Author's Note: Uhhh, sexytimes just kinda ambushed me, so...uh...here you go. ;)
Chapter 8: Primal Nature
Hermione knew instantly that it was going to be a bumpy landing. A branch under her foot caused her to roll one of her ankles and she fell to the ground on one knee gasping for breath. Severus was still with her, thankfully, and neither of them appeared to have been Splinched. He sagged heavily into her side, his breathing shallow through gritted teeth as he moaned about the voices, begging her to make them stop. A quick glance around her told her exactly where they were, and she groaned inwardly.
The forest of Dean.
Ignoring her aching ankle, Hermione set him down gently on the forest floor and instinctively began to cast protective wards, resolving to make the most of a bad situation. Severus rolled from side to side feverishly, his hand clutching his Marked arm, but he did not attempt to stand up. Hermione was glad that she'd brought her beaded handbag, and quickly set up the tent, which she'd updated a bit when she was preparing for the Death Eater hunting trip earlier that week. She'd woven some spellwork into the fabric of the tent to make it appear Disillusioned from the outside, even without the strong protective wards around it. Hermione had been caught by Death Eaters before. She resolved never to allow it to happen again.
Conjuring up a stretcher, she levitated Severus onto it and used magic to get him into the tent, limping horribly behind him. Her ankle was starting to scream with pain by this point, and so she stumbled into a chair, summoning some salve and a strip of linen cloth from her bag. Her ankle attended to, Hermione gingerly hobbled over to the stretcher, which she'd left floating in the open kitchen area.
Severus seemed feverish by this point, droplets of sweat beading around his temples.
Hermione touched his forehead to check and he flinched slightly.
"No…" he moaned, his eyes glazing over as they stared far away, "Must…ahhhh..."
Hermione frowned. His forehead was not overly warm, but he looked as though he was burning up. She conjured up a washcloth and wet it down in the sink, folding it expertly and placing it on his forehead, which seemed to calm him slightly.
Strings of hair hung over his face and she pulled it gently back behind his ears. He moaned more softly at her touch, pressing his cheek against her palm like a cat. When she looked down and met his gaze, he could see that they were half open and staring unblinkingly at her. His breathing, which had been labored only moments ago, was nearly unnoticeable now. She knew it should have been unnerving, but there was something about how he looked at her that made her blush a deep crimson.
"Hermione," he rasped softly, raising his hand and pressing his finger against her lips. "Please...come to me…"
Her pulse quickened and she knew that she should pull away and let him rest, but she was transfixed by his sudden vulnerability. A mad thought came to her from nowhere and before she knew what she was doing, she had leaned down and pressed a kiss against his cheek. He hissed with pleasure and then winced, grabbing his Marked arm.
Hermione stared. The snakes, which had been writhing around under his skin had gone still, their coils only moving slightly, as though they were growing sleepy.
"Severus," Hermione said softly, waiting for the pain to subside.
He looked at her, then, and his eyes were full of a burning sense of hope.
"Please, Hermione," he rasped, "Again...please…"
Hermione kissed him on the cheek again, and he gasped at the sensation. She kissed him on the tip of his nose and his mouth hung open as he panted with pleasure and pain. She glanced down and could see that her touch seemed to push away the dark magic that had filled his brain with feverish, torturous sensation. It hadn't seemed to do much before, not when they were fighting, or when she'd touched him while his sleeves were still rolled down. She kissed his nose again, more tenderly this time. His arm tensed, but she could see the coils slowing more and more on the Mark, and she was so glad for it that she moved down under his nose kissed him right on the lips.
His eyes went wide with surprise as she pressed her lips against his, then slowly, a dawning sense of abandon filled her with a humming urgency that she couldn't control.
Tentatively, she traced his lips gently with the tip of her tongue, and he moaned into her mouth, allowing her access. As though she was hearing it from far away, she heard a soft cry of enjoyment escape her lips as she savored the taste of him. For some reason, his mouth had an earthy, meaty flavor with a hint of sweetness. It was addictive, and she explored his mouth eagerly with her tongue, savoring the sensation of the tip of his tongue tentatively rubbing gently against hers. Before she knew it, he'd gingerly pressed his tongue into her mouth as well, and she found herself momentarily stunned at the idea that she was properly snogging Severus Snape before her mind went blank with the pleasure of what they were doing together and she realized she didn't give a single damn what they were doing as long as they could continue doing it.
She couldn't remember when she'd climbed on top of him. The dull ache in her ankle was merely a momentary distraction before it faded away and all that was left was him. There was a point when she was undoing the buttons on his jacket and he was pulling her robes over her head when they both looked at each other in a moment of clear-headed shock, but then his lips were on hers again and she pulled back only enough so that he could pull the soft cloth up over her head, leaving her in only a simple silky bra and a pair of sensible cotton knickers. His shirt was open, leaving only a thin ribbed tank top underneath and she'd slipped it halfway off his shoulders, leaving him with a dazed, well-kissed look on his face. Filled with a sense of courage she couldn't explain, Hermione began fumbling with his trousers when he suddenly went deathly still.
"Are...you...sure?" He gasped, his breath catching with exertion as he tried to hold back the emotional and physical overload that was coursing through his body.
Hermione bent down on top of him and kissed him softly on the lips, her mind in a daze.
"Yes...please…I can hardly bear it..." she whispered into his mouth, and they were both lost to their desires.
His hands were rough and unpracticed as they grasped at her, but Hermione was filled with a sense of rising urgency to feel his fingers pressing against her breasts and tracing the sides of her waist until they were resting firmly on her hips. Hermione tried to kneel, only to find the position awkward on the transfigured floating cot. With an annoyed flick of her wand, she lowered the stretcher to the ground and cast a Cushioning Charm on it.
"There, much better," she purred softly, tossing her wand on top of the pile of clothing that had gathered on the floor beside them.
Severus sat up slightly and allowed Hermione to pull his jacket and white button-up shirt off arm by arm, then pulled his tank top up over his head and tossed it aside in one fluid motion, shaking his head back and forth until his hair was falling forward and framing his face. His dark eyes were completely focused on her as though he were afraid she would disappear if he looked away for even a moment. Noticing that Hermione was struggling with her ankle and her knickers, he made a strange motion with his fingers and wrist, and Hermione's eyes widened with surprise and froze as she realized what had happened.
He'd wandlessly removed every last shred of clothing on both of their bodies.
She met his eyes and bit her lip hard. The unbridled expression of desire she found there filled her with fire. She could feel the heat rising all the way from her core to the back of her throat until she began to pant feverishly. Tendrils of energy pulsed outward from deep within her chest, pressing against his body until his magic flared and met hers, licking against her skin like a gentle flame.
"Beautiful," he breathed, his fingers tracing down the center of her chest between her breasts until he reached her navel. Hermione had always been somewhat uncomfortable with the small pouch of a belly that lay stubbornly under her belly button, an irritating addition that had coincided with all of the award feasts and celebratory meals after the Final Battle was over and her long months of starvation had finally ended. Perhaps her insecurities should have made her pause, but there was something about how Severus touched her body that made every single one of her anxieties fall away. She traced the scars on his chest as he mirrored her motions with the scars on her own body- places where they'd both been torn by those trying to break them.
When he reached up to place his fingers against her lips, she saw the darkness on his arm from the corner of her eye, but as she turned her head to look at it more closely, the snakes were as stationary as a Muggle tattoo and the color seemed lighter.
She pressed her hand over his and closed her eyes in concentration as she began to grind her hips gently against him. His erect cock rubbed against the apex of her thighs and she could feel herself growing wetter and wetter by the moment at the soft friction between their bodies.
"Hermione." His voice was like a prayer, reverent and deep. "Please…"
Hermione let out a heavy breath and leaned down, meeting his lips with hers. Raising onto her knees, she rubbed against the length of his cock, savoring the sensation of his velvetine erection against the heat and wetness of her labia and the sensitive bud of her clitoris.
As she arched her arse into the air, she could feel the head of his cock angling upward gently against her, catching slightly inside of her as she rubbed against him more insistently.
She shivered and moaned into his mouth at the pleasure of it.
Slowly but surely, she rubbed and rubbed at a steady pace until she could feel the head of his cock pressing into the folds of her labia, slipping deeper and deeper inside of her at an agonizingly slow pace. The sensation of growing full inside of her was amazing. Though Hermione wasn't a virgin, and she'd ruptured her hymen while horseback riding long before her first awkward time with Ron, it was pretty obvious that Severus was very well endowed when it came to girth, though his length was only slightly longer than average...at least, the know-it-all part of Hermione's brain was fairly certain of this from the book she'd read on the subject. Still, it was hard to focus on remembering details from a dry old book when she was actively savoring the details of the real thing.
Severus brought his knees up gently to gain some leverage and let out a soft cry as he bottomed out inside of her. Hermione flinched instinctively, expecting it to hurt. Ron had hurt her and he'd been quite a lot less girthy. Her eyes went wide as his hips twitched under her. It didn't hurt at all...in fact, it felt amazing. It was as though her body had been made to fit his cock, and she clenched her vaginal muscles around him unconsciously, the soft pulse of her inner movement causing Severus to throw his head back and emit a sharp cry of pleasure.
Emboldened, Hermione began to slide back and forth on top of him, savoring the unintelligible stream of noises Severus was making as he stared up at her with a look of reverence plastered on his face. Her magic flowed over him in thick, amber waves as she rubbed against him and pushed him deeper and deeper inside of her.
She kissed him again and realized that she'd felt this way before. There was a protectiveness and a sense of affection there, one that she'd always kept in her heart and tried to deny. It had been the reason she'd gone back to see him, even though she'd been certain that he was already long dead. The Life Debt had been formed from more than just a begrudging drive to save his life, or it would never have worked to bring him back from the brink of death. She knew that now. Even now, at the height of their shared vulnerability, it filled her with a sense of rightness, of knowing that it was an extension of the very sentiment that allowed his life to be spared in the first place.
But still, in the depths of her heart, Hermione still worried that, sex aside, Severus would never see it that way.
After all, she'd lied to him back at St. Mungo's. She'd lied when she'd told him that she'd gone back for his corpse to honor his role as a spy. She'd gone back long before she knew what he'd done, what part he'd had to play in the war. She'd gone back because…
"I...love you…" She shivered, the words escaping her lips before she realized she'd not simply thought them.
Severus stiffened underneath her and Hermione's eyes went wide as she realized what she'd said, but as she drew her hands to cover her mouth, her body began to fill with a sense of urgency and pleasure until it was demanding for release. She began to move more quickly, clamping down and milking his cock with the steady undulation of muscle and lubrication.
"We should...I...FUCK!" Severus bit his lip as he let out a shout of surprise, his hands going immediately to Hermione's hips and pulling them firmly down and holding her as he rode out the waves of orgasm.
Hermione's eyes rolled back in her head instinctively at the forcefulness of his grip and found herself in the throes of her own climax as well. Warmth and wetness filled her and she vaguely registered the fact that he'd ejaculated deep inside of her, but almost as quickly, a sense of calm and sleepiness filled her head, and she collapsed on his chest, feeling his arms encircle her in a tight hug as he kissed her on the top of her head and made tiny gasping noises into her hair.
Severus stretched out his Marked arm and stared at it, prompting Hermione to do the same.
"It looks weaker now, doesn't it?" She whispered dazedly, her eyelids growing heavy.
"Indeed," Severus replied, frowning, "but why?"
"I told you that I'd protect you, Severus," Hermione continued, feeling her eyes drooping until they were almost closed. "I just...I wanted to save you...because I…"
Tiredness took over and Hermione began to breathe more evenly as she moved into a light sleep, her mind at ease with the feeling of his heart beating against her and his arm around her protectively. It didn't hurt that he was still halfway inside of her even though it was obviously that he was very, very spent.
"I don't deserve to be loved," Severus whispered into her hair, wincing slightly when her arms tightened around him, "So why…?"
Something in him seemed to relax as Hermione nuzzled against his chest, and he said nothing more, his eyes closing slowly as he joined Hermione in sleep.
