Author's Note: Thank you so much for all the love and attention you lavish on this story. Please continue to give me your feedback, for it feeds the ever-hungry muse.
I would like to give a word of caution again to those who think they might be interested in seeking out a D/s partner or participating in the D/s scene or lifestyle. Please remember that this story is a fantasy. It is my fantasy of Severus Snape as the (almost) perfect Dominant. Roissy House is my fantasy of the (almost) perfect D/s community. Dominants, submissives, and their communities exist in this world, but they are far removed from the characters in this story, just as the characters in a romance novel are far removed from the people we meet in real life. Please be very careful to safeguard yourself at all times, in any explorations you might attempt. Always have submissives who are already active in the lifestyle to advise you as you begin your explorations.
Additionally, I'm sorry to say the writing has slowed down, so please don't expect mid-week updates any longer. As we draw closer to the end, the writing becomes more difficult.
For the Potions Master's Amusement
Chapter 72: Catharsis
She peeled out of her tights and knickers in one go, her hands trembling with excitement, and he watched her carefully, his full attention upon her. She allowed the under garments to lie on the floor beside her discarded ballerina flats, and took one step toward him, but he stayed her with a word.
'No,' he said. 'I think we can dispense with the skirt, don't you?'
Hermione hesitated only a moment before undoing the button and zip and letting the skirt pool on the rug. She took another step towards him, aquiver with anticipation, refusing to think about what would happen afterwards. It didn't matter—what mattered was the flat of his hand firmly and repeatedly smacking her arse cheeks—and she was going to have it.
'Come along,' he said, and she bent to lay herself across his accommodating thighs. He straightened her with a practised hand at her waist, pulling her closer to his torso, and the warmth of one of his hands was on her flesh, smoothing lightly down from the small of her back to the top of her thigh, before settling on her bum.
'What do you want, Hermione?' he asked, his voice silkily smooth.
'A s-spanking,' she said, thinking to herself, Oh, don't talk about it! She didn't want to talk about it—she didn't want to think about it!—what she wanted was to experience it. To encourage him, she gave an experimental wriggle, but the warmth on her bum quickly became an iron-like grip upon her hip.
'None of that,' he reproved, and at his word, she relaxed beneath his hand. 'Good girl,' he praised, and her quim throbbed.
Fuck, she thought, suddenly frightened. Couldn't she, just this once, take what she wanted from an encounter and be the mistress of her own reactions? Why did he coax such unprincipled responses from her? She wanted the smacking of her arse, and if it made her hot and wet, she'd finger herself in her room—but sweet Circe, she needed this!
'Why do you want a spanking, Hermione?' he inquired, as if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to have a conversation with someone face-to-bum, rather than face-to-face.
She gritted her teeth. He had said he would do this—why was he interrogating her?
'Because I need it,' she bit out. 'Just do it!'
'Ask nicely,' he admonished.
'Please,' she supplied grudgingly. A wave of uncertainty assailed her—what was she thinking of?—and she made an attempt to wriggle to her feet. 'Oh, forget it, if you don't want to—'
The iron grip at her waist kept her in place, and his other hand—His spanking hand, she thought wildly—smacked her left cheek, a stinging slap. The next blow fell before she could process the first, and the pain-pleasure circuit was complete.
He spanked her as he had always done, no two consecutive blows landing in the same spot, his hand neglecting not one inch of her bottom, and Hermione surrendered herself to the glory of it, every smack driving her further along the once familiar path she longed to travel again.
Then his voice was at her ear, his torso angled over her, his hand slowing but not ceasing in its delivery of her spanking.
'You need this, don't you?' he purred. 'You need this discipline at my hand.'
She didn't answer, unable to formulate coherent words, and he didn't insist upon a response, for her soft, panting breaths of need and pleasure told their own tale.
'Girls who need to be put over the knee to receive their discipline are special little sluts,' he told her, his voice caressing, his hand punishing. 'I know just what you need, little one—never fear.'
And the speed of the spanking increased, his hand coming down faster, harder, on flesh which had already endured a sustained spanking. Her cheeks tingled and hurt, more than she had remembered, warming her bottom in a circle of fiery yearning. And though she had not meant to, she began to cry, her skin burning as he rained slaps on her arse cheeks. Each impact of his hand seemed to expel a new particle of anger, of pride, of resentment, of resistance, and she gave herself over to the cleansing tears, welcoming them, knowing she had never felt purer of spirit than after a spanking at the hands of Severus Snape.
She cried for her hurt feelings, for the loss of her faith in him, for her disillusionment over the Dominant/submissive life—and when those things had fallen away with her tears, she cried in contrition for the pain she had inflicted on the man she had loved with all her body, mind, heart, and soul.
Miraculously, Hermione had come full circle.
She was unaware of being moved until she smelled his skin, close and warm, and a fine lawn handkerchief was drying her face of the evidence of her prolonged cry. He was here, she was in his lap, and she buried her face in his neck, her arms clinging to him.
'I'm sorry!' she sobbed, and he rocked her gently, one hand soothing up and down her back, his lips at her temple as he seemed to breathe in the fragrance of her hair.
'Shh,' he murmured, stroking her hair. 'You've nothing to apologise for.'
'You s-said you loved me,' she cried, torn with anguish at the thought of the hurt she had inflicted. 'You'd never said it to anyone, and you said it to me—and I was too angry and resentful to l-listen!'
'Shh,' he repeated, rocking, petting, holding her. 'Never mind.'
'It was a horrible thing to d-do!' she choked out. 'Oh God, Severus, I'm so sorry!'
She tilted her tear-streaked face up to his, beseeching, and he looked down at her, an agony of indecision on his face, his eyes filled with ineffable tenderness.
'Please,' she whispered, unsure what she asked for, and with a ragged exhalation that sounded like a moan, he covered her mouth with his.
His lips were soft upon hers, chaste and giving, and she opened to him like a flower to the sun.
It was like drinking from a well after a long walk through the desert, or the first gasp of fresh air after being too long underwater—it was life and breath, and she could not think how she had gone so long without it—without him.
'Hermione,' he breathed against her lips, unbelieving, and she threaded her fingers through his hair and invaded the warmth of his mouth with her tongue, drawing a strangled groan from him.
He was tentative as he gently tangled his tongue with hers, and assayed but two forays into her mouth before he ended the kiss, resting his cheek against the top of her head. She pressed against his chest and heard his heart's thunder, as if he had run a great distance. They held on to one another tightly, as if afraid the other would slip insubstantially away.
'Don't you want to kiss me?' she asked his shirt front, feeling as if she were coming alive again after a long sleep.
'What I do not wish to do is take advantage of your fragile state,' he said, his voice now rumbling beneath her ear.
Take advantage? How could he possibly do so? She wanted him, wanted to lose herself in him—every cell of her was longing for his touch, his voice, his presence in her body and in her mind.
She tilted her face to look to him, touching the pads of her fingertips to his lips. His eyes closed, an expression of pain on his face, and his lips parted slightly, as if his instinct were to take her fingers into the warm wetness of his mouth. Her tummy turned over, flooding her with heat and want.
'Please,' she begged, not caring how desperate she sounded. She drew one of his hands to her inner thigh. 'I need …'
His eyes opened again, and the heat there seemed a proper match for the fire in her belly. The hand she had drawn onto her leg flexed lightly against her skin.
'What do you need?' he asked, his voice rough, almost as if he spoke against his will. 'Tell me, Hermione.'
'Touch me,' she whispered, ashamed but heedless of her shame. Her need overwhelmed every other consideration, and she shifted upon his lap, the extreme, wanton craving dictating to her. 'Kiss me,' she added, still whispering, and she lifted her chin slightly, drawing her lips closer to his. 'Do me.'
For the space of a breath, she was afraid he would deny her, but then he spoke.
'Very well,' he said, and even as his mouth claimed hers, his long, knowing fingers parted her labia, and for the first time in more than half a year, someone other than herself touched her most intimate place.
Now he kissed her fully, his tongue dominating her mouth, stroking, as his fingers worked their magic. He did not seem to notice the soft, dark hair which had grown to cover her pudendum since last he had touched her. He slipped a finger up her channel, gathering and spreading her wetness, drawing a gasping moan from her throat. A murmur came from him, as if in answer to her small sound, and the pads of two fingers stroked up from her swollen inner labia to her nerve centre. Hermione clung to him helplessly, feeling the consuming passion flaming through her. Dear God, she needed to succumb, but she resisted.
'No,' she whimpered, arching her neck and breaking their kiss.
'Don't hold back, little slut,' he murmured, nuzzling her ear and allowing his teeth to close on the lobe.
'It's going to be over too quickly,' she said, her hips moving in spite of her resistance—her need for it to last. 'I want it to go on longer … want more …'
He raised his head and looked down into her face, his eyes like pools in which she could submerge her very self. He examined her intently, two fingers slowly penetrating her, leaving her clitoris untouched as he studied her face, then he glanced down her body, cradled against him, to the point where he could look his fill at her cunt, spread open, slick and needy, like a prize for the taking.
At last, his gaze travelled again to her face, his mesmerising eyes half-lidded, an expression of open, unbridled sensuality contorting his lips. 'You may have all the orgasms you want, greedy girl,' he promised gruffly, insinuating a third finger in her vagina and grinding the palm of his hand against her clitoris.
And she pulled his face back to hers with her fingers in his hair, her lips parted to receive his thrusting tongue. He knew exactly how to thrill her, mimicking the action of his fingers in her quim with his tongue in her mouth, fingers caressing clitoris as his tongue caressed hers, and in mere seconds she was coming, a bone-rattling climax that left her thighs clamped mercilessly on his wrist.
She trembled against him until he Summoned his suit coat from a corner chair and covered her with it from the waist down, looking after her solicitously, as he had always done during their times in his study, so long ago. He supported her with one arm, widening the vee of his thighs to distribute her weight more comfortably, and the hand with which he had fingered her cupped her mons.
Gradually, she came back to herself, her mind calmer after her cry and the lessening of the tension between them brought by her orgasm—but she wasn't finished, no, not nearly. She leaned in to press her lips to the flesh showing at the open collar of his shirt, moving her bottom against the wool of his trousers, where his erection had only partially subsided.
His attention had not wandered from her, and the hand on her quim slipped to her hip, to hold her still. 'Are you ready to come again for me, greedy girl?' he asked her, a caressing tone in his voice.
She reached for his shirt and began to unbutton it. 'Are we going to do it here? Will Rafe mind?'
A slight frown touched his brow, and the hand beneath the coat came up to capture her wrist.
'Rafe has no objection regarding the number of times I finger fuck you in his study,' he informed her.
Hermione smiled and squirmed a bit again. 'I don't want your finger now,' she said, the heat beginning to glow again, low in her tummy.
'I understood that you wanted more,' he pointed out, his posture stiffening, becoming less accommodating for her.
Hermione straightened, pulling her hand free to put her arms about his neck, and she whispered in his ear. 'I want you inside of me,' she told him, feeling shameless and excited, a peculiar combination of emotions she would always associate with him. Oh, she would have him between her thighs, his body labouring above hers, stroking her in ways no efforts of her own could ever reproduce …
He shifted her off of his lap, settling her courteously enough on the sofa cushion, and put distance between them. Hermione felt a flutter of panic, so familiar from her early days with him, when she never wanted to leave him, and he drew such stringent boundaries for her.
'Tell me plainly what you're asking for,' he said seriously, his expression guarded.
Hermione looked away from him, picking at the lapel of the black wool suit coat at her waist. Why was he acting like this? Didn't he want to have sex with her? That's not the impression she'd got from the bulge of his erection when he was spanking her—and certainly not what she had understood from the iron hardness of it while he fingered her to orgasm. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at him.
'I want to have sex with you,' she said baldly. 'I want you to fuck me.' Her body reacted to her confession with an aching throb in her belly.
He stood abruptly and looked down at her, a full frown now marring his expression. 'I spanked you,' he said. 'You wanted to come, so I fingered you. You said you wanted more, and I agreed to provide more orgasms.'
Hermione's face flamed in embarrassment, and she was a bit surprised at how out of practice she had become. Not only had her bottom grown unused to the stinging pain of a thorough spanking, but her sense of decorum had reasserted itself to the point that she was flustered to have him speak of such things out loud, as if this were a proper conversation to have in one's sitting room.
'Hermione,' he said, and she looked again into his face. Satisfied that he had her attention, he said gravely, 'Taking your pleasure from me is a gift I may choose to give you. Taking your pleasure with me, however, is an entirely … separate matter.'
Hermione felt a thump of dread in the region of her heart, a sick disappointment, the type which, when dealt by him, had often spurred her to unwise behaviour. 'It's not as if we've never done it before,' she said sullenly, looking down, away from his searching black eyes.
'That is not the point,' he said firmly. 'What does our having sex mean, Hermione? What does it say about the state of our relationship?'
Her mind skittered away from his question, the banked fire in her quim uncaring about the details of these negotiations. 'We don't have to decide that right now, do we?' she reasoned, raising her eyes again to his face.
His lips tightened. 'Why should I take you to my bed?' he said flatly.
She pushed his coat onto the sofa cushion and stood, naked below the plain white blouse she wore. As she had hoped, his eyes flicked to her nether parts for a moment before settling on her face.
'Because we're good together,' she said, want billowing from her like ship's sails in a fierce cross-wind. 'Because I want you.'
His eyes flashed at that, and his chin rose. 'What would you expect of this encounter?' he said, his tone emotionless.
Hermione stomped a bare foot. 'Why does it have to be so complicated?' she complained.
His arms crossed over his chest and a sneer touched his lips. 'Because I am a sexual Dominant,' he said, sounding cold. 'You should not require an explanation on this subject.'
Understanding of his reticence flooded her suddenly. 'I know what you are!' she cried. She stepped forward and rested her hands upon the forearms crossed over his chest. 'I consent! You can do anything with me you've done before.'
He glared into her eyes. 'I can bind your wrists and flog you?' he demanded. 'I can gag you and clamp your nipples and cover your cunt in candle wax? I can force you to your knees and fuck your throat and make you swallow my come?'
He spat out his examples like challenges that she was too cowardly to accept, giving her no opportunity to answer him, and the very disdain of his voice made her ache for him, long to earn his approval. Yes, she wanted to be immobilised and forced to pleasure him, because she knew he would repay her in kind, carrying her beyond herself to that place of mindless bliss to which only he held the key.
'Oh yes, please,' she said, emphasising her plea with fingers tightened on his arm.
He stared down into her face for so long that she was afraid he would send her away unsatisfied—for so long that she thought he would use Legilimency—but he didn't. She implored him with her eyes, thirsting for that transcendence only he could bring, refusing to think beyond the consummation she so devoutly desired. At long last, he allowed his arms to drop, dislodging her hold on him.
'Get dressed and come with me,' he said, picking up his coat and putting it on.
Hermione retrieved her skirt with shaking hands, pulling it up and managing the zip but unable to force the button through its hole. Giving up, she allowed her blouse to fall over the waistband and stuffed her feet into her shoes. Before she could pick up her under garments, he plucked them from the rug and stuffed them into his pocket. He strode to the door and waited for her to join him there.
Hermione followed, her legs feeling shaky with anticipation, butterflies darting wildly about in her chest even as she ached for him in her very core. She was a seething mass of excitement, which only trebled when he pushed her unexpectedly against the wall, his hand spanning her throat. He bent down, his large, hooked nose on level with hers, wickedness glinting in his eyes. His thumb and index finger found the pulse points in her throat and he applied slight pressure, an emotion she could not identify twisting his mouth.
'Are you sure about this?' he growled, tightening his hold at her throat infinitesimally, until her heart pounded in her ears and she saw of flash of light on the periphery of her vision. Did he think to frighten her off with this display? Didn't he know it only excited her more, made her want him more desperately than before?
'I'm sure,' she whispered, barely able to make herself heard, her ability to speak somehow restricted by the pressure at her throat.
When he kissed her again, it was savagely, almost as if he would punish her—devour her—before ever she would have his cock in her cunt again. Then he released her, first her lips, and then her throat, and wrapping his hand around her wrist in an almost brutal grip, he pulled her from the room.
