Chapter 14:

Draco stretched his torso long, arms above his head, cracking the joint in his shoulder. It was early morning, the thirty-first day of July. He and Granger had swum in the sea until the wee hours of the morning and, as he sat in the cool dawn air, he could still taste the salt water from her lips. It had been three days since they had first kissed, and each day they got a little closer to one another.

He woke with Granger on his mind, tossed and turned with her on his mind, dreamt of her in slumber. If he had known before the War that the witch was so positively enticing, he thought he may have just joined the Order, if only to have had a fighting chance with her for longer than a few stolen weeks in summer.

Draco dipped his brush into a lovely shade of indigo, smearing it against the plastic of the palette so that he could bring a small dollop of purple to play. Granger had long been his muse, since before she had even found out about his embarrassing pastime. But lately, knowing precisely what her lips tasted like—he was able to incorporate that into his art. Her lips in his latest painting compared to his first portrait, were slightly plumper—kiss-swollen. And she had the most endearing freckle on her top lip, unnoticeable until one got a hairsbreadth from her face.

Prior to his newfound obsession with the striking witch, Draco had enjoyed painting landscapes. Now he had the opportunity to capture the beauty of the sea dancing along and playing with Granger's natural beauty. Day was breaking on the horizon and a stray tourist was strolling along the shoreline.

Draco could not believe the way things were progressing with the swotty little know-it-all Gryffindor. He was having a hard time rationalizing the way he felt around her. All he wanted was to kiss her, to taste her sun-kissed skin, to listen to her talk about any and everything. He had never felt more alive than when he was around her. The wizard dreaded the day she would leave the island, and him, behind her.

Draco knew he did not deserve her. He had done nothing heroic or brave during the War. He'd cowered under the Dark Lord's iron fist and hid until the very end, intent on keeping himself and his parents alive. She was a heroine, had fought valiantly her entire life, just about. He had berated and belittled her because of her blood. She had been ridiculed—mostly by him, but also by others—for being the bossy little know-it-all, always with her hand in the air and her nose in a book. And she had fought heroically alongside Potter and Weasley and defeated the Dark Lord. Three teenagers had done what countless witches and wizards had not been able to achieve. If he were honest, he could admit that he was slightly jealous of their success.

No doubt Granger had received numerous job offers from any entity worth their weight in galleons. After she unnecessarily completed her seventh year at Hogwarts, she would be off to save the world once more, working for the Ministry and saving defenseless creatures or hairbrained squibs. But where would he be? Draco had never given any real thought to what he wanted to do with his life—he had never expected to make it out of the War unscathed and had certainly never thought about having to earn a living. He still had enough wealth that he did not truly need to work. But he preferred his mind and hands being busy once more, having spent so long numb and hidden away.

Draco stood and stretched once more, going to lean on his balcony railing as the breeze ruffled his hair. Granger's light was on in her suite, her silhouette moving about as she pulled on a robe. The French door to her room opened and she stepped out, a mug of coffee between her hands. Her eyes shot straight to where he stood and she gave him a wry smile. "Couldn't sleep," she said by way of explanation.

"Neither could I," he called back. "Want company?"

Granger gave him a sly grin and pretended to think about it for a moment. "I suppose I could use some mediocre banter and dry humor."

"Ouch, Granger," he said before apparating down to her patio. "I'm offended."

He kissed her temple and sat alongside where she stretched out in her lounge chair. "Why couldn't you sleep?" he asked, his fingers brushing her curls—wild and unkempt with sleep—away from her face.

She was silent for a moment, sipping her coffee before responding. "I still have nightmares. Frequently."

It was a statement Draco could appreciate. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Granger shrugged her shoulders and looked into her mug, running her finger over the rim. "Harry never wants to speak about the War."

"So, you've told me. But I am not Potter," Draco replied simply. "I've told you that I still have nightmares about that day."

The witch lifted her eyes and looked to his, seeking something from him. But what? Assurance, comfort, understanding? "I do, too. I can hear her cackling. See you standing by your mother at the fireplace," she whispered quietly.

Draco felt as though he would burst into flame at any moment. The blood running through his veins felt more like poison and he was certain he was going deaf. Because she was still moving her lips, but he could not hear her. He could only see and hear the scene as she had described it—with him standing by the fireplace, looking down upon her as his aunt trained her wand on Granger.

He took a deep breath to try and clear his thoughts. It was not a day he had allowed himself to dwell on much since he had befriended her—it was not brought up every day in conversation and it was easy to forget that they had once been mortal foes with how readily they were willing to get lost in one another.

Draco looked to her neck, where his aunt had pressed the sharp end of a dagger into her neck and left a small, angry scar. He brought his lips to it and sighed against her skin. "I don't even know what to say to make it any better, Granger."

"I don't want you to apologize. I just want someone who understands," she told him, her eyes closed as he placed tender kisses along her neck.

He sat upright once more, leaning on his knees and facing her side. Draco understood, more than she would ever know. The wizard relived the day over and over again in his mind, the worst in his life. "Do you ever have side effects? From the Cruciatus Curse?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes I ache for no apparent reason. Get unexplainable tremors. But I'm unsure if its nerves or after effects."

"I wish we could go back in time and I would take everything away."

Granger brought her hand up and touched his face. "I don't. I'm stronger than I was before and that day proved it. I did not give in to your aunt's requests, despite the excruciating pain."

"You were amazing," he conceded, giving her a half-smile.

"I like the stubble. Keep it," she told him, changing the subject as she touched the light hair peppering his jaw.

Their talk of the War was over for the day. She had said her piece and he had listened just long enough. They were now ready to get back to their summer romance, however strange and sordid it was.

o-o-o

Hermione looked around her with a sharp gasp, taking in the sight before her. She and Malfoy had spent the better part of the last two hours weaving through a thicket of dense shrubbery, along a walk-worn dirt path and blanketed under a canopy of trees. She had inquired as to why they could not simply apparate to the destination. "The end justifies the means," he had responded mysteriously.

The trek up the side of a mountain, through a rainforest—who would have thought there could possibly be a rainforest this far north of the equator—had been long and arduous. Malfoy, decidedly in much better shape physically, seemed unaffected except for a single bead of sweat running from his temple to his jawline. Her aching joints and burning calf muscles were nearly forgotten as she looked around.

They were standing on a rocky ledge and directly ahead of them, a waterfall cascaded between two rocky walls, landing in a turquoise colored basin. From where they stood, Hermione could see colorful pebbles lining the bottom, though she tried to look straight ahead instead of straight down as her stomach began to turn uneasily. All around them, lush greenery carpeted the landscape and hibiscus flowers larger than their heads blossomed. There were dragonflies the size of sparrows flitting about, chasing each other lazily in the warm air. It smelled of newly turned earth, fresh water, and a muted floral perfume.

If she thought their surroundings were going to be the most beautiful sight of the day, nothing could have prepared her for her partner's next actions. Next to her, Draco began dragging his shirt over his head. She looked at him, her mouth slightly agape as he smirked and began untying his swim shorts.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice raising an octave with panic.

"I don't know about you, but I'm hot after that hike," he said with a shrug.

"You could keep your shorts on," she pointed out.

"Where's the fun in that?" he questioned, sliding his hands along his hips and dragging his shorts down.

Hermione could feel her face burning, having nothing to do with the warmth of the environment, and she vaguely noted that his skin was flushed when he rose and gave her a smoldering look. It took every ounce of self-control not to lower her gaze and drink him in completely, an effort he seemed to note. "You can look," he whispered when he leaned in to kiss her collarbone. "I don't mind."

Her heart was racing dangerously, and she could feel it in her chin with every forceful beat. Malfoy pulled back and she her eyes did a very quick once over, much to his delight, before she pointedly ignored his nudity. He tugged at one of her curls loose from her high messy bun and rolled his eyes. "Prudish Granger. Predictable."

Before she could respond, he turned and took a great leap from where they stood. Hermione screamed—it was too shallow, he would hit the bottom. He landed with a great splash in the water and then his head popped above the surface a moment later. "Can you swim?" he called up tauntingly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course I can—we did swim until near daybreak."

"Then get down here," he said, floating on his back.

The spray coming off of the waterfall told her the water was cool and it was tantalizing against her overheated skin. With another defeated look in his direction, she stripped herself of her jean shorts and top, leaving her in a conservative one-piece bathing suit. Malfoy was watching her every move lazing about on his back, more under the water's surface than above it.

"How very proper," he laughed over the sound of the waterfall crashing down. "I think you wear such boring bathing suits so that no one could challenge you to go topless. Of course, not everyone has the gumption of Luna Lovegood."

Hermione was astute enough to realize that Malfoy was goading her into going nude as well by challenging her bravado. She was also astute enough to realize that it was working. He wanted a little show? Why not give him one? Her mind flashed briefly to the night they had danced, to her solo actions after. In the moment, she had wantonly desired for him to be able to see her naked, to see how he affected her into needing release. In the scorching heat of the Italian summer, she began to get that familiar heat behind her bellybutton, a stirring between her thighs as she allowed her eyes to roam from his half-submerged face, all the way down the length of his lithe figure.

The witch, gathering all of her courage, put her fingers into the top of her suit and took a deep breath. Malfoy stopped his indolent backstroke and put his legs under the water, watching her with a fascinated interest. "I hate you so much, Malfoy," she mumbled under her breath as she pulled her suit down and stepped out of it.

She refused to look down at him, partly because the height was making her nauseated and partly because of her mortification. He let out a low whistle and Hermione fought the urge to cover up. After all, he hadn't. Instead, the witch pulled her tie from her hair and shook her curls out. The blonde's lips moved and though she couldn't hear it, she was certain he had sworn to himself.

She tried to figure out how she would get down from the cliff. Her heart felt like it would detach itself and flutter off at any moment, her nerves overtaking her entire being. "Just close your eyes and jump," he urged from below, seeming to sense her reluctance.

Hermione stepped to the edge of the cliff and hesitated for a moment. "We were higher on the Ferris wheel!" he reminded her.

She closed her eyes and thrust forward, hopping from the cliff and plummeting toward the watering hole. The witch landed with a splash, the frigid water temperatures stealing her breath before she even broke the water's surface upon her ascend. "Oh, oh that's cold!"

Malfoy laughed next to her, dipping his head under and bringing it back up to push his hair back. He had moved toward the outer edge, closer to the banks, where he could stand upright. The resulting look reminded her too much of second year Malfoy and she made her way to him and ruffled it to try and tamp down the memory.

Her body brushed against his under the water and she watched as the grey irises of his eyes thinned and he eyed her with thinly veiled arousal. Bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder, Hermione brushed a thumb over the stubble along his jawline and moved close enough that she could tangle their legs. Malfoy let out a groan at the feel of her against him and she brought her lips to his before he could say anything.

It was not the heated, fervent kisses they had shared in the sunflowers or in the sea. Nor was it the slow, lazy kiss they had shared on the stairs leading to her villa the night before. This was an exploratory kiss, both begging permission and both providing it. Malfoy brought his hand from her curls to run along her side as his other arm held her close to himself. Her breasts brushed against his chest, her nipples already taut and pebbled from the cold and he snaked a hand between them to cup and massage them each in turn.

At the feel of his hands, finally touching her bare skin, Hermione pulled back and bit his bottom lip, causing him to let out a small, impatient noise. Enjoying the power she currently held over him, she wrapped her legs around his waist, a purposeful brush against his cock as she did so. "I want you," he rasped when he pulled away to kiss her bare shoulder.

She responded only with a roll of her hips, his stiff arousal grazing her once more. His hands went under her to grab harshly at her arse, just as she had once imagined they would, and he sucked at her shoulder hard enough to leave a love bite. All blood not staining the surfaces below her skin seemed to be rushing between her legs as she felt a throb. Hermione untangled her legs from him and pushed away.

The disappointed look that crossed his face nearly made her pounce on him once more. Instead, she turned and waded out of the water, looking back at him expectantly. Malfoy followed and as the witch tried to sway her hips alluringly, her footing caught on the slippery rocks and her legs fell out from beneath her. Her hands caught her fall, but her knee banged painfully against the stone. "Fuck!" Malfoy swore and was next to her in a split second as she sat on her bum.

"Are you alright?" he asked, worrying over her naked frame with his hands, assessing that there were no broken bones in her legs or wrists.

Hermione groaned, but it was more out of embarrassment than pain. She rested back along the smooth pebbles of the banks, willing a patch of quicksand to open up and swallow her whole just then. Malfoy apparated to the rocky ledge where they had disrobed and back, his wand in hand. "Does this hurt?" he asked her calmly, prodding her knee gently.

She said nothing, only winced, as she looked up toward the canopy of trees that blocked most of the sunlight, save a few rogue streams from between the branches. Malfoy muttered a few healing spells and she felt the knot in her knee decrease in size and the pain subsided nearly immediately. His nimble finger massaged circles around it and she was acutely aware that, as he worked to ease her discomfort, his eyes were roving over her. Smooth as glass. Hermione suddenly felt a fresh wave of mortification and tried to clamp her thighs together.

Malfoy made a noise at the back of his throat, halfway between a whimper and a growl and his hands left her knee. "Don't get shy on me now," he whispered, sliding his hands down the fronts of her thighs.

When he got in the middle of her thighs, he softly pulled them apart once more. Hermione looked down her chest toward him from where she was still laying back, leaning up on her elbows to watch his movements. Malfoy's eyes sparkled mischievously and he leaned forward to place a gentle kiss to her silky smooth mons. Her breathing hitched when she realized what his intentions were, and he looked up to give her a smirk. He raised a questioning eyebrow and she responded by spreading her legs infinitesimally. He used his wand to place a cushioning charm on the ground around them and then slid down so that his shoulders kept her thighs spread.

Malfoy wrapped his arms under her legs, bending them and he reached up toward her hips to pull her closer to his face. He must have sensed how tense Hermione was because he placed an open-mouthed kiss on the inside of her thigh. "Relax and enjoy this," he instructed patiently.

Hermione's anxiety spiked as he kissed along the inside of one thigh, the kisses wet and heated with grazes of teeth. He got agonizingly close to where she was beginning to feel she desperately needed him, and then backed away to kiss from her other knee, down her inner thigh toward her core. At the feel of his stubble rubbing sensually across her hyper-sensitive skin, her hips squirmed before him and his grip tightened along her sides. "Stay still," he demanded quietly.

Finally, finally, he dipped his face and ran his tongue along her seam. Hermione let out a hiss of breath and laid back. Malfoy growled at the back of his throat and the feel of the rumble sent a shiver up her spine that caused a tingling in her scalp. "I was wrong—you feel like Heaven, but fuck, you taste divine," he muttered, placing a gentle kiss before his tongue began its prior efforts.

As his tongue danced circles over her, his hands gripping her tightly, she put a hand into his hair and attempted to pull him closer. He increased the pressure of his tongue, sucking tenderly on her arousal-swollen clit and eliciting a heady moan from her. Malfoy's hand slid from her sides to a breast, pinching her nipple roughly before he slid his hand down over her hip and dipped a finger into her.

She could not bring herself to worry about what they were doing—she had wanted to have sex with him every day for weeks now. Hermione allowed her brain to shut down enough to just enjoy the gratifying ministrations of his mouth and hands, to enjoy that it was Draco Malfoy doing this to her. Draco Malfoy—the ex-Death Eater, the darkness, the angsty and aggravatingly sexy wizard—was eating her out like she was the Last Supper and he was starved. And she loved it.

With his long fingers and his mouth both working her, she was having trouble thinking coherently enough to say anything. Instead, her breaths became panting and her body was heating up exponentially, all of the chill from the water gone. As Hermione's entire body began to tremor and shake, she knotted her fists into his hair once more and pressed him closer. The come-hither motion of his fingers had her arching and quaking, his given name falling from her lips as she came undone.

She didn't even realize her thighs were clamped around his face until he gently pried them away from himself and kissed her thigh. "I'd ask if you enjoyed that but given the fact that you haven't let me breathe in nearly two minutes, I already know you did," he told her, climbing up and pressing his lips to hers.

"'Mione, where are you guys? We were supposed to leave thirty minutes ago!" Harry Potter's voice floated through the forest, louder even than the waterfall crashing down beside them.

Hermione scrambled to cover herself as Malfoy let out a long-suffering groan. Her eyes darted around when a luminescent stag stepped out of the tree line. It repeated its message and she ran a hand over her face, willing her heart rate to slow. "A corporeal patronus."

Malfoy was sitting up beside her, leaning back on his palms, the mood completely killed at the sound of the Chosen One's voice. Hermione leaned in and kissed his cheek, letting her lips linger against his skin a little longer than necessary. "Come on, let's get dressed and go. I didn't realize how late it was getting," she commented, casting a look toward the sky she could hardly see for all of the plant life.

"Let's. I'm going to do the one thing the Dark Lord couldn't—I'm going to off that sorry sod for interrupting us," he grumbled moodily.

They agreed to meet the others for Harry's birthday party that evening—they had charted a boat to take out onto the Mediterranean. The only part that Hermione had neglected to tell Malfoy began to weigh heavily on her as they apparated up to the ledge and began redressing. "What's the matter? You don't look like a woman who just had a particularly sweet orgasm," he mentioned, licking his lips as if savoring the taste.

He dragged his shirt over his head and Hermione's stomach did a flip. Noting the serious look on her face, he furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Ron and Ginny came to the island to celebrate with Harry," she said quickly, the words all bleeding together.

Malfoy's mouth fell open as he wrinkled his face in disgust. "You tell me that your ex is going to be waltzing into your life in less than ten minutes after you came on my face?"

Hermione felt her face redden as she swatted his arm. "Don't be so crass! You don't have to go…if you don't want to."

"No. I really don't want to. I didn't before and now I definitely don't," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'd like for you to, though," she said as she placed a hand on his arm, her eyes pleading with him to acquiesce.

His jaw clicked as he clenched it and he groaned. "I really didn't feel much like getting into a duel tonight."

"No duel. If he acts up, we can leave. Or, conversely, I'll hex him," she promised.

o-o-o