed. “And it ran at me!”
She could feel his laughter through her back and it made her abruptly aware that he’d sat up behind her and she was sitting across his thighs. Again.
She cleared her throat, cheeks flaming at her actions and the very real ramifications of them. “Thank you,” she offered. And then to cover her mortification, added, “You make for a good landing.”
He laughed and leaned back on his arms, apparently unfussed that she was on him and had probably stained his trousers with grass. “Glad to hear it. I aim to serve, Granger.”
“Well.” She wasn’t sure how to reply to that.
The geese were milling around by the paper boats now, corralling them like a rainbow of goslings, much to the dismay of the children. It reminded her that she’d been down by the water alone – or so she’d thought. She turned on his lap, bum slipping off to rest on the lawn so that it was just her legs across his.
“What were you doing behind me, anyway?” she asked with as much accusation as she could muster, to make it very clear their collapse had been his fault.
“Oh, you know. Wanted to come stare at waterfowl and be taken to the ground by you.”
She laughed. “Idiot.” She leaned back on her hands, a mirror of his pose, ignoring his responding grin. “But really, why aren’t you playing Ground Quidditch?”
His snorted. “You answered it with the question. Ground Quidditch.”
“What, no flying, no fun?” she teased.
“No Seeking, no fun,” he corrected.
She made a sound of understanding. “I didn’t realize the draw of Quidditch was you being the star performer but as I say that out loud, I'm realizing that should have been quite obvious to me.”
He shrugged, humor and something else glinting in his eyes. “Chasing is fine but too chaotic. I prefer not to have my attention divided.”
“Hmm.” She crossed her ankles as casually as she could, as if the prolonged physical contact between them wasn’t doing wild things to several of her systems: cardiovascular, nervous, endocrine. “So why not Keeping?”
He hesitated for a moment, a brow twitching upward like he hadn’t even meant for it to. She wondered what he was thinking, to cause that subconscious reaction, but then he was smirking at her devilishly.
“It’s more fun to go after something rather than deflect it,” he said.
Her stomach dipped at the overtly flirty response but then he waggled his brows at her, stealing some of the tension from his statement.
“Charming,” she said, rolling her eyes, and then spotted Harry coming toward them.
“Oi, Draco!” he called as he jogged over. “Come on, we need a second Keeper.”
“Don’t bother, Harry,” Hermione told him airily. “Lord Malfoy is too special to play anything but Seeker.”
Harry glanced at Draco then back to her. “He plays Keeper all the time. Every third Friday, actually, in the Ministry league, which you'd know if you ever took me up on the invitation to watch.”
Hermione shot an accusatory look to Draco but instead of finding him smug with his trickery, he was blushing and clearing his throat. He caught her attention on him and patted her shins in a gesture to remove her legs from him. She did and then accepted Harry’s hand to help her to her feet.
“What’re you two doing on the grass, anyway?” asked Harry, poking her side discreetly in a way she didn’t appreciate, the gesture meant to indicate he knew exactly what she’d been up to. She scowled at him as she brushed grass off her bum but frustratingly, he’d married Pansy and so her withering looks had lost their verve.
“Granger tackled me,” Draco said and when she scoffed and turned to set her scowl on him, his playful grin was back.
●
The fifth time was an accident.
Theo had just gotten a new car and wanted to show it off by driving them over to the local shopping center. She needed a new pair of shoes so had agreed, along with Blaise, Draco, and Harry.
The car was nice but compact and Theo had refused to magically expand it due to not wanting to ruin it’s authenticity (she’d rolled her eyes but been a little touched at his adherence to Muggle experiences), so while the wizards admired the boot, she nabbed the front passenger seat and clicked in her seatbelt, raising her hands in an ah, sorry gesture when Blaise, the tallest and broadest of them, tapped on her window. The boys squashed into the backseat and she grinned smugly back at them, unrepentant even when Harry pouted quite pathetically, his shoulders curled inwards to fit in the middle between Draco and Blaise.
Fortunately for them, the drive wasn’t long and Theo was more competent a driver than she’d expected, shifting gears exactly when she would’ve and not missing a single exit in any of the numerous roundabouts.
She emerged from his car impressed and then amused as she watched the boys stagger out from the back, stretching dramatically. Her smile slipped a little when she caught a glimpse of pale skin when Draco clasped his hands overhead and performed a slight backbend, grousing to Theo as he did so. Theo laughed and Hermione tore her gaze away and busied herself with checking her bag was situated how she liked it before that laughter was turned on her.
They divided at the shopping center entrance with plans to meet up in an hour. Draco, Blaise, and Theo traipsed off in one direction and she and Harry the other; he’d agreed to come along on her quest for new shoes and she was happy for his company.
It was a little bit nostalgic, to be wandering around Muggle London with Harry – he’d been so busy with his wedding and all the requisite events which that life event dragged along with it that she felt she hadn’t seen him in ages – and so when they’d finished their shopping and she saw a photo booth, she dragged him over.
“Please?” she wheedled when he resisted. She tugged on his arm, doing her best puppy-dog eyes up at him.
“Aww, how can you resist that, Potter?”
She looked over and saw Blaise doing a fair impression of her pout, though his eyes were amused. Theo and Draco wandered over behind him, deep in a conversation and holding shopping bags.
“See, Harry?” She tugged on his arm again.
“Hermione, I’ve been photographed non-stop for weeks,” he whinged. “With you, even! Don’t you have enough pictures with me by now?”
“No. Never.” She looked at Blaise. “You’ll take a picture with us, won’t you, Blaise?”
Blaise looked at the booth beside them then jabbed a thumb at it. “This takes photos?”
“Yes! It can be another Muggle experience for you. Come on, it’s fun!”
“Hmm.” He peeked behind the curtain. She gave him a little nudge forward and he stepped in.
“What’re you lot doing?” called Theo as she tugged Harry in behind her.
“This takes photographs!” Blaise yelled. “Not sure how yet.”
“Shush.” She squeezed herself in front of the two standing men, locating coins from her purse as she did. “Do try to be slightly covert, Zabini.”
He chuckled as she slid coins into the slot and then pressed the shutter button. A number began counting down on the screen.
“Okay, it’ll take four in a row. So…smile!”
The resulting strip made her double over with laughter, Harry having made an entirely expressionless face in all of them with Blaise’s face a model example of ever-increasing confusion. Theo snatched it from her hand as she hunched over, hands on her thighs cackling, and then he and Draco were chuckling too.
“Oh, these are precious.” Theo grinned over at Blaise. “Okay, I want to take some too!”
The three former-Slytherins squeezed in next while Harry stood with crossed arms and shook his head at her, bemused.
“Ever thought you’d witness this?” he asked wryly.
She shook her head, a little charmed by it all. This is what they could have been doing ten years ago, she thought wistfully, had…almost everything been different.
Theo’s face appeared a moment later from behind the curtain. “Everyone now!” he demanded.
“It’s tiny,” said Harry. “It’ll give me flashbacks to my childhood.”
“Nice try.” She pushed him forward and then squeezed in after him.
He sighed but leaned against the far wall, Theo behind him and practically on top of Blaise, while she inserted coins and pressed the button.
“This is insane,” he complained. “We won’t even all fit in the viewfinder.”
“So shift over here–” Theo tugged him and in the close space, elbowed Hermione firmly in the sternum.
“Oof!” She lost her footing and went down, landing on a pair of thighs she was becoming rather well acquainted with. “Shit. Sorry.”
Draco snorted. “Graceful, Granger.” But his hand had closed around her middle reflexively, holding her to him. The shutter flashed as she rolled her eyes. Perfect.
“This is the dumbest fucking–” Harry began then laughed when Theo ruffled his hair and the shutter flashed again.
She felt Draco shift behind her and so leaned slightly to make sure she wasn’t blocking him completely, bumping into Theo in the process. He looked down at her, grinning.
“This is the best,” he told her fervently. “If only Pans was here, then all my favorite people would be within a square meter.”
“Aww.” Draco’s voice was very close to her ear and she almost didn’t want to know what her face looked like as the shutter flashed again.
“Ohh!” Blaise pointed straight forward. “Is that little thing the camera?”
The last photo was lost of peals of laughter.
Harry pushed them all out as soon as it was finished and as she was closest to the curtain, she made it out first and snatched up the photo strip, inspecting it quickly. The photos were ridiculous and so endearing that she held the strip to her chest.
“I love these,” she proclaimed. “I want them all.”
“Now, now, Granger,” tutted Theo, wrestling it from her. “Be nice and share. Oh Merlin, look at this one. I want this one.”
He pointed to the last one of them all laughing except for Blaise, who looked like he’d just discovered magic for the first time. He tore it off and then held out the strip to her.
She tore off the second one from the bottom and then offered the last two up. “Anyone else?”
Draco held out his hand and she deposited it in his palm. He smirked down at it and then tore it in two, showing her the one he planned to keep.
“Look, caught in your natural state,” he teased her.
It was the one where she’d been mid-eye roll at him, his smirk barely visible behind her curls.
“Prat.”
He grinned and pocketed it. Blaise took the final photo, Harry quite happy to go without.
She looked at the photo she’d kept rather more often than was probably healthy, because even though she knew Draco was smiling up at Theo on the other side of her after he’d made his heartfelt proclamation, it looked like he was smiling up at her.
●
It was because of all those accidental times that, when the bloke at the pub got a little more presumptuous than she appreciated, it didn’t seem completely outlandish to march over and — for once — slide very intentionally onto Draco's lap.
It perhaps would have been more appropriate to sit sideways but she’d had a bit to drink and quite enough of Todd or Ted or whoever-the-hells poorly done innuendo, and wanted to quite irrevocably shut it down.
“Hi,” she said in greeting as soon as she’d plopped herself down, a leg on either side of his and hands on his shoulders. “Play along?”
Draco didn’t miss a beat, tilting his head up with a fond smile. “I do love your games. What’s this one?”
“Prat by the bar couldn’t comprehend rejection so I’m enacting the standard tactic of ‘scare him off with another man’. He seems the sort to respect another man’s claim on property if not the property itself.”
She watched a muscle feather in his cheek as he turned to look the way she’d come.
“It’s fine, Draco,” she assured him. “Leave it.”
“Bloke with the hat?” he asked mildly. “Or with the beard?”
She clicked her tongue. “Leave it, I said.”
His hands were warm as he slid them around to interlock at the small of her back, turning his face back to her. “Fine. But it’s disgusting behavior.”
“It is. Where is everyone?”
“Harry and Pans are playing darts. Theo nipped outside for a smoke or a snog, couldn’t hear what he said.”
She chortled. “Sounds about right. So what’re you doing here, all by yourself?”
“Playing a game with you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Before I came over, I mean.”
He pressed his lips together like he’d been about to say something but thought better of it, then said, “Drinking my pint quite innocently, entirely unsuspecting of imminent lap-attacks.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”
He grinned, then tsked when she glared without any heat behind it.
“Now, now, that’s not selling it.” He pouted dramatically and she couldn’t help the way it summoned her gaze to his lips. “Aren’t you trying to convince some flobberworm over there that you’re very happily taken?”
“I love glaring. I don’t think my boyfriend would be spared from it.”
His brow flicked up. “What a lucky bloke. And what else would he be subjected to? Your unending monologues, I’m sure.”
“Undoubtedly,” she said agreeably. “Also endless debates about the merits of cream before or after jam.”
He scoffed. “Cream first? Please.”
“Thank you!” She threw a hand up. “Jam second just makes no sense.” She made a show of looking around. “Where’s Harry? He’s been insufferable about this–”
Draco recaptured her attention with a little shift under her, hands pulling her closer. Her head snapped back to him, both hands braced on his shoulders to not slip sideways with the movement below her.
“Sorry.” He flicked his hair back from where it had fallen over his brow. "You were sliding."
She hadn't been but couldn't find it in herself to argue. The pub was warm and whatever he’d used to keep his hair styled was slowly failing. She liked him best when he was imperfect like that: blushing or fumbling or slightly unkempt.
Without meaning to, she raised a hand and ran it softly through his hair, pushing it back again from where it had fallen forward. He leaned into her hand and she felt his eyes on her, so intense it was almost a physical touch. But it was dangerous to think things like that, especially when she was already touching him in other rather uncharacteristically intimate ways, and so she cleared her throat.
“He’d also suffer through my inability to choose which film to watch or which book to read,” she said, falling back to the safety of their game. “And would probably find my choice in music appalling.”
“Poor fellow,” Draco said sympathetically. “Truly an insurmountable burden. Whatever is he with you for, if this is what he has to put up with?”
She had no idea what came over her except that maybe she’d wanted to do it since the (second? third?) time she’d found herself on him, and his playfulness and their game had somehow tricked her brain into thinking she’d be allowed.
“Oh, well he’d get plenty of benefits, too.” She paired the suggestive comment with a rotation of her hips, though did it quite a bit more effectively than she’d intended. Pleasure rocked through her when the seam of her jeans toyed with the new little decoration she’d treated herself to two months earlier. She gasped and then couldn’t help an immediate second grind, wanting to feel it again.
Draco’s hands were suddenly iron on her hips.
“Merlin, don’t,” he hissed. “Fuck, what are you doing?”
“Sorry.” She bit her lip and tried to hold herself back, but the sensation had been so unexpectedly delicious and his reaction utterly captivating that she couldn’t help herself.
“Let me just–” He cut himself off with a sharp breath as she ground against him again, her mouth popping open when the friction was suddenly perfect. “Granger, c’mon–”
But despite his pleas, his hands were tight on her, pulling her closer almost thoughtlessly until she was flush against him. She shifted her legs wider in response and then had to pin her bottom lip between her teeth, biting down as firmly as she could to distract herself because…because…
“You’re hard,” she blurted. Even just saying it out loud sent a hot bolt of lust through her.
He laughed, a strained sound. “You’re sitting on me. Of course I’m fucking hard.”
“It feels good?” The pub was suddenly sweltering. “This is exciting you?”
He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. “Everything about you excites me,” he admitted on his exhale.
Her stomach flipped. “Really?”
“That shouldn’t surprise you.” He squeezed his hands where he had them and the strength of it made her throb. She ground herself on him again and his mouth dropped open. “Shit, Granger.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth and the way she could see the just-barely-crooked lower right canine, something she’d noticed once and which had become a tiny obsession of hers. He licked his bottom lip and she wanted to combust at the quick flash of his tongue.
“What’s gotten into you?” He suddenly sounded wary. “Are you drunk?”
She met his gaze. She’d only had half her drink and had been quite happy to leave it at the bar with the bearded cad.
“No, no, I’m just…” She bit her lip, unable to come up with a word that didn’t make her want to hide her face in his neck with embarrassment.
Thankfully he filled in the blank, humming a low sound of understanding, his expression going knowing. “You do seem…pretty into it.”
As usual, she felt the need to explain herself. “It's just more intense than I expected because I’m not used to—” but then she cut herself off, worried suddenly about oversharing.
“Not used to what, Granger?” he asked, his tone like he hoped she was going to say feeling your cock between my legs and while she wouldn’t let him win that confession so easily, it also wasn’t even what had shocked her system.
What was currently tempting her to make a scene was a tiny little titanium barbell that she’d gotten two months earlier for no reason other than wanting to do something unexpected when she’d begun to feel rather predictable, and because she’d felt a pang of longing watching Harry getting married, Ron standing up beside him while his own very sweet and very pregnant wife dabbed at her eyes in the third row. Hermione had done her best not to, but seeing her two best friends settled down and so grown up had made her a touch envious and had made her feel like both an old maid and an immature young woman, which was idiotic because she knew she was neither.
But her feelings couldn’t be helped and so she’d acknowledged them and decided to do something about it, which led her into London and to a lovely piercer who’d talked her through the pros and cons of the various locations with an attention to practicality (do you prefer thin brassieres? Ah. Do you mind it shows through? and Do you often wear high-waisted trousers?) that she’d very much appreciated. In the end, she’d gotten it somewhere quite easy to conceal and where it wouldn’t direct her sartorial choices.
That is, until she decided to sit astride a painfully attractive man while wearing tight fitting jeans. She couldn’t decide if this experience would make her never wear jeans again or if she’d begin wearing them almost exclusively from now on.
But said attractive man had asked her a question and so she swallowed her concerns and opted for honesty.
“I got a piercing,” she finally admitted. “Erm, down there.”
His eyes dropped like stones. “Did you.” He inhaled with measured control and then he cut his eyes up to hers. “Can I see it?”
She had half a mind to strip for him right then and there but a bark of laughter from behind reminded her acutely of their current, very public location. Her pulse was a staccato beat inside her and she was certain her expression displayed her surprise at his bold question.
“You want to see it?” The prospect of Draco appraising her piercing, of fiddling with the jewelry in a way she knew would feel exquisite, had sent her voice higher than normal.
His eyes darkened at the pitch of it and the obvious effect he’d had on her. “Do you want to show it to me?” he asked, voice low and private.
She did. She wanted to show him everything; wanted to see all of him, too. But it worried her even as it thrilled her. What would it mean? They’d only recently loosened up around one another, their interactions progressing from stilted to hesitant and then achingly polite, having only just thawed into something resembling friendship. He’d been so guarded and aloof with her when Harry and Pansy had first gotten together and that backdrop made his current jocularity and the small, simple gestures of consideration all the more appreciated. Not to mention, he was firmly within her social circle. If she fucked things up, she’d be tip-toeing around in the wings and anxious about every potential hangout. Would she really risk it all just for a little carnal satisfaction?
But it wasn’t just carnal satisfaction, was it? She knew without a doubt that if it had been Blaise, or Theo, or Ron, or, frankly, anyone else who’d asked her such a thing, she’d have shot them down with an easy laugh and perhaps a rude hand gesture. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Draco. And that made her want to risk it all.
Looking in his eyes again only made her more sure. “Yes.”
He licked his lips. “And after you showed me, what then?”
Now that she’d met his gaze, she couldn’t look away. “What do you mean?”
She wasn’t entirely sure if they were still playing their game but his gaze was steady, his attention absolute. He wasn’t playing.
“Would you let me touch it?”
Her insides were a mess of nerves and excitement. She swallowed, squirming again. Her knickers were unmistakably damp. “Yes.”
His eyes flared. “Would you want my mouth or my fingers on it?”
She rocked her hips again, the motion uncontrollable. “Yes,” she breathed.
He chuckled, hands encouraging her on a slow path just to the left of where she’d been. “You need to pick.”
She whined as she felt the full length of him under her, pressed up against his zip and therefore pressing his zip right against her. He watched as she bit down on her lip at the feel of it.
“Or, if you’re patient, you could have both,” he murmured, eyes flicking back up to hers, and she almost risked his mercy, almost challenged his generosity, by coming right then and there only to immediately beg for more. But good things usually happened to those who waited and so she forced herself to sit still.
“I can be patient,” she promised, voice a little reedy.
He appraised her for a moment, expression serious at first and then melting with a slowly-formed smirk. “Well then. I’m not sure if that makes you good,” he purred the word and she twitched again. “Or greedy.”
“Draco.” It was unfair what that low timbre did to her. Her hands squeezed at his shoulder, like a kitten pawing for milk. “Please. Just…where?”
“My flat. I’ve always wanted you in my bed.”
Now was not the time for confessions like that, she thought desperately. She pushed it to the back of her mind for later dissection and instead just nodded her consent. “Yes. Your flat.”
“Think you’ll survive Apparation?” he asked, voice teasing. “It squeezes rather tightly, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up.” She flexed her thighs. “Stop it.”
“Merlin, you’re fun to rile up.” He bit his lip, grinning up at her. “Okay, Granger. Up now, so we can go.”
She drew in a steadying breath and slid off his lap. He stood immediately in the space she left, keeping close. She felt why when it pressed against her stomach, hard and insistent and all because of her. It was so much more noticeable now that he was standing and the urge to reach down and palm him was almost irresistible. She wound her fingers together behind her back lest they act of their own volition, and forced her gaze up to his.
He jerked his chin toward the door. “Come on, we can Apparate from the corner. Do you have a coat?”
Did she? She couldn’t remember and honestly didn’t care.
“No,” she said. If she did, Harry could possibly be trusted to notice and bring it back for her.
“After you then.” He turned her and gave her a little pat on the bum to encourage her forward. She felt tingly all over, excitement and anticipation and the sense of hopeful wanting – a combination that made her feel like she was scampering downstairs on Christmas morning – swirling dizzyingly inside her. Her legs were steadier than she’d expected as she wound through tables on her way to the front door, Draco close behind her.
It was darker on the street than inside the pub but the light over the door illuminated Theo a few paces down, leaned against the building with a cigarette in one hand and the face of a dark-haired man in the other. Draco chuckled.
“Should’ve guessed it’d be both,” he murmured to her.
She laughed, feeling almost giddy with the way her nerves were zipping around inside her. Draco reached down to find her hand and guide her the other direction but Theo caught sight of them and turned his head.
“Where’re you two going?” he asked, fingers curled into the front pocket of his beau to keep him close, though he needn’t have bothered, given that the man had shifted to dot kisses up the side of Theo’s throat without hesitation, unfussed by an audience nor Theo’s distraction.
“Taking Granger home,” Draco told him.
“I hope you mean that the way I think!” Theo called after them.
Hermione flushed but sent a wave over her shoulder at him which he returned with a waggle of his brows before turning to grip a handful of his partner’s hair to realign their mouths.
“Theo,” she tutted at his shamelessness, and Draco snorted his agreement.
It felt altogether too natural to be walking down the road holding Draco’s hand and she gave herself a quick-but-stern talking to before too much of her heart got attached to the sensation. He had flirted with her, yes, but taking her home only meant that he was a man who wanted a shag and not that he was about to boldly commit himself to her for all eternity.
Sure, he wasn’t prone to reckless behavior (as far as she knew, at least) but...perhaps that only proved her point further…? Or maybe she’d simply activated the switch that toggled his rational mind off and his animal brain on. She made herself stop thinking like that when the image of him rutting into her made her stumble on the cobblestones.
He tightened his hold on her hand, glancing down. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She would never survive this, she thought desperately. “Just a loose stone.”
They arrived at the Apparation point a moment later and he secured his other hand around her waist before Disapparating them to his flat. She’d been there before a few times, but never by herself and never with his hands on her, so when the familiar surroundings materialized around her, she took a moment to reorient herself with them. There was his green velvet sofa, something she’d mocked him for the first time she’d felt he’d hear the humor in her teasing; there was the bookcase that she’d perused, and a book he’d borrowed from her tucked safely in between two of his own; there was the tiny picture from the photo booth, wedged inside the frame of another up on his mantle.
She tried not to notice that all the things she’d used to ground herself had been places she’d left the ghost of her mark in his space already, and turned to him.
He still had her hand in his, though he’d dropped the second from her waist, but he twisted his wrist to keep them joined when she rotated, rather than let her go completely. They were close enough that when she tilted her face up to his, she could see his eyelashes, pale and glinting gold in the lamplight. His eyes were cast down, his gaze on her mouth and it occurred to her then that he might kiss her. Her nerves shot from the steady simmer up to a raging boil.
His eyes flicked up to meet hers, perhaps sensing it, and he smiled softly. “Want a drink?”
She nodded automatically, heart in her throat. “Sure.”
“Be right back.” He squeezed her hand and then let it go. She watched him walk to the doorway and disappear through it to the kitchen she knew was the first door on the left. Left alone, she fluffed her hair and then smoothed it down, bouncing twice on the balls of her feet to dispel some of the nervous energy.
She could do this; it was just Draco.
Fuck.
It was Draco.
He returned a moment later, carrying two small glasses of something clear. He held one out to her and she took it and, knowing his penchant for gin, took a small, tentative sip.
It was water.
She suddenly wanted him so badly, she couldn’t breathe.
“Sit down,” she told him, then downed her glass in three swallows. He was looking at her with bemusement when she finished it but then heeded her request and went over to the sofa, dropping down and sipping at his own water. She followed him over and stood between his thighs, looking down at him. She inhaled slowly and then let it out, mind made up. If she made a fool of herself, well…she’d worry about that later.
When her hands dropped to the button of her jeans, he sucked in a breath.
“Granger–” he began, but she shushed him.
“I want to show you.” She dragged down her zip. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about seeing it?”
He swallowed, eyes locked on her hands. “I haven’t. I want to see it.”
“Okay.” She worked her jeans down to just below her bum and then tucked her thumbs under the waistband of her (blessedly, pretty and lacy) knickers. She waited until his eyes flicked up to meet hers and then pulled her knickers down, too.
He didn’t break their eye contact, although she could tell how badly he wanted to look, her hips just above his eye level. She saw his hand tighten around his glass where he’d rested it on his thigh and that tiny act of tension swelled hot inside her.
“Go ahead,” she murmured. “You can look.”
He did, and she relished the effect that her body had on his. It wasn’t the most ostentatious position to show off her piercing but she’d gotten into the habit of keeping things nicely groomed ever since getting it and so she knew he could see enough to get a sense of it. She’d gone for a vertical hood piercing and the top bead rested prettily at the apex of her lower lips, the barbell tucked right up against her clit and the bottom bead peeking out along with the sensitive bundle of nerves.
She’d made herself come once just by sliding the jewelry up and down, the novelty half the pleasure, and she could already feel the way her clit had swelled from her grinding on his lap, the amount of leeway to the barbell less than usual. The way he was looking at her was only inflaming her further.
“How did it feel to get it?” His voice was gravelly but she could hear the note of genuine curiosity in it.
“Did it hurt, you mean?”
He shook his head. “No, I mean…did it make you feel fierce? Like you could do anything?” His eyes lifted to meet hers. “Because it should. This is making me want to get on my fucking knees for you, Granger.”
Her stomach flipped, a thrill of something wild and hot sparking through her.
“You did say I could have your mouth,” she said lightly, her pulse in complete contrast to how in control her voice sounded.
“I did.” He raised a hand, his eyes holding his question in them. She bit her lip and nodded, bracing herself for the touch.
He brought his hands to her thighs first, gently skimming up the fronts but veering inwards as they climbed so that his thumbs brushed against the barest outside of her cunt when they reached it. She shuddered and shifted on her feet, half regretting she’d started her little game of show-and-tell while she was standing.
He kept one hand steady on her, stabilizing her, and ran the thumb of his other up and to the top bead. He stroked down over it softly, the pad of his thumb grazing her skin and brushing against her clit.
“What does it feel like?” He sounded entranced.
The answer to that was so tangled up in the fact that it was his thumb – his! – petting over her most sensitive spots that she could hardly find the words. “Good,” she managed, shifting on her feet again. “Intense.”
He noticed her movement and cut his eyes up. “Can I take you to my room? Get these off properly?” He dropped his hands to where her knickers and jeans rested, then smirked. “Get you off properly?” He waggled his brows.
His joke cracked open the ball of nerves inside her and she barked a laugh. “I mean, twist my arm,” she joked back.
“Rather not.” He pushed her back lightly to make room to stand. “I’d rather make you come straight into next week.”
She scoffed and then squealed when he bent down and hoisted her up into his arms, bridal style. “Draco!”
“What? This is the most efficient. Unless you wanted to take these off properly now? By all means. I’ll even let you walk ahead of me.”
“Pig.” But she was smiling.
“Mmhmm.” He carried her down the hall and to his bedroom (second door on the right, she noted) and over to his bed where he deposited her, the momentum pulling him half down over her as well. He looked down at her, eyes dancing from hers all along her face before finding her gaze again. “I’m going to take your clothes off now,” he told her.
Being in his room was sending her brain into a tizzy, trying to memorize everything around her lest she never get a chance to observe it again. It made her hearing slow so that when she felt his hands slowly lifting her shirt, she jolted.
“Wait,” she blurted and he froze. “Wait, I…you haven’t kissed me.”
He relaxed, expression going distinctly fond. “Want me to?”
She curled a fist into his hair, pulling him down and pressing her lips to his herself. He hummed and tilted his head, making more space which he quickly claimed. His lips were soft against hers but not timid, pressing and shifting with a cadence that encouraged her to follow his lead until she was soft and lax under him. He broke the kiss but lingered, nose brushing against hers.
“Okay,” she whispered. “You can take my clothes off now. And yours.”
He was so close, she could feel his smile. He kissed her once more then levered himself up and tugged his jumper over his head, the cotton t-shirt under it going along for the ride. She propped herself up on her elbows at the sight of his torso, all lean muscle and unpretentious definition. He undid his belt and opened his trousers under her watchful gaze, hands steady but hurried, and then pushed them down, leaving himself naked but for a pair of tight fitting boxer-briefs. She could see the way his cock was pressing against the fabric, the bulge of it making her cunt flutter in sympathy.
“That little move of yours was unfair,” he said, noticing where her attention was. “Stripping for me like that? Fuck, Hermione.”
His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to palm himself and she almost wished he would, just so she could save the image of it to her memory forever, too. Instead, he reached for her jeans and tugged them off along with her knickers. She felt rather silly to still be wearing her shirt without bottoms so pulled it up over her head without sitting up, reaching under to flick the clasp of her bra.
She marveled again at how natural it felt to be with him, even naked, the tension between them high but the pace measured. She’d half expected their first coupling to be frenetic, urgent and rushed and a blur. She found herself very relieved that it wasn’t.
His eyes raked over her body, hungry and intense, and he gave her the doubly gratifying gift of finally pressing a palm to his erection, curling his fingers around to give himself a little squeeze.
It made her molten, and brazen.
She bent her knees and then spread her legs for him, reaching her own hand down to rub a soothing circle over her clit, drawing her hand away a finger at a time until it was just her middle finger resting on the bottom bead of her jewelry. She gave it a little nudge and sucked in a breath at the sensation. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. She went to do it again but he batted her hand away, coming between her legs at the edge of the bed.
“Pick, Granger,” he said, voice low. “Do you want my fingers or my mouth first?”
“Mouth.” It wasn’t even a question. “Mouth, please.”
“Thank Merlin,” he muttered, and then dropped down and kissed her clit.
She couldn’t help the sound which that act drew from her, from the feel of it, certainly, but more from the sight. She’d fantasized about Draco’s head between her legs for longer than she’d ever admit and seeing it now, his tongue darting out to lick and then prod at her piercing, sent her lust to untenable levels.
She moaned with slightly more coherence when he pressed closer, flicking at her and then sliding down to tease at her opening.
“Fuck,” he mumbled against her. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”
“O-obviously,” she whimpered as she felt his tongue press inside. “You’re…oh…my god.”
He hummed as he explored, ceaseless and untiring, eyes tracking up to check hers periodically as he steadily and unapologetically ruined her life.
“Oh, you absolute wretch of a man,” she moaned into her hands when he licked a broad stripe up the entirety of her and then worried her clit between his lips, the feel of it like touching a live wire for how it sparked all throughout her body. She’d never yearned so desperately for ignorance; had never wished so fiercely for not knowing. Because there was no way she could go about her everyday life while knowing how absolutely devastating Draco was with his mouth.
He laughed against her and she whimpered helplessly at the way it made her even more violently attracted to him.
“Are you not enjoying yourself, Granger?” he teased.
She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids for a quick moment of privacy and then swept them outward and overhead to tangle in her curls that were splayed haphazardly across the bed above her.
“You’re too good at that,” she complained forlornly.
“Mmm.” He shared his bemusement with her inner thigh, his little gust of breath tickling her and the subsequent nip of his teeth sparking through her. “You’re just so delicious. I can’t get enough.”
He was too much.
She sucked in a breath and held it, grappling with desire for him.
“Fuck you,” she muttered on an exhale, eyes scanning overhead to try and inspect the painting hung on the wall behind his bed, desperate to distract herself. “The sodding audacity –”
She looked up sharply when his face was suddenly above her, looming over her on his hands and knees.
“Who are you talking to?” he inquired. His mouth was twisted in barely-restrained amusement, his lips and chin wet with her. The scent of her arousal mixed with his cologne and it made her want to sink into the mattress, or quickly master wandless Disapparation; torn between submission to this man and the inevitable fallout, or hasty escape and a life haunted by him.
“I–” She clenched her jaw. “No one. Just…”
He licked his lips, tongue swiping a second time further down than was decorous in order to swipe a bit of her from his chin. Like he genuinely couldn’t get enough.
“Could you stop that?” she asked desperately, eyes glued to his mouth.
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound it. “Did you want my fingers instead?”
She nodded absently as she met his eyes, and then rather more vigorously when the words landed. The number of sordid fantasies she’d had about his hands…
She bit her lip to quell the whimper that rose up as his hand sank down, fingers sliding through her and inside without hesitation. They were bulky inside her, dexterous and thick.
“That what you wanted?” he murmured, eyes intent on her.
What she wanted was to puncture the bubble of ever-swelling tension within her, to get a release so she could escape before he did something truly unforgivable like wash her hair or rub her feet or make her-–
He curled his fingers and in doing so, hit the spot inside her which had her thighs shaking uncontrollably. He was watching her face carefully and she knew she was giving it all away by the way his smile curled up, wicked and delighted, at the unmistakable sound his fingers were drawing from her.
“Uh oh, Granger,” he murmured, eyes hot on hers. “Do you have another surprise for me?”
Fuck. Fuck.
But there was no way she could let it happen.
Because if Draco Malfoy managed to make her gush for him the very first time he fucked her, she’d have to burn him at the stake. And – she could admit this much to herself – she rather liked him, so that would be a shame.
She shook her head, even though her hips rocked up with his motions, her body eager for what she was staunchly denying it.
“No, please,” she gasped. “I don’t…please, please don’t make me.”
He licked his bottom lip into his mouth, worrying it side to side with his teeth for a moment as he assessed her quickly before nodding and pulling his fingers out. She regretted her choice almost immediately, the pressure inside her almost unbearable. He massaged her entrance in a gentle caress and she fluttered helplessly around nothing.
“Okay, Granger.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “That’s fine.’
“It’s just—” she began, wanting to explain, but his self-assured smirk stopped her.
“Keep your secrets,” he told her, the smirk sliding into something fond. “I know you’ll show me everything you can do when you’re ready, hmm?”
She nodded automatically at his interrogative tone but he was right: she’d do everything she could for him, as soon as it didn’t feel like giving her whole hand away along with her heart. He leaned down and kissed her cheek again, then the corner of her mouth, and then softly over her lips. She pressed back and at her reciprocation, he kissed her properly.
“Now, no to all of it? Or can I give you a regular, bog-standard orgasm instead?”
She laughed, knowing with an unshakable certainty that anything he drew from her would be the very antithesis of bog-standard.
“Go on then,” she said, as if he’d asked whether she wanted a cup of tea. “And can I…what can I do for you?”
He kissed her again, a chaste little goodbye-for-now, then hovered over her again. He gave her a little smirk and a quick flick of his brow. “You can come for me,” he told her, and then sank back down her body.
“Draco –” she scolded, outraged anew at his audacity, but then his tongue was parting her again and it was like he’d never stopped. Her hips rocked upward, chasing his mouth, and he wrapped his arms around her thighs, hands skimming up and down the crease where her legs met her hips, pressing lightly. He hummed against her, a muffled moan, and she squeezed her eyes shut when his tongue found her piercing, flicking it side to side and then sucking her clit into his mouth.
“That’s so fucking– nngh,” she grit out. “Fuck, Draco. Fuck you.”
He chuckled against her again, losing suction. “You are so much ruder in bed than I expected.” His expression was mirthful when she risked looking down at him. “Can’t you say anything nice to me?”
“No.” She looked back at the ceiling. “Sorry. I’ll try. But…no, probably not.” She groaned when he laughed again and then licked across her clit, flicking at the jewelry.
“S’okay,” he mumbled. “I still like you.”
She managed to hold her next aggressive curse in but her lip almost bled with the effort. He slid a single finger inside her again, just to the second knuckle, and she clenched around it instantly. She tried very hard not to think about what his cock would feel like but knowing that it was still some part of him inside her sent her careening right to the edge. She flexed her hands in the sheets and then couldn’t stop herself from reaching down and carding one through his hair, holding him close against her.
“I’m…I’m going to come for you,” she gasped and he grunted.
He’d gotten her too close before – and she was susceptible to squirting, anyway – that she couldn’t stem the tiny dribble that leaked from her as her body shuddered through her orgasm. He had the grace not to brag but frankly, she would have allowed it if he had, her last defense against him completely obliterated along with the rest of her.
In any case, she thought he deserved a bit of credit given how antagonistic she’d been to him out loud to balance out the unstable, enamored commentary running through her brain.
“Good…good job,” she panted, brain still fuzzy.
He looked up, amused, and then barked a laugh. “Did you just tell me good job, Granger?”
“Yes. That was…was very deftly done.”
He crawled up to hover over her again. “Did I break you?” he asked, bemused. “Or have I lost my touch?”
“You…I’m still…” She covered her face and laughed, although it came out too close to a sob, emotions fragile as her body trembled. “That was…I’m still trying to process how good that was.”
He made a low sound of pleasure and she felt his lips, petal-soft, mark a slow path up her neck. “Excellent.”
She slung her arms around his neck and blinked her eyes open. He was nuzzling against her jaw like he was just as satisfied as her, lazy and relaxed. But…he hadn’t, had he?
She shifted under him and felt the answer rather insistently against her hip. Heat blossomed.
“We can…” She faltered when he sucked softly on her pulse then tried again. “We can have sex now.”
She felt his breath against her then, a little exhalation of surprise.
“Yeah?” He breathed the word against her and she nodded to the ceiling.
“Yes. Yes, whatever you want.”
He raised up enough to look at her, expression wanting but careful. “What do you want?”
There was no point at hiding anything from him. He’d figure it out soon enough, if he hadn’t already.
“I just want you,” she confessed. And then because she’d said it once, found she had to say it again. “I…I want you so badly.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and then his face shifted to cautiously hopeful. “You want me?”
The weight he put behind the question let her know he wasn’t asking just for now — just for sex.
She didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
He inhaled deeply and then smiled down at her, looking perilously pleased. “Well that’s excellent, because I want you too. Very, very badly.”
She pulled him down to kiss her, feeling vulnerable and exposed and not just because she was naked under him. He dug his fingers into her hair, cradling her head against the mattress and slanting his mouth over hers with an intensity that had her whimpering. She could feel him between her legs, the fabric rubbing against her where his cock was tenting his briefs.
“Now,” she mumbled against his mouth. “Now, please.”
“Yeah.” He kissed along her cheek and then pressed his head to the mattress beside hers so he could use his hands to tug his briefs down, lifting his hips up to work them off. “I’ve got you. Hang on, Granger.”
And then he was bared to her, the heat and weight of his cock resting against her pelvis. She couldn’t help but reach a hand down to feel him, fingers curling and then stroking down to the base and then all the way up to the tip. He was so, so hard.
“Oh fuck.” He leaned up onto his elbows over her, head tilting down to watch. “Do that again?”
She did, slowly and with a little twist around the crown.
“Devastating,” he muttered.
She did it again, fist tighter, and he groaned, hips jerking. Her body felt keyed to his and the sound of his pleasure affected her as if she’d been the one to make it. She shifted down a bit so that she could run the head of him through her center, tilting her hips up to encourage him further. He ground himself against her, reaching to squeeze her breast and stroke a thumb over her nipple.
“Ready for me?” he asked, and she knew he meant mentally because physically, she’d never been more clearly ready for sex in her life.
“Yes.” She coupled it with an eager nod, eyes glued to where she was still holding him. “Merlin, please.”
He gently moved her hand off him, lacing his fingers through hers and then pressing their hands to the bed beside her head. He used his other to notch himself and then met her gaze as he slowly pushed inside. It was intensely intimate to be connected to him in so many places, to watch how the warmth of her body around him altered little things about him, like the tension in his jaw and the lidding of his eyes and the rate of his breath. She saw him noticing things about her, too, his eyes skimming her face and hair before finding her gaze again. He gave her a little more of himself then and she gasped at the fullness.
“Good?” he asked, more exhalation than actual word.
She nodded, eyes greedy for him. He didn’t look away and so she saw the moment that she took him fully before she quite processed it herself, his lips parting and lids fluttering shut on a blink he lost control of. And then his pelvis nudged hers and she whimpered at the contact. He squeezed her hand and drew back before pushing in again, all the way, the path made easy now that his cock was slicked with her.
“Fuck.” He dipped down and kissed her as he did it again. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
“You too.” She cupped her free hand around the back of his neck, holding him close, and then down his back to grip a shoulder blade, then his ribs. She could feel the shifting of his muscles under her hand with the way he was putting his entire body into the motion of his hips.
“Can I…?” He squeezed her hand again and then unlaced his fingers, rising up and sliding both hands up her thighs to work her legs around his hips. “This okay?”
She moaned her answer, head pressing back into the mattress as the new angle put constant pressure against the sweet spot inside her, already primed and sensitive from her first orgasm and the near miss.
“Need it faster?” He rested a hand just above her mound, thumb stroking lightly over her clit. “Want anything here?”
“Just…just…what you’re doing,” she managed.
She wanted to kill him for the way he was so casually destroying her. Every thrust forward had his thumb bumping into the barbell, sliding the metal directly against her clit, and every retreat rubbed the ridge of his cock against it from the inside, the metal rod making her constantly aware of it. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, or her mouth closed, gasping and whining on each thrust in and out.
She tried to resist it but it was going to happen, whether he was aiming for it or not.
It was…fuck, she was…
“Oh god, Draco,” she moaned. “Oh..oh god, I–”
“Gonna come, Granger?” He rocked a little more instantly and it was over for her.
She arched up against him with a keen and then further, feet flat on the bed until his cock slipped free, the force of her orgasm sending a gush of fluid out to wet his pelvis and the sheets below her.
“Holy fuck.” He sounded awed. “Oh, you perfect creature. Fuck, did that feel good, baby?”
She hadn’t gotten her breath back yet so could only nod and pant, watching as his chest heaved and his eyes raked hotly over her.
“Gonna make you do that again,” he muttered. “Shit, Granger, that was so hot.”
He slid two fingers inside her and she moaned at the way she could feel the aftershocks even more acutely with something to squeeze around. He pressed his other hand flat on her pelvis, thumb stretching down to rub over her clit, and then curled his fingers inside her and began to move them with a precision that worried her, first for being so completely transparent in her needs and then because it made her desperate for him in a way she didn’t think was possible. He was so unbelievably perfect for her.
“Ohh…god,” she moaned, hips twitching up to meet his hand. “Draco, please…let me…”
“Need something different?” he asked.
She shook her head frantically. “S’perfect.” He was stroking right against the tender spot inside her, the sensation compounded by his hand above and the way he was stimulating her clit from what felt like every direction. It was rapidly shutting off her brain.
“But I...wanna make you come,” she mumbled. “I…need…it.”
He chuckled at her deterioration. “Give me one more first and then you can make me come,” he promised her. He pressed down a little harder and she felt her orgasm pulling at her, right there with a suddenness that had her reeling.
“You’re insane,” she blurted, brain slipping away altogether and leaving her mouth unattended. “You are…the most ridiculous man—you’re…fuck, you’re so stupid, Draco—this is…ludicrous–”
He laughed, delighted, at her rambling. “Mouth off all you like, Granger, but I can feel what I’m doing to you. I can hear it. So show me, yeah? Show me what I do to you.”
She lost her next breath to a cut-off moan as her orgasm throbbed through her, the pleasure dizzying. Draco was still murmuring above her, his tone warm and awed, but she couldn’t parse the words below the buzzing in her head. She’d never come so many times in such quick succession and she felt both electrified and like jelly; like the pinnacle of female ability and like nothing but a blank page. The duplicity of sensation was too much to compute and she rolled over onto her stomach to bury her head into the sheets.
His hand was warm on her spine, tone still soft but now concerned. “Granger. You alright?”
She nodded, hoping he could tell, words still beyond her. The bedding was damp under her belly and she muffled a laugh into the mattress at the way she was so completely and utterly fucked.
“You sure?” His hand was gentle on her, undemanding even though he’d gotten her off three times and not once himself. It made her a little tremulous and a lot determined.
She rolled back over to face him. She was sure she was a mess but it was his sodding fault so she didn’t bother concealing it.
“I’m fine, just…needed a moment to get everything back in order.” She narrowed her eyes up at him playfully. “Who do you think you are, doing that to me so well?”
He grinned, relief plain. “Yeah? Was it good?”
“It was incredible.” She reached up to run her hands through his hair and then down to his shoulders. “Now, I believe you promised I could return the favor. Come here.” She hooked a leg around his thigh to pull him back down between her legs.
He looked dubious even as he let her position him with a hand around his shaft. “You sure? You’re taken a lot already, I don’t want to overwork you.”
“I want to take it all.” She ran the head of his cock over her center and watched his jaw tighten. “Every. Drop.”
“Fucking hell, Granger,” he grit out.
“That’s the spirit.”
She raised her hips and squeezed him closer with the leg around him. He complied, grunting softly as he pressed back inside.
There was something freeing about having sex without the pressure of tending to an orgasm of her own. It made her mind clear in a way it hadn’t been before, so she was able to appreciate all the little pieces of the experience of being fucked by Draco Malfoy that she hadn’t yet. Like the way he felt inside her, his strokes quick and strong, a welcome, undeniable presence. Like the way his hair was completely ruined and a tiny bit darker at the roots from perspiration; perspiration that she tracked down to his chest, which was mottled pink and heaving. His abdomen was heaving, too, the ridges of muscle flexing in time with his hips, hips that were steadily increasing their intensity as he worked himself up.
When she worked her eyes back up to meet his, she saw that he was making a survey of his own, his gaze lingering on her breasts before sliding lower to watch himself sliding inside her. He made a sound of muffled despair and looked up, finding her eyes already on his.
“I’m already so close,” he admitted. “You have no idea how...I’m…” He laughed brokenly, cheeks pink. “I’m about to fucking lose it, Granger.”
He was so sexy, so considerate and so sweet and so smart and so everything to her that she could hardly stand the magnitude of her feelings for him.
“Oh god, Draco,” she whimpered. “Please, I want to feel you come so badly.”
He dropped down over her, his kiss sudden and all-consuming. The helpless little whimper he pressed against her tongue was so evocative she couldn’t help but mimic it, and then he was groaning, his hands sliding under her to grip her arse and lift up, his thrusts hard and fast and so fucking deep as he hit the crest. He groaned, motion subsiding to an almost lazy grind as he pulsed inside her. She ran her hands over his back and squeezed her legs around him, holding him close as he panted.
He collected himself quicker than she had, pressing up to hover over her on his arms for a quick inspection of her face before sliding to the side, slipping from her and leaving her feeling satisfied in a way she never had before. He scrubbed his hands over his face once and then raked them through his hair.
“This was not at all how I imagined it,” he said. “But reality was better. I’m not sure how it could have been, given what I’ve thought about but…damn, it was so much better.”
“Did you think about this a lot?” she asked, rolling toward him.
He tilted his face toward her, expression incredulous. “If you think the answer to that is anything other than all the fucking time, then I have a better poker face than I thought.”
“Even when reading my rejections of your work?” She’d meant it as a joke but his face took on a vaguely tortured expression. He pinned his bottom lip between his teeth.
“Especially then. Circe, sometimes just seeing your handwriting…” He shook his head. “It’s safe to say you’ve been driving me quietly insane for a while now.”
She was too full of joy to contain it but managed an faux-impressed tone. “Quietly? How difficult that must have been for you.”
She squealed when he rolled over on top of her again, pressing her down into the mattress.
“Rude in bed,” he said, hovering over her on his elbows. “Making jokes during confessions of affection. What’ll I do with you, hmm?”
“Absolutely anything you like, I expect," she whispered, grinning.
“Mmm.” He dipped down to kiss her. “In that case, I’m going to be absolutely obnoxious about you now. Downright dramatic, Granger. Everyone will know exactly what you are to me.”
She ran her hands through his hair, still amazed that she was allowed to. “Okay.”
He smiled down at her, amused and pleased. “Okay? Just like that?”
“Just like that.” She tugged him down again. “You’ll find I can be quite obnoxious, too.”
“Oh?” He kissed her, and then again when she flicked her tongue against his lip. “I can’t wait to see what you qualify as obnoxious behavior.”
“Is that a challenge?” She pulled back enough to raise her brow at him, lips quirked into a smile.
“Absolutely. Do your worst, Granger.”
She absolutely would.
Thank you @LunaP999 for the art!! Her piercinggggg ah!! 😍