Despite Draco's gesture of intent, Hermione's first several days back in Britain after Denmark left her no time to sift through the ways their relationship kept evolving. Growing. Taking up more space. Her first few days at home were packed with debriefings about her trip (where she conveniently did not mention the copious amounts of sex), a birthday to celebrate with the Potters, a long overdue Sunday lunch with her parents, and a non-refundable Quidditch ticket to an event she let Harry and Ron drag her to for old times' sake.
Draco had asked where and she didn't know the answer. Elsewhere seemed like the easiest fit, a fantasy slipped inside the chaos of her real life. More and more, though, it seemed like they were inventing a new branch of transfiguration, one that transformed fantasies to reality; away felt more real than home most days.
Her busy schedule barely gave her a moment to breathe and still, in her scarce spare time between meetings and obligatory social engagement and the medically inadvisable lack of sleep she got most nights, Hermione missed him. She missed the pace her life moved when she was with him.
All of which meant that she'd suddenly been back in Britain for almost a week, still barely able to catch her breath every time she thought of Draco's note.
With the mayhem of so much time getting away from her, Hermione didn't know how to broach the conversation she knew they needed to have. It seemed too important to do over owl. But when she finally saw Draco at the Ministry for the first time since returning home, his face was tight as he kept on his path across the Atrium.
She'd waited too long. Time moved too fast, her life too hectic. She only ever had time to breathe, time for him, it seemed, in other places.
She needed to get out of her head, get over herself. Draco had gone out on a limb with his note; he'd obviously tried. She owed him at least as much in return, even if time kept getting away from her.
She resolved to draft him a letter that night. She would probably need a whole bottle of wine to herself just to dull the nerves, but she would do it.
A single meeting stood between her and the end of the day. Then she could go home and prostrate herself in parchment.
Hermione walked into her finance briefing with Mabel Butler only to find Draco sitting at the small meeting table, deep burgundy button-up rolled to his elbows, revealing glimpses of the night sky sleeve that meandered from his shoulder to his elbow. It felt salacious, seeing them at work. She knew how those constellations tasted, the exact way they pulsed in time with his breathing.
A mere glimpse of them twinkling below his sleeve took her straight back. To hotel beds and muggy summer nights. Wine and dancing and kissing and sex.
The worst of it, though, wasn't the burgundy shirt, silver tie, and smart tie clip. Not the exposed forearms and tattoos. No. It was the fact that Draco was engaging Mabel in sign language right there at the table. His strong hands and long fingers gestured precisely, intimately, in ways Hermione knew she shouldn't find debilitatingly attractive. Her dress suddenly felt too tight, too heavy, like a thick wool weighing her down.
Her mouth drop open. She must have looked ridiculous, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it, still standing in the doorway of a meeting room she'd reserved for two, occupied by three.
"Oh good, you're here," Draco said, glancing over at her. His tone was clipped, professional.
"I—yes. This is my meeting."
"I asked if I could participate."
Hermione somehow managed to power her legs, one in front of the other until she stopped at the table. "Why?"
"I've been teaching myself BSL. I'm hoping to practice with a live interpretation. My vocabulary is atrocious, but Mabel has been delightfully gracious in allowing me an opportunity to practice."
As he spoke, Malfoy signed in conjunction with his words. By now, Hermione was used to him slipping into different languages with his mouth, but she'd never seen it happen with his hands. It was somehow entirely different and exactly the same.
It was distracting.
She was at work.
Hermione blinked, finding herself on unsure footing. She realized Draco was still watching her, waiting for a reaction or a response. Or something. Hermione wasn't even sure what her response was, let alone what she should say.
She sat down, pulled out her parchment, conjured a quill, and waited for Mabel to begin.
If anything of importance happened in her meeting, Hermione missed all of it. She focused most of her effort on keeping her cheeks from warming too much, but awareness only made the problem worse. The more she thought about how she was blushing, the more she blushed.
Whatever energy she had leftover went into looking resolutely at Mabel when she spoke and ignoring the way Draco's hands translated their words.
He was molding language from motion.
It was honestly obscene.
And she should not have found it so attractive.
She could barely believe he was allowed to do something like that in public.
She counted herself as fairly familiar with his hands these days. But seeing this, even in her periphery, was almost too much to handle. She felt strangely breathless by the time their meeting ended. Her cheeks and jaw and chest felt like they'd been skimmed by flames. Like she'd just barely escaped her own personal hell.
As Mabel left, complimenting Draco on his skill, Hermione struggled to pack up her parchments. Her hands felt jittery, nerves more so. What a bizarre and uncomfortable and horrible way to end her day.
The door to the meeting room clicked shut, and when Hermione glanced back, she saw Draco standing against it, watching her.
She stopped fussing with her parchments. She was still very warm, mouth very dry, and truthfully, she felt about three seconds from marching across the small room and planting her mouth on his.
"Congratulations on your additional funding," Draco said. Apparently that's what Mabel had been talking about while Hermione had so spectacularly failed to pay attention. With only the Hungarian Ministry declining her proposals, it wasn't necessarily a surprise that her project was gaining more traction. But the recognition, particularly in terms of funding, felt nice. It was a shame she wasn't in the frame of mind to celebrate her own success.
Instead she opted for, "I was going to owl you tonight."
"Oh?"
And that one syllable did it for her. She sent a locking, silencing, and notice-me-not charm at the door in rapid succession. She marched right up to him, realization simplifying her scattered thoughts.
"This could work here too," she said, pausing with the tips of her shoes touching the toes of his.
Draco wore a slight smile and a lifted brow. "I know."
"You—what?"
"I was hoping you'd agree, of course. But you seemed to need more time to think it through."
"I'm very busy."
"I'm also aware of that."
"It's easier…there."
The twitch of a smirk at the corner of his mouth gave away his amusement. "I know."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"No, I'm not. I—agree. It's just—" he paused, leaning into her space. "It is a bit ridiculous, stuck acting like strangers here." He lifted a hand, grazing the side of her jaw with his knuckles. Dipping lower, across her shoulder, down her arm, and jumping to her waist where he coiled his grip around her like a serpent, maneuvering them away from the door. He leaned closer, mouth to her ear. "We're hardly strangers, Hermione. Not when I know of at least three different ways I could have you begging for me, bent over this table. I doubt any distance can erase from my memory exactly what you look like when you're panting for it."
As Draco leaned into her, the back of Hermione's thighs pressed against the table.
"That's a bold claim. Three different ways?" Hermione let her fists gather in the fabric of his deep burgundy shirt. "I might require a demonstration."
His hands—those delightful, strong, delicate, articulate hands of his—circled her waist and lifted her to sit atop the table.
Hermione didn't recall widening her legs, nor did she remember leaning back, propping herself on her elbows. She'd become a fog, blurred lust in a Hermione-shaped body. But her senses came back to her when Draco dragged his fingers up her thighs, pushing her skirt to rest at her hips.
She blinked in a burst of clarity. "Oh my gods, not at the office. We're at work." The words burst out of her in a gasp, just as warmth dropped low, delicious when he ran a finger along the gusset of her knickers.
"Was that your last meeting?"
"It was." Her voice came out quaking, trembly. She struggled to push herself back up.
Draco cupped her, palm delivering pressure against her core as he leaned in to kiss her. Articulating untold languages against her lips, he hooked his other hand around her waist and helped pull her straight.
"The workday is over," he continued, whispered words breathed against her skin. Words she felt, words she tasted.
"Where should we go?" she asked
He smiled against her mouth, pulling back enough to say, "If you're amenable, I'd like to show you my home."
"Staying in the country?" She rocked against his palm, not entirely sure if the movement had been intentional. All she knew was that his hand was strong and steady between her legs and if she shifted forward at just the right angle, it exploded a bright jolt of pleasure up her spine.
"Staying in for a long time, I think. We have the whole weekend, if you're up for it."
—
Skirt righted, hair smoothed, and senses on overload, the walk through the Ministry, hand held in Draco's, was simultaneously one of the best and worst series of minutes in her life.
It was thrilling, in one sense, to let whoever looked look. To let them see that they weren't hiding anything. That home was no different than away, that they could have both.
But it was also torture, subject to Draco's touch, already strung tight by just the fantasy of it, and anticipating the moment the Floo whipped them away to a private place where Hermione could indulge in any number of private activities without guilt over her professionalism.
She held her breath when he spoke his address in the flames. She'd known he didn't live at the Manor anymore, one of many things she'd learned about him over wine and cheese plates and late nights in scenic places, but hearing him speak a relatively normal London address struck her with a strange sense of ease.
This could work. It could be as simple as that. Maybe Draco Malfoy could be an international lover and domestic date. Perhaps she could have both.
Her thoughts spun when she did, whipping through the Floo, only to come out the other side in what looked like a high-end, modern flat.
Draco gave her no time to find her bearings. His hands landed on her waist and jaw in tandem, pressing her to the wall beside the fireplace and pinning her there. He kissed her until she was breathless, until she had to yank hard at the front of his shirt just to fight for air.
She felt lightheaded, dizzy in more ways than one, when he shifted his attention to her jaw, down her neck. She descended too, hands down his chest, searching for his belt buckle.
She gasped against his shoulder when he lifted her from the ground, carrying her through a finely decorated living room, down a dim corridor he didn't bother lighting up, and into what could only be his bedroom.
Hermione laughed as she landed on his bed with a bounce, deposited there like he couldn't wait another second to see her in it. The look on his face confirmed that suspicion. A dark grin commanded his features, spread wide. She shivered at the idea of all the things he might do to her. That she might do to him. What they could do together, in the same place, speaking a common language.
"Unbutton your blouse," he said, taking in a deep breath and leaning against one of his bedposts, looking down at her.
Hermione lifted a brow, trying to match that imperious look he so often deployed. "Unbutton your trousers."
He smiled and did exactly as she bid. It only seemed fair then that she did as he asked as well. She unbuttoned four buttons before he spoke again. "That's enough."
She looked down at herself, only unbuttoned to her navel. Draco, on the other hand, had his belt buckle undone, trousers open, and pants shoved down. He stroked himself slowly, gaze fixed on her chest.
"Pull the bra down?" he asked, voice low. While he watched her, she watched him, thoughts circling back to the sign language she'd had no idea he knew.
She pulled the cups of her bra down, exposing her breasts to his bedroom. His fingers flexed, pace faltering for just a moment.
"So those are the five then?" she asked, reaching up to toy with her breasts. When she rolled a nipple between her thumb and forefinger, she savored the low sound that slipped from Draco's throat.
"The five?" he asked. He propped one of his knees up on the bed, leaning closer.
"Your five languages. English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Danish, and BSL?" She tore her gaze from his cock to look up at his face, to watch the way he smiled at her.
"Why don't you pull that skirt up some? Let me see a bit more of you?"
It didn't escape her notice how he'd failed to answer her question. But she was too distracted by the way he'd pushed off the bed, stepped closer, and then positioned himself with both knees on it this time.
Her mouth watered. He was close enough now that if she leaned forward, she could easily take him in her mouth. She pinched her nipple harder, rolling it roughly. One of his hands wound its way into her hair, locked in her curls with a firm grip.
"The sign language is new."
"It's what?" she asked
"I only started teaching myself after you mentioned it."
"In Portugal?"
He nodded.
"But…why?"
She followed as he tipped them against the bed. She writhed when his hand descended from her hair, over her breasts, beyond her rucked up skirt, and to her knickers. He didn't bother teasing her over the fabric this time, he just slid it to the side and stroked her. She bowed off the mattress, eyes rolled as he sank one, then two fingers inside her.
"It seemed important to you," he whispered into her ear. "And I do like languages. I'm good at them. It's nice to do something good with my skills."
As he spoke, she clutched blindly at him, clamping onto his arms, his shoulders, holding herself in place lest the steady rhythm he set pumping his fingers had her squirming right out of his bed.
He placed a kiss to the center of her chest, where surely she'd already flushed pink. Lower, he pulled a nipple between his lips and used his tongue—that horribly talented tongue of his—to tease her.
"What's the fifth one, then?" she asked through a haze, dragging her fingers through his soft hair
He didn't answer, not at first. Instead, he increased his pace, angling his hand in a new way, palm pressed against her clit with every thrust. It tore a broken sound from Hermione's throat, head thrown back against Draco's mattress. She wasn't even against his pillows, still on top of all the blankets. She hadn't even made it fully into this man's bed and she was already a total wreck.
"Draco, I—"
I'm going to come.
I want you inside me.
I'll beg if I have you.
Please, please, please.
She had lots of things she meant to say, but her throat closed up, jaw held tight, pleasure pulling her taut. Mere seconds stood between her and oblivion.
She felt Draco's breath against her neck again, tongue toying with the shell of her ear. "Combien de façons puis-je te prendre, Hermione? Combien d'endroits? Ça suffit? Pour te garder?"
French. Of course it was French. She had no idea what he said, not that it mattered. It felt as familiar as it did foreign, and it stretched her to a snap. She held him tight, not sure if her hands were in his hair or on his neck or pressed against his chest. She only felt the freefall, the rush, and then the press of his mouth to hers when she came back down.
Distinctly, she caught the words mon amour spoken into her skin. She suspected, if given enough time, she'd find them in a note slipped beneath her door, too.
Rough Translations:
Querida: darling
Edesem: sweetheart
Elskede: beloved
Mon amour: my love
Combien de façons puis-je te prendre, Hermione? Combien d'endroits? Ça suffit? Pour te garde?: How many ways can I have you, Hermione? How many places? Is this enough? To keep you?