Wedlocked
Chapter 20: The Final Countdown
Anger. That's what she felt, Hermione was certain of it.
No, panic. Panic was definitely what she was feeling.
Hermione glanced at the clock on the table and felt the jolt run through her. Yes, it was panic. They only had two hours before the Ministry came calling. Sirius had been in the washroom for close to an hour. Add to that the hour she had spent in that same room before him, and that left them far too close to the deadline for Hermione's liking. She stood and started pacing, but found it only made her more anxious. She sat, but her nervous energy had her heel bouncing off the floor.
"What's taking so long?" she fretted aloud.
"It takes a lot of work to look this good," Sirius replied cheekily.
She spun around, annoyance on the tip of her tongue. "It's about ti—" she stopped. "Please tell me you have pants on under that."
The man looked down at the towel wrapped around his hips. "I didn't see the point."
"Sirius, put some pants on," she ordered in a slightly bored tone; she sounded like she was tired of arguing, which she was.
"Well, that is why I came out. No point in putting dirty pants on a clean body, now is there?" he smiled and pulled a pair of trousers from the bureau drawer. "Some privacy if you please."
She rolled her eyes and turned her back. Within two hours, she was certain to see him naked; what did it matter if she saw him putting his trousers on under a towel?
"Modesty managed," he said, removing the towel with a flourish to show off his trousers.
"You really are a git, you know that?" she shook her head.
"It's part of my charm," he grinned.
She could only duck her head to keep him from seeing that she was smiling. He needed no more encouragement. "I—" she looked up and saw he was standing much closer than he had been just a second ago. Too close. "Will you put some bloody clothes on!" she snapped.
He took a slow breath in, "Generally, people try to get their clothes off for this sort of thing…"
"Well, perhaps I'm just odd," she growled and stepped away from him.
Unfortunately, in such a small room, there was nowhere she could go to really avoid him. The washroom might have been an option if Sirius were not blocking her path to the door, so she had to settle for standing in a far corner, facing the wall like some poorly behaved child in primary school.
The warm weight of his hands fell on her shoulders, "Hermione, it's nothing to be frightened of."
"I'm not frightened," she laughed darkly. "I'm angry, at you, at the Ministry, at Voldemort… at myself."
"Perfectly understandable," he said.
"Will you stop being so considerate?" she growled and slapped his hands away, stooping under his arm to escape him. The man would not be avoided, however. He managed to keep himself between her and the washroom door. "Get out of my way!" she shouted.
"Why? So you can hole yourself up until the deadline passes?" he asked. "I don't care how cross you are, I won't let you do that to yourself."
She huffed and stormed to a different corner, where she stayed undisturbed for several long minutes. Given their dwindling time, Hermione was surprised he left her alone. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him sitting on the bed studying some spot on the floor she had no interest in. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, she started inching toward the washroom.
The man was on his feet and before her in an instant.
"No hiding."
"I'm not trying to hide," she insisted stubbornly.
"Really? Then what are you trying to do?" he inquired.
"Think! I can't think with you here," she pushed at him, but he would not be moved. "Where's my wand so I can hex you?"
"I put it somewhere safe for now."
She glared hard at him. "You hid my wand?"
"No, of course not," he assured her. "I just put it away so you wouldn't try to kill me."
"Who's to say I still won't?"
"Provided you're going to kill me with kisses, I can deal with that," he smiled winningly and leaned in to demonstrate.
"No!" Hermione leapt back. "I will not be kissed into submission! Keep those away from me!" she ordered, pointing at his lips.
An amused smile covered his face, his chest and stomach shook with silent laughter, but he took a step back, "As you wish, but you will regret that request… I'll tell you what, how about we make a deal?"
"Like I'd trust you. You kidnapped me and stole my wand."
"I will return your wand after midnight," he promised. "The deal: You get an hour of your way. You can hide in the washroom and 'think' all you like about whatever you like." He gestured to the open washroom door. "But in exactly one hour, you come out and I get my way."
She eyed him with suspicion. "What's your way?"
"I kiss you into submission, of course," he smiled wickedly, his eyes glittering with all sorts of promises.
"What if I don't like that deal?"
He frowned as he considered it. "Then you'd sit out here getting angry at me until the deadline got so close that I would have to force myself on you because I'm not about to go back to Azkaban, not even if it means making myself the worst sort of bastard there is," Sirius said soberly. "I'm sorry."
Hermione stared at him, knowing he meant every word. "Okay…" she said quietly and ran to the washroom, slamming the door shut behind her. "One hour, not a minute less!" she called through the door.
"Smart girl," he replied.
For all her earlier claims to the contrary, once she was alone in the washroom, her fear took hold, making her feel like some tiny struggling animal in the grip of a boa constrictor. She was not afraid of having sex or even of what Sirius would think of her. She feared Sirius, a man who would rape her rather than go to prison.
She beat back the terror by sheer force of will, reclaiming her logic.
"He was in my room," she said slowly as she lowered herself onto the edge of the bathtub. "If that was all he wanted, he could have done it then. He thought I was asleep and couldn't stop him. He could have stunned me or modified my memory, but he chose to leave me alone."
Reconsidering the proposal he had offered her, she realised another fact: "He apologised, which he only does when he knows he's wrong. It isn't that he really wants to force himself on me. He wants to kiss me and make it pleasurable for me, too."
She frowned again as a con popped up on her mental list. "He is being terribly pushy. None of this would have been necessary if he had been a bit more gentlemanly last weekend. He really is old enough to know better than that," she grumbled, but her ire could not hold up to the fact that there was a deadline fast approaching. She had already established that Sirius knew better than she did how horrid prison was. His pushiness was understandable in the light of such knowledge. Looking at her behaviour from his point of view, she was simply being stupid and immature, her indignation more akin to a pouting infant who had not gotten her way.
This entire situation might have been foisted on them, but she was the brightest and most mature student in her year, she should have been able to see a way to making their relationship workable if not pleasant.
It took several minutes of silent lip-chewing, but she started to see around her insecurities.
"Maybe if I focused on the kissing it might not be so bad," she reasoned. "I've kissed before, so it isn't as if I'm completely without experience. He hasn't complained yet, so I must be adequate. I know he's good at it. So if I think of it as being forced to kiss, which is something I enjoy and don't mind in the slightest being told to do, then anything that comes about as a result of the kissing doesn't matter so much."
It seemed a bit silly, more childish even than her fears of being substandard in bed, but it was the only way she could think to approach their situation that did not have her hyperventilating.
She thought back over all the kisses she had ever shared. Excluding the life guard who used her to demonstrate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation during a class visit to the public swimming pool, she had only ever kissed Viktor before Sirius came along. Viktor had been all force and no finesse; it felt good, but that was with nothing else to compare it to. Now that she had kissed Sirius, she knew that Viktor was decidedly amateurish.
Sirius had kissed her just three times and each time was different, nuanced in a way she had never thought kisses might be. Regardless of what he thought of her ability, he kept it to himself, guiding her with his own actions. She wondered why she had not noticed sooner. If, as Remus suggested, she thought of sex and kissing as merely another subject to be studied, then Sirius had already proven himself a fine teacher. Besides, a man who could vary something as simple as lips together and massage tongues could make anything better by his involvement.
Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, the door opened and Sirius leaned against the door frame. "Your time is up."
"Okay."
"Okay? No arguments? No more shouting?"
"No. We had a deal," she said.
"Good." He held out his hand and she remembered that evening a week after their engagement when she escaped to his company. He had held her hand all the way to the kitchen. His prolonged gentlemanly gesture had led her to ask about romance novels, which of course led to her having a bookcase filled with sex manuals… and a bodice. She smiled at herself for bringing such things about as she took his hand and let him pull her through to the bedroom.
"What are you grinning at?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Nothing."
"Clearly, it's something. Tell me," he demanded gently. "This is my time. You have to do what I want during my time."
Clicking her tongue in annoyance, though she still smiled as she admitted, "I just wish I had that bodice thing Ginny gave me."
His grin fell. "You have a bodice that I could be ripping right now, and you didn't bring it with you?"
"Well, I hardly planned on getting kidnapped today, now did I?" she replied. "Weren't we supposed to be kissing during 'your time'? Those were sarcastic quote marks, in case you weren't looking."
"Cute," he scowled and stepped closer.
Instinct had her taking a step back to keep the personal space between them, but his arm curled around her waist to prevent her retreat. He was grinning again – more like smirking – as he held her eye. She felt like she ought to say something, but couldn't think of anything. Just the thought of him kissing her left her brain addled.
"My time," he reminded her and dove down to claim her mouth.
Oh, she did like how he kissed. It was never the same thing twice. Granted, this was only the fourth one they had shared. Still, Viktor kissed exactly the same way every time, regardless of whether it was their ought-to-have-been-tentative first kiss or the passionate 'I've just saved you from certain death at the hands of Mermen' kiss or the last kiss they ever shared; every one of them had been the same. Not like this. This was not the innocent wedding kiss or the angry kiss or the sneaky goodbye kiss. It, too, was different. More demanding than the goodbye without the fierce edge of the one he stole in anger; this was the sort of kiss she could enjoy for every minute of Sirius's time.
She expected him to tangle his hands in her hair like last time, forcing her to stay locked against his lips, but he must have trusted her to keep to their bargain because his hand simply cupped her face, his thumb brushing gentle circles on her cheek.
They stood kissing for countless minutes. The only indication Hermione had of the time passing was the pain growing in her neck from craning to meet him. Her hands batted at his chest searching for a shirt that they might grip to bring him closer; all they found was bare skin. She had to snake her arm behind his neck to pull him further down.
At that insistent gesture, he lifted her effortlessly and carried her to the bed, never breaking the kiss. He smiled against her lips as she pulled his body flush against hers and mewed at the pleasure it brought her. Hermione had no idea what she was expected to do, but right now the kissing felt good, his body pushing down on her felt even better, his hand sliding up her thigh was the tops; somewhere far at the back of her brain, Hermione was very annoyed for having denied herself such a wonderful sensation on her wedding night when she had removed her own garter. As his palm travelled farther north, that tiny, annoyed section at the back of her mind directed her hips to lift off the bed so he could cup her backside. That simple, subconscious action set the tone for the rest of Sirius's time. A leg locked around his hip, pushing him even harder against her; one of her hands gripped his hair while the other managed to find its way clear down to his arse.
It seemed she was just as bossy in bed as she was every other aspect of life. She knew what felt good and would not hesitate to make it happen, though Sirius was not one to be outdone. His hand, that pioneer that had already ventured where no man or boy had before dared, was travelling yet farther into virgin territory.
"Sirius, wait," she said, gasping for all the breath she had lost to him.
"My time, remember?" he reminded her and kissed her lightly on the neck.
"But I—oh," all the arguments halted abruptly as his brilliant fingers caressed the fabric between her thighs. She bit back the noises she knew would embarrass her to no end and instead demanded, "Do that again."
"Bossy little thing," he smiled, but complied.
"Too much talking," she said and pulled his mouth to hers. She didn't care if it was his time, his lips were too talented to be wasted on idle chatter.
She had been right; there was nothing Sirius couldn't make better by his involvement. His fingers were as brilliant as his lips and tongue. No, more brilliant, she decided as those digits continued their adept movements without the barrier of cotton knickers. Yes, the most brilliant and talented aspect of Sirius was definitely his fingers.
"I hate to rush," he whispered against her lips, "but we only have five minutes left."
What was he talking about? What did the time matter when his fingers were so close to making her burst?
Her whine at his removal was instantly engulfed in a cry of shock as he entered her. It didn't hurt, not the sharp stab of pain she had expected.
His lips pulled away and he watched her face, holding her eye. "You okay?"
"Wasn't it supposed to hurt?" she gasped.
"It doesn't?"
"No… Oh God! I'm even weird in bed!" she covered her face with her hands, horrified. He laughed, just a chuckle, really, but it was the stupidest thing he could have done. "Don't you laugh at me!" she snapped and tried to push him off.
"Look at me," he ordered and she did. "You are perfect."
"Now you're making fun of me," she grumbled, making him laugh again.
If only she could knee him in his bollocks again, but the way he was lying between her legs there was no way of managing that. Digging her nails into his skin might be misconstrued as encouragement given that he was currently inside her.
Wait. He was inside her, surrounded by muscles she controlled.
'Aha! I've got you now, you git,' she glared, constricting her inner muscles with as much violence as she could.
"Oh Merlin!" he cried out as his face fell to the pillow beside her.
"Don't laugh at me!"
He lay still, breathing hard into her shoulder for a second, an eternity to her. Hermione worried she might have broken him, but, as he lifted his head, that worry turned inward, toward herself. His eyes were dark, his voice so strained it sent a strange thrill through her. "If that was mean to hurt me, you've got a lot to learn, little girl." Grasping her hips with a bruising force, Sirius thrust into her.
Her lungs could not hold onto their air, but still she managed to moan and cry out with his every movement. She would have been embarrassed if she wasn't so busy readjusting her mental list to put Sirius's brilliant fingers down to second and his lips in third. There was a new winning body part atop his list of most talented.
She would have been even more humiliated when the door flew open and a pompous beanpole of a man strode in, reading a speech off a roll of parchment in his hands, completely oblivious to the couple before him: "Mr and Mrs Black, the deadline for your marital obligations has past and i-it is m-my–" he stuttered to a stop when Sirius intentionally groaned as if in ecstasy. Eyes wide and ears flaming red, he searched his scroll for the appropriate response. Clearly, he never thought they would be in the process of 'meeting their obligation' when he arrived.
"Uh… T-thank you for your s-s-service to our community," he managed to read hurriedly. "I see I'll not need to visit you in the future. Good day." He spun and slammed the door shut.
Sirius laughed into her shoulder, "Might be worth risking the next deadline just to see that again."
Hermione horrified protest at the idea came out as a moan.
"Ooh," the man between her thighs grinned wickedly as realisation struck him. "Obligation and deadline met… that means I can take it slow now."
"No slow," she objected with limited eloquence, but she made her meaning plain by the tightening of her hold around him.
"As you wish," he groaned and kissed her heatedly.
A/N: Thought y'all deserved this after putting up with so many chapters of self-righteous indignation and virginal terror. I've given thought to rewriting the past few chapters to cut a lot of that out, but I wrote and posted this back in 2012 and I'm just too lazy for that now.
In response to the complaint about Hermione being childish, I say You are absolutely right. That was sort of the point. The Bloody Law had robbed her of all the things that made her who she was, forcing her to rely on others because no amount of cleverness could get her out of her situation. It made her angry and a little too like the stubborn and irrational teenager she, in age anyway, actually is. Ta for the feedback; I do listen. I'm just too far removed from the writing of this to bother changing it.