Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter series. Anything that you do not recognize does belong to me.

A.N: Wow! I must really be in a good mood to be updating so soon lol. Okay...this is the chapter you've all been waiting for. Kind of sucks that I had to give it away so soon. But I do have to warn those that do get easily offended of 'sex' between two people...maybe more...but the point is, I'm forwarning you. Enjoy :)


Chapter Eleven:

Hermione forgave him.

Quickly. Completely. Or so it seemed.

This surprised Harry as much as it relieved him. Because in all honesty, he didn't think he would have been as understanding had their positions been reversed.

Once his surprise at Hermione's forgiveness had faded, Harry started wondering whether she might not have welcomed the ill-timed interruption by Cho's mother. He started asking himself whether her shaky observation that they were missing the movie's grand finale might not have been code for "Take it easy, hotshot."

The possibility troubled him. While Harry James Potter laid no claims to personal perfection, he'd never numbered sexual selfishness among his faults. Had he been so caught up in his own needs that he'd given short shrift to his partner's?

Hermione had wanted him. That much, Harry wasn't going to question. But whether she'd wanted him as fast and fierce as he'd been careening toward bestowing himself on her was another matter entirely.

He knew her so well, in so many ways...

But as a woman? As a lover-to-be?

Harry's mind darted back to the telephone conversation they'd had before their first practice date.

Don't contemporary single guys cop feels? he'd teased.

Not unless they want to be accused of sexual harrassment, Hermione replied.

Oh.

Modern men are expected to ask permission before they start groping.

Hermione had been kidding, he realized. To a degree, at least. He didn't think for a second that she wanted to reduce male-female intimacy to a politically correct series of oral contracts. In fact, he was inclined to think that any modern-stlye male who asked her if he might put his hand on her breast was likely to be told, "No buddy. You may not."

So, what did Hermione want?

Good questioin, Harry acknowledged.

Maybe if he paid close attention, he'd be able to figure it out.


"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

They were in the kitchen of her condominium, cleaning up after chowing down on take-out from a nearby Chinese restaurant. Harry had just finished unloading the dishwasher. Whether he'd put everything away in its proper place, he couldn't say. Hermione had a rather ad hoc storage system.

"I still feel like a jerk about what happened Tuesday night," he admitted, dropping a handful of forks into what he assumed was her silverware drawer. He tried not to speculate why there was a mousetrap sitting amid the jumble of cutlery. He assumed that if he asked, Hermione would have a dazzingly logical explanation for it's presense. She'd certainly been quick with an answer when he'd inquired as to why she had three pairs of panty hose tucked between a carton of chocolate-chip ice cream and a box of croissants in her otherwise--empty freezer.

"So you've said," came the serene reply. "But as much as I enjoy having you at a disadvantage, I think three days of apologizing for something that wasn't your fault is enough. It's not as though you asked Cho's mother to phone."

Harry shut the drawer and turned. Hermione was leaning against the counter between the stove and the sink. She was eating plum sause from one of the small plastic pockets that had come with their meal. He watched as she squeezed a dollop of the sause onto the index finger of her left hand, then carefully lifted the finger to her mouth and sucked it clean.

Harry felt his center of gravity shift. He'd seen Hermione perform this little routine before, of course. But up until this moment he'd always found it more amusing than arousing. He experienced a flash of the same sense of disbelief he'd felt on the banks of the river they'd gone rafting. How in the name of Heaven could he have been oblivious to Hermione's sensuality for nearly all his adult life?

"If I'd switched off the phone," he said after a few moments, "everything would have been fine."

"You think so?" An expression he couldn't put a name to flitted across Hermione's creamy-skinned face.

He frowned, recalling his previous anxieties about the precipituous of his passion. "Don't you?"

"What I think--" she paused, squeezing out the last of the condiment "--is that second-guessing can drive you nuts." She held up her left hand, index finger crooked. "Want a taste?"

Harry hesitated, then crossed to where Hermione was standing. She lifted her finger to his mouth. He licked. The sweet tang of plum sause flooded his tongue.

"Good," he murmured.

There was a pause. During the course of it, Hermione's gaze disengaged from his.

"You know," she eventually began, focusing on his chest. "Switching off the phone Tuesday night would have indicated a certain degree of, well, expectation on your part."

"Would that have bothered you?" Harry placed his hands on either side of her body, palms pressed against the edge of the counter. His breathing had become deeper and more deliberate.

"Not...necessarily."

"I wanted you, Hermione." He could smell the clean, floral scent of her perfume. And beneath that, the feminine muskiness of her skin.

Her eyes swung back up to meet his. The look he saw in their depths increased his internal temperature by several degrees.

"Past tense, Harry?" she challenged.

"What tense would you prefer?"

"I..." A convulsive swallow.

"Future? Subjunctive? Pluperfect?" He waited a beat. "Present?"

Hermione moistened her lips. Finally she lifted her chin a notch and asked, "What would you do if I told you I'd switched off my phone when we came in?"

Harry's pulse scrambled. His breath seemed to clot in his chest. He couldn't speak.

After a few seconds Hermione uttered his name on a questioning inflation. There was a faint quiver of apprehension in her voice. Her eyes flicked back and forth, scanning his face.

Harry dragged some air into his lungs, struggling for control. Then he eased his hands inward and clasped Hermione at the waist. "I'd react," he whispered, drawing her against him and lowering his head, "with great expectation."


There'd been an instant when Hermione had feared she'd gone too far--appeared too forward--with her question about switching off her phone. Harry's eventual response had assured her that she hadn't.

She'd experienced another surge of anxiety--a stab of panic honed by years of listening to admonitions about what "nice" girls allegedly did and didn't do--a few minutes later when she'd mentioned that she had condoms. Harry had flushed at the word. Genuinely flushed. She'd sensed he was embarrassed. Perhaps even a trifle shocked.

But then he'd recovered his sangfroid and produced a smile that turned her knees to jelly. "If it's all right with you," he'd said quietly. "I've got my own."


They were standing in her bedroom, facing each other, a few feet apart. Hermione was clad in a lace-trimmed ecru bra and matching panties. Harry was dowin to a pair of cotton briefs, the tanned, hair-whorled skin of his chest sheened by illumination from the lamp on her night table.

"The last time we were dressed like this was what?" he asked, his eyes bright, "--when we were all at your house jumping in your pool after our graduation ceremony?"

"We had all gotten pissed drunk that night," she said after a moment, thinking back. "You, me and Ron."

Harry studied her intently for several long moments. His steady, green gaze lingered on her breasts, as tangible as a touch. Hermione bit her lower lip.

"There's more to yours--" he gestured eloquently with cupped hands, "than I remember."

She resisted an impulse to shield herself from his arousing assessment. Glancing at the bulge in his briefs, she murmured throatingly. "There seems to be more to yours, too."

Harry gave a ragged laugh. The sound lured Hermione's gaze back to his face. "I've been known to get bigger," he said.

"Really?" His expression--combined with her own imagination--sent a distinctly feminine tremor running through her.

"Absolutely. Although I occasionaly need a little...mmm, encouragement."

"Oh?"

"Care to lend a hand?" Harry's dark brown brows rose. His voice descended into a deeper, darker register. "Maybe...two?"

Just as the question of which one of them had initiated the kiss in his apartment three nights ago faded into insignificances, the issue of whether it was he or she who chose the distance between them stopped mattering once they were in each other's arms.

Hermione's lips parted beneath his. Yielding. Yearning. She winnowed her fingers through his hair. His tongue slid sinuously over hers. Inviting. Inticing. She heard someone whimper. After a moment, she realized it must have been her.

Harry kissed the corners of her mouth, then nibbled a path along her jawline and nuzzled against her ear. "You're trembling, Hermione," he whispered huskily.

"So--" she drew a shuddery breath as he licked her skin, "--are you."

They kissed again. Languidly. Luxoriously. As though they had all the time in the world and intended to make use of every single second.

Her bra came off and fluttered to the floor. A moment later Harry took full-palmed possession of her naked breasts. His touch was gentle, almost reverent. She felt her nipples contract into tight rosettes in response to his tender caresses.

Hermione lifted her arms, hooking them around his neck. Her head was swimming. She closed her eyes, clinging to him, giving herself over to the sensations he was evoking.

He swept her off her feet--literally--and carried her to her bed. After lowering her onto the quilt-covered mattress, he stretched out beside her. It seemed to her that the air around them had started to shimmer and hum.

Harry began to explore her. Slowly. Oh, so slowly.

From ankle to thigh...

He cupped her calves, massaging them gently with the faintly callused pads of his thumbs. Eventually he slid his hands higher, mapping the fine crease marks at the backs of her knees with feathery touches.

From thigh to breast...

He charted the curving shape of her hips and spanned the narrowed indentation of her waist, making her giddily conscious of the femininity of her shape. Letting his fingers drift inward, he delved into the shallow dip of her naval. After many breathless moments he stroked upward to map the contours of her rib cage.

From breasts to lips...

He teased.

He tantalized.

He tasted.

Hermione was quivering, damp and urgent, long before he was done.

"Please," she panted. "Oh, please."

Harry shifted his position, sliding down her body. He sought and found the plush tips of her right breast and drew it into his mouth. He suckled deeply, triggering a roiling spasm low in her belly. Hermione curved upward toward the source of the almost painfully sweet sensation.

His name broke from her lips on a shattered gasp.

She gave. He took.
He offered. She accepted with all her heart.

"Now," she pleaded, running her hands up and down his slick, suavely muscled back. "Now."

He asked, wordlessly.

She opened, willingly.

Harry stole the cry of stunned delight she gave when he entered her, absorbing the sound with a passionate, possessive kiss. His tongue delved into her mouth, underscoring the completeness of their joining. She lifted her hips to take him deeper within herself, then used her arms and legs to lock him close.

Hermione heard him groan against her lips. The sound seemed to erupt from the core of his soul. She could feel him straining. Shaking. His spine bowed toutly as he stroked forward a few critical millimeters.

Her vision grayed. The universe began to spin out of control. The possibility of rational throught shattered into a million shards of estatic sensation.

"Harry."

"Sweetheart. Oh...oh, sweetheart!"

They found release in the way they had done so many other things in their lives.


A.N: I just want to thank all my reviewers for being so supportive. I love you guys so much! Anyhow, my chapter is finito. I hoped you all enjoyed it. I tried my best at capturing the feelings & emotions that Harry and Hermione were feeling. I just hope I did it justice. Oh, well till the next chapter...which might carry the same things as this one...hahaha you'll just have to wait and see.