Ron gently set Hermione down, and she broke the kiss long enough to shed the wet towel that was still wrapped around her body. Hermione sat back on the bed and reached out, bunching Ron's shirt in her hands as she pulled him on top of her. His lips found hers again as he felt her hands move from his chest to around his neck and into his hair. Merlin, he could get used to feeling her fingers intertwine with the locks of his hair.
Hermione didn't hesitate when she quickly moved her tongue into his mouth. The more comfortable they became with each other, the braver each got. She grazed her teeth across Ron's bottom lip and bit down gently as she grabbed his shirt and pulled it upwards. Ron had to shift himself slightly as he helped her take his shirt off, but he feared there was ultimately no hiding what she did to him in the thin cloth of the swimsuit he still wore.
Her arms wrapped around his now bare back as she pulled him closer to her, the bare skin of their torsos now barely touching. Ron felt himself groan into her mouth at the connection. He felt her hands hesitantly explore the expanse of his back as he found his own hand trailed down to her hip, pulling her even closer to him, no longer caring if she felt how she made him feel as he was completely intoxicated by the feel of her.
As they continued to snog, Ron couldn't help his own hand beginning to explore her body. He was caught between the raging hormones that fueled his desire to feel every inch of her soft skin, while the tiny, rational part that was left of his brain was sounding the alarm of not moving too quickly. His hand moved above her hip and grazed her stomach. He stopped when the tips of his fingers reached the edge of the bikini top.
He pulled away from her lips briefly. "Can I?" he asked. He didn't want to assume she'd be okay with this.
Hermione bit her lip and averted his gaze. "I- I do want you to, but..."
Ron pulled away slightly more to get a better read on her body language. "Hermione, if you're not ready, I'm fine with that-"
"I am ready! I just…"
He didn't quite understand, and that worried him. He could normally read her well, but he couldn't place this worry. "What is it?" he asked her gently. "Please tell me."
"It's barmy. I shouldn't even let it bother me," she said, still avoiding those blue eyes that both made her heart melt and would get her to tell him anything if she wasn't too careful.
"But it is bothering you, and until you give me a straight answer, I'll respect it as a no," Ron said firmly as he pulled his hand away from where it was resting on her stomach and sat up.
Hermione covered her face in her hands as she let out an audible sigh. She already missed the warmth of his hand and body near hers, and regretted even sort of bringing it up. She knew she wouldn't get him close like that until she told him, though. "I don't want you to be disappointed."
Her voice sounded muffled through her hands, but Ron heard her insecurities loud and clear. This was about Lavender. Would that part of his life ever not come back to bite him in the arse?
"Hermione," Ron started. He was trying to find the words to say to ease her worries. "There's no comparison."
He watched as her hands left her face and he gave him a strained look and a distressing cry left her lips.
"No! I didn't mean it like- ugh, Hermione! She doesn't compare to you! She never did and she never will. Merlin, I shouldn't be telling you this-"
"Then don't. Ron, do you know how many nights I had to listen to her brag about what you'd done in empty classrooms when they thought I was asleep? I think Parvati started to feel bad because eventually she seemed less and less interested after a while."
"What? Hermione, I didn't know. If I'd have known-"
Hermione shook her head as she cut him off. "You don't have to lie. We were fighting so badly, you wouldn't have defended me to her. It's bad enough I had to hear about your romantic Valentine's evening where you, and I quote, 'sealed the deal' with her."
"Wait, what?" Ron was staring at her blankly as his head was whirring with a thousand thoughts. "She didn't say that we- that we- Merlin, Hermione, I never had sex with her!" It wasn't often that his face and neck became flushed in addition to his ears, but he was beet red from what looked like anger right now.
"Y-You didn't?"
"Bloody hell, no! I avoided her the entire day! Not that I'm proud of it, but I didn't get her anything, and she kept pestering me in class about disappearing to an abandoned classroom to celebrate that night. I lied about having rounds and hid in the kitchens to get some schoolwork done."
Hermione let out a mixture between a laugh and a cry in what seemed like relief. "I can't believe I let her get to me. No wonder Parvati was trying to get her to shut up! She knew she was just doing it to get to me. And to think I cried myself to sleep for a week after hearing that." She finally sat up on the bed.
"You didn't…" Ron's guilt expanded at her admission.
She nodded. "And that was after I'd made my New Year's Resolution to get over you. Six weeks later, and I'd clearly failed."
"I'm sorry," Ron told her.
"You don't have to apologize for her actions, Ron," Hermione said.
"No, but I'm apologizing for my own. I never should have used her to get back at you."
"Get back at me?"
"Er, yeah…" Ron wasn't expecting to bring that up at all, but it slipped out. Though he supposed it was going to come up eventually.
"Ron, I'm going to need you to explain, please."
"Right. Er, remember when I got mad at you and didn't speak to you?"
"How could I forget? Are you finally going to tell me what I did?"
He winced at the memory that was long since shoved into the back of his brain. "Ginny and I got in a row. A bad one. Bloody hell, if Dean and Harry weren't there, it probably would have turned violent…"
"Ron…"
"Er, yeah, anyways, we caught her and Dean snogging behind the tapestry to one of the shortcuts. I was already in a right foul mood from practice and that just set me over the edge. I may or may not have gone all overprotective brother on her, and she may or may not have called me out on being the only one who hadn't snogged anyone."
Hermione eyed him carefully. "What do you mean?" She was almost afraid to ask.
"She so bluntly threw it in my face that Harry had snogged Cho and you'd snogged Viktor so I needed to get over her snogging Dean."
Ron held his breath as he watched Hermione's reaction. She was taking a bit longer to process his words and that was making him nervous. "That still doesn't explain why you shut me out for a whole week."
He couldn't tell if she was playing dumb just to hear him say it, or if she really didn't know. "I got really angry over it. Harry seemed like he knew what Ginny was talking about. I'm not proud of it. Not after everything had been going really well between us. I was mad that you never told me, and jealous that I- well, admitting that will just make me a bloody prat." Ron shook his head.
"Say it."
"Why?" He looked at her nervously. Where was the crazed look he was expecting to see in her eyes? She simply raised her eyebrows, but didn't elaborate. " Fine, I was hurt that I wasn't your first kiss. Are you happy now?" Ron rolled his eyes slightly.
An odd smile crept on Hermione's lips, and Ron was preparing for the worst now. "You know, it's a shame you didn't just ask me about it."
He waited for her to continue and when she didn't, he said, "Okay, two things. Do you really think my sixteen year old self would have walked right up to you and asked if you'd snogged Viktor? And why are you smiling about this. You're scaring me a bit."
"I'm smiling because I'm finally relieved to know that none of this was my fault. And you really can be such an idiot."
"Why?"
"Because if you'd have bothered to ask me, you would have learned that Ginny exaggerated."
There it was. That triumphant look she'd get when she'd solved a particularly hard riddle, or when she'd outsmarted a teacher. It was also the same look she had after she'd punched Malfoy in the nose third year. "What?"
"Your sister was lying. Viktor kissed me, yes. I won't deny that. A few times, actually, but it was always chaste, and it never deepened into anything more. I tried to like it because he was sweet and genuine, but there was no spark. And he respected that when I told him I wasn't interested in him like that. Unbeknownst to me, but my heart already belonged to a certain red-headed git whether I wanted it to or not."
"So, was Viktor ever actually your boyfriend?" Ron asked, completely astounded.
"No, you prat!" Hermione threw a pillow at his face. "He wanted to be, but I declined. I was waiting for you! And instead of going to Slughorn's party together where I'd hoped that maybe something could happen between us that night, I had to wait another year and a half for anything to happen because of your pig headedness!"
Ron was expecting her to be furious, and yet after she'd finished explaining her side of the story, she broke into a fit of laughter. It was contagious and he couldn't help but laugh with her. When they'd settled a bit, he said. "Sounds about right for us, taking forever to sort things out."
Hermione nodded. "Maybe it was supposed to happen this way."
"That sure would make it easier to forget all the lost time we could have had together," Ron agreed.
"But that's what makes it our story, isn't it?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, and now we have our entire lives ahead of us," Ron said.
He felt his heart speed up and his stomach flutter at the thought of spending the rest of his life with her. His eyes sought hers, and Ron hoped she knew how serious he was about that statement. There was no way he was going to waste this chance he had with her.
"We do," Hermione said breathlessly as she locked eyes with him.
It only took one glance down to his lips from her before he leaned in and kissed her hard. They both fell against the pillows, settling on their sides as they quickly found the rhythm they'd left off with before. As Ron moved his hand to a more comfortable position, Hermione pulled herself away briefly.
"How far did you really go with her? I'm sorry I'm bringing this back up. I don't really want to know, but I need to know," she tried to explain.
Ron nodded slowly. He understood what she was saying, and he'd want to know the same if he were in her position. "There was...touching, but it never went further than that, I swear. She tried to go down on me once, shortly after Valentine's Day, but I didn't let her. I couldn't. Once the initial lust of the relationship had died off, I realized pretty quickly that she wasn't what I wanted. Or she wasn't who I wanted it with. After that, I spent half the time imagining she was you when we'd snog and my eyes were closed. Not that it even comes close to this. Merlin, Hermione, you have no idea what you do to me. No matter what you're thinking, you have to know that what I had with her will never come close to how this feels."
He waited for Hermione to process his words as he searched her face. When she finally took a breath, she whispered a quiet, "okay," indicating that she believed him. Ron never took his eyes off her as he waited for her to make the next move. She leaned in to capture his lips with her own, and he felt her hand find his. Where he expected her to simply intertwine her fingers with his own, he was surprised to find her guiding his hand up her body, and settling over her breast.
He looked down as she pulled her own hand away and let it rest on his hip as she pulled back slightly and whispered, "You can go under if you want."
"Are you sure?" He couldn't help but ask. He didn't want to mess this up. She nodded against him as he saw her look up and met her eyes with his own.
Ron kissed her gently then, as he adjusted his hand to make it more comfortable. It took a while to overcome the awkwardness of feeling each other in an intimate way, but once they passed the initial unease, they spent the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other on a deeper physical level. For the first time, Ron understood that intimacy didn't mean sex. Far from it. He would be perfectly happy spending any alone time like this so long as it meant he had Hermione in his arms.