Once again, a big thank you to my gorgeous beta, MissyJAnne85, you know I can't do it without you. I give you all my love!

My friends, things are heating up in this chapter ... If you know what I mean ;) Because of this, I wish to dedicate this chapter to the Queen of Smut. She always has some inspo at the ready is ready and willing to cheer you on - especially if there is a BDD. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you should. She is the one, the only, the raven_maiden. I bow down to you, my Queen.

You guys know I have a Spotify playlist for this fic, but just in case you haven't already got it open, here is the link: playlist/7BTCmw28i4216Vjia9lstP?si=UBe3p-ekR2iLszQCDDYJ1w.

We STRONGLY recommend that you listen to the second listed song for today's chapter which can be found in the end comments. It will really help *get you in the mood*

This chapter is the shortest yet, but I think you'll forgive me!

Hermione wasn't sure how long she had stood in the corridor after he had disappeared before she spun on her heel and continued with their patrol. He had spoken a lot of words that were not sitting well with her. What had she ever done that would make him think she'd give up on him? Did he think that he wasn't deserving of love or a relationship? Did he think he had the right to speak on her behalf without even attempting to listen to what she felt, wanted, needed?

By the time she had returned to their dormitory, she was fuming. If Draco didn't want anything to do with her, then he should not have damn well kissed her silly in the middle of the night. He should have let her walk away feeling foolish and ashamed and just let that be that. But no, he'd gone and kissed her senseless, leaving her lips tender to the touch, strongly hinted that he was in love with her, told her he couldn't have anything to do with her and then abandoned her in the middle of the castle and that just would not do. She was livid, and she intended to let him know that. Marching up his staircase, she threw his door open, making sure it crashed against the wall. He was in bed, but his reaction was so quick, she knew he hadn't been sleeping. He sat up like a bolt of lightning and had his wand trained on her before she could even locate him in the dark.

"Granger?" He squinted at her. Like she was the last person he expected to see.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy!" she seethed, hands on her hips. "How dare you just leave me there like that. After saying all of those things," she flailed her hands through the air. "And then not give me a chance to say anything back!"

"Granger, there is no need for you to say anything back. It was a mistake. We shouldn't have kissed again, and there is nothing for it except to forget and move on."

"Forget and move on?" She said incredulously. "I'm sorry, but is it a regular occurrence for you to snog someone, confess some kind of feelings and then just pretend it never happened? Is it something you're adept at doing, Malfoy? Because I am not!" She stamped her foot.

"Can this wait until the morning, Granger? I have practice tomorrow, and I really need to get some sleep," he said, rubbing his eyes.

Hermione's eyebrows shot up to her hair-line. She exited his room, slamming his door behind her as loudly as she had when she had entered. She ran back down the stairs, through the common room and was at her door before she heard him call to her. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. Part of her was tempted to lock herself in her bedroom and give him a taste of his own medicine, but even as she considered it, she knew she wouldn't. It would have been childish. She was too desperate to hear what he had to say, and to have the chance to say something herself. Her feet carried her back down the stairs and into the common room. She shucked her shoes off and curled up on the lounge suite in front of the fireplace, and indicated for him to take the other end.

While she sat facing him, her arms clasped tight around the knees folded in front of her, he sat with his feet on the floor, legs spread and an arm resting on each as he stared into the fire.

Hermione was desperately wishing that he had paused to put on a shirt before he had come downstairs. The green plaid pyjama pants he was wearing were doing nothing to stop her eyes from sweeping from his shoulders, over the planes of his collar bone, down his throat to his chest, and then she sucked in her breath, his abs. Oh, Morgana help her, his abs. She willed her eyes back to his face when he started to speak.

"We have to forget and move on," he said. "Because if we do it again, any wall I have built to keep you out of here," his long fingers danced an inch away from his chest. "Will have been for nothing."

"And that would be a bad thing, because?"

"Because like I told you months ago, anyone who spends large amounts of time with me winds up hating me. I'd rather you hated me from the beginning. It's - it's easier that way."

Hermione cocked her head to the side, considering him. He was wrong, she knew, but how to tell him that and make him hear it?

"I rather think it has worked in the opposite way concerning myself. I hated you for years while we kept a distance. Now we are forced together at every opportunity, and I can't get you out of my head, out of my space, and I don't want to," she hissed the words, and he looked up at her so quickly, he must have pulled a muscle. "Just what are you so afraid of, Malfoy?"

"You'll get sick of me. I'll suffocate you in the end. I'm too needy. I don't know any better, wasn't taught any better. And Granger, you're all sorts of wrong for me just as I am every kind of wrong for you."

"Has Merlin come down from his tower and said that you get to decide things for me?"

"What? I - no, of course not," he stammered, eyes narrowing.

"Then do not presume to know what is best for me. What do I need to say, to do to make you believe me? Do you think that I just decided tonight that I fancy you?" She scoffed. "It's been weeks, months, maybe longer. I don't know when it started, but I don't think it's going away any time soon. So could you just give a little? Try ?"

"Granger, nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost. Do you think the stars align for us? Will your so-called Heaven step in? Save us from our sin? Will it?"

"Taking a chance? That's the price you pay," Hermione shrugged. "You leave behind your heart and cast away. Hoping and, yes, praying that it won't be for nothing. That you won't get hurt, but you'd rather be the hunter than the prey, wouldn't you, Malfoy?"

He chuckled in response to that. Of course, he'd rather be the hunter than the prey, wouldn't everyone? "You're a natural, Granger. A beating heart of stone-"

"Excuse me?" Hermione cut him off, indignant.

"You're giving me no fucking option. You've got to be cold to make it in this world," Draco gestured through the room. Hermione assumed he meant the Wizarding world at large. He had been through a lot of ridicule in these last few months, she supposed.

"Giving you no option?" She hissed. "I am doing the opposite. Showing you that you have choices! That I am one of them!"

"No," he shook his head, a grimace on his face. "Now that I know you want me, too, you're taking my choices away. Now that I know I can have you, I don't know if I am strong enough to keep away. I'm not, I know I'm not."

"You're no exception, Malfoy. You're living your life cutthroat. You do need to be cold to make it in that kind of world. Listen to me very carefully, Malfoy. I am inviting you into my world. I want you." She dropped her hands from her legs and crawled over the couch to him.

He watched her through wary eyes, and when she pushed him back against the sofa to straddle him, he hissed through his teeth. Whether in pleasure or pain, she wasn't sure.

"Will you let me touch you?" She asked, fingers hovering over his skin.

"If I give into you, I know that I will never see my life in my hands again," he said, reluctantly placing his hands on her hips.

Hermione took that as an invitation and bit her lip in anticipation. She touched the shoulders she'd been admiring, running her index fingers along his collar bone.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "I'm not here to love you and make you just feel sane." He dropped his hands down to her thighs, while her fingers found their way into the hair at the back of his neck. "If I try to love you, I know I won't stay sane... What's the use?"

His words were barely more than a whisper, and if she hadn't been so close, she wouldn't have heard them. He was trying to talk himself out of doing all the things he wanted to, and while Hermione knew she should respect that, she couldn't bring herself to hold back. She needed him.

She dragged her hands from his hair to run them down his back, digging her nails in as they ascended back up. His hands were making short work of untucking the shirt they'd had trouble with an hour earlier, and his fingers found the skin of her back that he so desperately craved.

"My hands," he said. "My hands," he said again, more guttural this time, "weren't made to love you." He buried his face in her sweater-clad chest and breathed her in, his words muffled against the wool.

Hermione was itching for him to do something more - she needed to feel more of him than what she could reach - but he needed to convince himself first so that there would be no regrets. She didn't want to push him more than she already was. He'd already ran from her once, and she couldn't let him do it again.

"I've got no one else to run to, and this just feels right," he said quietly, his fingers tracing up her spine. Reaching her neck, he sat up and pulled her to him, searing kisses all over her face before finding her mouth and latching on as if he were in the desert and she was a mirage he could lose at any given moment.

The heat of his kiss left her feeling parched, but she kept coming back for more. When she rocked her hips against his crotch, they both groaned loudly. Their kiss broke, and she yelped when he flipped them over, leaning over her on the soft sofa, his mouth finding a sensitive spot on her neck. He sucked harder, marking her with his mouth, she arched into him, trying desperately to catch her breath. She could feel how badly he wanted her, the length of him hard against her thigh, and she started to scramble to rid herself of her clothes.

Hermione had her sweater up and over her head before she could think twice. Draco was watching her hungrily as she fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, slipping over them in her need. She wanted him to see her as she was, as nervous as it made her. The look in his eyes spurred her on. She flung her white blouse to the side and was left only in her red lace bra and her school trousers.

As he watched her, she ran her hands down her neck, over her breasts and down to the button of her pants.

His eyes met hers as he grabbed her hands. "Are you sure?"

"I want you," she said simply, and then he was kissing her again.

He broke away from her, his hand replacing hers on the band of her trousers. "Then let me take care of this."

Deftly, he undid the button and zipper, stripping her of her last remaining clothing in seconds. If she thought he had looked hungry when she took her shirt off, his expression upon seeing her matching thong was more akin to starving.

"So fucking beautiful," he murmured, drinking her in. She was just starting to squirm under the intensity of his gaze when he ducked back down and pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. Then he was palming her tits as he dipped his head lower and lower, feathering light kisses down her chest, past her stomach and down to the lining of her knickers. Her breath hitched in her throat as hot and burning need swept through her stomach, settling in a pool between her thighs.

His hands had massaged her breasts right out of the cups of her bra, and he was making light work of her already hardened nipples.

"You make the most delicious noises," he told her, just before his teeth grazed against the string sitting low on her hip.

She suddenly realised that the mewling she'd been distantly aware of was coming from her lips. As Draco slipped his fingers beneath the band of her knickers and began to pull them down, it hit home for Hermione of what they were about to do. She knew with absolute certainty that if she were to ask him to stop, he would. When had she started to trust him so emphatically?

She writhed under his caress. "Ple- please, Malfoy. Touch me. Please," the words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them. With her knickers around her ankles, he obliged and his tongue was on her, swirling around her sensitive bundle of nerves.

The sound he elicited from her mouth had her biting into her fist to keep from keening too loudly. There was very little in the way of things Hermione could grab hold of, so her fingers found their way back to his silken locks. She wove her fingers through his hair as he sucked, flicked and pressed on her clit until she was mewling his name, pressing his face to her pelvis. When the spasms hit her, he licked the cum straight from her cunt and nuzzled against her stomach, seemingly content to press kisses into her hip.

Feeling rather boneless but not ready for the experience to be over, she released his hair and sought out his hands. Lacing her fingers through his, she attempted to pull him back up her mouth. When his face was once again parallel to hers, she kissed him with a fervour she didn't know she had. He paused, and she was simultaneously shocked and pleased to feel a smile on his lips. Opening her eyes, she met his gaze.

"What?" she whispered, watching her breath lift the hair that fell into his eyes.

"Never in my wildest dreams," he broke off, shaking his head. "You are fucking perfect, did you know that?"

She moaned in response and dragged him back down to her lips, letting her hand wander farther and farther down his body until she could slip her hand under the elastic of his pyjamas. A quick squeeze of his arse had him grinning against her lips again. Hermione slid her hand to the front of his body and released his cock from the flimsy constraint of cotton, his grin disappeared and was replaced by a sharp intake of breath.

"Granger, I don't - we don't - fuck," he swore, as she flicked her thumb over the head, smearing his pre-cum as she went.

"I want you inside of me, Malfoy," she smirked, as he pulled back to stare at her. She could feel his want for her, literally throbbing into her palm, but she didn't have the nerve to look down. The feel - the size of it was making her slightly nervous. She could tell he was both longer and thicker than Ron, and although she wasn't entirely sure he would fit, she wouldn't let him see her hesitation. She stroked him lightly and watched his eyes grow darker, his cock jumping in her hand.

"Fuck," he said again. "If I get inside you, I'll be done in two seconds flat."

"No, you won't," she coaxed, positioning him at the apex of her thighs. "You'll make me scream your name again first."

"Fucking Merlin's fucking pants," he growled as he eased inside her.

Hermione groaned as he filled her. "Fuck me," she said, breathy. Both an oath and a request.

Draco watched her face with awe in his eyes. "With fucking pleasure," he snarled, sinking deeper.

When he bottomed out, Hermione resisted the urge to wriggle underneath him. Gods, he was huge. She held her breath, waiting for her body to adjust.

His breathing was harsh in her ear. When it lifted, he slipped his hands behind her back and pulled them back into a sitting position. Hermione couldn't help the gasp that escaped her as she sat impaled by him, feeling the extent of just how full she was.

"Do not move," he warned her, reaching around to properly unclasp her bra. It fell between their bodies, and Hermione quickly flung it to the side, resting her hands on his broad shoulders as he sucked a nipple into his mouth and worshipped her breast with his tongue. He held her close with one hand on her back, as the other dipped between her legs to find her clit. She could feel herself coiling tighter already as her hands tangled once more in his hair.

He set a gruelling pace on her soft nub as he switched his mouth from nipple to nipple, nipping and laving and sucking. She knew she was grinding down on him, knew she was beginning to rock her hips back and forth, and knew just how damn right it all felt.

"Oh gods," she cried out, as she felt the pressure build. "Malfoy, I'm, Merlin, I'm-" She shattered around him. He held her to him for two quick thrusts before slipping out just as he spilled onto their legs. She slid forward, mingling their juices as she clung to him, laughing.

They held each other tightly for several precious moments, collectively catching their breath.

"We're going to need contraceptive potions," she grinned into his neck.

Draco chuckled in response.


They had spent the night locked in each other's embrace. They hadn't said another word to one another, content to just be, but it couldn't last forever.

"Granger," Draco moved his arm out from under her head.

"Hmm?"

"I need to get up. Quidditch practice," disentangling his legs from hers, he winced as their skin separated. "And we should probably get cleaned up."

The sudden removal of his warmth was what snapped her out of her pleasant dreams. It was the first good night's sleep she'd had in months, and it had been spent in his arms. The realisation was not lost on her. He was pulling his pyjama bottoms back on as she sleepily reached for his hand, pulling him down for a lingering kiss.

"Just how important is Quidditch practice, anyway?" She asked when he pulled back.

"I'd like to say not very, but I'm afraid they rather can't do without me, Granger. Plus, I'm the one who requested the extra training sessions, remember?"

With a harrumph, she fell back against the sofa. Draco's eyes tracked her body as she moved.

"Go back to sleep," he said, pulling the blanket back over her. "I'll be back before you know it and we can attempt the conversation that we didn't quite finish last night."

"If you wish," she sighed, nestling back into the sofa. Hearing Draco's footsteps carry him towards the bathroom, she cracked her eyes open, wide awake and a grin from ear to ear.

Holy shit, she thought. I just had sex with Draco Malfoy, and it was bloody amazing. But what happens now?

Natural - Imagine Dragons

My Hands - Running Touch