Chapter Two
The evening wore on in a usual fashion; Ginny played Exploding Snap with Neville and Ron, pointedly ignoring Dennis and Kevin, who were motioning frantically for her to join them with their friends Jonathan Strubble, Stephen Morris, and Mikey Bradshaw. It pained Ginny to see the wistful looks Neville kept shooting at Linnéa, who was sprawled in an armchair with her Ancient Runes book, chatting with Hermione. Harlow, who was lying on the floor to observe the Exploding Snap game, gave Ginny a look that told her that she was not the only one who noticed that Neville's face lit up whenever Linnéa laughed.
When Colin came in from dinner, he gave Ginny a hesitant smile, and she returned it with a genuine one. Thankfully, he didn't come over as he usually did to babble about nothing in particular or, Merlin forbid, try and take Ginny's picture as she frequently caught him doing.
Something nagged at the back of Ginny's mind however, and despite the number of deep breaths she took, the number of times she willed herself to calm down, she couldn't relax.
Where had he been?
Ginny realized she sounded like a suspicious wife whose husband had come home late one night, but as her whining was in her own head, she didn't really care. In her head, she didn't have to act indifferent. And, goddammit, she was going to be jealous if it suited her.
By eleven o'clock, everyone had headed up to bed in anticipation of the early morning Monday would bring. It took about a half hour for the sixth year girl's dormitory to quiet down, and only when Ginny was sure that Harlow was sleeping did she slip quietly out of bed and down the staircase, pulling a dressing gown over her nightdress.
Passing through the silent common room, she cast a quick Disillusionment charm over herself and slipped out of the portrait hole, her heart thumping at the prospect of where she was going.
It really wasn't fair, she thought to herself as she crept down the dark and empty corridors, that the arrogant jerk managed to send her heart into overdrive even when he wasn't there.
The Room of Requirement appeared with little coaxing, just as it always did. Ginny slipped inside, lifting the Charm that concealed her and surveying the dark room in which she was definitely alone.
But it was not for long.
When the door opened again less than ten minutes later, Ginny was sitting on the edge of the huge sprawling bed in the center of the room in her nightdress, her knees hugged to her chest. She looked up just as the door closed and the room was put into darkness once more.
For a long moment, there was complete silence as the new arrival stood motionless in the dark. Then, with a sudden whooshing sound like a burst of wind, the lamps on either side of the bed lit themselves apparently of their own accord, and Ginny saw Draco standing near the closed door. He wore a dark shirt and trousers, his silvery hair illuminated by the dim glow of the light that warmed the corners of the small chamber.
"Hi," Ginny said softly. She wanted to say more, to apologize for earlier, to get angry that he hadn't been at dinner, but before she could summon any words at all, he moved first. He reached the bed so quickly that Ginny inhaled sharply with shock; it was as though he had somehow materialized beside her.
He reached his hand out to cup her face, and Ginny eagerly leaned forward in anticipation of kissing. However, Draco merely ran his eyes over her face, his body staying completely motionless. Just when Ginny was about to speak again, he suddenly wrapped his arms around her, crushing her body against his. Her heart slamming against her ribcage as those familiar arms encircled her, Ginny immediately pulled herself closer to him, snaking her arms around his neck until they were entwined in each other, and Draco buried his face in her hair.
"Hi," he murmured in her ear, his breath on her skin making her shiver. His hands began running up and down her back, and the warmth of him through the thin cotton fabric of her nightdress furthered the tingling sensation shooting through her nerves. She nuzzled into his neck, pressing her lips to the cool hollow of his throat, her fingers moving down to tug impatiently at his collar. He smirked before drawing back from her and pulling off the shirt, tossing it to the floor.
Ginny felt this was a suspicious move on his part, as Draco usually made it a point to make sure that Ginny's clothes came off faster than his own, but she wasn't about to complain; not when the icy cool smell of him was intoxicating her like Firewhiskey, and she felt that only-too-familiar craving for him that built up in his absence.
"Frisky, tonight, are you?" Draco said in amusement as Ginny pushed him horizontal and climbed on top of him, trailing kisses down his neck, sucking gently on his skin as she worked her way down to his bare sculpted chest.
"Are you...complaining?" Ginny inquired between kisses, running her hands down the length of his body. "We could...always...just go to sleep."
"OK," Draco said, running his fingers through her hair. "Goodni - whoa."
Swiftly, Draco's trousers were cast aside and Ginny dragged her mouth back up his body to nip at his chin. She gave him an impish grin before swooping down and pressing her mouth to his cheek. Draco raised an eyebrow.
"We haven't been together in more than a week," she said pointedly, tracing her finger across the waistband of his boxers and raising her own eyebrows.
"Don't think I haven't noticed," he said wryly, pulling his fingers slowly through her hair as he studied her flushed, impatient face. "I'm just a little taken aback at how eager you seem to get me naked. Isn't the whole ripping-off-the-clothes-in-a-fury-of-passion thing generally my job?"
"Well, you don't seem too fussed about whether I'm naked or not," Ginny said, annoyed, as he played with the thin strap of her nightdress. "Usually you have my clothing in a heap before we even hit the bed. Now you're carrying on like a monk and making me feel like a preteen nymphomaniac."
"Mmm, I kind of like it this way," Draco teased, and Ginny stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "Christ's sake, Weasley, I'm kidding." He pulled her closer to him until their faces were half an inch apart. "You know how much I enjoy you when you're naked."
At this point, Ginny was sure he was going to tease her all night, and she would fall into an unsatisfied and fully-clothed sleep after hours of him kissing but not kissing her and touching but not touching her. However, just as she was going to concede defeat, she spotted a mischievous gleam in his eyes, and he swiftly rolled them over so that his body was suspended above hers. Ginny let out a tiny moan of satisfaction as he pushed his mouth onto hers, but before her tongue could seek entrance, he had pulled away again.
"Draco!" she complained.
"I'll be back," he assured her with a cheeky grin. Ginny was about to inquire further when the hands that had just traveled down her sides began sliding up her thighs under the hem of her nightdress.
"Oh, God," she choked through a sharp gasp as he bent his head to her exposed collarbone and began dragging his tongue across it, leaving the spots he touched to burn on Ginny's skin.
"'Draco' will be sufficient," he murmured against her skin. "Though I'm quite certain that if you decide to start a religion centered around me, you won't be hard-put for membership."
"Arrogant prat," she breathed, arching up her neck so he had better access to her throat and gripping the bedspread tightly as one hand slid up her gown to the curve of her breast while the other traced the lacy edges of her panties. "Oh. Oh. Ohh. What are you doing?"
"Well," Draco said, pausing in the act of creating a pattern of purple bruises on Ginny's neck with his mouth. "You seem to be in doubt of how completely fucking shaggable you are, Red. I'm just trying to refresh your memory."
"Or shagging fuckable," Ginny pointed out, though she was having difficulty with the formation of normal speech as Draco's tongue moved over her clothed chest, rendering the fabric nearly translucent. "As...ohmigoodness...Harlow would...say..."
"Weasley," Draco murmured as he glanced up at her, a smirking smile curving his lips. "You are completely and totally shagging fuckable."
"Do you tell all your girlfriends that?" Ginny asked with a contented sigh just before his mouth met hers again, and the explosion of flavor that was the taste of him ignited her senses. When he finally drew back, both his rainstorm eyes and her cinnamon ones were smoldering, and Ginny could feel the hardness of him through his boxers against her bare thigh.
"I want you," Ginny told him quietly, a note of naughtiness that was unfamiliar to her lingering in the air between them.
"Then you're lucky," he responded, his blue-grey irises burning into hers. "Because you've got me."
Her head spun wildly as he slowly dragged down the straps of her nightdress to pull it down off of her legs and slid off her to let his eyes travel over the length of her body. There had been a time when Ginny felt self-conscious at this, a thin scrap of fabric between her legs the only concealment she had from his lingering gaze, the gaze that she knew had seen the bodies of many girls before her. His eyes moved from her body to her eyes, and Ginny didn't think. She just nodded.
He buried his face in her neck and whispered words that she couldn't hear, but his tone was clear enough. She blushed furiously when he called her sexy in her ear, a simple compliment that was so rare in the sneering dynamics of their relationship. He slid down to run his mouth over her breast and she panted like an anxious puppy until he mercifully reached down and, with the smallest of hesitations, dragged off her damp knickers.
She always watched him as he sat up to slide his boxers off, stretching the waistband to allow passage over his stiff hardness, kicking them to the floor with his eyes fixed on hers. In the dim light of the Room of Requirement, this bedchamber that materialized for them so that they could be together without the restrictions of their House, Ginny wanted every piece of Draco, and wanted to surrender every piece of herself in return.
He started slowly, leaning down so that their faces were nearly touching, and as he entered her, a tremor ran through Ginny's body, making her start. Not wanting to see a question in his eyes, she pressed her body up to his, arching to meet him, and established the quick, easy rhythm that was always so natural for them. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and cried out when she came, but she held onto him tightly until she felt his release inside her. He didn't make a sound but swiftly kissed her so long and hard that finally she had to break away, gasping for breath.
Ginny didn't want him to leave her, so she locked her legs around him, ignoring the laughter on his face as she moved to kiss him again, sucking hard on his top lip.
Sex with Draco had always been amazing, particularly because their explosive chemistry made her orgasm come like an earthquake, even on their first time. But Ginny loved this moment, when they were as close and connected as two humans could be, and she saw that aching passion she had for him reflected in his own eyes.
They lay they for a few minutes afterwards in silence, feet tangled in the covers, their slick naked bodies nestled together under the sheets.
"I came," Ginny informed him in a whisper after she had regained control of her breathing.
"I know," he muttered back, and she could hear the amusement in his voice. "I can tell when you do, Red. The whimper of ecstasy is usually sort of a giveaway."
"Oh, really?" she responded in an undertone, smiling to herself and tracing her finger along the contours of his chest. "How do you know I'm not faking?"
"Please. I know when you're faking too."
"What?" Ginny regarded him in the lamplight in indignation as he met her gaze calmly. "I have never faked it!"
Smirk. "Precisely."
"I hate you," she sighed. "But, you know...that was..."
"I think 'wow' is the term you're looking for," Draco said lazily, nipping her neck playfully.
"Mmm. Wow."
"We should meet like this more often," he commented as he casually kneaded her breast with his palm, making her moan in his ear. "I think I'm liking my Gryffindor nympho."
"Shut up," she said with a blissful sigh as he hugged her to him, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I just really needed this tonight. Needed...you. It's so hard being apart and having to sneak around like star-cross'd lovers."
"Is that what we are?" he asked with benign interest. "Sounds dramatic and forbidden."
"It is," Ginny said with a smile. "Just like you.
They lay together quietly for a while longer, until Ginny turned to look at him and he, returning her gaze, bent down to kiss her, slowly and so gently that Ginny felt hesitant to respond until he sucked on her lower lip. When he looked at her again, inquiry in his glance, she nodded imperceptibly and without a moment's hesitation. He waved his hands so that the lamps were extinguished, then claimed her mouth with his again.
They made love in the dark, their bodies melded together, their ragged breathing penetrating the silence of the room. Draco moved inside her, her hips aligned with his, and she knew that he was pacing himself on purpose this time, torturously prolonging the end. Finally she had to beg him, whispering his name as her fingernails bit into his broad, chiseled shoulders.
He came first, sending vibrations through her nerve endings, but he kept moving with her until she arched up her back and whimpered, and she was repeating his name, again and again; Draco. Draco. Draco. Ginny came with such a staggering intensity that she cried out, her voice spiraling upwards, and she felt his weight on her as he relaxed his body and kissed her all over her face, lingering on her swollen lips as she tried to pull him still closer.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of their tongues exploring each other's mouths, their hands wandering freely, Draco rolled off of her, pulling her to his side so she could lay her head on his chest. She hugged him tightly with her arm around his waist and he played with her hair, and gradually their breathing returned to normal.
In a detached way, Ginny thought of sex with Michael, back when she was fourteen, barely a teenager, and he had taken her virginity one quiet afternoon on a corner of the grounds, the only place they could be alone. She had never come, never felt any real enjoyment of the act, but she did it to make him happy, following his whispered directives in her ear, experimenting, and feeling relief when he came; it became a job, and when their relationship ended, her body had never ached for his. With Dean, it had been better, because she had been a little older, and knew what boys liked, what they wanted from her, what to do with her body to make theirs go mad for her. It had been pleasant enough, but Dean had had no idea how to get her off, and it was, once more, a one-sided experience. To Ginny, sex was something that she participated in, but seemed to experience from the sidelines. She was good at it, as far as she knew, but nobody knew how to be good to her.
And then there was Draco, who, even after nearly eight months of sexual exploration between them, managed to make every orgasm mind-blowing to the point that all Ginny could do was cry out. Every time was like their first time, wrought with all the passion and fiery energy and need of two lovers who have been craving each other for so long but had been denied. Yet, even so, their first time had not been a fumbling catastrophe of hesitant motions and awkward touches - as Ginny remembered it, her orgasms (all three of them) had given her the feeling that someone had just set off a firework inside of her.
They were always so natural and easy together that more often than not, they came less than a few seconds apart, both with the crushing force of the most powerful sensation imaginable. Draco had long since memorized every inch of her body and knew exactly where to touch her and when, as though he was reading her mind rather than resorting to the blind groping that Ginny had been so accustomed to before him.
Ginny always felt that something should be said after sex, some confirmation of the pleasure they had mutually experienced; Draco didn't. He had insisted once at the beginning of their relationship that he didn't need her to tell him how amazing he was, and when Ginny rolled her eyes, he had added as an afterthought, "Thought if you have any constructive criticism, let me know."
He had waited.
"You really do have a swelled head, don't you?" Ginny had said dryly.
"Somewhat," he had responded rather cheerfully. "Let's have it, Red. Anything I should work out on my own?"
"No," Ginny had sighed. "I know that you know it, but I'm just going to confirm. You are absolutely amazing."
"I know," he teased. "That's not going to change. "
Before she could stop herself, Ginny had blurted out, "What about me?"
He had surveyed her in amusement as she blushed crimson. "Let me put it this way," he had said with a grin. "I didn't have to teach you much."
This, she maintained, was likely the highest compliment on her sexual prowess he was every going to give her straight out.
That had been the most intimate pillow talk they had had to date, but Draco seemed now to sense that Ginny was teetering on the edge of speaking once more as they lay together. As she opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn't entirely sure what, he merely bent his head down and covered it with his own, kissing her lips until she was dizzy and breathless.
"Where were you at dinner?" she whispered when he pulled away.
"Jealous, are you?"
She ignored this. "I want to know, Draco."
He raised an eyebrow. "It's Saturday," he said. "Meeting with Hooch. You know...the duty as Quidditch captain I have been fulfilling every weekend of the year?"
Ginny flushed. "Oh," she said, feeling slow and stupid. "I forgot."
"Silly woman," he teased, and she opened her mouth to say something else, but he interrupted her with a kiss again, and she didn't fight against it.
"'Night, Weasley," he said in his lazy drawl, turning on his side so that he faced her still, his eyes closed. Ginny sighed and rolled over so she was facing away from him. She wasn't sure what she had expected him to do, when she so clearly wanted to say something meaningful, something that he hated. The 'L' word, not for the first time, was hovering on the tip of her tongue, but she knew better than to open that issue up. It was an unsaid rule between them...the 'L' word wasn't part of their world together.
Almost as though he could sense her disquieted emotions, Ginny felt his arms come around her waist to caress her bare stomach. Draco pressed his lips to her shoulder and she gave an inaudible sigh of absolute contentment. Did it really matter if she voiced her feelings? she thought to herself as she lay, eyes open, in his arms. The unspoken words meant nothing when compared to their physical chemistry. It was this chemistry that had brought them together...why did it need to get more complicated than that?
Sex is the easy part, Ginny mused. It's when the sex becomes serious that things start getting difficult.
Why did things need to get difficult when they were happy as they were? They weren't together to fall in love; they were together to make it.
For the first time ever, Ginny found herself sleepless in Draco's arms. Even when he drifted off, his breathing growing slow and steady, she lay awake for a very long time. When she finally slipped off to sleep after what seemed like hours and hours, she slept restlessly, dreaming of Colin and Honeydukes, Exploding Snap and never-ending Potions essays.
When Draco woke up on Sunday morning, his watch on the floor read 7:09 and he was alone.