Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my Union Bay bag and whatever else is in this story that doesn't make sense. I was inspired by another romance novel i read and J.K. Rowlings wonderful world. Enjoy!
Chapter 43
"Wrapped so Pretty"
The lock on the French doors that lead to their Master bedroom was flimsy, and it annoyed him that Miss Bushy Big Brain hadn't done anything to secure it. She no likely thought that he was incapable of doing anything this muggle-like without magic.
The fact that his lip was swollen and hurting from his fight earlier, his ribs ached from being slammed against that bar counter, his bad shoulder was throbbing from holding his own weight on the rooftop, his head was pounding, and his arms and hands were screaming from thorns, lashes, licks and scratches after battling with the biggest tentacula nest he'd seen since Mrs. Sprout's greenhouse. All this fueled his irritation -he shook the doors violently, and when it didn't give way his tempered flared again and he smashed it open with his elbow, adding another injury to his pre-existing ones. She should have at least had enough respect for her own safety to use an unbreakable charm on the glass, he could have been a raving mad man.
In a rushed raged he became entangled with the window drapes before storming across the bedroom and existed out of its door.
She sat in their library with her feet up and a novel in hand, focusing on the events to the next paragraph. Puffs of blue tissue sticking out of both ears.
The smell of sweat and fire whiskey clung to him like a shadow. He was no longer drunk, not in the least but the stench from his bar room brawl lingered in the air around him as he made his way down the stairs. He was wet, sore and completely pissed off, and every bit of this was all her fault! With his blood boiling he threw back his head and screamed her name.
"HERMIONE JEAN MALFOY! Get your arse in here -Now!"
Hermione's head shot up. His roar penetrating her mugglemade earplugs.
He had no idea where she was in the house, and wasn't going to waste his time looking for her. He'd stand here and shout the roof off until she answered if that's what it took.
So, he'd managed to find a way inside. She pulled out the wads of tissue and tossed them on the couch beside her. She wondered how he'd done it without so much as a wand, since The Great and Almighty Malfoy wouldn't dream of demeaning himself by doing anything muggle-like to break inside.
Despite her defeat, she felt a certain sense of pride.
As she rose from the couch and discarded her awaiting book. She braced the swell of her round belly and tried to figure out why hadn't she simply locked herself in the kitchen, she was starving again, but would have to pass the Slytherin Neanderthal to get there. She was a fighter to heart thanks to her years of conquering evil, and doing battles with Harry by her side. But she wasn't anxious to enter this battle. Because it was with her unborn child's father-to-be. All her life she always been so polite, so dignified, so careful not to offend unless provoked. But Draco was impatient with her politeness, unimpressed with her snubish Gryfinndor dignity, and impervious to the idea of provoking her. In fact she was beginning to believe he lived and breathed to push her buttons and watch her go flying right off the hinges. He didn't want her to watch what she said to him, or to watch her manners if he pissed her off. She got the feeling he wanted her to simply be who she was, herself. As she crossed the room her pulse began to hum, and her brain cells went on full alert. She felt strange, completely and wondrously alive.
Standing in the middle of the foyer Draco watched her approach from down the hall that lead to their library.
Of all the places, he should have known she'd be there. Her trim little butt had blossomed and filled to suit that of women he often seen with child. It was swaying side to side. She had changed her clothing since he last confronted her. She was now wearing a knitted pink dress that fitted snuggly around her bosom, emphasizing a pair of breasts growing so impressively in size, that his mouth began to salivate just setting eyes on them. Her hair, was loose wild and untamed, the way he love it to be. It was well past her shoulders, having grown a great deal with his pregnancy. Her lips were fixed and determined, every bit of the saucy witch he knew her to be.
She looked up at him, but instead of being scared, he could swear he saw a spark of mischief in her eyes. "Somebody's knickers are sure in a knot," she drawled rolling her eyes all spunk ass and sassy.
"You-" He started shaking one finger her way. " You are going to pay for this."
"Is that so!" she snarled "And what is the Big Bad Malfoy going to do, spank me! Lock up and throw away the key!"
And just like that he got hard. Merlin's Hell! he thought, How did she keep doing this to me? And what kind of kinky talk was that for a respectable magical scholar and new mom?
A heated vision of that sweet little butt curling beneath his palm shot through him. He clenched down hard on his jaw and narrowed his cool grays, and gave her a look so dark, so mean and cruel and so much like the feared eye of the Malfoy that he was ashamed of himself for using it on a poor, defenseless pregnant female.
"Perhaps a spanking is what you need." he growled
"oh really?"
Instead of crying like Parkinson would have done, or squirming under his grip as E'sa did. Instead of flat out fainting from fear of retribution as any sensible witch would have done without batting an eye, she got this calculating look on her face, like he was some big puzzle she'd finally figured out.
Inches from his ice cold stare. . .
"Might be fun. I'll think about it." she teased and slipped right past him and headed for the kitchen, leaving him standing there in the foyer.
He was stunned and completely rooted to the spot. Oh no, she not about to turn the table on me that easily. And what the bloody hell was that suppose to mean, she'd think about it? It took a moment but he remembered his anger with the witch. He wasn't half done with her!
Hermione heard him coming and was amused, but slightly ashamed of the thrill rising in her at the sound of his pounding feet. Until just now she had not realized how heavily the cloak of maintaining her dignity had weighed on her shoulders. Draco had no more use for her golden girl dignity than a dragon for a set of panty hose.
Who were Hermione and Draco if they did not do battle from time to time? He was nothing like Potter or Weasley, whom always seemed so bent out of shape whenever she got upset. And to make things go smoothly the two of them often felt compelled to allow her the power to dictate and direct her version of how she felt things should go.
She conjured up a set of tasty sandwiches with his wand still in her hand and she slide him a turkey and bacon on rye.
"Starting right now, the two of us are going to get a few things straight Hermione. I'm your husband, you can't just go off doing whatever fancies your lily. I expect for you to respect me, at least for that much." She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. "I'm not done talking! -This . . . This thing -this marriage is not going to be built around Hermione's way of what ever she wants. Do you understand?"
This form of confrontation undoubtedly worked very well for most of his younger life. She felt a flash of sympathy for those angry gray eyes sneering down at her. For some reason the picture of him physically hurting her could never take shape in her mind. Simply because he had never hurt her before, not really. But she on the other hand, she often sided with Harry and Ron when they would wrongly accuse him, even before having a justifiable reason. . . .
She had even slugged him in front of his friend once. . . .
And then there was the time she hexed him terribly on the train. . . . .
And now she has single handedly, completely altered his once perfectly single life beyond repair. . . . But through all of this, not one time had he done true harm to her. He was no more a villain to her, than she had been to him from the very start. Deep down she understood they were both young and maybe a little unprepared for this. Their distorted past of feuding and fighting had become as easy as wand-flicking for both of them. And now, some how, it was becoming a strangely, unusually, no matter how bizarre it seemed, deliciously a part of what they were. The knowledge of this made her worry with one half of her heart, and feel a deep warm tug on the other.
"Your lip is bleeding again," she whispered. "Let's go up to the bathroom, and I'll fix it."
"I'm not going anywhere until we -you and I, until we have settled this."
"Draco, pretty please. I've always fantasized about tending to you when your wounded."
That gave him a pause. She saw something dance in his eyes.
She was doing it again he thought. She couldn't keep doing this to him, he wasn't going to stand for it. He got this dangerous, squinty look that made her knees a little wobbly. He was a pound of pure dynamite getting ready to detonate, so why was she not getting it. He racked his hair back with his hand. "I'll let you heal me on one condition."
She gently touched the other side of his bruised chin "And what's that?" she asked sweetly.
"After you're done, you sit quietly- and I mean not a bloody word and let me take you apart, because you've got it coming."
"Yes sir." she solemnly agreed.
"Yes sir!" his voice stretched a bit higher than she expected.
She smiled. She knew that would further irritate him. "You must not understand what I've got in mind, because if you did, you wouldn't be standing there smiling and agreeing so easily Hermione."
"Well Mr. Malfoy, I believe that open communication is important to a happy marriage."
O -no! she wasn't wiggling her way out of this. He was determined to hold his ground until she got it all through her thick skull. "We're not talking about open communication. We're talking about me taking you apart, limb by limb." he paused and folded his pale arms across his chest, he would keep his poise darn it, she wasn't as sly as she thought.
The bruises and cuts on his arm became visible to her then. She felt instantly sorry for him. Both for all his troubles today and for the fact that his life suddenly became so complicated and for the fact that he was wizard cursed with such a strong moral belief that things had to followed by traditional standards always. She also knew this presented a definite problem in their relationship.
She took him by the hand and guided him upstairs to the bathroom, they crossed the threshold, headed for the medicine cabinet and began searching its contents. "I hope there's something in here that really stings like the devil." she said.
He made no comment, she turned, and caught her breath as he pulled his shirt over his head, baring his bare chest. As he stretched, his scraped rib cage grew more prominent, and his navel formed a perfect oval within his six-pack abs. There was a scar on his shoulder, he tossed the shirt aside and popped the button on his trouser.
"Draco what are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing? I'm taking a shower or don't you remember pouring a pitcher of pumpkin juice over my head for breakfast, and then locking me out of my own house. And I hope you're not planning on leaving the gates that way? Why do you fancy sabotaging things." He pulled down his zipper. "Has anyone ever told you, that you're a bit of a mean streak."
There was a time she would have shied away from him undressing before her so boldly. Not now. She tilted her head for a full view and not only of his backside. It was a pretty magnificent view. Broad shoulders, lean muscular build tapered to narrowed hips and tight, ivory creamed buttocks. There was a red mark on one side of his spinal column from Petur's fist. She then frowned at the older collection of scars, and the thought of how he may have received them, perhaps during the old battle, perhaps they had been forced on him as a punishment for failing at some dark task requested of by Voldemort; something or some part of his life that he had not yet shared with her.
He slide open the glass door of the shower stall, and clouds of steam pillowed towards her, steaming up the mirror and collecting dewy droplets on the window.
"Looks like it going to rain soon." she said, a lump caught in her throat, he was completely exposed for her.
"Yes, I notice that before I made it over the top of the balcony."
"Is that how you got in?" Impressed, she started towards the shower.
He nodded his reply. "Our window is going to need fixing by the way. I suppose you'll have to see to it. . . .some overly cunning hag ran off with my wand."
She laughed.
"Do you want to join me?" he asked ducking his head under the spray.
She yearned to say yes, but their days of sharing the shower were suspended, that is, at least until she's gotten her figure back. So, she pretended not to hear the request as she exited. She searched his side of the bedroom and found an assortment of colognes he often wore, all of which she loved. In his drawer several undergarments, tee's and socks neatly folded. A black brush that was spanking new and looked as if it had never been touched, enchanted nail clippers, and a self-shaving kit lying next to a nearly emptied bottle of Murtlap Essence.
This was not going to be enough, she thought.
Luckily she remembered seeing more bottles in the bathrooms lower cabinets. She returned to the steamy bathroom and knelt to take a look under the sink. The water spray from Draco's shower was going strong, building up more steam. She pulled out four drained ampoules of Dittany and an entire box filled with more empty vials of Murtlap. Suddenly it was clear to Hermione that Draco was hiding the fact that he was in a great deal of pain; but from what? and why would he hide the fact that he was suffering from her? She did practice healing, she was a Healer, mastering in curing potions and tonics for broken bones.
A larger pearly white bottle caught her eye, pulling it into the light she turned the bottle to read the label, Skele-Grow Potion.
Quidditch! The thought entered her mind at once.
He was hiding his quidditch injuries from her, She tilted the bottle and thankfully it was only half empty. The water shut off and she put the things back below the sink. Moments later, the shower door clicked.