Chapter 8- Cut to the chase

She met Draco's flaming stare head on, with a flaming stare of her own. He looked angry, but there was something else in his eyes also, the same frozen pain that she felt herself.

How could their feelings for each other possibly be this complicated?

"I turned back around halfway," she said. "I needed to say goodbye to you face to face…and I was too angry to do it this morning."

"You were too angry!" he spat.

Becky chose that moment to slip pass them, pausing for shortest possible time on the way. "Going to break," she muttered.

"Back in an hour, okay?" then she added quickly "Draco don't forget you have a office down the hall, if you, like need, oh, somewhere to, you know, like, in private."

"Right" Draco said.

Becky left and Ginny took a deep shaky breath. She was close to tears, and scared by the power of her own anger. You could only feel this angry toward someone you loved.

"All you had to say this morning was that you needed me Draco," she said. "I threw it out there. And you didn't say it. You've never said it."

Her throat felt tight and her voice sounded strange. "That's why I could never consider that our marriage was just about the two of us. Because never in our whole marriage have you ever said it, or shown it, or…"

He froze. "Hell Ginny! Doesn't it go without saying that I need you? Isn't it obvious?"

"No, Draco it's not. It's not obvious at all. You want me…" she cut off remembering the way he made love to her last night and what it did to her.

Oh but she had to be stronger than this.

"I know you want me," she tried again.

"No" Draco suddenly said. "Okay stop. Don't say it now. Hell yes, I do want you, but if there's…Becky was right. Let's get out of here. Do this properly. Give our marriage, or our divorce, whichever it is, the space it deserves. Some of the other employees will be here any minute."

He headed toward his private office, his impatience brimming over like a cup of coffee poured too full. Standing there she watched himwalk away with a frown.

"Let's go." He said over his shoulder, the way he always did. And she followed. The way she once hadn't.

He continued to walk ahead and didn't say a word. Draco had them inside his office in less than a minute and he didn't waste time in getting back to the crunch point in their confrontation, the second they'd gained the privacy he wanted.

Now that the door closed and locked behind Ginny and nobody knew they were in there.

"I want you," he repeated. He paced around the desk, coming to a restless halt beside the wall, where he leaned his body full of impatient, aggressive angles.

"Was that where we got to?" he asked.

"Somewhere around that point." She said. "Agenda item number two."

He ignored her. "But for some reason you think I don't need you. It can't be because I'm not dependent on you like your dad with his health, and your brother's with their girlfriend problems."

"Don't you dare belittle what's happening to Ron, Draco" Ginny cut in. "Don't we both know that this kind of thing really hurts? Aren't we getting a big fat reminder of that, right now?"

He scoffed with anger. "So it is because I'm not dependent on you? Is that what your saying? It's because I never used to make whiny phone calls to you about losing my shoe, or forgetting to buy food?"

He swore. "Is that what you wanted from me? You can't be serious Gin"

She spread her hands. "Can't I? Okay I'm not serious."

"No. That's not what you mean. Let's try and understand this. Talk to me, don't close up." He came toward her and gripped her upper arms, just short of causing pain.

"I want to hear this." He told her.

And he looked so fierce and so sincere about it that she had to rekindle her hope, and she had to find a starting point.

"Four days ago," she began carefully. "When I came here, you said to me, I'm asking for help."

"Yeah I remember." His grip softened a little and he held her more closely, his gray eyes steady and watchful.

"And the only reason I stayed was because you'd said It." she went on. "Because in the four years of our marriage, and in the time we knew each other before then, you'd never said something like that."

"Anything like that." She continued. "You'd never given the slightest sign or word that I was important to you in that way. That I was necessary to you."

"But, of course you were" His voice rasped, and dropped. "You are. Didn't the marriage certificate say it loud and clear? Did you really need the words from me?"

Ginny shook her head. "You wanted me, but it wasn't just that you never said you needed me Draco, you never seemed to show it either."

"You did what you wanted, and I could follow along if I liked. Take it or leave It.," she added.

"Gin" he groaned.

"I guess if I had known that back then, maybe I would have tried harder to find a way through eight years ago. But without that…Still, even now, without that, I can't. It's just impossible." She told him cutting him off.

"It is possible," he answered. "It has to be possible. You're wrong about this. Which has to be my fault as much as yours, I know that. My fault more. But it's not too late for me to say it, Gin. Is it? Is it too late?"

"Draco…"

He kissed her hair and her jaw and her neck, and she closed her eyes. She was the one without trust right now, because she didn't trust that they just got through their problems with just a few minutes of anger and some honest words, shut away in his office.

Was this really enough?

"I do trust you" he went on. "I always have. I've trusted you to understand my need for you without me having to say it."

"Or show it?" Her voice cracked again. "You never showed it either."

"Or even show it, I guess. I'm not a man who enjoys feeling vulnerable. Does any man willingly admit to that? I needed you, Ginny. I trusted you. I trusted you with my heart. Is there really anything more you need to hear from me then that?" He pressed.

He ran his hands down her back and buried his face into her neck. It sent chills down her body and not the bad kind. Was there anything else?

Ginny couldn't think straight. Her body throbbed and felt heavy with wanting him. "I… I need to call Ron." She sighed.

Every muscle in Draco's body went stiff and still, and she could almost feel the effort it took for him to speak in a neutral tone when he asked her, "To tell him…?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and…was that desperation she saw?

"That I love him." She said steadily. "That he can call me any time he needs to talk, and that I'm staying here. With my husband. With you."

Ginny waited not knowing how he would react. With sarcasm? For at least twenty slow heartbeats, he didn't say anything at all as the stiff, suspicious angles to his body slowly softened.

Finally, he pressed his forehead against hers and whispered. "Thank you"

Tears filled her eyes, "You're welcome," she whispered back.

"You don't know how much I …here you go…needed, really needed, for you to say that." He said his voice shaky.

"Yes, I do know." She said.

He wrapped her in his strong arms afraid she may change her mind and bolt straight from the office. "We'd have lost our chance if you'd gone back home today." He told her.

Nodding she smiled softly "I know"

"Gin, oh my sweet Ginny…" he sighed with happiness.

Their noses bumped gently as they looked into each other. Their mouths met and melted together. Ginny forgot that Draco could kiss this way.

No demands, no impatience, just a heaven of softness, right in this moment. Their endless kiss was a promise and a vow, binding them together more securely that the marriage certificate they'd both been prepared to throw away just a few days before.

"Draco, what are we going to?" Ginny started to say, but he put a finger on her lips, then kissed her again building onto the fire that was burning inside both of them.

"No details," he said. "Please just let me make love to you,"

"Yes!" she cried. "I want that so much to seal this."

He smirked dangerously. "Then nothing's stopping us"

He meant right here and right now. She gasped when she realized. "Draco, do you really think?"

He already had begun lifting her shirt. "I hope you're not going to tell me this isn't private enough?" he laughed.

Ginny's face turned as red as the hair on her head. "Well…umm…"

"The doors are locked and no one knows we're here. Isn't it comfortable enough?"

"Comfortable?" she could hardly breath. Draco curved his palm gently across her already aching breast. "It's yes. Oh it's perfectly comfortable. That…what you're doing…is very comfortable." She added.

"Mmm, I was hoping for that reaction. Come with me."

"Okay." She let him lead her to the long, black leather couch sitting in his office.

"And here, is it sufficiently opulent?" he asked.

"Can't argue that one Gin," His voice was so low and seductive it was a caress more than a sound.

"This leather is like velvet. Feel"

He took her by the hand and guided her fingertips slowly over the couch, the way she wanted him to guide her fingertips down the velvet length of his arousal.

"You are soooo doing this on purpose, aren't you?" she gasped.

"And you sooo don't want me to stop." He added.

"No, you're right. You're right, I don't," she whimpered. So he didn't.

They fought and laughed and almost sobbed as they took off each other's clothing and flung it aside. Draco lay back on the couch and pulled Ginny down to his chest.

Cradling her loosely and grinning up at her "I can't believe where doing this at your office" she giggled.

"Hey we've made love in crazier places." He laughed. "Do you remember that one time when we…?"

"Yes, at Harry and Hermione's wedding, after dark in the car they planned on leaving in for the honeymoon" she replied blushing.

He roared with laughter at the memory. "Only because attempting it outside was leaving us with way too many bugs"

"There were too many of those I remember," she said. "We even got bitten a few times before we finally spotted the car."

"Didn't even notice until afterward though, did we?" he said. He rolled onto his side and slid down across the couch to nuzzle the soft valley between her breasts.

"No!" she laughed. "Just didn't seem to matter"

His mouth made a line of warm imprints down toward her navel.

"And then we kissed every bug bitten spot" she reminded him. "And they felt better."

"I bet I can still remember where it was you got bit even to this day," he whispered. "Want me to see?"

"Mmm, yes, please…No but, Draco, I didn't get bit there, …" she gasped and he took no notice of her protests at all.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed and you guys rock. Hope you like this chapter and I know it's short. But the next one will be longer I promise.

Bra4goten.