A/N: Happy New Year, readers! Here's my first chapter of the new decade.

Wroclaw, Poland

"We'll give it a try," Draco said.

Hermione threw caution to the wind and booked one hotel room for them both. Draco approved. As in, he approved the booking and costs, naturally. But he also approved of her decision. And when he saw it, he also approved of their room.

The hotel Hermione found was modern opulence hidden behind exquisite art nouveau architecture. Their room was large and spacious with high, sloping ceilings and floor-length curtains that ruffled in the breeze.

A sleek bath sat invitingly in the same room, and a modernised chaise longue faced the floor-to-ceiling windows. Draco glanced at it – then his imagination took flight, picturing his very own naked self sitting on it, with an equally-naked Hermione astride him, rising and falling over his body as his hands gripped her hips –

He noticed Hermione standing a little way off, also staring at the chaise. Their eyes met, and then she decided she had forgotten to do a few things.

Draco snagged her hand before she dashed off to count the dust bunnies under the bed. "Nervous, perhaps?" he smirked.

As he hoped, she rolled her eyes and sniffed. "Nothing at all to be nervous about, right?" she challenged.

"Nothing at all," he agreed. "Just lie back and enjoy the ride."

"Oh, Godric!"

Draco displayed himself on the chaise, crossing his legs at the ankles and putting his hands behind his head. "Fancy a pash?" he winked.

"You fancy yourself, more like."

"You wound me." Draco placed his hand over where he thought his heart was. "But in all seriousness, we're not skipping the entree and diving straight into the main course. Or dessert, as it were."

"Really?" Hermione asked, eyes narrowed. "What do you taste like, specifically?"

He grinned and crooked a finger. "See for yourself."

"I meant in reference to another part of your anatomy."

"So did I."

Hermione threw up her hands in surrender. "I give up!"

Draco laughed. "I was kidding, of course." Then he sobered and cast slow, sexy eyes over her form. "You look really beautiful when you get pissed off."

The look in his eyes made Hermione swallow her retort. "Really?" she asked again, lacing the word with a good deal of scepticism.

"You do. You transform from a girl who prefers to blend into the shadows into a woman that promises... the unexpected."

Hermione gaped at him. Sounded like some actual thought had gone into his statement. "Is that... good?"

She swore that his silver-grey eyes darkened. He gracefully rose from the chaise. Stepping carefully towards her, he said one, simple word.

"Yeah."

That funny tingling feeling in her tummy decided to revisit. Her colour heightened, and she looked away.

A long, cool finger gently touched her cheek and turned her face back around. Now his, and hers, were only centimetres away.

He leaned in even closer, infinitely slowly. More than enough time for Hermione to head for the hills. But she stayed her ground; and her eyes fluttered closed.

His lips met hers... so gently, she wasn't one hundred percent sure anything had happened.

Then he stepped away.

Huh?

Hermione opened her eyes. "Is that it?" she sputtered.

He shrugged. "It is if you want."

Oh, damn him and his unreasonable reasonableness! Where did the arrogant prat with the dragon-thick skin who laughed off every insult she lobbed at him go?

She squared up to him. "As it so happens," she countered, it's not."

"No?"

"No!"

Draco nodded. Then he pulled Hermione close, and her world was never the same again.

He was the perfect height. Taller than Hermione, but not too tall that she'd develop a crick in her neck from too much kissing of a certain Draco Malfoy.

He had the perfect body. Her arms acted of their own accord, wrapping around his neck. He pulled her even closer together, so close that not an ounce of air could squeeze between them.

Her chest pressed against his – and it felt good.

One of her legs slid naturally between his own – and it also felt good.

Her hips pressed against an object of considerable length and growing hardness, and oh my gods it felt very good indeed.

But it was his lips, his mouth, his woodsy, sharp scent and his nearness that had her scrambling to hold on to her sanity. This time, when they connected, he was firm against her mouth, and clever, too – capturing her upper lip with his and tugging it gently. But when he did the same to her bottom one, that funny, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach spread throughout her body, and she may have possibly, just slightly, moaned. A little bit.

Draco stroked her cheek with his thumb. Of their own accord, her lips opened, and omigod.

She had been kissed before, once. At school. With a red-haired oaf in Gryffindor who thought he was Merlin's gift to witchkind because he played Keeper in their quidditch team. He approached her in a darkened corner of a school dance in the Great Hall with his mouth already open, reminding her, and not in a good way, of a lamprey. (To be honest, there's probably no good way one would view a lamprey, the ugly, many-fanged, slimy sucking things). And before Hermione could scuttle off to the safety of her dorm room, the lamprey, er, boy, completely enclosed her mouth between his rubbery lips, and sucked away.

Oh, if only it ended there.

But when Hermione tried to shove him away and forced her mouth open so she could give him a piece of her mind, his thick, leathery tongue slimed its way between her lips, seemingly intent on bushwacking a trail to her tonsils.

She had to stomp on his instep and shove him in the chest as hard as she could before the tongue, lips and copious quantities of boy saliva retreated.

Viciously wiping her face with her arm, she snarled "Disgusting boy! Don't ever come near me again!"

Then she spun around and stormed out of the dance – but not quickly enough for her to overhear the ginger oaf bark "Dried-up old spinster if ever I saw one!" to his cackling mates.

Happily, she now had a better memory to replace that festering cancer of an embarrassment with.

Draco explored her mouth with skill, but he was more interested in encouraging her to explore him. A little uncertainly, she trekked into unchartered territory, encouraged by the moan that escaped, unbidden, from within him.

She was rather enjoying this new foray into intimacy when Draco moaned again – with regret, this time. Pulling gently away, he dropped feather-light kisses on her lips - and one on her forehead - before stepping away altogether.

"We need to stop," he admitted in answer to her furrowed brows. "Before we get carried away."

Hermione's gaze fell to the not-so-insignificant bulge around his groin. Wowser. "Was that me?" she whispered.

He sent her a lopsided grin. "Oh, yeah."

She sat on the bed. "I've never done that before."

"I assure you, you have done it before. You've just never noticed."

She blushed, which didn't help Draco's erection any. Hermione was super cute when she blushed.

"Um... d-do you want to continue?" she stammered.

Draco couldn't deny he wasn't tempted. But his need was becoming urgent, and he'd vowed he wouldn't touch her before he had a good wank beforehand. To take the edge off.

Instead, he smiled and said "I'll take a raincheck for tonight, if I may."

With pink cheeks, Hermione nodded shyly.

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me," Draco said, jerking a thumb in the bathroom's direction, "I need to see a man about a horse."

When he disappeared from view, Hermione fell back onto the bed and stared at the sloping ceiling.

Daring to dream.

In the bathroom, Draco leaned his forehead against the closed door while trying to will his erection away. His usual tricks weren't working.

She's gonna be death of me, he rued, as he undid his jeans.

Outside

"What?" Draco roared.

"Keep your voice down. And, to repeat, we're looking for gnomes."

"Why, for the love of Salazar? We have plenty of them at home ripping up everyone's gardens!" Draco said this part in a quieter voice. A slightly quieter one.

Hermione sighed. "Wroclaw's Dwarves are part of what makes Wroclaw's history unique," she began. "They represent the anti-communist underground movement that existed when Poland was run by a communist government. The dwarf was their symbol. Today, hundreds of little bronze statues are dotted all over the city."

"So, they're not alive and don't wreak havoc in wizarding households?"

"No, Draco. They're inanimate objects that sit there and do bugger all."

"But if they sit there and do bugger all, what's the point of looking for them?"

"Because it's a nice way of walking through the city. Oh, look! There's one!" Hermione stopped by a weathered bronze statuette of a dwarf holding a suitcase and clutching a ticket in the other.

Draco eyed the dwarf with a distinct lack of interest.

Hermione smiled smugly. "Did I mention we're a going to have a competition to find the most dwarves?"

Oh, damn and blast the woman! Draco groaned to himself. Trust her to figure out his Achilles heel when it came to competitions. "What's the prize?" he asked suspiciously.

Hermione leaned in close to his ear. "The winner decides what we do next," she purred.

Ooh. Good prize.

"Are you in?" Hermione held out her hand.

"We certainly are," he replied, shaking hands.

"Excellent. Oh! I found another one! Better catch up, Malfoy, you're already down two!"

And with a laugh, Hermione was off down the road.

Later that evening

"Surely you're not sulking, Ms Granger?" Draco wandered into their room from the bathroom, ruffling his hair.

Hermione sat on the bed, adjusting the straps on her shoes. "No," she mumbled. "It's just embarrassing to lose a competition that you invented." She hopped off the bed and stood up. "Anyway, is this appropriate for our evening activity?"

She wore a v-neck, loose-fitting white blouse with khaki capris and black high heels. Her curls tousled around her face and she wore bold red lipstick. Draco pulled out his own shirt to cover his inconvenient erection at the mere sight of her.

"Not too shabby, Granger," he winked, recovering.

She grabbed her handbag and looped an arm through his. "So, we're on a Polish vodka taste-testing trip?" she asked as they headed out of the hotel. "I'm sure there's a valid reason why."

Draco smirked. "Because Polish vodka is among the best in the world, and there are very many types of flavours. In fact, you could say that vodka is part of Polish identity."

"All right, I'm game," said Hermione. "But I warn you, I don't really drink that much."

Some hours later

Well, she wasn't kidding, Draco ruminated, heading rather unsteadily back to the hotel with an unconscious Hermione slung over his shoulder. On the other hand, it didn't take her long to discover her favourite Polish vodka – cherry-flavoured Krupnik. In fact, he barely noticed that she was knocking back shots three to one against his lemon-flavoured Soplica until she swivelled around to hop off her bar stool and fell, giggling, into his lap. And stayed there.

Ah, well, he thought, in the lift up to their room, at least we have plenty of Pepper-Up potion.

But as for making love to this beautiful, smart, infuriating, funny woman for the first time: sadly, not tonight.