I don't blame any of you for forgetting, since it's been 10 months in RL time, but Hermione has known about Draco's mark since chapter 53. Go ahead, check for yourselves. ;)

Well, as promised, here's a quicker update... tadaa!

And... who said double-tease? Why, I'd never!! *does her best offended act*


No doubt a bit surprised to suddenly find herself under Draco on the bed, Hermione stopped him before he could kiss her again. "I don't want you to rush it."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't recall shoving you onto a bed."

"Yeah, but…." She hesitated. "Just give it a few minutes?"

He shook his head in bemusement. "Relax."

He did take great pains to slow down, though. The last thing he needed was for her not to be at the same level of need as him, and he had no problem with kissing and touching every inch of exposed flesh before very slowly exposing more and then kissing that as he went along.

In fact, he suddenly developed a very strange urge to take all night.

She wasn't having it, though. She was squirming impatiently and tearing at his clothes in a way that made him wonder why she had asked him to go slower in the first place. Not that he minded very much. She wanted him. Maybe only physically, but he could live with that.

She shoved at his shirt and he was more than willing to help her get it off, but then she suddenly went still. At first he didn't quite understand, for some reason he'd simply forgotten, but then he realized.

It was the Dark Mark.

Her lust-fogged mind had probably not considered that he still was the not-so-proud wearer of it. He loathed it now more than ever, but there wasn't really much to be done for it. He had looked into getting rid of it and so far he'd found no solution. It was there to stay. And it was going to turn her off. Perfect.

He tamped down his frustration; it wasn't as if he couldn't understand her reaction.

"Tell me you don't believe in those things... anymore," she quietly said.

Was she nuts? "You mean the things that ruined my life?" he asked, a hard edge to his voice. "Believe me, I really don't."

She looked him in the eyes. "Good. That's all I want to hear."

The eye contact and the implication that she wasn't leaving made him lose his breath.

He was beginning to realize that he might not mind so much if she should want more than just physical gratification from him. In fact, he would be willing to give quite a lot to have her feeling the things he was feeling right now—and not just through some jewelry, but for herself.

The question was whether he was willing to give enough. His own beliefs aside, there were still so many complications....


Damn quality cloth wouldn't just tear so they could get on with it! Hermione was feeling increasingly frustrated with Draco's blasted button-down flies. She wanted to feel more warm skin now, and he was taking too long! She'd been nervous that he'd just move directly to the intercourse part, which she knew from experience wouldn't be very pleasant if he did too soon, but now he just kept drawing it out.

She wanted him. Badly. Preparing herself and coming down here in the first place had taken all of her courage, and then she'd seen the blasted evidence of who he was or had been, and she really needed for them to stop talking and start… start… why weren't these trousers coming off? She needed to not think.

His hand came down and in two seconds flat achieved what she hadn't been able to do in two minutes. She scowled a bit, but then proceeded with the fun task of removing cloth. She could feel Draco reacting whenever she brushed bare skin, and even sometimes when she brushed over a clothed part of his body. It was as if he were highly sensitized to her touch. She liked it.

He stopped her when she wanted to remove his underwear, though. "What's the rush?" he murmured, his voice a little shaky.

She was getting to him and that felt so good she almost preened. He was right, however. She shouldn't rush it. Not if she wanted it to take more than a few minutes. And she did. So she decided to pace herself and explore his naked flesh with her hands instead. And her lips while she was at it. And to press against him with the rest of her body, stroking, rubbing, teasing….

It didn't take many minutes for him to stop that too by catching her hands and keeping her a few inches away from his body. She made a discontent sound and bucked against him, but he shook his head. "You slow down just a bit, ok?"

Hermione pouted, but did as she was told. It was just… when she wasn't keeping her own hands and lips busy but instead focusing on what he was doing, it felt more intimate in a way she couldn't explain. It made her slightly uncomfortable. She put her hands on his chest, pushing him just an inch away. "I… don't…"

He sighed, and she could have sworn that he looked resigned, before his expression went blank. "Relax. I know what you want."

What she wanted? She pushed a little harder at him. "If you don't want—"

He cut her off with a kiss that was noticeably harder than the others and shushed her. "I want it too. The way it's done doesn't matter that much to me."

She didn't have a way, did she?

He kissed her again, more fully than before. If this was her way, she could live with it. She hooked her right leg around his left and pushed up against him, very satisfied to feel him responding. She certainly wasn't sorry she'd come here anymore. She wanted to touch him again, though. She wanted to run her hands all over him.

It didn't take her long to put thought into action, making him tense up a bit and then grab her hands again. Such a spoilsport. He then transferred both of her hands to his own right hand, and keeping them above her head, began removing her shirt. Oh, right. She was still mostly dressed.

She marveled at his precise movements as he kissed her again. One of those deep, languorous kisses that made her toes curl. Once he moved his lips to her neck where he nipped her hard enough to leave a mark, Hermione realized that he'd somehow used those precise movements to get rid of her shirt—he must have used magic too because otherwise it was impossible that she hadn't noticed before now—and open her bra and trousers. Crafty. Rehearsed. Not something she was going to dwell on.

"Stop looking so dismayed," he murmured in her ear. "I won't go too fast but I need to see you...."

She smiled at him and bucked up so she could better push her trousers down past her bum. Tonight he was with her and very much looking like that was where he wanted to be. He felt like it too. Granted, there had been some doubts, but those were pretty much gone by now. The way he was greedily staring at her body told her plenty. He wanted her as badly as she wanted him.


Draco did his best to swallow his groan. She was bloody gorgeous. He really had to do his best to keep her touching him to a minimum or this would be over too fast. It wasn't just that he wanted her body, which he really, really did, but there was this almost overwhelming feeling intensifying everything, threatening his self-control. He tried his best to bury that feeling so she wouldn't notice, but he knew it was there in everything he did—even as he was trying to do things her way.

Her way. She wanted him to be more physical and rougher than what came natural to him lately. The upside to that was that concentrating on giving her what she wanted kept his own libido slightly better in check. The downside was that he yearned to be softer with her. Best not to dwell too much on why.

It really didn't matter, though. She was down to her knickers and she didn't seem like she was going to stop him this time. He was having a really hard time not just attacking her lovely breasts and letting their bodies take them wherever they might go, but much as she disliked him being too affectionate with her, he was fairly certain that that particular approach wouldn't score him any points. Self-control really was the key.

"Please, Draco," Hermione moaned in a voice that nearly finished him off. "Please."

They really were going to do this, weren't they? She wasn't going to stop him this time. He certainly wasn't going to stop on his own. Of course, he'd never actually… he'd never….

Just like that he was hit with mind-numbing fear.

He'd never. She would expect a kind of experience that he most certainly did not have. He wanted to give her anything she wanted and he knew he could do this, but she probably thought he had had sex with Pansy. People generally did.

He should warn her, just in case. To prepare her. He didn't particularly want to, but he didn't think he could quite live with doing this and having it be a disappointment to her. Not when he wanted her this much.

He broke free. "Wait…."

She immediately looked cautious. He wished it wasn't like that between them.

"I-I…." Draco found that it was quite hard to confess his own lack of experience.

"You didn't mean this 'that' way?" she mockingly guessed. "You changed your mind? You just don't feel like it after all? You would prefer to keep it a fantasy?" She was obviously fighting to keep her voice level.

"Don't be stupid," he muttered.

"Then what is it this time? Be quick about it."

He was going to express his annoyance at her being so bitchy while he was trying to confess, when he noticed the look of hurt on her face that she was trying and failing to hide.

She really did think he was going to turn her down? When they were both almost naked and he was just about ready to burst?

Maybe he shouldn't be wasting their time on technicalities.

She began struggling against him and opened her mouth to say something else, and he knew he had to act quickly or this would stop and he just couldn't take that. Not again. Not tonight. Not when he wanted this so much. So he kept his peace and kissed her instead. Maybe she'd find him out and reject him, but... the alternative seemed to be certain rejection.

She fairly quickly became pliant again. "Then what?" she murmured.

"Nothing," he whispered back.

"Well, clearly--"

He covered her mouth with his hand. "Shut up."

She made an annoyed face at him and removed his hand. "Way to seduce me."

He grinned, finding a strange kind of reassurance in her sarcasm. "That's not seducing, but you need to stop yammering so I can get to it."


Hermione pouted. She really wanted to know what had Draco briefly be so hesitant and even look slightly insecure. She refused to feel like a fool for assuming that he was going to stop, though. Look at all the other times they had almost had sex! Whatever it was didn't seem to bother him anymore, though. His caresses had returned with a vengeance, making her squirm beneath him.

She had always felt that Draco was good at spotting people's weaknesses and exploiting them. Well, that applied in bed as well. The way he listened and watched her responses and used it to do exactly what felt best was... almost too much. It felt good. It felt strange. It made her uncomfortable to know he could be that perceptive.

"Please," she begged again. "Just take me." The thought of him inside of her made her tremble. She hadn't even realized how badly she wanted it before, and now it was as if she'd burn up if it didn't happen soon.

He seemed to hesitate a little again. "Could I, um, could I perhaps get you off first?" he asked without looking her in the eyes.

Huh? And was that blush from his arousal, or...?

When she didn't immediately answer, he looked at her and shrugged. "I'd just really like to watch you come. It's my biggest fantasy. I don't think it'd take much longer. I'm sure you're capable of doing it several times, so it wouldn't ruin any... ah, just say yes."

Hermione looked at him a little warily. "H-how?"

He raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'how do you think?' but then he just let his fingers brush against her knickers in a way that sent a jolt of sensations through her. "Any way you like, really, but I thought I'd just touch you a bit."

Hermione could only whimper in reply. She needed release. His mouth and fingers really were talented; it was a shame she hadn't really considered that before.

"So, is that a yes, then?" the evil bugger asked, repeating the motion.

"Just get on with it," Hermione hissed through clenched teeth.

Draco smirked—oh, God, now she even found his smirk sexy—and lightly kissed her, before whispering in her ear, "I love it when you boss me around."

"I thought you loved it when I was pliant," she choked out as he was removing her knickers and she, somewhere in the back of her mind, was marveling at just how shy she wasn't about that.

"I like a little bit of both," he conceded.

Anything he might or might not have said after that was lost as Hermione quite literally saw sparks. The part of her mind that wouldn't stop reasoning came up with some theory about hormones scrambling her brains, but the rest of her was too busy focusing on how it felt to care about anything else. It felt so good. He was right. This wouldn't take long.

"Ah, Hermione," he groaned against her throat. "Please come soon. Please."

She wanted to kiss, so she turned her head and he obliged more than willingly, almost devouring her. When she touched his chest, he tensed up again, but this time he didn't remove her hands. Instead, his touching became more focused.

She fought the feelings back. She wanted to draw this out. She wanted to feel him. She let her hands wander down below his waistline, resulting in more tensing and this time he did remove her hands again, even though she hadn't even ventured inside his underwear... yet. "Bad idea, Hermione," he muttered.

"You afraid you'll come?" she asked, feeling just a little bit smug, even though she was close herself. So close....

He grunted, apparently not as amused. "You can touch later, if you like."

She gasped, unable to keep her mind on his words when another jolt shot through her. He really did have good fingers, didn't he? She gasped again. Then her eyes widened. "Oh!" And then her entire body convulsed and she grabbed onto Draco's shoulders, hanging on for dear life while her brain most definitely short-circuited.


Yeah, I know, evil and dragging out and all that, but trying for same length chapters here! :P

***

Nuzzling her ear, he whispered, "I love you."

She froze, eyes wide. He'd shocked her. Then she opened her mouth as if to say something, and he hurriedly covered it with his own. He knew that whatever she would have to say, it wouldn't be 'I love you too' ...