Chapter 43
A/N 1: For those of you allergic to citrus, I advise a quick skim or a skip so that I don't offend you. You can also PM me for a vanilla summary.
Without warning, and without breaking the kiss, Severus hoisted Hermione up into his arms. She gasped, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth as his hands brought her thighs up around his waist. Hermione's surprised murmur was lost in sensation as Severus began to descend the stairs, carrying her, never pulling back from the kiss. She felt light-headed, transported by the dual sensation of the descent into the bowels of the castle and the ascending fervour of the kiss. Hermione forgot everything, her spine turning fluid as she lost herself completely in the scent of woodsmoke, in the strength of Severus's arms carrying her, conveying her…
He finally released her mouth and Hermione looked around to register his dim sitting room. The dark man was studying her, holding her up easily, his breath coming out in slow, heavy pants. Disappointment flooded Hermione's chest at the regretful look in his eyes, and she tried – somewhat awkwardly – to peer down at his left forearm.
"Do you have to leave again?"
He shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching. The fire running through her flickered and, having no outlet, Hermione felt it as a weight. He set her down on her feet, and Hermione regarded him, puzzled.
"No, thankfully," he said after a long moment, "I have secured tonight as my own. No, I…" he stepped away from her and ran a restless hand through his hair. "It's very late and although I confess I did very much wish to see you – rather urgently, in fact…" he frowned as he continued, "much as my feelings for you haven't changed, nor my... my desires… I don't want to… I wouldn't want you to… that is, I…"
Hermione watched in astonishment as the dark man cut himself off. A pink flush, unmistakeable even in the soft lighting, appeared high on his cheeks.
"Severus." She reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear. The colour pinking his cheeks deepened, and Hermione felt a rush of affection for him. "Are you quite finished babbling?"
She couldn't forbear a laugh when his frown deepened into a familiar scowl. She leaned forward and kissed his downturned lips. He pulled resolutely away from her, crossing the room and putting his back against one of the underwater windows, arms folded tightly across his chest.
"Hermione," he bit out, "I don't think you understand. I don't know if you realise the…" he paused, nostrils flaring, "the effect you have on me. I keep that part of myself as… as restrained as I can and…", she had never seen him so inarticulate before, "I can't trust myself to… I don't know if I can… restrain myself…" he trailed off, seeming unable to continue, his eyes drifting down to the floor near his feet.
"Well," Hermione answered, crossing the room. His trepidation filled her with something entirely different, something dark and delicious. She stopped in front of him. "I don't think you realise the effect you have on me, Severus. And as for restraining yourself..." He met her eyes, and the desire she saw there put the seal on her certainty. "Don't."
Severus stilled where he stood, and Hermione smiled gently at the astonishment in his eyes.
"Be careful of how you command me, Granger," the dark man said after a moment. He reached out, his warm, long-fingered hands grazing up her arms to land on her shoulders. "Because I would have you know…" his grip suddenly turned forceful, and he spun her so that her back was now pressed to the chilly underwater window. He stepped forward fluidly to press his entire body against her, the contrast of his heat to the cool window making her gasp. His next words were spoken directly into her ear, his breath warm against her neck. "I'll have you know, Hermione, that my original promise holds true." He pulled back to look into her eyes, his stare so full of suggestion that Hermione had to squeeze her knees together to keep them from buckling. "I will take you tonight, and I will not let you go."
It wasn't a question. Yet it was.
Hermione gazed back at Severus, whose eyes swept over her face inquisitively, even as his arousal pushed against her lower belly, and his hands – gentler now – ran the length of her, from the sideswells of her breasts to her hips, to her thighs. His touch was tentative, his eyes demanding, his words still hanging in the air between them. Despite the slight apprehension rising alongside her desire – her inexperience almost palpable despite her bold assertions – Hermione used her own hands to caress his shoulders, his neck, his face, feeling his shadowy magic responding to her, before she rose up onto her toes.
"Yes," she whispered over his closed mouth.
A wordless growl was his reply. Severus swept her into his arms once more and carried her across the sitting room to his bedroom. Never one to relinquish control easily, Hermione surged up to press her lips to his neck, just below his ear. The dark man gasped, his step faltering. She turned the kiss into a bite, and he groaned, his arms trembling around her. He made it over the threshold of his bedroom, when she nibbled the skin below his ear before fastening her mouth against his skin once more. Severus pulled away from her, propelling himself forward onto the bed with Hermione in his lap. One hand supported her back, and the other came up to gently weave into her hair before reaching the nape of her neck, where it tightened, pulling her head back with slow, unyielding force.
"Now, aren't you just a plethora of contradictions," he murmured, lowering his head to place gentle, nibbling kisses along the taut line of her throat. His voice came again, a soft rumble just beneath her ear. "Conveying inexperience yet delivering dexterity." He repeated the line of kisses, this time nipping at her, running his teeth along her pulse point. Hermione felt herself trembling, her hands fisting into the front of his frock coat. "Portending modesty yet unleashing temptation." Her breath came in pants as the dark man guided her down off his lap and onto the bed. "Insinuating innocence yet manifesting wickedness."
Severus filled her senses entirely now as his body pressed hers into the mattress, his mouth plundering hers, his hands exploring her belly, her breasts. Even more so, his words reached something deep within her, resounding somewhere below her navel, sparking a flush of contradictory uncertainty and recklessness, turning her entire mind into a pink haze.
Severus chuckled at her obvious mesmerisation with his ministrations, provoking Hermione to shift, just a little, so that she could slip a hand down from where she'd been clutching his shoulder, down over the flat expanse of his chest and – boldly – around the insistent length of his erection through his trousers. The dark man caught his breath as Hermione gripped him and, following some latent instinct, stroked him. His head dropped to her shoulder and he growled as he thrust himself into her hand.
"You were saying, Severus?" she asked, and although her voice came out breathy, she was pleased to hear the edge of confidence in it as well.
"I was saying," he rose up onto his elbows and regarded her with heavy-lidded eyes, "that you, Hermione, are an unrepentant temptress, and I am eager to unveil all of your contradictions." His hand moved to her nightgown. A flash of wandless magic, and the nightgown vanished, leaving Hermione in only a thin white camisole and her knickers.
If he'd meant to surprise her, it worked.
"Wait!" she gasped,"I – "
The pink haze broke.
Suddenly, painfully conscious of her scarred, asymmetrical breasts, Hermione used her hands to cover herself. Severus sat back immediately, and she slid away, keeping herself covered, and trying to regain the effervescent haze of a moment before. But it had fallen away, leaving her bereft, and suddenly freezing. She didn't look at the dark man, didn't want to see his face as she waited for him to react, to speak… perhaps to leave.
As though he'd heard her thoughts, Severus stood up, the bed creaking slightly. Hermione kept herself turned away from him, still trying to catch her breath, to bring back the confidence that had surged through her earlier. She hadn't even thought... hadn't considered for a moment how it might feel to have the horrible, debilitating reality of her scar seen by him. The wound seemed to grow beneath her hands as she tried to steady her breaths, bringing her back to the moment when she'd received it, breathless and despairing and -
The slip of hands over clothing… she forcibly brought herself back to the moment, listening as Severus unfastened his robes, which fell to the floor with a sigh. A pause, and then softer sounds – all of those buttons, from navel to throat - an impatient click of his tongue, another muttered vanishing spell, and…
"Hermione." She breathed deeply at the sound of his voice, watching her own hands rising and falling over her chest. "Hermione, look at me." His voice held something sweet, something that resonated around her, filling the air between them with a mellow, rich supplication she couldn't ignore. She turned to peer at him.
The flickering candlelight revealed Severus, angular and pale, naked but for a pair of black boxer briefs. She took in his shoulders, broader and more solid than you would guess, his elegant limbs lined with long, ropy muscles, the sparse black hairs across his chest thickening into a line down his flat stomach. The light glinted on something beneath the hairs of his chest, his belly. And - her breath caught - a twisting carmine scar just above the edge of the pants cut so deeply into his flesh that it broke the smooth line of his tapering torso. Breathing slowly, Severus turned. Hermione gasped when she saw that the scar thickened around his midriff, climbing up into a gruesome, jagged gash all along his left ribs, and down into a twisting spiral that stretched on beneath his pants, reappearing on the back of his left thigh. It wasn't the only scar. Dozens of interlacing white lines were slashed across Severus's skin.
Her breath left her in a rush and, without realising what she did, Hermione moved to the edge of the bed as Severus finished his slow turn. She touched the carmine scar, and her fingertips seemed to thrum with the dark man's magic, with his heat, with his certainty in himself. And she saw something else when he met her eyes: his certainty in her. He smiled down at her as she traced the lines of his terrible scars with her fingertips. His own hand caressed her hair, her cheek. He leaned down, and Hermione lifted her chin, expecting a kiss. Instead, he spoke.
"You are perfect," Severus whispered. His eyes, boring into her own, pressed the truth into her very mind. "You are perfect, and I am a lucky bastard to be in the same room as you, let alone to share your bed."
His words unlocked something that had lodged itself into the wound on her chest. Effervescence returned, a sudden blaze filling her once more, and Hermione closed the space between them, rising to her toes to capture his mouth in hers. She ran her hands over his chest, luxuriating in the solid, steady feel of him.
The dark man broke the kiss after a moment and peered into her eyes as his own hands descended from her face to brush down her neck and onto her shoulders. She took a deep breath as his fingers slipped beneath the straps of the camisole and he began to pull the garment down, deftly but slowly, giving her plenty of time to stop him. He leaned forward, kissing her cheek as he uncovered her breasts and her belly, as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her knickers.
"I will show you, Hermione," he said, his voice lost in her hair. His fingers fluttered gently at her hips, pushing both camisole and knickers to the floor. She shivered, but not with shame this time. His hands lingered on her hips, drawing her closer. "Will you let me show you just how perfect you are?"
He drew her against him, and Hermione thrilled at the sensation of his bare skin on hers, the hard planes of his chest pressing against her breasts.
"Yes," she answered.
The man pulled back and began to gently but irresistibly bend her over his arm so that her back bowed, presenting her chest – exposed and vulnerable – to him.
"Perfect," he said, his glittering eyes drinking her in for a long moment before he bent his head to her left breast, kissing around it before taking the nipple into his mouth, sucking gently at first, then insistently. Hermione cried out, closing her eyes, fire igniting in her breast and flashing down over her skin to echo deep within her core. "Yessss," he hissed, his mouth moving across her chest, planting a kiss on her sternum before reaching her scarred breast. Hermione shuddered as his tongue moved over the uneven flesh, awakening nerves she'd thought long dead. "Perfect," he said again against her skin, "perfect." He put paid to his words, kissing her, coaxing her, persuading the sensation back into her flesh until Hermione cried out once more.
He raised his head, and Hermione beheld a different man than she'd ever seen before: shirtless, chest rising and falling rapidly, hair a black silken tangle, eyes liquid with lust, Severus stared at her, marking her with his intentions.
Hermione straightened up. She had intentions of her own.
"You have the advantage of me, Severus."
She reached down between them, flattening her hand against his belly so that she could slide her fingers into his pants. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, his eyes closing when she found his length and ran her fingers over the soft skin. She moved forward and kissed his chest as she stroked him, using her other hand to, somewhat fumblingly, get rid of his pants.
"Gods, Hermione," the dark man whispered hoarsely, his hands running up and down her back in restless circles as her fingers moved over him. She added her other hand, cupping him from underneath, learning his body as he hissed in approval.
She was just moving to her knees, intending to taste him, to turn his muted groans into something louder, when he stepped back. Ignoring her murmur of protest, he lifted her bodily onto the bed, following quickly so that he covered her once more, his naked body over every inch of hers. Refusing to be distracted, Hermione slipped her hands downwards, trying to find him again, but Severus clasped her wrists, pressing her down onto the bed.
"You are a temptress, aren't you, Hermione? Will I have to hold you down to keep you in check?" He nipped playfully at her neck, making her shy away slightly, all while slipping first one, and then the other of his thighs between hers. "Will I have to bind you to make good on my promise to show you?"
His words filled her with a heady mixture fascination and desire, and she felt heat climb simultaneously into her face, and descend down, deep into her centre. He peered at her, and grinned at whatever it was he saw.
"Oh, I think you might have liked that, my bossy, disobedient witch," he moved his hips forward slightly and Hermione moaned when his length pulsed against her. He lifted his head once more, and rose up slightly, looking down at her, running his eyes hungrily over her, stretched out beneath him. "Not tonight, though…" he trailed off, his eyes meeting hers with a look of such heated promise that Hermione's breathing hitched. "Tonight, I would rather taste much sweeter delights."
His hands released her as he bent forward, lavishing her breasts with attention once more before moving down, trailing lingering kisses over her abdomen until he arrived at the hollow of her hip, which he licked with the flat of his tongue.
"Severus!" she gasped when his agile fingers, which had been tracing circles over her inner thighs, moved to her centre.
"Yes?" The skin of her belly erupted in gooseflesh as his breath swept over her. "Would you have me show you, Hermione?"
A wicked light sprang into his eyes, and he regarded her for a long moment, deliberately licking his lips. She couldn't speak anymore, not when he was looking at her that way, not when she could feel heat over every part of herself. She nodded, and Severus bent his head.
His fingers began a careful, gentle probing, and his mouth joined them, opening her gently, exquisitely. Hermione lost track of everything except the feeling of Severus's mouth and hands on her, the pleasure mounting in ever-increasing increments as his clever fingers and warm tongue moved on her – in her – coaxing her ever-upwards. Her hips bucked, her hands wound themselves into his hair, and her whimpers turned slowly into moans and then cries as the dark man pressed his tongue just so, moving with her, clamping his other hand to her hip to keep her still until she broke apart, her entire body clenching and pulsing in waves.
"Perfect," the dark man's voice was in her ear again, his lean body over hers.
He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her cheek. She turned her head and caught his lips in her own, tasting her own pleasure as the afterglow melted away bit by bit, and as she became ignited once more by curiosity. She broke the kiss.
"My turn."
She met his eyes assertively before wriggling to get out from beneath him. Severus shook his head, his mouth quirked into a smirk. His thighs moved outwards slightly, stopping her movements, and keeping her in place beneath him.
"Incorrigible," he intoned, "imperious…insufferable woman."
"Yes, I am." Hermione reached down between them and took him in hand once more, causing him to clench his jaws and groan. "So you'd best give me what I want, Severus."
He reached for her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm before placing it firmly on the mattress.
"Another time, I will let you have your complete, licentious way with me, Hermione. But I have something rather different in mind for tonight."
He shifted forward onto his elbows, and Hermione gasped when she felt his length – hard and hot and insistent – at her entrance. Severus stopped and looked down at her, eyes suddenly soft.
"Oh," she said, nervousness filling her alongside desire. "I'm just… I haven't ever… Just, go slow."
The dark man's smile filled his eyes, and he bent down to claim her mouth in a gentle kiss. He pulled back to study her face.
"I want you to tell me…" his voice was a silken whisper. "Tell me exactly what you want me to do, Hermione."
Another wave of scarlet heated up her skin at his words, and her inexperience resurfaced once more.
"I don't know if I can…"
Severus bent close once more, kissing her temple, her hair.
"Do you want me inside you, Hermione?"
She shuddered beneath him, and he pressed forward, taking her earlobe gently between his teeth.
"Mmmm, yes," she mewled.
"Tell me, then." His mouth moved from her ear, tracing its familiar, sensuous path down her neck. "Tell me, Hermione."
"I –" one of his hands moved down her belly to her centre, finding the wetness there, preparing her, "Oh God yes. I want you… inside me."
Severus shifted, positioning himself once more at her entrance. Hermione couldn't help holding her breath, her muscles tensing as she anticipated pain.
"None of that," the dark man rasped gently. His hand ran over her breasts, her belly, the curve of her hip. "Breathe, Hermione."
She looked into his eyes, steadying herself, matching her breaths to his. He held her gaze while his hand soothed the tension from her body, while he leaned forward slowly-slowly-slowly, and the pressure mounted. Hermione felt herself straining to accept him, to open. Her breathing turned ragged, almost panicked.
"Tell me," he whispered again, his dark eyes holding hers reverently.
This time she had an answer.
"I want to open," she whimpered, voicing her deepest desire at that moment. "I want to open, Severus."
"Oh, yesss," he hissed, and the look of naked hunger in his eyes was enough. Heat flooded her core, the tension in her thighs gave way, and Severus slid forward with a soft groan until he was seated within her. "Oh gods, yes."
His mouth found her throat once more, and he traced runes on her skin with the tip of his tongue. Hermione breathed slowly as the red edge of pain gave way to something different, as she felt herself yielding to him. She ran her hands over his shoulders, feeling the strength and breadth of him, before shifting her pelvis slightly, causing him to twitch in response inside of her.
"Mmm…" he groaned against her neck. "I am trying very hard to obey you right now, Hermione… to go slow…"
She smiled at that, tensing the muscles she had found once more, and enjoying his resultant shudder. Her nervousness was falling away alongside whatever tension had remained, leaving only a soft glow, and that same undeniable curiosity. True to form, Hermione followed the latter, shifting her hips, rolling her pelvis forward. Severus's low, groan had her toes curling, her centre overflowing with heat.
"Maybe I don't want you to obey me, Severus. Maybe I want you to…" she thrust her hips upwards, a little clumsily, but he gasped in response.
"Yes?" he asked breathlessly, his eyes roving over her face.
"Maybe I just want you to… to take me. Like you promised to do."
Eyes glittering, he leaned forward and fastened his mouth to hers in a thorough, languorous kiss. She was feeling lightheaded when he broke away.
"As you wish, Hermione," the dark man said.
He moved over her, shifting so that he rocked within her, establishing a slow, deep rhythm. The discomfort was disappearing, transmuted into a tingling fullness as Severus gradually lengthened his thrusts. The intense pleasure he'd conjured within her earlier was replaced by a slow-building tension somewhere deeper. Hermione moved with Severus, heightening that tension, guided by the enraptured look on his face. He began to huff out breaths in earnest, his burning eyes travelling from her face, down over her breasts and belly, to where he slid in and out of her. Hermione watched him, feeling that rising tide of tension falling away slightly as her curiosity arose once more.
Leaning up, she caught his mouth in her own and twisted beneath him, pushing at one of his shoulders and shifting one of her hips. Severus resisted the movement for a moment, but Hermione deepened the kiss, thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. He moaned, distracted, slanting his tongue against hers as his hips snapped in a hard thrust. She shifted her weight, rolling their intertwined bodies. Hermione pulled back from the kiss and smiled down triumphantly at Severus, who now stared up at her, his body pale against the dark green sheets, his eyes blazing in a way that made it easy for her to know what to do. She moved over him, her hips a little clumsy at first, her hands tracing down his lean torso. His eyes went out of focus, and a groan of bliss escaped him.
"Impudent –" he gasped out between thrusts of her hips, "and… impish…" his hands reached up to her breasts, "and utterly fucking magnificent."
She grinned at him, quickening her pace and watching the unfocused sheen glazing over his eyes.
"You broke your alliteration, Severus," she leaned down, planting a kiss on his neck, just below his ear, "is something distracting you?"
"I'll show you something distracting," he growled.
She expected him to roll them back over, to take control once more, but Severus surprised her. He slid both hands down her back until he cupped her bottom, and then he shifted them both up the bed, so that he sat up with his back against the headboard. Hermione now sat at a height with him, gasping at the sensation of having him filling her so completely in this new position. Severus raised an eyebrow, and she let out a long, low breath.
"Oh," was all she could say. His answering smile was feral, his hands expert as they guided her in a new movement, a swivelling grind rather than a thrust. "Oh, God…"
Her body took over completely, the mounting tension irresistible now. Severus attacked her mouth, his hips thrusting up to meet hers. She had wanted to prolong it further, this moment of delicious discovery, and yet the dark man drove her towards something that had been just out of reach, but which surged up through her now, so that she pulled away from his kiss, almost screaming in ecstasy. She felt herself contracting around him, her arms pulling him closer, her hips going still as the climax rolled through her from toes to crown. It was only as she came down, her body loosening and lengthening once more, that she realised Severus was whispering fervently in her ear.
"That's it, my Hermione, you come so beautifully. That's it, once more now, impudent witch, come with me now –"
His hips thrust upwards against her, and her sensitive flesh – so close to overstimulated – responded before she could even react. The dark man drove her forward into oblivion once more, but this time Hermione thrust in return, squeezing her inner muscles, demanding that he join her at this apex of sensation. Severus, surprised by her last bid for control, thrust his hips erratically, his length pulsing within her, his entire body going rigid as he came.
Sweating and panting, shaking and gasping, they fell back onto the sheets. Hermione felt a languid, perfect peace settling over her as Severus threw an arm around her waist, muttered something about temptation and insufferable know-it-alls, and pulled at her until her back was tucked neatly against him. Hermione lost herself in sleep even as his hands travelled up and down her body, his lips pressing against the back of her neck, his body relaxing around hers.