a/n: This chapter took a lot longer than I expected. I wanted it to be as meaningful as possible for the relationship of the characters. I hope you enjoy ;).
Chapter 12
Riley smiled languidly to herself as she laid her head upon Severus' bare chest. It was better than she had imagined. He was truly muscular everywhere from his legs to his back and it wasn't that overly brawny muscularity. His muscles were smooth and quite lean under all those clothes. She had taken her time to touch and stroke as many as she could. She hummed a familiar happy tune to herself as she stroked his chest with her fingertips, grazing his now cool skin. He pulled his head over to her and kissed her gently on the top of her head.
"Are you happy?" He asked her with that deep voice that vibrated in his chest under her ear.
She lifted herself up from his chest and rested her weight on her elbows next to him. She looked at him, her hair draped in her eyes. Pulling her locks back behind her ears, she grinned.
"Of course I am." She said, grinning like the village idiot. The silver sheets fell from her bare shoulders and pooled by her bare chest. She didn't bother covering herself up, she liked the way he stared at her with his dark, hungry black eyes.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" He asked bashfully, tilting his head on the pillow. She imagined that she was his first from that tone of voice. She was too sheepish to admit that he was hers.
"Absolutely not." She told him, running her left hand through his black tresses of hair, in a comforting way. Her blue eyes twinkled down at him from her view above him, recalling the passionate splendor that had just occurred. His hands everywhere, her hands everywhere, his mouth everywhere, and her mouth everywhere. It was very playful and sweet at the same time. She got to touch anything she wanted without being swatted away and he got to take his time and tease her in a very Slytherin-like way.
"Just so you know, we will be doing that much more in the future." She said in a very matter of fact tone.
"I will not discourage any attempts to do so." He said with a smirk. "But next time, I will be in control, not you." He lifted his head up and captured her lips with his, pulling her down under the sheets again. She giggled like a little school girl as he kissed her from the neck down to her navel.
"Not the stomach, Severus! Anything but the stomach!" She laughed uncontrollably as he kissed her stomach relentlessly as she squirmed under him. He smiled as he watched tears stream from her eyes in merriment. Perhaps he could be happy in this lifetime. If his lifetime included her.
Riley was quite smitten as she changed the record on the record player at the foot of Severus' bed. She felt as if she could stay forever like this, in this state of happiness and warmth, even in this cold Slytherin bedroom. Severus had accio'ed other records at Riley's request which delighted her immensely when they arrived. Severus could not understand why a piece of plastic could bring such joy to a person's eyes as it did with Riley's. Her blue eyes twinkled in bliss as she lifted the lid slowly with a delicate touch and drew the needle up, careful to not scratch her beloved record. She removed the previous record and replaced it with a new one, careful to place the needle back and twisting a knob on the top. The machine once again whirred to life and the crackle of the speaker filled the room. She sighed contently as the notes on a guitar riffed out the next song.
"My life is bliss!" She cried, jumping from the floor and catapulting herself on the feathery down comforter on Severus' bed. She looked adorably cozy in his black button up shirt that was a couple sizes too large for her. She rolled around for a second in a heap of sheets and pillows and then sat up crisscrossed on his bed with her knees poking out from the shirt, exposing her tan legs. Severus sat up in bed, leaning his head back on the wooden headboard, a pillow tucked gently behind him. He looked content as well, smiling softly at her demeanor and the child-like way she mounted herself on his bed. His long black, silky hair sat untidily in strands around his head and a warmth graced his face. If only this was his morning every morning, he thought to himself.
"If all I need to do is find you music, then bliss is easy to find."
"Well, music and you." She said bluntly. Noting the frankness of her words and the abruptness of them, she actually blushed. She never revealed her feelings so quickly verbally. Sure, she was used to attention from males, but she never voiced her feelings about them to them very often. She never really enjoyed vulnerability. But with Severus now, she had a hard time holding things back.
Severus studied her frank expression and looked at her with attentive eyes, surprised at the added "you". He had never been someone's "you" before. And he would never imagine someone thinking of being with him as blissful. Although they had shared something in this bed intimately moments before, the words that left her mouth sounded surprisingly more intimate. Severus didn't know how to take her slip up so he simply pretended it didn't exist. It seemed too intimate at the moment. He smoothed the sheets in front of him with hands in what he hoped was a distracted action. The verbal knowledge that he held value in her eyes was a lot for someone who had just shared his bed for the first time.
Riley noted Severus' embarrassment at her words with a silent glance and watched as his hands tried to work out the feelings that his brain could not. As he smoothed the sheets, trying to smooth out his thoughts, a twinge of anxiety flashed in her mind. Perhaps he was afraid of her words because of his feelings for Lily. Did he still think of her? Even after all of this? Great, Riley thought sarcastically to herself. Riley was becoming mentally dramatic. Why couldn't she just be in the moment? Be happy for herself and Severus? Maybe he wasn't thinking this at all. But the question always nagged at her. She looked back and remembered the looks and the stares Severus had given the girl. If she could put those emotions she felt about this away, then bliss would truly be hers. She had to know. She had to know now. She was too invested.
"Do you still have feelings for Lily Evans?" Riley felt the words bubbling out before she could stop them and she slapped her hands over her mouth in a panic, hoping they could be gathered back up. Severus became rigid at the name, straight to the spine. He avoided her gaze, redness covering his face and creeping down his neck. Riley could have kicked herself, she really should have. She didn't want this time with him to be about someone else. But really she had to know, she couldn't let the figurative ghost lie between them. But she really didn't want to be that girl. That petty jealous girl that ruined her own—relationship? Is that what they were in now? But she needed to know. She had to know. She was putting a lot on the line here. Her heart, her badass reputation…
"I'm sorry, Severus. I know this isn't really what you want to talk about, but I need to know." The honesty in her voice and the sincere, insistent tone drew Severus' eyes up and lifted his head. She wasn't mocking him, she wasn't taunting him, she truly wanted to know. He could see it in those damn crystal blue all-telling eyes. Severus sighed, it was now or never. He hated revealing his inner true self.
"I did have feelings for her."
Riley's face unguardedly crumpled at that and she turned away, shocked at the emotion that overcame her. She knew this was coming, how could she not? Did she think her actions in this bed just erased any prior history? The words from his mouth were too much to bear. She had inklings but the confirmation had never occurred until now. She was not going to be that girl—the crier, the emotional one, the drama queen. Holy crap, she thought, she cared way more for him than she ever imagined.
Severus looked up in the silence of the situation, not hearing a reply or retort back that he had become accustomed to and saw with his dark eyes, her shielded face. Her face was twisted away from him so that he could not see her eyes. Immediately, without resignation at the sight of her pain, he removed his sheet from his waist and climbed over to her. He took hold of her slender shoulders with his large hands and turned her towards him, so that she faced him. His chiseled face studied her like a potion, deep and thoughtful, as her face swung to him. Her tanned, rosy face was hardened in a firm countenance with her cherry lips in a straight line. He had seen that look before. That was his look, the indifferent look. The detached mask that he used to keep others out. She had learned it from him. The only crack in her mask was the pooling of glittering liquid that slowly filled her eyes. She was even more gorgeous with tears in her eyes. Her black, thick lashes tried to blink back the tears as her face was pointed towards him. Severus' heart caught in his throat. He never cared about others this way. Just the way her eyes glittered stirred something deep within him. He took her chin in his large hand and wrapped her jaw with his lithe fingers, staring directly into her blue eyes with his much darker eyes.
"I did have feelings." He said as he stressed the "did" in his sentence with his low voice. His dark eyes lit up with something Riley hadn't seen before as he spoke. Something bright, something that made his eyes appear lighter than their normal shade.
"I did have feelings for her—but you." He struggled with the next words and cleared his throat gently, holding something back.
"You are ev—." Severus sucked in his breath, holding it tightly, realizing what he had almost said. Those damn sparkling eyes caused him to drop his guard. He dropped her chin from his hand and got up out the bed as quickly as he could, swinging his bare long legs to ground to figure out how to get out of the situation. Riley instantly knew the seriousness of the words that he almost uttered. The panic in his black eyes and the immediate need to escape was all that she needed to see that he meant what he was about to say. She couldn't believe it. She meant more to him than Lily, that girl he put on a pedestal. Maybe the emotions ran deeper than a physical nature where Riley was concerned.
Severus was picking up a shirt from the ground when Riley hoisted herself out of bed and grabbed his hand.
"I feel the same way." She said, pulling him to face her. His eyes locked on to her from the shirt he grabbed. He froze staring at her, with his black curtained hair draped in his face. A silent exchange traveled between the pathways of their eyes.
"I won't bring up Lily like this, ever again." She said with a firm confirmation and a nod of her head. "You are mine and I won't doubt that again." She pulled him down to her lower stance and met her lips with his as if to certify and seal her statement. He dropped the shirt from his hands and wrapped his arms around her in a solid embrace. His larger arms wrapped around her completely. An unspoken agreement was formed at that moment and no words were said, the silence was enough.
