AUTHOR'S NOTES:

This was my 2015 Dramione Duet Fic Exchange (dramione-duet . livejournal . com) entry. The fest is long over and reveals are out, so now I can post this for you here. This fanfic is finished. It is a one-shot.

My prompt for the fest was:"Hermione Granger has a secret… (Epilogue compliant would be cool), love affair, angst, romance, drama, no character bashing".

Thank you to my lovely beta, gjeangirl, for all your last minute help! You are awesome!

Thank you to Ningloreth for once more hosting an awesome fest! Looking forward to the next one! You rock!

To my exchange partner, Savvyshka: I hope this satisfied your requirements, and that you enjoyed it. Much Dramione love to you!

Revision 1.0: 24/10/2015
Revision 2.0: 22/06/2016 (revisions to spelling, grammar, and punctuation; very minor changes to text)

DISCLAIMER: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

TIMELINE: 2012, post-war, Epilogue compliant (with a twist).

CHARACTERS FEATURED (alphabetical order, last name): Hermione Granger-Weasley, Draco Malfoy

SUMMARY: No emotional entanglements. That had been the agreement at the beginning of this, and if I want to keep seeing her, I have to make her think I'm living up to that end of the bargain...

RATING: MA (NC-17)

WARNINGS: Consensual Infidelity (Swinging partners); Explicit het sex; Explicit profanity; Drama-Angst; Happy ending.

EXTRA NOTES: The title of this story comes from a Nat King Cole song of the same name, and which I listened to while writing this story.

BECAUSE...YOU'RE MINE

By: RZZMG

I love watching her sleep.

Lying in a tangle of sex-scented sheets and on fluffy, expensive pillows, she's quiet and relaxed in a way she never can be otherwise.

I know it's strange to be staring at her when she's out cold like this, but it's satisfying to see her so relaxed and knowing I gave her that contentment. Knowing I fucked her so hard and so well that she's been thoroughly exhausted and sated, her body's needs more than met. Knowing she won't be able to forget about me so easily when she returns to her own bed and to the man who waits there for her in a few hours.

In this way, in this moment, she's all mine.

I take a deep drag on my cigarette, and trace her profile from hairline to the gentle well of her throat. God, she's pretty. Not in a way that halts men on the street or gets noticed immediately by every male in the room when she makes an entrance. In that way, she's as opposite from Astoria as red is from green. There's no veiled 'come hither' when Hermione's eyelashes flutter, or the promise of a good, hard suck when she opens her mouth in polite company. Her eyes are too discerning, her cheeks too rounded, her jaw too stubborn, and her nose is dusted with girlish freckles. But she's real. She doesn't need any of that coy flirtation and cosmetic shite to catch a man's attention. All she has to do is look at him with honest, sincere emotion, and he's ensnared one way or the other.

I'd never say it aloud, but I envy Weasley something fierce.

As I exhale, I make sure some of the smoke never makes it through the crack of the window next to me, wanting the scent to linger in the room, to be absorbed into her hair and skin. I want her to go home with it covering her so that her husband will have to ask, "Gah, how can you stand to kiss a man who smokes?" And then, of course, she'd reply, "He fucks like a god, so I can overlook it."

The thought of that conversation makes me grin.

It's a precarious game we've been playing this past year, the four of us meeting up at the swinger's club twice a month, trading off partners, pretending for these few hours that we aren't wizarding folk, but Muggles, and that we don't really know each other...and that there are no feelings involved in what we do.

If only she'd leave him.

It's a foolish wish. A treacherous wish.

I make it anyway.

She sighs in her sleep and I'm drawn back into her orbit once more. I watch her lovely, swollen lips turn up into a smile in her sleep and my dick goes instantly hard.

Closing the window, I crush out the butt of my cigarette in the crystal ashtray and set them both aside. Quietly slipping back into bed under the covers with her, I gently roll her onto her belly, spread her legs, and slide right in. She's wet and tight and hot, and I roll my hips, fucking her slowly. My need for her is too great for foreplay, true, but we have less than an hour remaining on the room and this will be the last time I'll have her for two more weeks. I want to appreciate this possession.

She wakes up as our bodies join, and raises her hips slightly off the bed, offering herself to me once more. I take her submission, take her back to that place where we're in perfect harmony—straining, gasping, moving together as one. The frame creaks loudly as we make love, its cries echoing ours.

In a shattering, perfect moment, we come together, and I fill her with everything I've got to give...and I bite back those dangerous words that always seem to find me during this vulnerable second. I shove them back down, refusing to give them voice, and possibly ruining what we have.

No emotional entanglements. That had been the agreement at the beginning of this, and if I want to keep seeing her, I have to make her think I'm living up to that end of the bargain.

More lies.

In the afters, as she hops into the shower and I reach for another smoke, I realise I'll take anything she'll give me, and I'll live with this hollow feeling inside my chest at the thought that she's washing every trace of me from her skin just so she can go home with another man—a man who's spent the last four hours fucking my wife as thoroughly as I've fucked his. And I'll accept this pain as my punishment for falling in love with her when I know I shouldn't have.

When she finally leaves me to go to her husband, I get up and get dressed, preparing to go meet Astoria downstairs so we can leave together as well…and I start counting the hours until I can have Hermione again.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

I watch the rain gently falling outside my cottage's front window and wonder what Draco's doing just then.

Has he stayed late in bed this morning, made love to his wife and then broken out a cigarette in the afters? Or maybe he's already up, freshly showered and shaven, having washed the last of my scent away so as not to insult his wife. Maybe he did that last night after I left. I never know, as I always leave first.

It torments me, thinking about him and Astoria together.

Does he touch her as he touches me, with fire and eagerness, all restraint lost the moment their lips meet? Does he whisper that he loves her as he comes inside her body? Does fucking me, even in secret, only serve to fulfill some perverse need in him to thumb his nose at his pure-blood father and mother, or is it some unspoken Slytherin way to get even with Ron for school yard slights?

Am I merely a means to an end for him, or does he think about me as I do about him?

I turn away from the window as the tea kettle whistles on the stove. Pouring myself a steaming cup of herbal helps to calm my nerves and warm me on chilly days like today, when my thoughts are equally as cold.

I shouldn't be thinking about Draco this obsessively. It's not good for my marriage.

Although, to be fair, it's obvious that Ron and I have been over for a while now. We haven't had sex in over two years, and the last time had been a disaster, with neither of us really into it. We hardly kiss any more, never say, 'I love you'. It's always, 'be safe' or 'see you later' or 'good night' in very perfunctory tones.

When he first offered the idea of trying out the swinging club a year ago, and I'd jumped on the idea with enthusiasm then, that had been the final sign to me that what we had wasn't enough for either of us, as we'd both wanted to look elsewhere for our needs.

Not that Ron is a bad husband, or I'm a terrible wife. We're not. We both work full-time to support the household finances, split the chores fifty-fifty, shop together for presents for special events and attend those events together, never deny the other a generous allowance that is ours to do with as we please—and no prying into how the money is spent, and always tell each other the truth about where we're going and when we can expect to return. We respect each other, appear to be a unified front to the rest of the world, and do what we can to assure we never put each other in a stressful position.

We simply aren't well-matched.

He's rather conservative about traditional gender roles, and I'm a feminist. Our long-term goals aren't in sympatico, as he wants loads of children and I only want one, at the most. In the bedroom, he's into leather and handcuffs and whips, and I'm more soft kink, enjoying silk and satin, and no safe word required.

We've been good to each other these long years, trying our best to keep it together in a romantic and domestic relationship that we both know by now had been far better off as a friendship, living apart. That doesn't make us bad people. It simply makes us two people who picked the wrong partner.

In retrospect, jumping into marriage at twenty, when life was just beginning for both of us, when neither of us had any real experience in relationships, and following along with the host of post-war, emotionally-motivated weddings, probably hadn't been the most imprudent course to take.

That's why, when Ron asked if I would mind us breaking our marital vows to try out a swinger's club, I wasn't terribly hurt by the request. I knew what he was really asking, and honestly, it had felt more of a relief to know he recognized the same failures of our marriage as I did.

I just hadn't counted on falling in love with another man so soon, especially not a man I'd once loathed on sight. A man who'd once stood on the wrong side of the line. A man who had taunted and tormented me as a child simply because he'd been a brainwashed, bullying git.

A man who had grown up to be the opposite of his child-self in every way.

I'll admit, it's still difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea that Draco Malfoy not only gives me the greatest pleasure I've ever known, but that I genuinely enjoy being with him for the eight hours a month we allow ourselves. In between bouts of sex, or sometimes even during the act itself, we talk. It doesn't matter the subject, he always keeps up, even when the topic relates to the Muggle world, which he's done his best to get to know and straddle post-war. He is attentive to my needs for the time we are together, doing things to me I've only ever read about in the Kama Sutra. And he is smarter than I've ever given him credit for being, with a wit to match. Often, he makes me laugh aloud.

...And he's married to a woman who shares all those same attributes. Plus, there isn't a single thing in the bedroom Astoria Malfoy won't do. She's every male's fantasy.

How could I possibly compete?

I get up and pour myself a second cup of tea, watching the rain come down in a heavy curtain outside my window.

Besides, the Malfoys are swinging because they 'enjoy variety', and they aren't looking for anything deeper. At least, that's what they'd both explained to Ron and I the first time we'd decided on partner swapping with Draco and Astoria. We'd lied, of course, and said it was the same for us, just to maintain face, and then we'd all agreed to the 'no emotional entanglements' clause before we'd switched off that first night.

That first night... God, it had been the most intense, amazing night I'd ever had, and from how Ron had described his experience later, it had been the same for him. His back had given testament, too, striped by a whip he'd insisted had been made of the finest leather and held by an extremely competent hand. He'd begged me to allow us to go back, and to ask the Malfoys if they'd be interested in returning for a second night of partner swapping, and I'd agreed, as it had seemed we'd both enjoyed it beyond measure.

So, twice a month, every month since we've been meeting up with Draco and Astoria, four hours at time, for some guilt-free, safe fun. And I'm having the best sex of my life. Draco and I have checked off so many positions, I feel like I should be ashamed at my wantonness. I'm not, but still, it's hard not to smile at just how naughty Draco's 'goody Granger' has been over the past year.

No one is home by the time I finish my tea and just thinking about Draco makes my body crave, so I set my cup aside, assure the door is locked and the Floo shut. Then, I retreat to my bedroom, shuck my clothes, lie back, and masturbate to the memory of a few nights ago...

He didn't lock the door or Silence the room. He simply picked me up and tossed me down on the edge of the bed, eager to get at me like a man long denied sex and starved for it...for me.

My skirt was shoved to my waist, my panties torn down my legs, the seam ripping in the rush to get the things off, and then my legs were split wide open and his mouth was on me. It was obscene how wet I already was by then, but I couldn't care if he knew how easily he turned me on. All I knew was I needed him to finish me like this, feasting on my pussy like it was his last meal.

His blond head ducked between my thighs and he groaned as he licked and sucked. The sound of his pleasure at my taste made me impossibly slicker and hotter.

With his lips wrapped around my clit and his fingers fucking hard and deep into me, I came in moment, stars of light bursting in my vision.

He continued lapping and fingering me, slower now, more sensually, taking his time in building me back up. He began interspersing his technique with questions about how it felt to know he was going to have me just like this in a few minutes, and would I mind it if he left the door unlocked and the room as is, so everyone could hear me screaming when I came for him.

By the time he was above me, having spread me as wide as I could stretch, filling me with his thick, heavy sex, I was coming for a second time.

I climax crying out for him, wishing Draco were with me right now, fucking me and telling me he loves me in a possessive growl…here in the cottage I share with my husband.

I burst into tears, the high from my orgasm fading as the ache in my heart expands.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

It's been two weeks, and I've been practically crawling out of my skin to see her again, and she's here tonight at last, before me…letting another man chat her up.

Astoria's long gone with Weasley into one of the empty rooms upstairs in the swinger's mansion, but Hermione's wandering the grand ballroom, refusing to even look in my direction. I know she's seen me, but she's pretending she hasn't, and I can't understand why.

She sips a glass of champagne and appears to be sizing up a man who could be Blaise Zabini's clone. They talk for a long time, while I stand there obsessively glaring at them and gulping down expensive Scotch, ignoring the scantily dressed beauties who approach me. I wait for it, for that moment that will force my hand...

Finally, the other man makes his move. The git leans his mouth towards my lover's ear and whispers her an offer, holding up a room key.

Hell, no.

I was willing to stand by and watch her play whatever game she's up to, but there's no way in Hades she's leaving this room with another man.

I make my way over to her and before she can take the intended usurper's key, I put my hand over his. "Sorry, she's new. Just observing tonight," I say, knowing the rules of the house stipulate that any heated arguments assure you don't get invited back, and counting on both of them not to cause a scene.

This guy knows Hermione's not a newbie. He's seen her around, as assuredly as I've seen him. He meets my eye and there's a moment of understanding. Still, chivalry never dies. He glances at Hermione for her take on my dominant display.

"Perhaps later," she politely declines the Muggle's offer.

When he walks away, she grabs my wrist and yanks me behind her into the women's bathroom down here on the lower level. Locking the door and wandlessly waving the room against eavesdropping, she turns on me, one of the Furies in all her crackling, raging glory.

"How dare you!"

I'm on my knees at her feet an instant later, resting my forehead on her belly. "Don't," I plead. "Just don't."

I can feel her confusion diffusing her anger, and when she finally puts her hand on the top of my head, I shudder, knowing she's forgiven me my rash, irrational behaviour.

She sighs. "I can't do this anymore, Draco," she tells me, and the knot that's suddenly taken up residence in my stomach gets tighter. "The agreement was for no emotional attachments, and I…I'm compromised by you."

I know the feeling.

"What can I do?" I ask.

She sighs. "The easiest thing would be to let me go. Let me move on, find someone else, and get over these feelings, quickly."

Before I'm even aware of the action, I've got my arms around her, holding her to me so tightly, I knock her off-kilter and she fumbles for purchase by grabbing the nearby towel rack. "No!" I refuse her, and there is a hiss in my voice I haven't heard in years. It's a vicious kind of jealousy that only a spoilt, single child can emit. "Ask me for anything else, I'll do it, but letting you go to another man...that I won't do anymore!"

"Draco, stop, do you even hear yourself? We can't keep this up," she insists.

"Why not?" I demand, getting off my knees and up onto my feet. "You like what we do together. Hell, I love it. I don't see the fucking problem, Granger."

She pauses and stares at me with tears in her eyes. "That's just it, Draco. I'm a Weasley, not a Granger. That distinction is...it's everything."

The truth hits me again with a blow to the centre of my chest. I rub over the area, trying to shove it away. "You think I don't know that? You think it doesn't occur to me every time you shower before you leave that you're wiping me off your body before you go home to your husband?"

Her face pales and her expression shifts. Obviously, it's never occurred to her before that I might have noticed such a thing.

"I didn't–"

"What, mean to make me feel like some cheap rentboy you've taken on for a few hours a month?"

Her brows slant with anger. "Oh, and I don't feel like your kept mistress?" She waves a hand at the door. "You've pretty much just let the whole group out there know it, too. I'm quite sure that charming man I met tonight will never approach me again."

I step into her space, leaning down to meet her eye. "You so much as let that bastard graze you with his pinky and I'll turn him inside-out."

Eyes wide, she gapes. "You cannot be serious. Draco, I don't belong to you! I'm with Ron."

"You're mine," I snarl, and thrusting a hand into her loose curls, I pull her into me and take her mouth to prove it.

She goes still against me while I take my fill. It's only when I taste salt that I pull back. Tears streak her reddened cheeks, and her large, doe-like eyes are filled with agony.

"I can't… I can't do this anymore," she sobs, pushing at me with everything she's got.

I tighten my hold instead, and I'm the stronger force. "Stop it, Hermione! Just stop! I'm not letting go."

"You have to," she insists. "It's all wrong!"

"What the hell are you on about?"

I don't understand her resistance. What we have is bloody fantastic and rare. I've been around, had my share of women and sex, before Astoria and after, with her permission. I've been married for ten years. What Hermione and I have shared over the last year isn't anything I've ever had before. It's soft and sweet at times, but can be wild like a storm at others, just like her. And unlike Astoria's brand of sexuality, there's no pain required. There is only intense, immense pleasure. It feels natural and good, and definitely fated. It's a fucking epiphany.

"What's so wrong about us being together like this?" I demand.

"Because I want more!" she shouts in my face.

It's a peculiar feeling to suddenly have every muscle in your body got taut, to have your entire attention focused on a particular object, your senses attuned to its every movement and sound, waiting for its next move. I'm sure this is what predators and prey must feel when they spy each other across an open space, or what gamblers experience in the instant between calling and folding. Quidditch Seekers intimately understand the feeling, for it's their job to hunt for this moment during a game, when the Snitch hovers within reach.

It's that torturous second between winning and losing it all.

Right now, I'm frozen by it, hovering and waiting for Hermione's next words, praying they're the right combination and what I want to hear.

"This…what we do here…it's not enough for me any longer," she stammers, her voice choked with tears. "Don't you understand? I don't want to only meet in secret, or have you for only a few hours a month. I don't want you going home with your wife, and I'm sick of being jealous of her. I want what she has, all the time! I want you!"

Slowly, I release some of the pressure on the back of her neck, where I maintain a tight grip to hold her close to me. I don't want to hurt her in my mounting excitement.

"What are you saying, Hermione?"

I know, but I need to hear it anyway.

I need to.

She takes a deep, fortifying breath and lets it out slowly.

"I'm in love with you, Draco."

My heart leaps against my rib cage with such force I'm nearly staggered by it.

So this is what victory tastes like.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

I've done it now.

Good sex is one thing, love quite another. Generally speaking, men have an annoying tendency to rush towards the former and run from the latter, and with five simple words, I've just coupled the two in a way guaranteed to make Draco walk away.

I knew it. I knew it was only a matter of time before I laid my heart out in the open for the whole world to see. It's a particularly foolish Gryffindor trait, you see; unfortunately, recklessness is a side dish to that whole 'bravery' thing. That kind of honesty always comes with a price, though.

This is really going to hurt.

I flinch, waiting for it.

To my utter surprise, Draco doesn't shove me away, then yell at me for being stupid, or simply storm out. No, I should have known he wouldn't do such things. That would be too overt and entirely too predictable, and if there's one thing Draco Malfoy has always been, it's a man who can surprise you when you least expect it.

In response to my confession, he embraces me in a hold that nearly knocks the breath from me. Then, he picks me up, twirls me around, silent but clearly joyful. I can only wrap my arms around him and hold on as he takes me on a dizzying ride.

"What–?" I ask once I'm back on my own two feet on the floor.

"Hold on," he murmurs against my ear and I feel the pull of Side-Along Apparition.

When I open my eyes again, we're in one of the upstairs bedrooms, the one we'd used last time we were here just two weeks ago. There are fresh sheets on the bed, and the only light coming in is that of the moon through the window's sheer curtains.

I'm on my back faster than I can say, "Flipendo". Draco's hovering over me, petting my face, looking at me like he can't get enough.

"What's going on?" I ask.

I'm confused, and praying I'm not misinterpreting his reaction to my untimely news.

"Astoria asked me for a divorce today," he says.

Okay, not what I'd been expecting him to blurt out, but definitely good news for me.

I hope, anyway.

"I agreed to it," he continued. "I was going to ask her for one anyway. I'd made up my mind some time ago as to that conclusion."

My heart pounds in my chest with an epic beat that I'm sure can be heard all the way in Australia.

"Why?"

He kisses me tenderly with a sweetness that speaks as to his intentions, and I realise this is all the answer I need. I throw my arms around him and return the unspoken declaration of love.

For the first time, we're slow coming together. He's thorough, every touch a relearning, every kiss a promise. He whispers to me as he discovers me all over again, telling me his secret thoughts about each caress, each stroke. And when he fills me once more, I float in sublime pleasure.

As we lie sweaty and sated in each other's arms later, I decide it's time I divorce Ron. I suspect my husband has been planning to ask me for a legal separation for a while, anyway, and with Astoria's news, he'll be more eager than ever to get closure with me. It's obvious why we've both held out discussing it for so long, as we'd jumped into our marriage too fast, and neither of us wanted to leap into a second one under the same pretences.

Giving up the swingers club after tonight, though… Well, yes, I agree it's probably for the best. My interests here have been sated, and really, I wouldn't want that Blaise Zabini look-alike to get turned into jellyfish food by my jealous lover.

A small snore has me glancing up at Draco's slack expression. The poor man has exhausted himself out trying to convince me that his feelings match mine without actually coming out and saying the words. How typically Slytherin.

I can't help but stare at him. I love watching him sleep. He doesn't know that sometimes I spend an hour or more cataloguing his genetic attributes and noting his life's scars, giggling quietly at his small snores, and thinking to myself how lucky I am that I can see him like this—relaxed and well-sated. I give this peace to him, and in a manner he will let no one else do for him.

I think that's evidence enough that he's all mine, too.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

~FIN~

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Author's Final Notes:

No sequel planned - I like it just as it ends. Hope you enjoyed the story, my lovely readers! Leave me a review and let me know!

XOXO,

- RZZMG