Tumbling walls
"You're sure about this?", he breathes, his face so close to mine that our warm breath mingles in the sweetest way possible.
"M-hm.", I respond, and his hands glide up my back, inside of my shirt. His palms feel rough and big upon my skin, but they are gentle, too. So, so reassuringly gentle. And he gazes at me with so much awe, so much meaning, that every last, potentially still existing glint of fear crumbles away before he even gets to the hem of my bra. As he does, I realise that his fingers are trembling.
"Ron...", I say, but I don't know what to do to help him. Don't know how to make him feel that there's no reason to be nervous, really, at all.
I won't stop him from anything. Well, at least not any time soon.
Not as long as things are as slow and sweet as they are right now.
Maybe later, if I want too much at once. Or if my nervousness reaches me again. But I would never stop him because of him. Because of a "wrong move" or because of embarrassment and shyness on his part, or whatever else might cross our way. There's not much he could do wrong, really, because he's Ron. And this is all I really wanted, for so long...
It's been merely two weeks, since the war ended. Two weeks of repairing the partly-destroyed ruin of a castle that I once called home. Two weeks of clutching a freckled hand at heartbreaking funerals, and stealing kisses and tight embraces in the backyard of the Burrow,- too long and personal to be seen by others. Two weeks of Ron and me.
And yes, I've been silently creeping into his room, these couple last nights, because I really can't stand to be away from his reassuring touch at night, any longer. Not after all we've endured, after all we've lived through. And yes, we're technically breaking the house rules of his parents, and the last thing I want to do is disrespect these fantastic people. But something about the way Mr and Mrs Weasley glance at us these days tells me that they probably wouldn't bother all that much if they knew about what we are doing.
Not that we are doing anything! Well, not really, anyways. Not yet.
We've spend so many hours already with peaceful, unhurried kisses. Many minutes passed by in long glances in the dark. For now, stuff like that was mostly enough.
It doesn't feel like enough any more. Not when he's looking at me like that, touching me like that...
But he doesn't need to feel like I might pressure him into something, either, if that's what he's worried about. I might have kissed him in the middle of a battle,- and with all the passion I could muster, at that, too. But that doesn't mean that I could ever possibly get enough of his hugs, either; of short, warm seconds of his lips on mine; of our fingers interlacing...
I just want him, with all my heart. And if I'm going to get just that,- all of him,- at any point in the future at all, then there's nothing challengingly bad to worry about, ever again. All I need, all I want, is him.
Maybe I should tell him just that.
"Ron, I...-"
But before the words get out of my mouth, he's already kissing me again. And it occurs to me, just then, that maybe he's not trembling because he's nervous at all...
He doesn't look nervous to me.
In the flimsy instants of fluttering eyelids between our frequent kisses, I see his jaw tighten, feel his grip on my thighs run higher, notice the tip of his tongue graze my bottom lip in almost urgent desire.
So, maybe, he can't get enough of this either. And where does this leave us?
I reluctantly loose my hold on his arms; I stop grabbing the collar of his shirt; I try to soften my kisses and eventually, I pull back.
His eyes are nothing but blue and worry.
"Did I do something...-"
"No! Oh, my gosh, no, you didn't!", I interject, way louder than his sweet muttering, and his mouth curls up in a smile as his hands land lightly on my thighs again. The room is bloody warm, I realise; or maybe it's just us,- the air between us, the heat he causes behind my temples and in my belly, the glance he darts at me, right now.
"Then why.."
"Ron!", I squeak, laughing as he grins, still so damn close to me, "We can't do this, and you know it!"
"Do what?", he asks, oh-so-innocently, and I roll my eyes.
"We can't... do too much right away."
"You mean, because of my parents?", he mentions, looking around as if they might just suddenly appear in his bedroom, at this hour of the night. But in spite of the ridiculousness of this thought, I can't help but to feel less secluded right away.
"Hey..", he says then, actual concern overtaking his little game, "We cast several charms, remember? No one can hear us, no one can come in without us noticing."
He shakes his head, looking like he's contemplating something, and suddenly he's sitting half a metre away from me on his bed; his legs no longer happily entwined with mine. His fingertips no longer making me wonder how to breathe by drawing their restless little patterns on my thighs...
"I'm sorry, Hermione, I shouldn't have..", he says, suddenly sounding terribly insecure, and it takes less than a heartbeat for me to snuggle closer again.
"Yes, you should have! Of course you should have." Can he really not see what he's doing to me?
He chuckles, and wraps his arms around my waist, on top of the nightgown this time. But tightly and securely, nonetheless.
"Weren't you just trying to convince me to stop?", he asks, amusedly.
"But not because...-.."
He raises an eyebrow at me, and somehow that makes me need him to kiss me again.
"Ron, can you...", I sigh, frustrated at my flushing cheeks, but I really don't care, in this instant, "Can you please just open up my bra, already?"
His eyes widen slightly at my directness, but his hands sneak under the hem of my nightgown once again, whatsoever.
"Merlin, Hermione...", he groans, and his knuckles brush the sides of my almost bare hips as I drop light, slightly open-mouthed kisses along his jaw-line, "I..."
His thumb grazes my stomach, and my breath hitches. He looks me straight in the eyes, a weird determination in his gaze that I can't quite comprehend, right now, - but then he suddenly ducks his head and almost lies flat between my legs, pressing his lips to my bellybutton, and the dim, orange-tinted gleam of his room turns even blurrier than before.
"Oh, gosh, Ron!", I almost whimper, suddenly overwhelmed by the sweetness of it all. I tangle my fingers in his hair, nails scraping against his scalp, and he sits up with a quick movement, roughly pulling at my hips so that I'm even closer and almost straddling him. In an instant, he's pulled my nightgown over my head. And there I sit, in a bed used by a ghoul with scattergroit, not too long ago. In a ridiculously orange room. In only my underwear.
Before I can start to question this, I'm tugging at the hem of Ron's shirt, needing to feel more skin. I uncover his stomach, as a tiny wave of insecurity hits me, out of nowhere. My eyes flicker nervously up to his.
"Ron... Can I..-"
His lips are on mine, tongue dipping between my opening lips, and our teeth click together as he presses me closer, leaning over me. "Please don't ask.", he breathes, and his nose bumps mine adorably. So I stroke the newly revealed skin of his upper body with curious fingers. Not entirely unseen, his chest, after so many months of living in a tent together... Sometimes Harry or Ron would not bother to use the loo when hurriedly changing into warmer clothes, at night, just before the beginning their watch. But this is different, this time I could shamelessly stare at him for as long as I like, and he probably wouldn't even mind at all...
But I have so many other ideas, too...
"You're incredible.", he states, lowly, as I lift his shirt up all the way and start to kiss my way down his chest, and without loosening my grip on his shoulders, I manage to turn Ron onto his back and hitch a knee up over his belly. Maybe all of this is going too fast, but I just can't stop now...
His hands are all over me, wherever he can reach, and I'm kissing a line down his chest, slowly exploring him. Connecting the dots that are his freckles with so much devotion... And, well, saliva.
"Hermione", he hums, almost choking on the word, and I know that we both wonder how far I will go, how much longer this will continue, - more and more, with each freckle my lips find. His want is so horribly, gloriously obvious through his thin pyjama pants, and if I'd bow down just a fraction of an inch lower, on top of him, I'm sure I'd be feeling it on my belly...
"Hermione, we should...stop, right?", he asks, breathlessly, desperately, and I don't even manage to feel uncertain of his feelings for me as he says it. I just know that he wants the same as I do. And he doesn't want to wait for it much longer.
"Why?", I ask him, searching for his eyes, my own ones surely lit up by my careless smile. He immediately beams back, although I still see the passion and the restraint on his features.
"Because we've only been together for thirteen days?", he murmurs, sheepishly, but I also notice the pride in his voice, the fondness of such a thing as our thirteen-days-jubilee.
"Ron.", I whisper, softly grazing the tip of my index finger against his ginger-stubbled chin, "We've known each other for seven years."
He laughs,- a loud, carefree, wonderful sound, carrying all the way through the room, and I doubt that I've heard him laugh like that at all since Dumbledore's death...
"You have a point!", he comments, still grinning, and he gently lifts my free hand up from where it landed on his chest, only to press it to his lips. Something about him kissing my knuckles is so breathtakingly sweet and unusual, that I feel tears pick at the inside of my eyes...
"Hermione.", he says, voice filled with concern, and we both reach out for each other at the same time, meeting in a tight hug.
He still holds me like the world might end, even though we helped preventing that thirteen days ago already. Now, there is just all of this left to do. All the sadness and grief and lingering fears are to be overcome, or at least to be kept at bay, somehow. All the boundaries will slowly break away between us, I don't care at what speed. All the nerve-wrecking lust I feel for him pales in comparison to all the love.
"Hey, Ron?", I mutter, after a few minutes of him silently holding me to his chest.
"Hmm?", he queries, glancing down to meet my cheeky grin,
"You still haven't managed to take off my bra, you know?"