Chapter Four

The phone is ringing, Ron. Hermione's words hovered at the edges of Ron's brain, just enough to stop him from unbuttoning his trousers, which had been the next item on his mental 'to do' list, but not enough to do much more.

"You mean …the felly…?"

"It has to be one of my parents, they are the only ones I gave this number to."

"Parents?"

"Yes, Ron, I call them every couple of days…"

"You do?"

"Can you get off me for a moment? I have to answer or they'll call every five minutes until I do."
"Oh. Yeah, right…sorry." Ron's ears were clearing up, and his mind was beginning to function again, and the thought of her parents was tantamount to the effect of a cold shower, especially when it brought along with it the thought of his own parents--particularly his mother. But when Hermione stood up, completely starkers, he nearly lost it again, licking his lips in appreciation.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?" His response was automatic.

"Could you…can you get off the bed for a minute? I need the bedcover."

"Huh?" he asked, but he was on his feet within seconds.

She pulled up the thin blanket, wrapping it around her, holding it together at her chest.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't talk to my mother without any clothes on, Ron!"
"How's she going to know? Do those things have cameras in them?"

"What? Oh, the phone? No, of course not. Well, actually some do, but they are very expensive, and I don't think they will catch on -- specifically because of moments like this. Ron, I really need to pick up the phone."

"Who's stopping you?"

"Nobody. Just…stay quiet, please." She looked at him pleadingly, but Ron had no intention of letting out a peep. He'd only met Mr. Granger once, but he had heard that dentist's drills were something that many Muggles were frightened of. He wasn't about to find out why.

"I'll just…sit here," he said, and broke off when she picked up that funny thing that you spoke into. He had seen Hermione talk into the fellytone, no, tellyfone, once or twice over the summer, and was embarrassed to realize that she spoke in a completely normal voice into it, meaning that he had gotten it completely wrong when he talked to Harry the summer after second year. But then he remembered the bloke in that muggle café, who'd carried a phone with no visible cord attached, and he seemed to be yelling into it, so maybe he hadn't been so far off after all.

"No, mother, nothing's wrong, I was just sleeping."

Ron held back a snicker at that.

"I realize it's early. I had a bit of a hike today, and I woke up before dawn to start it, so I am rather tired."

Ron was actually rather impressed at how smoothly she lied, which had him wondering if she had ever lied to him, which got him thinking about the whole "Viktor is just my friend' business, which then left him scowling for a bit.

"Yes, I ate a very nice dinner. Roast beef sandwich and chips…and a salad, of course."

The mention of dinner made him remember their conversation after dinner, and it suddenly occurred to him that Viktor Krum could go fuck himself, because he'd never got a chance to do half the things Ron had done to Hermione, let alone what Ron was about to do.

"Yes, of course, I brushed my teeth, and flossed." She looked over at Ron and rolled her eyes. He lay back against the pillow, grinning, his arms crossed behind his head. He watched in disbelief as her eyes traveled down the length of his torso, finally resting on the buttons of his trousers, then turning away and blushing. Ron could feel his heart speed up again. He impulsively sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and turned his back to her. Within seconds, his trousers were unbuttoned and sliding down his hips along with his pants, then kicked to the corner of the floor. He turned his head to find Hermione staring at him, her cheeks blazing, and then she quickly looked away.

"What? Oh, yes…tomorrow I think we are going to change areas. There is a cliff trail on the coast that we heard was worth a look at from some other hikers we met yesterday."

Ron took advantage of her distraction to slip under the bedsheet, reckoning that the sight of a fully (well, almost fully) armed cannon was not something she would want to come across unawares. He watched her back, thinking that he could almost see the tension creeping into her shoulders and mourning the loss of the eager, welcoming, utterly turned-on Hermione of a few minutes ago.

"Yes mother, I'll give you the number if we change lodging."

Ron suddenly realized that due to the narrowness of her bed and the length of his arm, he could easily reach the blanket that she had wrapped around herself. Grinning, he stealthily gathered up a handful of it and gave it a slight tug. She sucked in her breath, held on tightly with one hand, and blindly batted behind her with the other.

"I love you too. Tell Dad I'm sorry that I missed him."

Ron kept on tugging; she kept on smacking, and then she finally turned around to give him a stern look. It was just the opportunity he was looking for: with one giant tug, the blanket was sailing through the air, landing on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Hermione, clearly flustered, said, "Oh, all right, then; goodbye Mother."

Even before she had finished putting the phone back on the cradle, Ron was up on his knees behind her. By the time she muttered, "Ronald Weasley, you insufferable…," his mouth was on the spot where her neck and shoulder met, sucking gently.

"I'm going to hex your manhood off, you…oh, god…"

"Don't think you really want to hex that off, love," he murmured, "Might come in handy sooner than you think." At that, he settled his legs down on either side of her hips, pressing his torso and the very body part she had just threatened against her back. Hermione made a strangled sound in the back of her throat and he took it as a sign of encouragement. He pushed her hair to one side, feasting on her neck and moving up to flick his tongue into her ear just as his hand cupped one of her breasts. She groaned and leaned back against him, sliding her palms down his thighs.

He was just beginning to get used to the sensation of her bare skin against his erection when she startled him by turning around in his arms and knocking him back against the mattress. If being pressed up against her back was exiting, it had nothing on feeling her sprawled on top of him, attacking his mouth.

"Do you think my mother could tell by the sound of my voice that I am about to shag my boyfriend?"

"I hope not," Ron replied, trying to put the image of her parents out of his mind before it turned into an image of his parents, and ruined the mood altogether. Of course, he was fairly surprised that she hadn't been snatched out of the mood by having to actually carry on a conversation with her mother and he decided to ask, "So you still you still want to…?"

"Absolutely," she said, kissing him soundly and rolling both of them to the side.

His thrill at her words faded rather quickly, and Ron suddenly felt very vulnerable. He'd spent most of his life despairing over his freckled skin, not to mention his limbs; which seemed to stretch a few inches every time he woke up, never allowing his equilibrium or his muscles tocatch up. If you combined those insecurities with the bright red hair that he hated, which of course was only slightly darker as it lightly covered his body, it was no wonder he had never felt really confident in his appearance. Hermione had told him, time and again, how much she admired his courage and loyalty, but had always been reticent when it came to commenting on his looks.

Lavender, on the other hand, had showered him with complements on his height or his eyes or the way he looked on the Quidditch pitch, but had never seemed to see past the surface. He certainly preferred Hermione's reasons for liking him--well loving him, amazingly enough. And Hermione had called him beautiful less than twenty minutes before, so that had to be a good thing. Still, it was a scary thing to be the first naked bloke that a girl saw, after all. (At least he hoped that he was the first naked bloke she'd seen.)

Best not to go there Weasley.

However, he hadn't really been prepared to face her scrutiny, at least not so abruptly. He did his best to distract her with kisses on her neck and jaw, encouraging her to look up toward the headboard, away from his body, all the while wishing he'd thought to put out the candles surrounding the bed before impulsively stripping. As he tried to remember if Nox put out candles as well as wands, he wondered why he'd never thought to ask Charlie for a few pointers on building up muscles the last time he saw him. If only he could manage to maneuver her beneath the sheet, hiss immediate dilemma would be solved. He thought he'd have better control of the situation if he rolled on top of her, so he put his arms around her, tugging her in that direction.

"Oh, no you don't, Weasley!"

"Huh?"

"Haven't you spent the last thirty minutes ogling me? It's my turn now." She pushed him back against the bed, then propped herself up on one elbow, with a smirk and a feverish glint in her eyes.

Gulp. "Uh…"

The hand that still pressed against his chest began a slow slide down his torso, becoming more of a caress by the time it reached his navel. She never took her eyes off his, and her cheeks became increasingly flushed the lower she progressed. Finally, her eyes followed the path her hand had made, and he resisted the urge to shut his eyes tightly in response.

Her eyes made contact with his erection and widened, making him wonder if she was repulsed or impressed. Then, suddenly, he wanted to laugh, because she got this look of curiosity on her face that was so typical of Hermione it ought to have appeared alongside her name in a dictionary. She bit her lip and traced the length of him with her finger.

So. Bloody. Good. He chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing out loud and ruining the moment. The last thing he wanted was to break her concentration. Unfortunately, his cock had a mind of its own and twitched toward her in response. A sharp intake of breath was the only sound she made. She tried it again, using three fingertips. He couldn't hold back his groan this time, and she raised her eyes to his, looking decidedly smug.

"Bit sensitive, isn't it?"

"Bloody hell, woman, stop teasing me!"

"Is it going to jump out at me again?"

Ron was feeling rather desperate to divert the focus away from his misbehaving body parts and muttered, "You tell me. Haven't you read fifty books about it?'

"Well…"

"I was only joking, Hermione."

"Three, actually."

"You've got to be putting me on."

"Well, Mother sent me one when I got my period. It was informative, but fairly technical-- though it did have drawings."

"What?"

"And Parvati had this racy novel that she passed around. The writing was rubbish, but it was very detailed."

"Hermione, you're killing me…"

"And my aunt Moira sent me this book called "Our Bodies…"

"Woman!"

"Oh, sorry…" Without giving him any warning, she grasped his prick in her hand, sliding her fingers from base to tip as if she were polishing a broomstick.

Ron yelped, "Bugger!"

"Oh, Ron, I'm so sorry, did I…?"

"You're not pulling a Mandrake out of a pot, Hermione!"

"Oh, dear…I had an image, I thought that's how you blokes did it to yourselves…"

"No!" He looked at her, face burning with embarrassment, and couldn't stop himself from asking, "You pictured me, doing…?"

"You don't?"

"Uh…"

"I mean, I just assumed…"

"I really don't want to talk about it, Hermione."

"But…" She kept eyeing his undoubtedly purple face, then finally looked down to where her hand was still grasping him, though loosely. "Why don't you just tell me, or show me how…"

I couldn't possibly talk to her about that. "It's just…" He looked up at the ceiling. "Sensitive," he finished lamely.

"Oh, of course! So if I…" she loosened her grasp, sliding her fingers up his length gently, and he groaned in appreciation.

"I didn't expect it to be so soft."

"You call that soft?" he barked, a little offended.

"Not …no, I meant silky, the skin…I mean, to look at it, you wouldn't think…"

He stared at her, dumbfounded, but she went on, "And I thought it would be--I don't know--taut. You know, because it is all stretched out, but the skin is really quite loose, isn't it?"

Absolutely mental. She was treating his prick as if it were an extra credit project for Care of Magical Creatures. He would have shut her up with a kiss if she hadn't been doing glorious things with her fingers, making it impossible for him to do anything but sit there with an undoubtedly vacant expression on his face.

After a few more minutes' exploration, she sat up on her knees, sliding her hand back up to his chest, and he nearly whined in protest at the loss of her fingers. However, because this new position gave him a better view of her breasts he decided to keep quiet and see what she would do next. In one smooth movement, she bent her head down to kiss his neck, sliding one of her knees between his legs, nearly straddling his thigh. With a gulp, he realized that she was still damp from earlier. His arms went around her, his hands almost immediately sliding down to cover her bottom.

She was one of the few people who knew, for obvious reasons, how sensitive his ears were (Fred and George being two of the other people--they used to torture him by sticking things in his ears.) So, when her tongue drew a line up from his neck to his earlobe, she had to have a pretty good idea that it was going to drive him absolutely mad. When she pulled his earlobe into her mouth, sucking gently, he stopped himself from shouting out by grabbing her arse and pressing her more firmly onto his thigh. She seemed to like the new pressure a fair bit, because she moaned into his ear and used her teeth on him, which made him jump a few inches off the mattress. Eventually, she took pity on him and left his ear alone, making a trail of kisses down his neck, then spending a little time on his shoulders, his chest and his stomach. Immediately after that she managed to shock the hell out of him by looking up into his eyes, giving him a devilish smile, and then swirling her tongue over the tip of his cock.

"Shite!"

"Language, Ron," she scolded, but her voice was throaty and he didn't think he had offended her.

"Stop nagging me and do that again, will you?"

"That's a fine way to ask me," she said, and this time he was fairly sure she was teasing him.

"Please," he growled.

"Hmm," she said slyly, and ran her tongue down the length of him.

"You're bloody well going to kill me."

She chuckled and blew gently on the skin she had already moistened. "We wouldn't want that, would we? I guess I'd better stop."

At this point, he'd had about all he the teasing he could stand, so he grabbed her by the waist and flipped her on her back, pinning her to the bed with his body.

"I wasn't finished, Ron!" she protested

"If you'd kept that up you would have had a very big mess on your hands, or more likely, your face, and I have something else in mind." He kissed her, not caring in the least bit where her mouth had just been--actually, oddly turned on by it. Of course, that may have also had something to do with the fact that they were pressed together, skin to skin, and there was really nothing stopping him from slipping inside her at this point except his nerves.

"Are you ready? I mean, can I…?"

"Oh!" Her eyes grew huge and she looked away, saying, "Yes, of course, but...wait a minute, if you don't mind. I bought something… It's… it's supposed to make it easier; it's in the drawer of the nightstand"

He had absolutely no clue what she was talking about, but as his arms were longer, he obligingly opened the drawer for her. As long as he had her in this position, he really didn't want her to wriggle out of it. After fumbling around for a few seconds, he managed to pull out what looked like a tube of toothpaste. He looked at her, puzzled.

"You want to brush your teeth? Now?" Her parents really have her trained.

She laughed, sounding just slightly hysterical. "No, Ron, it's…Here, could you just--close your eyes for a minute?"

"Why?"

"Just…humor me, please."

Ron reluctantly obliged her. After a moment, he felt her hand between them, and his eyes flew open, only to find Hermione--oh shite-- touching herself. He cleared his throat. "I'd be happy to do that for you, if you like."

"Oh!" Her eyes flew open. "You looked!"

"After where you just had your mouth, you're embarrassed to have me see you putting…what is that, anyway?

"Lubricant," she whispered, avoiding his eyes. "It's supposed to make it hurt less."

Hurt…less? "I don't want it to hurt at all."

"Well, I'm afraid--I don't think you can help it, Ron. But, honestly, it should only hurt at first, I just need to get used to you, and I mean, what with the fact that I've used tampons and all, it may not even bleed…"

Ron had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but that was nothing unusual, especially when she was talking about…female things. Of course his father had explained stuff like periods and tampons to him about the same time that he had explained how babies were made, but Ron had found the whole conversation mortifying, not to mention a little hard to believe. Of course, it took him a few years to come to the startling realization that his father had neither been lying nor joking when he claimed that people actually did all that on purpose -for fun, actually (although his father had said it was more about love.) And every one of the changes that his dad had predicted Ron's body would go through had actually happened just as he'd said they would, making Ron wish he'd paid more attention to what Arthur had said about girls and their changes. Hermione's words made a strange sort of sense, but he did find one possibility a little jarring.

"Hermione, are you on your…period now?"

She stared at him, wide eyed. "What? No! That's not till next week."

Ron closed his eyes and sighed in relief. "Then why were you talking about…tamp…?"

Hermione mercifully interrupted him. "Oh, now I see! What I meant…I mean, I've used them…in the past, so the membrane, er, shouldn't be an issue."

"Right," Ron said, hoping that the tone of his voice made it clear that he had gotten the picture and she could stop talking at any time, preferably sooner rather than later. Now that he thought about it, some speculative dormroom conversations were coming back to him, and she was beginning to make perfect sense. And then, that conversation with Bill started coming back, too; the conversation by the pond the summer before the World Cup, where Bill stressed the importance of being gentle, and making sure that the girl was ready, and seeing to it that she had a good time too. Ron was fairly certain sure that Hermione was having a good time, or rather, she had been, until she started getting all…technical on him and he had managed prove himself utterly clueless, as usual.

"I've wrecked the mood, haven't I?" she whispered, her cheeks burning.

"Oh, no!" he protested, then snorted and shook his head. "It'd be nearly impossible to get me out of the mood at this point. I'm about ready to burst with wanting you. Besides, you wouldn't be Hermione if you hadn't researched and planned and…"

"Taken all the spontaneity out of it…" she giggled.

He laughed along with her, touching her face affectionately. "I'd say telling me you wanted to shag me in the middle of pudding was pretty damn spontaneous, Hermione."

"It was, rather, wasn't it?" She preened a little, and then got that woman-on-a-mission look back on her face. "Tell you what: why don't you kiss me again, and I'll put some of this…stuff on you, and we'll see how quickly we can get back on…"

"Schedule," he teased, and then did his best to give her a kiss that would take her breath away. She returned the favor by grasping him in a very warm, wet hand, and all remaining thoughts of his scarlet-faced father, gently and haltingly explaining the facts of life, mercifully flew from his brain.

"So bloody good…you're getting really good at that," he groaned, kissing her shoulder as she, with increasing confidence, slid her slick, closed fingers up and down his shaft.

"So I'm not pulling a mandrake out of a pot anymore?" she asked, and he could just picture her smug smile he felt her breath against his neck.

"Just try not to yank it off," he said, sliding his hand between their bodies and slipping a finger inside her. Instead of a teasing reply, she only moaned, and he found he liked that even better. He didn't know if it was the potion she had applied to herself or her body's response, but he reckoned that she was more than ready for him. That didn't stop him from exploring her slick flesh for a bit longer—she did seem to enjoy it, after all.

"Need to be inside you," he whispered against her ear.

"Yes..." she panted, releasing him from her grasp and sliding a damp hand around his hip and onto his arse.

With his heart pounding to the point of bursting in his chest, he maneuvered his body into position between her legs while she raised her knees to either side of him. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, and he pressed into her, biting the inside of his cheek to remind himself to go slowly and carefully.

Hot…and wet, and fucking amazing. But tight. Almost too tight, as if… He realized that he had closed his eyes as he had begun his agonizingly slow progress, so he opened them quickly, wanting to look at her to see if she looked uncomfortable. He realized belatedly that, instead of wrapping her arms around him, or grabbing his arse like she had been doing earlier, her hands were against her sides, fists clenched. And then it occurred to him that her whole body seemed to be clenched up; from her jaw to her scrunched-up eyelids and even the legs that had his hips in something of a vise-like grip--which might have explained the difficulty he was having.

"Hermione? Am I hurting you?"

"No…not…It's not bad, it's just…"

Not bad. Just what a bloke wants to hear at a moment like this. "Hermione, you're going to have to relax a bit, or this isn't going to work. Or at least…it's probably going to be bloody uncomfortable both of us…D'you want me to stop?"

"No! Really, I want this…"

Could have fooled me. Using every ounce of self-control he had, he halted his progress, even pulling back a little, waiting until she looked him in the eyes again.

"I love you," he said, giving her his most reassuring smile. She managed to smile back weakly, and he gave her a long, slow, wet kiss, sliding one of his hands over a breast at the same time. He could feel her heart pounding against his palm. He thought about that little sigh that she would make sometimes when they used to snog, and he thought maybe that something like that was needed here, so he kissed and caressed her, trying to think about anything but where his cock was and how incredible she felt around him. Little by little her body began to relax, and by the time he heard her sigh into his ear, he had sunk so far into her that he couldn't go any further.

He lifted his head again and they looked at each other in amazement. Her smile was clearly genuine this time.

"Brilliant," he breathed, hardly daring to move, but really, really wanting to. "You all right, then?"

"Yes, I think so," she replied, wriggling a little, experimentally.

He groaned, thinking that she was far too good at torturing him and deciding that he had endured more than enough. With a sharp intake of breath, he began to slide out of her.

"Oh," she squeaked, and he was surprised that he could hear it at all, because the roaring in his ears had started up again, and nothing had ever felt as madly, earth-shatteringly good as the friction between their bodies. He moved forward again, and this time she participated, meeting him part of the way there, and he thought that the resulting crash between their bodies was about a million times better than the friction had been. Apparently, so did Hermione, because she moaned in a way he was fairly certain hadn't had anything to do with pain, and then she repeated the movement, over and over again. Ron found that, impaired as his hearing was, the sounds that did register in his brain managed to heighten his arousal to the point that they seemed to be amplified by a magical megaphone. Every sigh, every moan, every exhalation of air that she made sent him closer and closer to the edge until she cried out, which immediately sent him plummeting over it.

That had to have been it. Bill said that I would know without a doubt when it happened for her, and I've never heard her yell like that. And I couldn't have lasted a second longer, anyway. And it was fucking brilliant.

Every happy thought, every feeling of confidence and exuberance he had ever felt had combined into one surge of pleasure and lust and something like an intergalactic, magical, mystical, cosmic 'hell, yes!' that ended with him feeling utterly boneless, pathetically grateful, and filled with contentment. He kissed her, nearly missing her mouth in his exhaustion and slumped to her side, pulling her closer to him and throwing his leg over hers.

"I love you," he mumbled sleepily, and she responded with the same words, turning her body around until she was spooned against him. He kissed her shoulder and closed his eyes, thinking that he felt a little sticky, but not really caring enough to do something about it. He'd almost drifted off to sleep when he absentmindedly kissed her shoulder again, and something about the way her skin felt under his lips felt wrong, making him open his eyes again. The first thing he saw was her shoulder, and although at first glance, it looked perfectly normal—well—beautiful, really, he could feel the tension under her skin. Then again, he should also have been clued by the fact that she couldn't settle into sleep--that she kept twitching and shifting in his embrace, but he had reckoned that maybe she was too warm.

Finally she turned back to him, kissed the tip of his nose, and said, "I need to use the loo before I fall asleep."

"Yeah, right," he murmured, but a minute later he heard the sound of running water, and sat, bolt upright, in the bed, running his hands through his hair.

She was taking a bath. Now this, in itself, was not really unusual; it was something that she often did to relax. And, in the present circumstances it ought to have made a great deal of sense (even he felt a little messy, after all, and she was constantly accusing him of being a right old slob.) It occurred to him, however, that if she was anywhere near as content as he was about what they had just done, she ought to have been a hell of a lot more relaxed, maybe even exhausted.

Too exhausted to do anything but lie there like a useless lump. Of course, it could have been explained by nervousness about the enormous step they had taken, but somehow Ron doubted it.

Hermione was restless, that much was clear. Which, judging by the complete contrast to his utterly relaxed body and mind, meant that he had not been able to make her feel anything close to what he had felt.

Utter rubbish at shagging. And why should you be surprised? She probably yelled like that because you hurt her. Missed signals--story of your life, isn't it? And for the next forty years, hell, for the next hundred years, when anyone asks her about the first time she shagged--no, made love--she's going to say something like, 'Well, Ron had a great time, anyway!'

Bugger. I always knew that everything I touch is crap.

Unless…