As always, I owe a life debt to Barrie/FriendlyQuark who dries my tears,
makes me laugh and offers unending encouragement.
Chapter 12 – Opening Night Jitters
He stopped just short of the landing at the top of the stairs and pulled her to him. As before, she was nearly able to look him in the eye but this time it was Severus' turn. Holding her by the waist, he kissed her softly, almost innocently. Almost.
As gentle as his manner was, Hermione could feel the intense attraction. The pull behind her navel was oddly reminiscent of traveling by portkey with the addition of somehow setting her already heightened senses at an almost unbearable intensity.
Everything she touched – the softly starched linen of his shirt lightly rubbing under her fingertips, the smooth cotton of his slacks that just barely touched her legs as he moved, the familiar woolly textured pile of carpet under her bare toes – seemed magnified in its impact on her skin.
Hermione was suddenly nervous. As if he could sense it, he pulled back just enough to get her attention and, fixed her with an intense look.
"There is no reason to be anxious, Hermione. This isn't a contest; you won't be graded or compared." She laughed, despite her tension. "First of all, nothing is going to happen that you – and I – don't want to happen. There is to be no pressure on either of us to do anything."
Hermione heard Snape's words, but she had already convinced herself of what was going to occur tonight and told herself that she had better be damned good after all the work he'd gone to for her.
"And if I think for one moment that you are doing this because you feel beholden in any way, whether to me or to some challenge you've issued to yourself, you will find yourself very much alone for the remainder of the evening."
That got her attention. After silently cursing herself for being so transparent and then sending the same quiet hexes at him for knowing what she was thinking, she wondered if perhaps she'd read everything wrong; maybe he had only been saying "thank you" after all and he didn't really have those kinds of feelings for her. Maybe he was trying to brace her for a gracefully subtle brush-off...
For the third and final time that evening, Severus Snape read Hermione like a cheap comic book and pulled her up to the top step. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close. After a long moment, she felt his voice rumble quietly against her. "We have all the time in the world, Hermione. I want you – make no mistake about that – but your body is only part of that. If you're not comfortable sharing all of you, then you need to tell me now. There is no place here for half-measures or insincerity."
'How many times in one night can this man amaze me?' Hermione thought to herself. She somehow both relaxed and straightened at his words and threw away whatever preconceived ideas she'd already had about him, about herself, and about what the rest of the night would bring.
Pulling back from his embrace so that she could meet his eyes, she said calmly and with all the honesty in her heart, "I want you, Severus. Nothing else, just you. I've shown you more of myself than anyone else has ever seen. We've talked about subjects that I barely wanted to consider much less discuss, yet I can't imagine not talking about them with you. I've already trusted you with my heart. How could I not want to share the rest?"
The reward of his smile was more than she could have hoped to receive. The hammering of her heart was no longer caused by her anxiety but by the rare open warmth in his eyes. He let his grasp slide down her arms and as he wove the fingers of one of his broad hands with her much smaller hand, he opened the door to his room.
She giggled and he looked askance at her. "I wondered if it was going to be your place or mine..." she smiled.
"While this may not be exactly 'my' territory," he responded dryly, nodding across the hall to her door, "I don't think I'm quite ready for a single bed and a shelf full of stuffed animals for an audience."
Her laughter rang down the stairwell as the bedroom door closed behind her.
Once inside the room, he switched on the small lamp on the bedside table. The soft light that filtered through the trumpet-shaped mica shade washed the room in a warm glow. The room smelled like him – clean with a spicy undertone and something indefinably masculine that made her feel aroused, soothed and safe all at the same time.
She watched as he slowly moved towards her. Every step he took increased the volume of the heartbeat in her ears. His eyes hadn't left hers since he'd switched on the lamp on the far side of the bed and she felt the blush in her cheeks deepen under his fiery gaze.
There was no fear, just an arousing awareness that the legendary powers of concentration he applied to his potions were now fully focused on her. She felt rather like an ant caught under the pinpoint of white-hot sunlight that was being passed through a magnifying glass. She was sure to burst into flame if something didn't happen.
As Severus moved to stand before her, Hermione had been unable to look away from him and she had had to lift her chin to keep eye contact. He stepped to within a small handspan of her and her lips parted at the last tilt of her head. That was the spark to dried tinder – he swept her into a kiss that was a dizzy combustion of passion.
His taste was complex, like the best chocolate: dark, bitterness balanced by just enough sweet. It was compelling.
She was breathless with the realization that he had been entirely right about there being 'no place for half-measures or insincerity.' Everything he felt was there in his embrace and had she not already loved him she would have had to run for cover.
Well. That was an unexpected realization.
She loved him. She wasn't infatuated and she was not in love with some romanticized version of him – she doubted even the most gifted imagination could soften his edges that much. No, she loved this sarcastic, perceptive, brilliant, sensitive, demanding, unattractive, beautiful man. Hermione Granger loved Severus Snape, sitting in the tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Her thoughts stopped just short of the next line but only because the electric jolt of feeling his mouth opening against hers completely short- circuited any conscious thought.
The small sound of arousal she made in the back of her throat didn't register in his ears but instead shot directly to the base of his spine. The gasp he gave in response thrilled her more than she could say.
Before they could be swept away by their bodies' desires, Severus grasped Hermione's shoulders gently and pulled back to look at her, fighting to bring his now-ragged breathing into a more regular pattern.
"Hermione, you must understand," he began hesitantly. Funny, it was the first time she'd ever heard him speak in any tone other than one of complete confidence; even when being derisive or sarcastic, his tone had always been eminently certain. "The books you might have read, the films you may have seen – they aren't ..." he was searching for a word; his eyes snapped to hers when he found it. "They aren't real. Making love isn't some abstract, stylized fantasy; it's real. It's not about seeing visions of fireworks or the like."
Hermione looked at the man who could pass for an anemic Jeremy Irons standing before her and it took her a moment to recognize the sentiment that looked so out of place on his face.
"Yes, I recognize the irony of my suddenly being nervous," he grumbled. "I'm just not entirely sure what you might be expecting and given the rather long anticipation..."
As comprehension bloomed over her face, Snape relievedly chastised himself for having doubted whether she would understand.
"Severus, I know how you like your tea, which sections of the paper you read first, that you like Monty Python even though you pretend not to, and that when you get really tired the muscle beneath your left eye twitches the tiniest bit. I know so much about you but I want to know more. I want to learn what your skin feels like against mine and what you look like when you make love to me. I want you, Severus. So much..."
The last of her words were spoken against his lips as she showed him what she felt but couldn't yet say.
Hermione shrugged her shoulders out from Severus' grasp and brought her hands to his chest, gently pushing him back until he came to the edge of the mattress, continuing until he dropped rather inelegantly onto the quilt- covered bed.
As she moved to stand between his legs, she brought her hands to his face. He closed his eyes in surrender to the warmth of her delicate touch against his cheeks. Hermione ran a thumb over the lips that were so frequently drawn into the thin line of his trademark sneer but were now relaxed and slightly parted. The heated breath that whispered over her finger raised gooseflesh across her skin.
She could feel the muscle in his jaw clench and release under her other hand and she moved even closer to him. As she bent her head to kiss along where she'd felt the tension, he sighed low and deep, causing her knees to buckle slightly.
His hands held her steady, settling at her waist and then slowly, surely, he flexed his fingers, pleating her lightweight cotton shirt up and out from the grip of her khaki shorts. As the shirt came free, his fingers began a sure and slow a trek up her body.
In her previous sexual forays, she'd always kept her eyes tightly closed, hoping to lose herself in the sensations. She was surprised to realize that she not only didn't need to shut out the visual stimulation of this moment, she craved it. The subtle flickers of emotions she recognized for the first time as they danced across Severus' face – passion, hope, desire, and so much more – held her entranced.
"Severus," she breathed. "You are so beautiful..."
His attention had been completely focused on her and he knew that she was, as was her habit, speaking before considering her words. In the past, this had driven him to fury but tonight it was the very balm his soul needed. She was telling him the unvarnished truth.
Severus' hands continued their inexorable journey, tracing the curve of her generous hips to her dainty waist and up to the middle of her ribcage. She wondered briefly if he might be dismayed by the disproportionate dip he had traced – she always meant to exercise but it was too easy to defer in favor of her more sedentary habits. The look on his face released her from any self-consciousness about her figure: Severus Snape was spellbound.
Severus' hands ran into the cotton and wire barrier of her bra; his fingers stopped their journey and she arched an eyebrow at him. He chuckled quietly and with a deft movement, unhooked the garment and traced his fingers along the thin band of material that ran over her shoulders, pushing the straps down. As the brassiere's straps fell, Severus pulled Hermione's shirt up over her head. He looked on her as if she were okenite – too hard a breath might shatter the delicate beauty before him.
Needing to feel him against her, Hermione began unbuttoning his linen shirt. Her fingers began chasing the buttons through their woven holes until she had liberated all the mother-of-pearl discs. A breathed "ah!" left her lips at the last button's release and she smiled down on him, her eyes shining delight at the expanse of ivory skin revealed when she pushed the finely woven cloth from his shoulders.
With a whisper-soft touch, she slid her lips down his neck then followed his clavicle across to the point of his left shoulder. As her lips trailed lower, she bent, allowing her breasts to fill his hands. The warmth of her mouth, the silk of her hair, the weight of her breasts were beginning to cause short-circuiting in his brain.
"Oh, Hermione," he groaned, his voice raw as ripping silk. Never before had she appreciated her name but after tonight no sobriquet would ever be acceptable.
Severus' arms wound round her, pulling her hard against him. His lips parted as he gasped for breath; as his eyes focused on the undeniably feminine curves before him, he moved to lose himself in the taste of her flesh, of her breast, of her nipple. She was beautiful and he wanted to worship every part of her.
Pulling Hermione down to the bed to lie beside him, Severus quickly twisted so that he would be over her. In the same motion, he brought his hands up under her arms and smoothly pulled her to the center of the bed as if she weighed no more than a pillow. Dragging his hands down over her breasts made the pressure between his legs spike; oh, how he wanted her.
Hermione either sensed his thoughts or she felt the same need – her hands fell to the placket on his pants. It took her a moment to reverse and invert the fastenings in her mind; her fumbling finally released Severus from the fabric constraints. As his flesh unfurled towards her, her eyes widened and she licked her lips. He turned for the briefest time, just long enough to pull off his pants, shorts and socks. As he bent away from her, Hermione whimpered her desire for the beauty he presented.
At the sound of her appreciative groan, he turned back to her, fingers flying to her waistband. He pulled at her shorts, dragging them over her hips, leaving her exposed before him. His expression was equal parts raw hunger, adoration and something that looked amazingly like the kind of frustration one might have when was forced to choose just one flavor of ice cream from a multitude of favorites.
By all rights, she should have been self-conscious under his speculative and slightly predatory gaze but something about this man and this night removed any concern that her body wasn't the bastion of youthful perfection that fashion magazines told her it should be. She felt wanton and relished it. She arched her back and nearly purred at the look on his face.
Severus was completely bewitched by Hermione's willingness to give herself to him. Her openness fueled his desire and his heart seemed to stretch with the knowledge that the woman he loved was so comfortable giving herself to him.
Well. That was an unexpected realization.
He loved her. She wasn't perfect by any stretch – not that he had much of an imagination when it came to such things, but he doubted any other woman could suit him so well. He loved this perceptive, brilliant, sensitive, quarrelsome, imperfect, beautiful woman. And he wanted to lose himself completely in her.
They were, now, finally skin to skin. Hermione delighted in the abrasion of the sparse hairs scattered over his chest against her flesh; Severus reveled in the varying textures of her – the tensile resistance of her nipples, the riot of dark floss that was her hair, the warm satin of her skin.
Hermione's hands were restless, pulling him on top of her. He let his fingers skip over the soft skin of her waist, down her hip, to the top of her thigh. His touch danced over her sides, her shoulders, her breasts, her back, her buttocks – oh, he needed this woman.
Severus bowed his head and caught Hermione's lips beginning a long series of kisses. They explored, soothed, and tasted each other with an intensity borne of long-repressed emotion. The gasp Hermione gave when he nipped the velvety skin at the junction of her jaw, neck and earlobe was returned to her by Severus when she lightly scraped his earlobe with her teeth.
As they kissed, she restlessly shifted against him, opening herself and brushing his erection with her thigh. The resulting shudder started at his feet, moved over his legs, up his spine and through his arms to her. Hermione shivered in his embrace and whimpered her need.
His hand had slipped down almost automatically to the brittle hair covering what was quickly becoming the pulsating center of her existence. Severus was very aware of the magnetism that seemed to pull his fingers lower. Sowing petal-soft kisses over her face, he let his hand follow its own path. When he found the source of her molten heat, his fingers began to softly strum her throbbing flesh. Dipping his fingers deeper, her slickness welcomed him.
He groaned against her neck, the vibrations from his voice raising the fine hairs on her skin. When he whispered to her, she knew she was lost. "So soft ... wet ... beautiful," he murmured, setting his fingers to a rhythm against her.
Letting her responses guide him, Severus' touch began gently but he increased the pressure as she gasped her encouragement. As his touch grew firmer, Hermione grew wilder in her kisses, her hands relentlessly sweeping over him. He made sure she couldn't reach the one part she most wanted to touch – not because he didn't want the contact but because he knew he would never be able to withstand such pleasure.
As he slipped first one, then two fingers into her, Hermione's muscles clenched round him, her hips lifting her against his hand. She wasn't even aware that she'd said anything but her words were pure electricity to him: "Oh, love..."
If he'd been any more aroused, he could have split diamonds. For a moment, everything was pure and crystalline – the expression on her face, the passion reflected in his eyes, the reverberating pulse they shared. But where a crystal might shatter with a change in the atmosphere, the shift in awareness here only intensified the moment.
It wasn't enough; holding each other, even with no clothing between them, wasn't enough. He needed to be closer still, she needed more of him. He could see the wanting on her face and he shifted himself, fitting against her and marveling at the way the disparity in their height seemed inconsequential now.
She lifted her hips against him, bringing the head of his throbbing length to her satin-soft opening. Looking at him, she let the wonder of all she felt wash over her and prayed he could see it.
"Hermione," he whispered, his face close to hers. "I..."
His words were lost in her kiss as he plunged himself into the cocoon of her.
For all he'd wanted this to be a relaxed, slow love-making, there was no way that either of them could restrain themselves. She flexed, trying to pull him as deeply into her as she could. He ground his hips against her and the friction sent a tremor of pleasure coursing through her body in ever-widening circles.
He dragged his tongue up the tendon at the side of her neck, ending at her earlobe. Her hands continued their restless journey over his skin, scratching, soothing, gripping. Skimming her hands over his flesh to his chest and up his neck to the back of his head, she pulled him down for another kiss – she didn't think she could ever get enough contact with him.
As if he heard her thoughts, he whispered, "I can't get close enough... I want more of you, all of you." His voice was graveled with passion and he shifted his weight, hooking her legs over his arms. Sinking even deeper into her welcoming flesh, they both groaned their pleasure.
The huskiness in Hermione's voice spurred him to an almost reckless pace, driving into her as though he could somehow fuse himself to her. He could feel the pressure building almost to the point of release but stopped himself just short.
The tension on his face was evident and beautiful. As Severus was distracted trying to regain his control, Hermione took advantage and twisted her hips enough to force him to his back but not enough to lose their connection.
Taking a moment to savor the surprise on his face, Hermione sat straddled over him and rocked her hips slowly. The sultry smile she wore was a vision etched into his mind; she was stunning in her power and beauty.
Leaning forward, she licked a path up his neck in an echo of his earlier action. As her weight shifted forward, his hardened length seemed to fill her in a completely different way than before. She rocked her hips experimentally, then gasped, "Oh yes, right there... Sweet – love, please... Ah!" Two more rocks and the coil of tension that had been winding in her belly suddenly released, throwing her into a warm darkness that was nothing but sensation.
The undertow of her orgasm dragged Severus into that same ocean of release. As her muscles clamped round him, he lost awareness of everything except the velvet vise contracting around him as he pulsed.
About the same time that Hermione realized the pounding she was hearing was Severus' heart, he became aware that some of the trembling he felt was a shiver from the woman strewn across his chest.
The bedclothes were tangled all around them. Moving as little as possible, he reached for a corner of something – no, that was a pillow; he grabbed something else that felt like a quilt – and pulled it over the two of them. When Hermione made to move off him, he turned enough so that she could curl around him as he enfolded her in his arms.
Mentally holding his breath – he was fairly certain that she'd enjoyed everything, but what if it hadn't been all she had wanted? – he looked down at the woman who was now lazily drawing designs across his chest. Sensing his gaze, Hermione tilted her head and looked at him shyly.
Her face was covered in flushed splotches, her hair was a rat's nest of tangles and knots and there was a sheen of perspiration across her forehead. She looked beautiful and he told her so. She suspected that any one else would have a decidedly different opinion but at that moment, no one else's opinion mattered. She kissed him soundly and snuggled back into the comfort of his arms, drifting into sleep listening to the lullaby of his steady breathing.
Author's Notes:
For those who ain't from 'round here (i.e., the Midwestern United States), the schoolyard taunt would have gone like this, in the most annoyingly sing- song tone humanly possible: 'Mione & Sev'rus / Sitting in a tree / K I S S I N G / First comes love / Then comes marriage / Then comes baby in a baby carriage. And you wonder why I'm warped...
O.K., so I really wanted to have Hermione make a mental comparison to the man JKR wanted to and happily IMHO, the man that did play Snape (i.e., Alan Rickman), but that's been SO done and I have to say that Jeremy Irons does look more like the way Snape is described in the book. I would have loved to have seen him in BBC1's "Harry Potter and the Chamberpot of Azerbaijan" but, alas, we didn't get it on this side of the pond.
Okenite can be found in Ireland, among other locations, and for some reason that resonated. For a more technical description of this mineral, here's a completely inedible link: http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/silicate/okenite/okenite.htm
Chapter 12 – Opening Night Jitters
He stopped just short of the landing at the top of the stairs and pulled her to him. As before, she was nearly able to look him in the eye but this time it was Severus' turn. Holding her by the waist, he kissed her softly, almost innocently. Almost.
As gentle as his manner was, Hermione could feel the intense attraction. The pull behind her navel was oddly reminiscent of traveling by portkey with the addition of somehow setting her already heightened senses at an almost unbearable intensity.
Everything she touched – the softly starched linen of his shirt lightly rubbing under her fingertips, the smooth cotton of his slacks that just barely touched her legs as he moved, the familiar woolly textured pile of carpet under her bare toes – seemed magnified in its impact on her skin.
Hermione was suddenly nervous. As if he could sense it, he pulled back just enough to get her attention and, fixed her with an intense look.
"There is no reason to be anxious, Hermione. This isn't a contest; you won't be graded or compared." She laughed, despite her tension. "First of all, nothing is going to happen that you – and I – don't want to happen. There is to be no pressure on either of us to do anything."
Hermione heard Snape's words, but she had already convinced herself of what was going to occur tonight and told herself that she had better be damned good after all the work he'd gone to for her.
"And if I think for one moment that you are doing this because you feel beholden in any way, whether to me or to some challenge you've issued to yourself, you will find yourself very much alone for the remainder of the evening."
That got her attention. After silently cursing herself for being so transparent and then sending the same quiet hexes at him for knowing what she was thinking, she wondered if perhaps she'd read everything wrong; maybe he had only been saying "thank you" after all and he didn't really have those kinds of feelings for her. Maybe he was trying to brace her for a gracefully subtle brush-off...
For the third and final time that evening, Severus Snape read Hermione like a cheap comic book and pulled her up to the top step. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close. After a long moment, she felt his voice rumble quietly against her. "We have all the time in the world, Hermione. I want you – make no mistake about that – but your body is only part of that. If you're not comfortable sharing all of you, then you need to tell me now. There is no place here for half-measures or insincerity."
'How many times in one night can this man amaze me?' Hermione thought to herself. She somehow both relaxed and straightened at his words and threw away whatever preconceived ideas she'd already had about him, about herself, and about what the rest of the night would bring.
Pulling back from his embrace so that she could meet his eyes, she said calmly and with all the honesty in her heart, "I want you, Severus. Nothing else, just you. I've shown you more of myself than anyone else has ever seen. We've talked about subjects that I barely wanted to consider much less discuss, yet I can't imagine not talking about them with you. I've already trusted you with my heart. How could I not want to share the rest?"
The reward of his smile was more than she could have hoped to receive. The hammering of her heart was no longer caused by her anxiety but by the rare open warmth in his eyes. He let his grasp slide down her arms and as he wove the fingers of one of his broad hands with her much smaller hand, he opened the door to his room.
She giggled and he looked askance at her. "I wondered if it was going to be your place or mine..." she smiled.
"While this may not be exactly 'my' territory," he responded dryly, nodding across the hall to her door, "I don't think I'm quite ready for a single bed and a shelf full of stuffed animals for an audience."
Her laughter rang down the stairwell as the bedroom door closed behind her.
Once inside the room, he switched on the small lamp on the bedside table. The soft light that filtered through the trumpet-shaped mica shade washed the room in a warm glow. The room smelled like him – clean with a spicy undertone and something indefinably masculine that made her feel aroused, soothed and safe all at the same time.
She watched as he slowly moved towards her. Every step he took increased the volume of the heartbeat in her ears. His eyes hadn't left hers since he'd switched on the lamp on the far side of the bed and she felt the blush in her cheeks deepen under his fiery gaze.
There was no fear, just an arousing awareness that the legendary powers of concentration he applied to his potions were now fully focused on her. She felt rather like an ant caught under the pinpoint of white-hot sunlight that was being passed through a magnifying glass. She was sure to burst into flame if something didn't happen.
As Severus moved to stand before her, Hermione had been unable to look away from him and she had had to lift her chin to keep eye contact. He stepped to within a small handspan of her and her lips parted at the last tilt of her head. That was the spark to dried tinder – he swept her into a kiss that was a dizzy combustion of passion.
His taste was complex, like the best chocolate: dark, bitterness balanced by just enough sweet. It was compelling.
She was breathless with the realization that he had been entirely right about there being 'no place for half-measures or insincerity.' Everything he felt was there in his embrace and had she not already loved him she would have had to run for cover.
Well. That was an unexpected realization.
She loved him. She wasn't infatuated and she was not in love with some romanticized version of him – she doubted even the most gifted imagination could soften his edges that much. No, she loved this sarcastic, perceptive, brilliant, sensitive, demanding, unattractive, beautiful man. Hermione Granger loved Severus Snape, sitting in the tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Her thoughts stopped just short of the next line but only because the electric jolt of feeling his mouth opening against hers completely short- circuited any conscious thought.
The small sound of arousal she made in the back of her throat didn't register in his ears but instead shot directly to the base of his spine. The gasp he gave in response thrilled her more than she could say.
Before they could be swept away by their bodies' desires, Severus grasped Hermione's shoulders gently and pulled back to look at her, fighting to bring his now-ragged breathing into a more regular pattern.
"Hermione, you must understand," he began hesitantly. Funny, it was the first time she'd ever heard him speak in any tone other than one of complete confidence; even when being derisive or sarcastic, his tone had always been eminently certain. "The books you might have read, the films you may have seen – they aren't ..." he was searching for a word; his eyes snapped to hers when he found it. "They aren't real. Making love isn't some abstract, stylized fantasy; it's real. It's not about seeing visions of fireworks or the like."
Hermione looked at the man who could pass for an anemic Jeremy Irons standing before her and it took her a moment to recognize the sentiment that looked so out of place on his face.
"Yes, I recognize the irony of my suddenly being nervous," he grumbled. "I'm just not entirely sure what you might be expecting and given the rather long anticipation..."
As comprehension bloomed over her face, Snape relievedly chastised himself for having doubted whether she would understand.
"Severus, I know how you like your tea, which sections of the paper you read first, that you like Monty Python even though you pretend not to, and that when you get really tired the muscle beneath your left eye twitches the tiniest bit. I know so much about you but I want to know more. I want to learn what your skin feels like against mine and what you look like when you make love to me. I want you, Severus. So much..."
The last of her words were spoken against his lips as she showed him what she felt but couldn't yet say.
Hermione shrugged her shoulders out from Severus' grasp and brought her hands to his chest, gently pushing him back until he came to the edge of the mattress, continuing until he dropped rather inelegantly onto the quilt- covered bed.
As she moved to stand between his legs, she brought her hands to his face. He closed his eyes in surrender to the warmth of her delicate touch against his cheeks. Hermione ran a thumb over the lips that were so frequently drawn into the thin line of his trademark sneer but were now relaxed and slightly parted. The heated breath that whispered over her finger raised gooseflesh across her skin.
She could feel the muscle in his jaw clench and release under her other hand and she moved even closer to him. As she bent her head to kiss along where she'd felt the tension, he sighed low and deep, causing her knees to buckle slightly.
His hands held her steady, settling at her waist and then slowly, surely, he flexed his fingers, pleating her lightweight cotton shirt up and out from the grip of her khaki shorts. As the shirt came free, his fingers began a sure and slow a trek up her body.
In her previous sexual forays, she'd always kept her eyes tightly closed, hoping to lose herself in the sensations. She was surprised to realize that she not only didn't need to shut out the visual stimulation of this moment, she craved it. The subtle flickers of emotions she recognized for the first time as they danced across Severus' face – passion, hope, desire, and so much more – held her entranced.
"Severus," she breathed. "You are so beautiful..."
His attention had been completely focused on her and he knew that she was, as was her habit, speaking before considering her words. In the past, this had driven him to fury but tonight it was the very balm his soul needed. She was telling him the unvarnished truth.
Severus' hands continued their inexorable journey, tracing the curve of her generous hips to her dainty waist and up to the middle of her ribcage. She wondered briefly if he might be dismayed by the disproportionate dip he had traced – she always meant to exercise but it was too easy to defer in favor of her more sedentary habits. The look on his face released her from any self-consciousness about her figure: Severus Snape was spellbound.
Severus' hands ran into the cotton and wire barrier of her bra; his fingers stopped their journey and she arched an eyebrow at him. He chuckled quietly and with a deft movement, unhooked the garment and traced his fingers along the thin band of material that ran over her shoulders, pushing the straps down. As the brassiere's straps fell, Severus pulled Hermione's shirt up over her head. He looked on her as if she were okenite – too hard a breath might shatter the delicate beauty before him.
Needing to feel him against her, Hermione began unbuttoning his linen shirt. Her fingers began chasing the buttons through their woven holes until she had liberated all the mother-of-pearl discs. A breathed "ah!" left her lips at the last button's release and she smiled down on him, her eyes shining delight at the expanse of ivory skin revealed when she pushed the finely woven cloth from his shoulders.
With a whisper-soft touch, she slid her lips down his neck then followed his clavicle across to the point of his left shoulder. As her lips trailed lower, she bent, allowing her breasts to fill his hands. The warmth of her mouth, the silk of her hair, the weight of her breasts were beginning to cause short-circuiting in his brain.
"Oh, Hermione," he groaned, his voice raw as ripping silk. Never before had she appreciated her name but after tonight no sobriquet would ever be acceptable.
Severus' arms wound round her, pulling her hard against him. His lips parted as he gasped for breath; as his eyes focused on the undeniably feminine curves before him, he moved to lose himself in the taste of her flesh, of her breast, of her nipple. She was beautiful and he wanted to worship every part of her.
Pulling Hermione down to the bed to lie beside him, Severus quickly twisted so that he would be over her. In the same motion, he brought his hands up under her arms and smoothly pulled her to the center of the bed as if she weighed no more than a pillow. Dragging his hands down over her breasts made the pressure between his legs spike; oh, how he wanted her.
Hermione either sensed his thoughts or she felt the same need – her hands fell to the placket on his pants. It took her a moment to reverse and invert the fastenings in her mind; her fumbling finally released Severus from the fabric constraints. As his flesh unfurled towards her, her eyes widened and she licked her lips. He turned for the briefest time, just long enough to pull off his pants, shorts and socks. As he bent away from her, Hermione whimpered her desire for the beauty he presented.
At the sound of her appreciative groan, he turned back to her, fingers flying to her waistband. He pulled at her shorts, dragging them over her hips, leaving her exposed before him. His expression was equal parts raw hunger, adoration and something that looked amazingly like the kind of frustration one might have when was forced to choose just one flavor of ice cream from a multitude of favorites.
By all rights, she should have been self-conscious under his speculative and slightly predatory gaze but something about this man and this night removed any concern that her body wasn't the bastion of youthful perfection that fashion magazines told her it should be. She felt wanton and relished it. She arched her back and nearly purred at the look on his face.
Severus was completely bewitched by Hermione's willingness to give herself to him. Her openness fueled his desire and his heart seemed to stretch with the knowledge that the woman he loved was so comfortable giving herself to him.
Well. That was an unexpected realization.
He loved her. She wasn't perfect by any stretch – not that he had much of an imagination when it came to such things, but he doubted any other woman could suit him so well. He loved this perceptive, brilliant, sensitive, quarrelsome, imperfect, beautiful woman. And he wanted to lose himself completely in her.
They were, now, finally skin to skin. Hermione delighted in the abrasion of the sparse hairs scattered over his chest against her flesh; Severus reveled in the varying textures of her – the tensile resistance of her nipples, the riot of dark floss that was her hair, the warm satin of her skin.
Hermione's hands were restless, pulling him on top of her. He let his fingers skip over the soft skin of her waist, down her hip, to the top of her thigh. His touch danced over her sides, her shoulders, her breasts, her back, her buttocks – oh, he needed this woman.
Severus bowed his head and caught Hermione's lips beginning a long series of kisses. They explored, soothed, and tasted each other with an intensity borne of long-repressed emotion. The gasp Hermione gave when he nipped the velvety skin at the junction of her jaw, neck and earlobe was returned to her by Severus when she lightly scraped his earlobe with her teeth.
As they kissed, she restlessly shifted against him, opening herself and brushing his erection with her thigh. The resulting shudder started at his feet, moved over his legs, up his spine and through his arms to her. Hermione shivered in his embrace and whimpered her need.
His hand had slipped down almost automatically to the brittle hair covering what was quickly becoming the pulsating center of her existence. Severus was very aware of the magnetism that seemed to pull his fingers lower. Sowing petal-soft kisses over her face, he let his hand follow its own path. When he found the source of her molten heat, his fingers began to softly strum her throbbing flesh. Dipping his fingers deeper, her slickness welcomed him.
He groaned against her neck, the vibrations from his voice raising the fine hairs on her skin. When he whispered to her, she knew she was lost. "So soft ... wet ... beautiful," he murmured, setting his fingers to a rhythm against her.
Letting her responses guide him, Severus' touch began gently but he increased the pressure as she gasped her encouragement. As his touch grew firmer, Hermione grew wilder in her kisses, her hands relentlessly sweeping over him. He made sure she couldn't reach the one part she most wanted to touch – not because he didn't want the contact but because he knew he would never be able to withstand such pleasure.
As he slipped first one, then two fingers into her, Hermione's muscles clenched round him, her hips lifting her against his hand. She wasn't even aware that she'd said anything but her words were pure electricity to him: "Oh, love..."
If he'd been any more aroused, he could have split diamonds. For a moment, everything was pure and crystalline – the expression on her face, the passion reflected in his eyes, the reverberating pulse they shared. But where a crystal might shatter with a change in the atmosphere, the shift in awareness here only intensified the moment.
It wasn't enough; holding each other, even with no clothing between them, wasn't enough. He needed to be closer still, she needed more of him. He could see the wanting on her face and he shifted himself, fitting against her and marveling at the way the disparity in their height seemed inconsequential now.
She lifted her hips against him, bringing the head of his throbbing length to her satin-soft opening. Looking at him, she let the wonder of all she felt wash over her and prayed he could see it.
"Hermione," he whispered, his face close to hers. "I..."
His words were lost in her kiss as he plunged himself into the cocoon of her.
For all he'd wanted this to be a relaxed, slow love-making, there was no way that either of them could restrain themselves. She flexed, trying to pull him as deeply into her as she could. He ground his hips against her and the friction sent a tremor of pleasure coursing through her body in ever-widening circles.
He dragged his tongue up the tendon at the side of her neck, ending at her earlobe. Her hands continued their restless journey over his skin, scratching, soothing, gripping. Skimming her hands over his flesh to his chest and up his neck to the back of his head, she pulled him down for another kiss – she didn't think she could ever get enough contact with him.
As if he heard her thoughts, he whispered, "I can't get close enough... I want more of you, all of you." His voice was graveled with passion and he shifted his weight, hooking her legs over his arms. Sinking even deeper into her welcoming flesh, they both groaned their pleasure.
The huskiness in Hermione's voice spurred him to an almost reckless pace, driving into her as though he could somehow fuse himself to her. He could feel the pressure building almost to the point of release but stopped himself just short.
The tension on his face was evident and beautiful. As Severus was distracted trying to regain his control, Hermione took advantage and twisted her hips enough to force him to his back but not enough to lose their connection.
Taking a moment to savor the surprise on his face, Hermione sat straddled over him and rocked her hips slowly. The sultry smile she wore was a vision etched into his mind; she was stunning in her power and beauty.
Leaning forward, she licked a path up his neck in an echo of his earlier action. As her weight shifted forward, his hardened length seemed to fill her in a completely different way than before. She rocked her hips experimentally, then gasped, "Oh yes, right there... Sweet – love, please... Ah!" Two more rocks and the coil of tension that had been winding in her belly suddenly released, throwing her into a warm darkness that was nothing but sensation.
The undertow of her orgasm dragged Severus into that same ocean of release. As her muscles clamped round him, he lost awareness of everything except the velvet vise contracting around him as he pulsed.
About the same time that Hermione realized the pounding she was hearing was Severus' heart, he became aware that some of the trembling he felt was a shiver from the woman strewn across his chest.
The bedclothes were tangled all around them. Moving as little as possible, he reached for a corner of something – no, that was a pillow; he grabbed something else that felt like a quilt – and pulled it over the two of them. When Hermione made to move off him, he turned enough so that she could curl around him as he enfolded her in his arms.
Mentally holding his breath – he was fairly certain that she'd enjoyed everything, but what if it hadn't been all she had wanted? – he looked down at the woman who was now lazily drawing designs across his chest. Sensing his gaze, Hermione tilted her head and looked at him shyly.
Her face was covered in flushed splotches, her hair was a rat's nest of tangles and knots and there was a sheen of perspiration across her forehead. She looked beautiful and he told her so. She suspected that any one else would have a decidedly different opinion but at that moment, no one else's opinion mattered. She kissed him soundly and snuggled back into the comfort of his arms, drifting into sleep listening to the lullaby of his steady breathing.
Author's Notes:
For those who ain't from 'round here (i.e., the Midwestern United States), the schoolyard taunt would have gone like this, in the most annoyingly sing- song tone humanly possible: 'Mione & Sev'rus / Sitting in a tree / K I S S I N G / First comes love / Then comes marriage / Then comes baby in a baby carriage. And you wonder why I'm warped...
O.K., so I really wanted to have Hermione make a mental comparison to the man JKR wanted to and happily IMHO, the man that did play Snape (i.e., Alan Rickman), but that's been SO done and I have to say that Jeremy Irons does look more like the way Snape is described in the book. I would have loved to have seen him in BBC1's "Harry Potter and the Chamberpot of Azerbaijan" but, alas, we didn't get it on this side of the pond.
Okenite can be found in Ireland, among other locations, and for some reason that resonated. For a more technical description of this mineral, here's a completely inedible link: http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/silicate/okenite/okenite.htm
