"You should talk to him, Granger."

"Absolutely not."

Hermione's fun night out with a friend had turned into a bootlegged version of The Bachelorette, and she was in desperate need of more alcohol if she were going to survive any more of Pansy's matchmaking.

"Oh, come on. His biceps are the size of my head. Imagine those arms picking you up, flipping you around and—"

"He's wearing a shirt that says, 'Smash The Meatriarchy.'"

The wheels turning in Pansy's brain visibly sped up as she blinked at Hermione, looking for some way to spin such an egregious choice of clothing in a positive light.

"Well, he must be vegetarian then. He has a cause! You love a cause."

Hermione arched an eyebrow and said nothing, and that was all it took to have Pansy collapsing into her seat, arms crossed petulantly just below the plunging neckline of her shirt. "Fine." A hiccup punctuated her pouty retort. "What about that—"

Pansy pointed to a far corner of the bar but her voice faded, replaced by the sound of Hermione's blood rushing in her ears.

From the crowd of sweaty bodies, a figure emerged with perfectly coiffed hair and clothing too fancy for a place like this.

Damn him, but she loved a man in a well tailored suit.

Keeping her gaze locked on the approaching wizard, she hissed at Pansy through her teeth. "Why is he here?"

"I invited him."

"You what? But I told you—"

"Look alive!" With a dopey grin, her irritating companion waved the man over.

She was going to kill Pansy Parkinson, murder her right here in front of all and sundry in this sticky, overwarm Muggle bar that was getting more suffocating by the second. Slipping a finger beneath the tight collar of her blouse, Hermione tugged, inhaling slowly and straightening her shoulders as the last person she wanted to see reached their table.

"Granger." The way his mouth curled around her surname was irritatingly distracting, washing her in remembered sensation from that night last week when he'd been whispering it against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

"Malfoy."

She hadn't seen him since the stuffy Ministry party where they got pleasantly tipsy on cheap wine and stumbled into an abandoned room, all tugging hands and greedy mouths.

Never would she admit it, but since then she'd been purposely avoiding him at work, peeking down corridors to be sure the coast was clear and arriving early each day to dodge any tension-filled lift rides with him and that stupid, smarmy smirk.

It had been working perfectly, too, until Parkinson and her aggressive meddling got involved.

Gracefully lowering his tall frame into the empty chair beside her, he struck up a conversation with Pansy, and Hemione was reminded exactly why she'd been avoiding him.

Despite the long list of the many reasons why doing anything with Draco Malfoy was a terrible idea—chiefly because he thought he was Merlin's gift to witches everywhere and she refused to inflate his ego any further no matter how talented he was with his fingers, and secondly because she'd told him the day she was transferred to the same department as him that he could bat his eyelashes at her and sink those pearly white teeth into his surprisingly plump lower lip all he wanted to no avail; she was immune to his charm—there she sat inhaling his sinfully delightful cologne and contemplating round two.

Space; she needed space. His proximity was fogging her mind.

"Excuse me." Pushing out of her chair, she headed for the toilets to splash some water on her flushed face and give herself a stern talking to.

Maybe he won't say anything.

Maybe he'd be a gentleman and let her flagrant hypocrisy slide.

An unladylike snort escaped her at the thought. Yeah, right.

Pushing the door open with her shoulder, she turned down the long hallway that dumped back into the bar but was brought to a halt when a large hand wrapped around her elbow and tugged her into the small room used by performers before they took the stage. The fingers grasping her wand unclenched one by one as the flickering light from a dingy sconce illuminated the face staring down at her.

"Do you always accost unsuspecting women, or am I just lucky?"

"Only when they ask me to."

"I certainly haven't." The stern tone lost some of its power when he pointedly looked down to where her hand was possessively stroking over the muscles of his chest, and she snatched her hand back as if she'd been burned.

"Admit it, Granger. You want me."

Scowling, Hermione jabbed her index finger into his sternum and craned her neck back to glare up at him. "I do not. It's simply my hypothalamus doing its job in stimulating production of the..." In the middle of her logical explanation, her eyes caught on his mouth, the tip of his tongue peeking out to wet his lips. For a moment, the only thing on her mind was an unquenchable need to catch his bottom lip between her teeth and give it a nibble. What had she been saying?

"Th—the sex hormones."

"Sex hormones? Do tell." Did his voice hold a bit more of a rumble than usual?

Before she realized they'd moved, her back was pressed against the wall and he was so close she could see the individual shards of color in his irises.

Too close.

So close she couldn't breathe.

"It's just chemistry."

"Right." His hand cradled the back of her neck, thumb tracing along her jaw.

She started to open her mouth to reply, annoyed by the knowing gleam in his eyes, but she changed gears, catching him off guard by surging up on her toes and kissing him soundly. The surprised noise that followed caught in his throat and changed into a groan as he slid his other arm behind her back to pull her tightly to him.

His mouth pulled away from hers, trailing down her throat and pressing lazy kisses to her skin.

A whimper escaped her when he gently sucked on that just right spot below her ear followed by a disgruntled sigh as she let her head thunk back against the wall.

Pausing his slow torment, he pulled back slightly and arched an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Pansy is going to be insufferable."

His mouth found her pulse point at the same time he slipped his knee between her legs, pressing his thigh tightly against her, and his chuckle against the side of her neck sent a shiver racing down her spine as she clutched at his shoulders, forgetting entirely about meddling friends and her complete lack of restraint in the face of temptation.

A/N: For the unbelievably lovely mightbewriting. Sending you love and light, you beautiful human.

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