AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hey everyone, thanks for reading! I know I'm about to post two chapters in a row but the thoughts were just flowing today so, why not? Please leave a favourite, review or follow if you enjoyed this story! I will definitely continue on with it.
Draco was pacing his bedroom floor with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair still damp from his shower. He had spent the better part of an hour under the steaming water to have all his thoughts out about that infuriating brunette witch. He decided he would get out once he was done being annoyed, it became obvious after a while that it would not be happening. He sighed in defeat, stepped out of the shower and found himself in his current non stop pacing.
He decided fire whiskey should do the trick as he takes the long walk to his kitchen and grabs the dark amber liquid. He pours himself a generous serving and takes a big gulp. He goes for another gulp when his wards went off to alert him of a visitor. He groans as he walks over to his front door and gruffly swings it open.
"I'm not in the fucking mood, Nott-" the rest of his words got swallowed up in his throat as the sight of wavy brown curls and honey cinnamon eyes stared up at him.
"Hi."
"What do you want, Granger." He was mildly curious but mostly pissed. First she got him in her bed, not that he was unwilling. Agrees to get coffee with him. She fucking flirted with him at the art gallery and all of it was her just playing with him. She was with fucking Weasley still. His annoyance turned into anger.
"Here to play your game some more?" He takes a step closer, out of the door frame so he could tower over her some more. "I wonder what your precious weasel thinks about you being here."
She could smell the fire whiskey in his breath as he leans into her ear, his tone dangerous. "Does he know how I ruffled your perfect feathers, how you moaned for me in your bed."
No. I wish you would do it again.
He steps back only to empty the remaining alcohol from his glass. He looks at it, seemingly disappointed and then proceeds to accio the entire bottle.
Hermione looks at him. He must have just got out of the shower, she could feel the heat coming from his skin. His hair was messy, like he had run his fingers through it. It also looked a couple shades darker than usual. Malfoy's eyes, usually metallic bright were dark as a storm. His pupils were dilated and his gaze felt heavy. She was determined not to let her eyes wander beneath his face, for fear that she would fold right there. She knew he was fit but boy was he built like a Greek statue right now. Everything about him seemed like marble, his alabaster skin, his carved muscles, his rock hard-
"Eyes up, Granger." He smirked. Some of the anger in his eyes had faded.
Hermione blushed. "Put some clothes on, Malfoy. Really, this is indecent." She steps towards him, until she was just under the doorframe with him. She looks up at him through her lashes, she snakes her arm south and he watches her face curiously, his eyes heavy with alcohol and lust. Hermione smirks as she grabs the bottle from him and takes a gulp as she walks into his apartment uninvited. She left Malfoy at the door, his mouth hung slightly open.
"That was very Slytherin of you." He finally says as he followed her in.
Hermione turns around slowly before she plants herself on his brown leather couch. It was surprisingly very comfortable. "Blasphemy." She looks around at his place. It was very earth toned surprisingly. She had thought it would look cold and metallic but he had hardwood floors, wooden accents, and a brown couch. He had a green onyx table with a simple white arched vase in the middle. In it was a pale pink English Rose, otherwise known as Rosa Gentle Hermione. She looks up at him curiously. He saw that she was eyeing the rose.
"It was after the battle," he starts. "I was a mess. Destroying everything in sight, mother begged me to calm down. She took me to the Malfoy gardens where red roses grew everywhere. I hated them, I hated every last one, they reminded me of the bloodshed. I tried to tear them apart with my hands, but they tore me back the same. My blood was all over their petals. My mother was sobbing quietly behind me then she conjured me a pale pink rose. She put it into my bloodied hands, and I just remember feeling calm in the moment, I thought I even saw a the rose glow but must have just been the tears clouding my vision.
Hermione pulls him down to sit next to her and gently takes his hand into hers. She looks it over and noticed little faded white scars. They must have cut deep, she thought.
"Anyways, I've kept one every since, it's a symbol of peace for me."
He looks away from their touching hands and into Hermione's eyes. He takes his free hand and gently cups her face. "And it reminds me of beauty," he moves a strand from her face, "you."
He leans in, his lips ghosting just above her own. He doesn't move any closer, as he looks from her lips and slowly into her eyes. Hermione lets her eyes shut as she brings her other hand to his cheek. She closes the distance between them. That was all Malfoy needed before his hand moved from her face to the back of her neck, aggressively pulling her into his lap. She could feel his hardness against her thigh as she moaned into his mouth. He used this to invite his tongue into her and she suddenly felt warmer. She sheds her coat off and let Malfoy's hands wander under her shirt onto her back. She runs her hands over his chest onto his rippling abs, down to the edge of his towel. He groans and flips her over. He bites her lip and out of the blue, she felt him tense, and pull away.
"Why are you doing this?" The hint of anger was back in his eyes, but there was more there. There was control, and she could see it building up. "Are you and Weasley in a fight and you're using me as some sick revenge?"
Hermione props herself up on her elbows and gets so close to Malfoy so that their lips were almost touching. "Who cares?" She looks at his eyes, then averts her gaze at his lips, and slowly back to his eyes. "Don't you want me?" She whispered. She was embarrassed to be this bold and speaking to him this way but she wouldn't allow herself to back down.
A dangerous glint flickered in his darkened eyes. He grabbed her hand and brought it down to the bulging part of his towel. She gasped.
"Don't I?" His eyes never left Hermione's.
He lets her go and gets up. "I don't want to be part of whatever this is. Get your fix somewhere else Granger. Use some other former Death Eater Slytherin to piss off Weasley. I'm done. You can let yourself out."
He storms off into his bedroom, leaving Hermione alone in his living room. She debated on what to do before picking up the rose. She accidentally pricked herself on a thorn and a drop of blood fell into it. She sucked on her finger for a second before plucking a petal from the rose and summoning a quill. She hesitates but gets on with it anyway.
If you change your mind, she wrote on one side of the pink petal and flipped it over Friday night @ Eros
After Draco had nursed his self inflicted blue balls, he got out of his room and went to retrieve his fire whiskey. His apartment was always spotless so when he had noticed the petal out of place he picked it up and read it over.
"Where does she get the fucking nerve. Stupid fucking Gryffindor." He crumpled the petal and set it aside on his night stand. Why he didn't incinerate it, he wasn't sure.
The following days, he clocked more hours working on the family business than he ever had before. He couldn't spare a minute not being busy lest he thought of a certain brunette Gryffindor. The days flew by for him, they all felt the same. At night he would see Theo, and sometimes Blaise. Both had expressed their concern over his silence during their times together but he merely shrugged and sipped his whiskey. He had even stopped going to the cafe to avoid her in case she came. He liked to think that he always was able to maintain control but Granger always led him to the brink of slipping. The night at his apartment, he felt as if he was standing on the very edge of a cliff as the ground he stood on slowly started crumbling from underneath him, pebble by pebble. Still, her note on the petal hung over his head, and the closet it got to Friday, the less control he felt. He hated it, he hated her for making him feel this way. No one gets to him like this, not since the Dark Lord and his simpering brainwashed father.
He decided to invite his friends over on Friday night, to distract himself. God knows he would need it. He also knew that means he wouldn't be able to give into the temptation of seeing her.
Sure enough, on Friday night, Blaise and Theo step out of his fireplace with bottles in hand.
"I picked up some muggle drinks that I've tried. They're actually quite good. This dark one is called bourbon and this purple one is called gin." Theo grins.
"Fuck out of here with that girly drink, Nott." Blaise pushes the bottle away.
"It's not girly, Zabini. It's made of butterfly pea flower, that's why it's purple."
"Exactly my point."
"If I make you something and you like it, you're paying for our drinks tonight." Theo says as he plays bartender in the kitchen.
Draco raises an eyebrow at them, "paying for drinks?"
"Yeah mate, we are going out tonight. It's been a while." Blaise says as he helps himself to some of the fire whiskey Draco had set out.
He had planned on staying in, but whatever, he wasn't likely to run into Granger at the spots these two frequented.
Draco changed out of his black sweater into a black button up. He left the top two unbuttoned,the platinum chain around his neck was in view. Theo had apparated them into Muggle London. There were several girls clad in skin tight dresses, the hems ending on their upper thighs. There were drunk looking men cat calling or whistling at them.
Draco frowned, "what the fuck, Theo."
"No, trust me. Blaise and I have been to this joint and he liked it, right?" He elbowed Blaise to which he responded, "yeah, yeah it was."
Draco groaned as he walked between the two. He could see from the corner of his eye how girls surveyed the group of them. He smirked. They were attractive and looked rich, they'd be stupid to not notice. He kept his eyes fixed on the road, he's always been fascinated by muggle cars. He found himself wondering how they worked before Blaise pulled him through the nightclub's entrance. Draco hadn't even noticed they've arrived. They went straight for a booth in the back and Draco followed them to it. A girl in a black dress and high ponytail approached them, asking them what they want. She touched Draco's arm when he hadn't responded. Draco flinched as she looked the girl over. He could smell her strong perfume clouding his nose, almost giving him a headache. "Whatever they're having, and make it double."
He looked at his friends who were already surveying the crowd, probably trying to find a blonde flavour of the night. He scoffed, "I thought you had a witch, Theo."
"Didn't work out," he shrugged, "though I remember that you've also got one."
"Sod off."
"Drinking our sorrows away tonight, are we?" Blaise laughed as Draco swallowed the drinks the waitress brought.
A blonde girl in a blue dress approached Blaise. It only took Blaise one look at her voluptuous cleavage before he agreed to dance with her. Draco scoffed. His friend was easier to get than a back alley Sally. Theo on the other hand decided it was the perfect time to bring up Granger.
"You wanna tell me what happened between you two?"
"I'm here to get my mind off of her, so do me a favour and mind your own business." Draco growled as he stormed off and approached the bar ordering drink after drink and told the bartender to put it on Theo's tab. He downed his drink and was about to leave before a head of brown curls to his right caught his attention.
He touched her arm, "Granger."
The brunette turned to look at him, blue eyes staring back.
"I apologize, I thought u were someone else."
She smiles sweetly and moves closer to him, "I can be her."
He looks at her and sneers, "that's fucking pathetic." He then walks away from her, not bothering to see the look on her face. It was probably just as pitiful as he imagined. As he was nearing the exit, he caught a glimpse of brown curls again and felt a hand graze his arm.
"What did I just fucking say, do you enjoy feeling as pitiful as you sound?" He whips around to look at her offending blue eyes but was met with brown. Honey and cinnamon.
"Granger," he breathed out.
"That was a harsh hello," a small frown was on her face, "I don't know if I deserved that."
Draco found his hand pulling her in, grasping the back of her neck, heaps of curls tickling his hand. It was an involuntary reaction, but it felt almost as his body needed it. He needed to be around her and to hold her. He decided, fuck it I'm already touching her, as he buried his face in her hair. Apples and honey filling the air around him. "It wasn't meant for you."
He was lost in Granger's scent so it took him a few seconds to realize that he was here, and so was she and that meant that he had met her, "Is this Eros?"
"Why, yes it is. I thought you were here to meet me?"
"No, I didn't realize. I'm here with Blaise and Theo."
He steps away to take her in. She was wearing a skin tight dress, straps so thin they could snap if he pulled with the tiniest bit of force. The back of the dress dipped dangerously low to expose her soft lightly tanned skin. And she was wearing green. Slytherin green. He almost groaned and had to physically stop himself from taking her there and then. His inhibitions were low from the copious amounts of alcohol he had drank before coming here and when he got here.
He furrowed his brows and grabbed her arm, "did you come here alone? You know for a witch as bright as you are, you can be fucking dense at times. Do you know how dangerous it is to be surrounded by these witless fools who probably can't wait to get their hands on you
She freed herself from his grip, "relax, Malfoy. Besides, I didn't come alone."
Then it dawned on him, she wasn't free Friday night. She was with Weasley. He hadn't put two and two together because she had invited him out and it threw him off guard. Then, he had distracted himself so he would not have a spare minute to think of her.
He could feel the anger building up in him, "why the fuck did you ask me to meet you? Did you think you can parade me in front of your ginger dolt of a boyfriend to make him jealous?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Draco almost had the wind knocked out of him when a familiar head of black hair barrelled into him for a hug.
"Pansy," he said as he ruffled her hair. This earned a slap from her as she described in detail how long it took to style it. When he lifts his eyes from Pansy's he looked at Hermione who was standing next to a red head
"Weasley," he greeted.
Hermione stared at him, a smirk on her face as she says, "Weasley."
He had to stop himself from smiling. That sly little minx. This was the most Slytherin thing she'd ever done and he found himself wondering why she was ever sorted with a bunch of air heads who thought with their fists. He couldn't even get mad at the fact that she's had him seething in jealousy and rage over the fact that she's going out with Weasley when she never specified it was the She-Weasel. He didn't even have time to question the odd group of three they formed as he grabbed Granger's hand and steered her towards the dance floor.
"I'm borrowing your friend." He said to the pair, not waiting for a response.
"You think you're so clever?" He smirked as he pulled her in close, his hands on the exposed skin of her back.
"I like to think so, yes." She was grinning at him.
"And here I thought I was your illicit affair," he twirled her around and pulled her even closer with her back against him. He brought his lips to her ear, "and you're wearing my colours, why?"
Her response was a breathy whisper, "I'll let you ponder the answer to that."
He groaned and made her face him. He looked into those darkening pools of honey before he snogged her senseless. He could feel her body weaken and fall into his arms. He wasn't always a fan of public displays of affection but at this moment he did not care. He needed to feel her lips against his, needed to taste her.
She put her palm against his chest, and pushed him away as she giggled, "calm down, there's people."
"I don't care," he whispered into her ear as he let his lips move down to her neck, leaving a trail of kisses. She moaned lowly from his touch.
"I'm serious, Malfoy. Now come on," she grabbed his hand and dragged him back to where his friends were mingling with Pansy and Ginny.
Theo looked up and surveyed them, "well, well, look who's in a better mood. And look who's turned colours."
"Is this why you had your knickers in a twist, Draco?" Blaise joked.
"Whatever," he mumbled.
The rest of the night was spent with all of them together. Pansy had brought up how it was supposed to be girls' night which prompted a response from Theo that it was supposed to be guys' night for them as well. They weren't really complaining though. The She-Weasley turned out to be lots of fun without the life sucking energy of her brother and the saviour Potter. He had missed Pansy. He had come to think of her as a good friend after they had broken up in 4th year and realized she was better company as a non whining girlfriend. As fun as the night had turned out to be, Draco couldn't help but think of what was yet to come. He had not allowed himself to drink into a stupor, like his original plan. Besides, the reason behind doing so turned out to be a little joke his witch played on him. He smiled at that thought as he pulled her closer to him. His.
Blaise had found himself into the arms of another heavy breasted blonde, and out the door he went. Theo had offered Draco and himself to take the ladies home, despite Ginny's protest of being more than capable of kicking ass. They had taken Ginny home first, then Pansy, Theo then excused himself and bid Draco and Granger a good night before using Pansy's fireplace to Floo home. Draco and Hermione entered the fireplace next. His arm around her waist securely, as she said, her address.
They stepped out into her living room and Draco trailed behind her as she walked to her bedroom. There was a familiar playfulness in her eyes. She faced away from Draco, moved her hair from her back and slowly looked to her side and asked, "unzip me?"
Draco gulped and pushed the zipper down and watched as the straps fell from her shoulder and Granger pushed the dress down. She was wearing black lacy panties.
Draco couldn't believe he was doing this but he shed his own shirt, and put it on top of the confused brunette. It was way too big on her and she was swimming in it.
"You're drunk," he merely stated.
She pouted and sat down on her bed, arms crossed.
"Trust me, Granger. Say the word and you'll have me, sober. I made a mistake the first time. Now get into bed."
She shook her head stubbornly so Draco picked her up and set her down underneath her blankets. He kissed her forehead and took one more look at the beauty in front of her before he set himself to leave.
She pat down the space next to her, "stay, please."
It didn't take much for him to give in. He unbuckled his belt and transfigured his trousers to pyjama bottoms as he got underneath the blankets with her. He pulled her in, and the last thing he remembered before falling asleep were apples and honey.