Her life had been reduced to the simple tick of a stopwatch frantically racing in the background. Three weeks and four days were gone out of the month they had bet on, the month they had together. Ginny could have easily walked away from the sexy, recklessly rich bachelor who strolled into her office and propositioned her that first day of this bet, but now… she was feeling less sure she could just stroll away from the sexy, recklessly rich, surprisingly witty, and shockingly intoxicating boyfriend she was dating. Draco Malfoy was as bad as a drug, it seemed. Their terrible fight in the kitchen and his drunken revelations seemed a lifetime ago. Since then, there had been long, delicious dinners out, trips to the theatre to see her favorite band, evenings in the Manor, curled up together reading, and nights spent curled up together in bed. Sparkling in all those memories were an array of dizzying kisses, tender embraces, witty conversations, sexcapades that never actually fulfilled the terms of the bet, and a lot of affectionate tossing-around of the word bitch.

Now it was a beautiful Saturday morning, all sunshine and fluffy white clouds and soft sprigs of green grass tufting out of the ground beneath blossoming trees. Or maybe Ginny just saw it that way because she was happy. Even with that stopwatch running in the background of her mind, she was happy. The sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window, warming her back as she sat on the counter. The house elves were gone – she had suggested they have a day off, and even though Draco had looked very puzzled by the concept, he had acquiesced – and she was seated on the polished counter, swinging her legs and laughing at the paint swatches Draco was holding up.

"I'm not painting your living room," she said, shaking her head. Wayward strands of her red hair tumbled out of her jaw clip around her face, and she frowned, pursing her mouth and blowing upwards to get a strand out of her eyes.

"You dismissed my house elves on a weekend when they had a full schedule of painting to be done," he replied reasonably, even though the corner of his mouth was twitching as if he wanted to laugh. "So pick a color and put on something you don't mind getting paint on."

She looked at the swatches in his hand, one pale green and one pale blue, and made a face. Then her eyes dropped to the several swatches in his other hand, the ones not being offered as an option. "I like the darker one, with the sort of red hue,"

"You would. Ginevra, this color does not match the furniture and is not an option for the living room," he informed her, looking down at the terracotta-colored swatch to make sure.

"The furniture in there is so old anyway. You don't even like the room now. You could get new furniture,"

"The furniture in there is antique, not just old, and for someone who grew up in abject poverty, you would think you would jump less on the idea of getting rid of perfectly serviceable furniture just to change a room's color."

"I didn't grow up in abject poverty. I just didn't have a silver spoon shoved up my ass."

"Your language, Ginevra. So coarse," he lamented, rolling his silvery blue eyes. She grinned. His sense of humor was never going to lose its sarcastic, insulting qualities, but it had certainly grown on her. He was a formidable challenge. Suddenly, he tossed the terracotta paint swatch at her. "Paint my living room terracotta or whatever the hell you want. I'll buy new furniture."

She laughed. "Are you developing a soft spot?"

"No, I'm developing the good sense to know that spending money hand over fist is worth it if it stops your nagging," he replied. "Now, go put on your painting clothes, Miss Weasley. I'll go get the paint, and we will meet back here in the Manor in… twenty minutes."

Ginny did not fail to notice that before he Disapparated, he completely ignored the fact that she had said she would not paint his living room. With a good-natured sigh, she lifted her wand. With all the back and forth between her apartment and his Manor, it was starting to seem like even Apparating was too time-consuming. She would rather just walk upstairs to get her clothes… but that would mean moving in, and the stopwatch in the background was showing only three days remaining.

X

"Have at it," Draco Malfoy was lounging on his couch when she returned to the Manor, with two pails of paint sitting on the floor, along with paint brushes and rollers and pans and ladders. His elbows were bent, his head resting on his hands, and he feigned a yawn as if he were about to take a nap. Ginny had obediently put on paint clothes while he was gone, wearing a pair of faded old jean shorts and a giant grey tee shirt, vaguely emblazoned with the name of a muggle charity, but just because she had shown a small level of submission did not mean she was totally giving in.

"Get up and go put on old clothes. You're going to help me," she announced, clapping her hands together briskly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Lovely, lovely Ginevra… I do not do menial labor in my own Manor, surrounded by servants, or in this case, when my girlfriend is going to do it to make up for being a nosy bitch two weeks ago."

She moved over to the couch and leaned forward, eyes sparkling. "Your girlfriend has been making that up to you for two weeks," the purr in her voice leaving no question as to how she had been making that up to him. "In fact… if I remember correctly, we are tied."

"It's childish to keep track of orgasms," he scoffed.

"You started it," she replied, holding out her hand. "Now get up and go put on old clothes. We'll paint this room and then do something more fun this evening."

"Do I get to choose the 'more fun activity' or do you?"

"You can choose,"

"Okay," he rose to his feet slowly, stretching out his muscles, and she admired the way his body stretched and moved under his clothes. Over three weeks with him had helped her reign in some of the hormones that made her incapable of appropriately functioning around him, but it had made other hormone flares much worse. Now it wasn't just his body or the wicked twinkle in his eyes that turned her on; it was the whole package, no pun intended, and that made the flares of desire all the more potent. "I'll be right back. At least open the paint cans without me, you lazy girl."

"Hurry up, rich boy," she countered, bending down to pry the lids off of the paint cans. She loved the color; it was rich and earthy. It would bring vibrancy and life to the living room. The bathrooms and bedroom she admired so much upstairs were in contrast to the rest of the house, which like this living room, were pale, dull colors and old furniture. Of course, she knew it was not her home and therefore it was silly to spend so much thought process on what she liked about it and what she didn't.

She was stirring the paint when Draco Malfoy came back in the room, and her heart stopped for a second.

"What are those?" She asked, gaping. He was wearing jeans splattered with multi-colored stains, with a tattered hole ripped out of the left knee, and a white tee-shirt stretched across his chest, also stained. He was even barefoot.

"Painting clothes."

"You… what… you… whose are those?" She spluttered, still gaping. He walked over to her, put a finger under her chin and pushed upward to close her open mouth. His eyes were amused as they met hers.

"They're mine, Ginevra," he said quietly. She reached over to tug on the shirt, stretching a handful of it closer to look at a stain. It looked genuine, almost like a wood stain had spilled on the shirt. Looking back up at him, she frowned as if betrayed.

"How did this get here?" She attempted to wave his shirt with its most prominent stain at his face, which just resulted in jerking him around awkwardly for a second before he grabbed her hands and pulled his shirt out of her grasp.

"From working on the house," he replied, promptly turning away and picking up a paint can to fill a tray but not before she spotted amusement twitching at the corners of his mouth again. Marching over, she also picked up a paintbrush and stuck it into the paint aggressively while the wheels in her head turned furiously. Draco Malfoy worked on the house enough to own stained, bedraggled work clothes. Of all the revelations about his personality and his lack of evilness and the (un?)fortunate discovery that he was not actually the Devil incarnate, this revelation was the most shocking. He knew how to work around a house? How did he keep those hands so nice if he did real work? The questions, inane and somehow even more inane, swirled in her head for seemingly no reason.

"Ginny?" He queried as he set up his ladder and climbed up with a tray full of paint and a roller. "It's not like you to stay silent for more than two seconds unless you're asleep."

She looked down at the rich terracotta paint, so unlike the downstairs with its pale colors but not so unlike the upstairs, with its elaborate carvings and rich, dramatic jewel tones. Perhaps that was why he had agreed to it so quickly… He had done those bathrooms himself. That upstairs she admired so much was his handiwork. She looked at him in fresh shock.

"Draco Malfoy, you lying bastard," she said with an odd expression on her face, looking up at him. He looked surprised for an instant but then seemed to recognize the realization on her face, and he climbed back down off of the ladder.

"Be reasonable. I did not lie. You never asked me about my housework activities. I certainly don't do laundry, after all," he replied calmly, holding out his arms to her as he spoke. She shook her head. An odd feeling was in her chest, pressing on her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Something strange was happening to her insides, constricting them, and another realization, even more dramatic than the realization that Draco Malfoy soiled his hands by doing his own painting, was coming towards her from somewhere far away in the back of her mind.

"You lied to me," she said. He seemed alarmed, in the same helpless-cornered-animal way as he had the night she had fake-cried in his foyer. "You lied to me for my entire life."

"What?" He was thoroughly confused now, Ginny could tell, but she did not care. She was just hitting her stride. She frenetically waved her paintbrush in the air, sending terracotta paint flying in a dramatic splatter on his neck. An unnoticed (at least by her) plop also fell on her hair.

"You lied to me. All my fucking life I've thought you were an arrogant, careless, reckless, heartless, stupid, lazy, rich bastard who was evil and stupid and hateful…" She felt a sudden surge of anger, unexpected and inexplicable. "You lied to me! All this time! You are generous with money, not reckless, you have a great sense of humor, you would do anything for your mother, you protected me when my family was mean to me, you treat me right, you know how to be polite and charming not just because Satan employs those charms but because you actually are, you get grouchy in the mornings just like human beings, you are amazing in bed so I'm sure sex with you is bloody amazing, you don't support your father and all that evil shit, and…" She drew up, suddenly close to angry tears. "You paint your own fucking house!"

"Ginny…" He was utterly bewildered now, trying to reach out for her even as she swatted his hands away.

"You misrepresented yourself! You lied! If I had always known, I could have stayed far, far away from you so that we wouldn't be standing here like this right now!" Her voice climbed into hysterically high notes, and apparently willing to conquer his fear of hysterical females for Ginny, Draco finally caught a hold of her, gripping her arms, looking searchingly into her face with frantic eyes.

"What in God's name are you talking about, Ginny?" He demanded. Her warm eyes, wild around the edges with fear, locked on his, and that realization that had been approaching from the back of her mind finally arrived, like dynamite in a mine shaft, blowing away all the denial she had been wrapping it in.

She had fallen in love with him. This was no longer just a fun fling, a step-outside-of-good-girl-Ginny. This was no longer even just a deal with the devil. This was her standing in front of a charismatic, handsome, compassionate, witty, challenging man she had fallen in love with after years of misjudgment.

Fuck. Her. Life.

"I love you, you stupid bloody Slytherin, and it's all your fault! If you hadn't lied and misrepresented yourself, I would have known to never make this bet with you and end up in this mess!" She blurted out, and suddenly, she was crying, tears blurring over her vision of his stony, shell-shocked face. She buried her head in his neck, smearing that terracotta paint she had splattered on him all over her nose as she cried. She was crying for her heart that had so foolishly tumbled into love with Draco Malfoy, crying for her inability to refrain from blurting things out in front of him, and crying for their relationship built on a bet that expired in three days. He wasn't even saying anything, just holding her and stroking her hair, probably because he knew that there was nothing comforting he could possibly say.

When he reached down and lifted her tearstained face to his, his eyes were blank before they closed as he lowered his mouth to hers. That blank look had not seemed like a good sign. His lips were hot, though, like a match to gasoline, and she rocked up into him hard, kissing him with a fiery desperation. His taste was a hit of heroin, like a cure to a disease she didn't even know she had. He gripped her hard against him, pulling her into his arms as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He was carrying her upstairs, and she was clinging to him as they kissed breathlessly. They were already tearing each other's clothes off as they tumbled onto the bed. There were no words to be said. Ginny's "I love you" still clung to the air between them, but they ignored it as they fumbled for one another.

It was as if subconsciously they knew this was the turning point. Once they started speaking, once words started flowing, things would change. The balance they had been living in would be gone, changed, and likely irreparable. The only way to stave off the change was not to speak.

So they did not speak, and unspoken, they both knew that either way, the bet no longer mattered. So this time, when they were both stripped down to nothing but hot, bare skin, they kissed with a new intensity. He ran his hands over her fiercely, and she pressed into him. The sudden, harsh arousal was so thick in the air that sweat had already broken out on their skin, glistening in tiny beads, as their mouths and hands devoured one another, as if any taste could be the very last, any touch could be goodbye. When his hand finally slid to the wet heat between her legs, she came undone under his touch, shaking her head and breaking the kiss to meet his eyes, now dark pools of desire.

"Not this time," she whispered, the first words spoken since her confession, and he nodded his understanding, kissing her again, pressing his weight closer to her. His kiss was hot and demanding but reassuring, his mouth whispering to hers – without words – all the promises of sexual pleasure and intimacy. His knee pushed her legs apart, and he entered her smoothly and surely, in one motion so gentle that Ginny hardly felt the intrusion until it was over, until there he was, hard and huge, inside of her. She gasped then, pressing her nose into his neck, smelling heated terracotta paint and the masculine scent of skin and sweat. He moved slowly, gently, but that did not mean the pleasure unfurling inside of her like a blossoming flower was slow or gentle. It filled her, heightened her senses, rocked her hips against him of their own will. He persisted in his gentle movements, persisted in his slow, certain rhythm, slowly feeling his way to her depths as she clung to him.

He moved his mouth down to one expectant breast, taking her nipple between his teeth even as he pushed into her very core, until he seemed to fill every inch of her, until all she could do was moan, a sound that sounded like a plea for more. He looked at her, and they read the pure height of sexuality stamped in each other's eyes, as he slid deep and slow, straight into her. Her moan followed his motion, rising louder and louder as he pushed until she believed he could push no further… and then he went just a millimeter further, and she lost it, the climb of her pleasure peaking and falling sharply even as gravity turned her loose. The orgasm rocked her to the core, heart and mind and body, but Draco did not let her simply fall.

As if fueled by her cry of pleasure and her sharp spiral into orgasm, his rhythm changed. He moved faster, harder, and she caught hold of him, fingers sinking into the hard bone of his shoulder blades as she clung to him as he forced her to climb again, rising again on that wave of pleasure. She heard her cries echoing through the room, moans that could have been mistaken for pain if ecstasy had not so clearly been the cause. His muscles were tightening against her, and she pulled him still closer, moved her lips to his ear and let her hot breath carry her moans straight to his ear, straight to his heart. This time, it would be together. He shuddered against her, his movement stalled, and suddenly her hips moved for them, pushing him into her, pulling him closer, taking over the rhythm.

Not without you, their bodies cried to one another, and world shook in cataclysmic loss of gravity as they fell together.

X

When Ginny's mind floated back from its journey through postorgasmic orbit, she was curled against his chest, lying in a tangle of sweaty arms and legs, two bodies breathing hard. What had just happened? One minute, she had been standing there, yelling at him for making her fall in love with him, and the next minute, they had been stumbling to bed as fast as they could, rushing into the act that she had been fantasizing about, burying it a blur of raw desire and intense, unsolved emotion. It didn't even make sense. Why had sex felt like the instant answer? Why had they both leapt immediately into bed?

And why were they still lying in silence except for their still-heavier-than-normal breathing?

She lifted her chin to look up at him, looking up to meet his eyes. They were stormy blue now, intense and aloof, and she felt the lack of warmth or intimacy there instinctively, like a cold chill to her bones. The silence felt heavy, like a velvet blanket around her head in summertime, but she dared not break it. He had begun it, hadn't he? He had kissed her instead of answering her when she blurted out her feelings.

Why had she done that? Why had she not been capable of showing restraint? She had been showing restraint for weeks now just by not jumping in the sack with him, and now, not only had she blown that wide open without thinking about it, she had done something much bigger. She had dropped the L bomb right on Malfoy Manor like the Germans had done to Britain in World War II, only then it had been a real bomb, not a figurative one. But it was still looking like this one had been just as destructive. The silence was speaking so loudly that Ginny wanted to cover her ears with her hands and scream to try to drown it out.

"You lost the bet with only three days left," his voice was strangely cold and dull, completely lacking the warmth or charisma that she had gotten so accustomed to.

A silence stretched out again until she managed enough air from her lungs to push seven words through her dry, constricted throat: "Is that all you have to say?"

The silence stretched out once more.

Finally, she stood up slowly. Suddenly her entire body no longer was in the glow of having just orgasmed; instead she felt black and blue as if he had beaten her from head to toe. How could he just sit there in silence? She looked down at her skin, streaked in terracotta paint from their bodies smearing it everywhere. It looked like she had been slashed by a velociorapter, leaving behind gaping, bloody wounds. She dressed slowly, moving as if in a horrible trance.

How was he sitting there in silence?

How was he failing to acknowledge any of what happened?

How had her beautiful Saturday gone so horribly wrong?

Once her shirt was back on, she turned to look at him, long and lean and naked, watching her with cloudy eyes.

"Looks like you won your bet," she said acidly, turning her back and walking out with tears welling up in her eyes. As she marched out, she stomped on the stairs, slamming her feet down as hard as she could, to hide the fact that her breathing was beginning to rush out in pre-sobbing gasps.

He did not come after her.

Not even when she hit the bottom of the stairs, stomped into the living room, picked up a paint can and hurled it with all her might onto the stairs.

Not even when she kicked over one of the ladders and spilled the other paint cans all over the polished floors.

Not even when she screamed before Disapparating.

Not even once she had been sitting in her apartment, shaking and waiting, for two hours.

He did not come after her at all.


AN: Okay... so I know this chapter was a kick in the gut, but I hope you still enjoyed it on some level for its storytelling qualities. This is a chapter I really, really need your feedback on. I know my game plan for what comes next, but I still really need you guys to tell me your opinions on this one. Thank you so so much!