Chapter Four
"We can't do this," she said, breathless, even as she made no move to stop him, instead tipping her head back as he brought his mouth to her neck.
Lucius nodded, his own voice equally low and airy as he responded, his words muffled by the way he dragged his teeth along the side of her throat as he spoke, "Absolutely right, Miss Granger." Leaning back from her, he whipped her shirt off over her head and just about ripped her bra from her. "Get the bloody hell out of my lap!"
"Gladly." While she said it, she tangled her fingers through is hair, pulling him close once more. She couldn't believe she was guiding his head to her breast as she tacked on, "I hate you, anyway."
"That's just as well." He slid his arms around her, cupping her arse with splayed fingers and holding her tighter to him. "I hate you just as much, I'm sure." He couldn't account for why he couldn't stop—why he couldn't throw the woman off him, if that's what it took—as he followed her urging, scrapping the edge of his teeth over her nipple before closing his lips around it and suckling.
Hermione bit her lip, holding back a moan at the sweet rippling sensation the working of his mouth against her skin sent coursing through her. She had no idea why she didn't push him away instead of trying to hold him closer. No idea why she didn't jump out of his reach, hurl something at him, snatch up her wand and stun him, run from the cave . . . . Anything to put distance between them, yet her body seemed to have a mind of its own, even a portion of her thoughts was cheering on this moment. That portion was a little, strangely feral-sounding voice.
That voice reminded her of the way his irises had flooded amber in response to hers. Reminded her that he'd bitten her, what she was becoming was because of him, and he was becoming something the world might not be ready for just yet. They both were. They were somehow, inextricably, in this together it told her, so that made this moment right in some mad way. Necessary.
Yet, the rational part of her that seemed to have no control over the situation whatsoever—and was starting to lose confidence that it wanted any control—had her continuing to speak, even as she slid her hands down from his hair to start pulling his robes open. "We . . . we have to stop, Mr. Malfoy. This is . . . so, so wrong."
"Very, very wrong," he admitted, lifting his head to meet her gaze. Yes, just as that voice rumbling in the back of his thoughts had told him, her eyes were still wolf-like, still that blazing golden-amber. He knew his reflected them.
She retreated from his lap, then. Yet, it was not the reprieve either of their rational sides were hoping for. The witch lay herself back, the strange, new wildness in her prompting the change in position when she'd felt his fingers scrambling to open her jeans.
He grabbed the sides of his robes from where she'd tugged them apart and threw them off, still trying to force some logic into the situation that would snap them both out of this. The scent of her, the sight of her eyes so fierce like this, even the little growling sounds rumbling from the back of her throat every so often all seemed to be driving his actions, regardless of the words falling from his lips. "You're my son's classmate!"
Hermione unbuttoned her jeans, lifting her hips to assist as he unzipped them and gripped his fingers into the top. "You've been a widower less than a damn day!"
Lucius wrenched her jeans and knickers clean off her in one harsh movement. "You're a Mudblood."
"And you're a cowardly egotist!" she snapped the retort as he parted her thighs, her arms once more slipping around his neck to grip her hands into the pale locks at the nape of his neck.
"If I were so cowardly, Miss Granger," he said, growling the words as she locked her legs around his hips, "neither of us would be in this mess!"
"Well . . . " She bit back a mangled sound of discomfort as he positioned himself and jerked his hips, hard, entering her. "You're . . . you're still an egotist." As he withdrew and moved into her again and again, the discomfort subsided, replaced by a decadent, shivery sensation that had little purring sounds escaping her.
His breath erupted in grunting pants as he continued driving into her, that damn primal urging in the back of his mind shouting in something like triumph when she started rocking her hips, complimenting his thrusts. "As are you. Thinking yourself better than pure-bloods because of some intellectual advantage."
"And you think you're better than Muggleborns because of your blood-status. At least . . . . Oh, God . . . ." She ducked her head, raking her teeth along the column of his throat as he quickened his pace. "At least my reason for being an egotist has some real-world value."
He barked out a chuckle that was sheer anger as he answered in a rough half-bellow, "Being a pure-blood is valuable!"
Shifting backward, he sat up, pulling her with him as he moved. She just about screamed as he guided her hips to rock over him in grinding motions. "Only in the equally deluded minds of other pure-bloods."
Growling, he thrust into her harder, still, relishing the ecstatic, whimpering sounds the rougher movements forced out of her. "I've heard just about enough out of you!"
"And I you. You're so bloody arrogant!" She ignored that her voice came out haltingly, her breath rushing in noisy little bursts.
Disentangling her fingers from his hair, she slid her hands down, over his shoulders and across his chest. Slipping her hands beneath his arms, she pressed her palms against his back. Hermione could feel her fingers curling against his heated skin, digging her nails into his shoulder blades. The change in position helped her lock her muscles, stilling her against his strokes.
It seemed every part of her was screaming now, for different reasons. Her feral side was cheering in relief at having given herself over to this. Her rational side still didn't quite know how this had all happened. There was a little sliver in the middle, telling her that while this was wholly unfamiliar to her, she'd read enough about well, everything, to know precisely why her limbs were tensing like this. And that it was her 'nifty' new instincts that had directed her in how to respond to it all.
"And you're undeservedly self-righteous!" Lucius managed to get that last retort out as he rammed himself into her one final time, the motion so sharp and jarring that for a flickering heartbeat, he thought he'd hurt her.
When a downright feral sound of satisfaction wrenched out of her, that concern fled. He ducked his head down, littering her breasts with rough nips and teasing bites as he spent himself. Her own orgasm kept her clenched deliciously tight around him as his teeth scraped her skin, leaving angry, reddish-pink marks in his wake.
Hermione was trembling as the blissful sensation began drifting away from her. Instinct drove her once more, guiding her to rock against him as the tension drained from his body, trying to hold on to the feeling.
When the very last fragment of her orgasm had slipped away, she collapsed in his arms.
For far too long, neither of them moved, each of them seemingly afraid of what uncontrollable thing they might do next. The cave was filled with the sound of their rushing breaths as they let their bodies wind down, both still refusing to budge a muscle by the time their pulses had steadied.
After another stretch of who knew how long, she murmured, "I think I'm tired, again."
"Well, yes, we should probably sleep now," he agreed, his own voice low, a tone as though he was questioning every second word out of his own mouth running beneath it.
Turning with the witch still in his lap, he pulled the cloak he'd draped over her earlier closer. Spreading it out like a blanket, he laid her down and then all but threw himself down on his back beside her.
"I've a question, Mr. Malfoy," she started as he pulled his robes over them, concealing their bare forms from the open air as best he could.
Sighing, he closed his eyes. "Is it 'what the bloody hell just happened?'"
Hermione laughed tiredly. "That'd be it."
"As seems a theme for this entire fiasco, Miss Granger, I'll once more tell you your guess is as good as mine."
"No, but seriously. I think it would do us both some good to figure this out. Whatever is happening to you, you've passed it to me. Whether we like it or not, it seems we might be stuck together."
His eyes shot wide as he stared up at the rocky ceiling above. "Merlin's beard, you're right."
"I know I am!" Before she could go on, a thought struck her. "Wait, wait. Look at me, are my eyes still all . . . wolfy?"
Turning his head, Lucius met her gaze. "It's fading, now."
She nodded. "Yours, too. But I first felt it happen when I got angry with you. Okay, so passionate emotions. Anger, and just now when we were . . . ." The witch bolted upright suddenly, gripping her hands into her wild hair. "Oh, my God! I just shagged my classmate's father!"
Lucius almost snickered. He didn't particularly find their predicament humorous, but he had a feeling what they'd just done was going to be the least of their concerns moving forward, so to have the typically level-headed young woman panicking about this one facet of their situation was . . . . Wait . . . .
He tilted his head against the ground, casting a her a sidelong look. "You're not in one of those special circumstances where you're . . . younger than your school year, are you?"
Hermione, unable to believe she found his question funny at a time like this, choked out a laugh. She'd be a legally consenting adult by Wizarding and Muggle law standards even if she had been younger than Draco, but the fact that Mr. Malfoy was trying to reassure himself about it was funny to her, somehow. Of course, it wouldn't have been too funny to him, but that only made it more amusing. "I'm actually nearly a year older than most of my classmates. September birthday, and all that."
"Ah."
"Although . . . ." She bit her lip in an awkward expression as she turned her head, her eyes meeting his over her shoulder. Well, now that she was relatively collected and her sitting up like that had whipped the robes up, exposing him to her gaze, she was having trouble not noticing that Lucius Malfoy was surprisingly—pleasingly, blushingly—fit.
His eyes narrowed. "Although?"
Her brows drew upward in a pained look as she said, "Um, well, I might be an adult for all intents and purposes, but . . . up until, oh, I dunno, forty-five minutes ago, I was a virgin."
Lucius' eyes widened all over again. "No."
Unable to help a giggle at his reaction, she nodded. The moment was strangely light-hearted given the reality of things. "I's true."
He sat up, searching her face. "Why aren't you furious with me, then?"
Hermione pinched her brows together as she waited for his attention to return to her eyes. "You didn't force me, so why should I be furious with you?"
"Young women are supposed to want their first time to be—"
"Let me stop you right there, sir," she said, pressing her fingers over his lips. "I was raised as a Muggle, by progressive-minded Muggle parents. I understand that treating women no different than men is perhaps a rather new, startling, terrifying concept for the Wizarding world, but it's not for me. This might not have been ideal, I grant you that, but to imagine I have to hold out for some special day just because I'm a female is absurdity on the face of it. Young men can lose their virginity at the spur of the moment with any ol' person and get cheered on. But a young woman who behaves even a little in that same fashion is chastised and vilified. Well, no sir! I'll not have that sort of treatment."
He merely stared back at her, his expression patient as he waited for her to remove her hand from his mouth. When she did, he nodded. It didn't quite sit right with him—he didn't think anyone should behave in the way she just mentioned—but he supposed she had a point. "Well said, Miss Granger."
"Thank you."
"But I was more meaning the person you were with."
"Oh." She let out an unconvincingly airy laugh at that. Shaking her head, Hermione found herself sniffling. "Well, yes . . . I suppose that was never going to happen, now, anyway. The person I imagined those things with died in your house yesterday."
Swallowing hard, he nodded. Weasley. "It's probably not worth very much to you, but you have my condolences."
"Oh, please. You hate that whole family."
"Doesn't mean I want to see them all dead, Miss Granger. And it also doesn't mean I can't sympathize with your pain."
"I suppose not. That was shortsighted of me to assume." Once more, she met his gaze, trying for a change of subject. "I didn't mean it as an insult, you know. What I said about something in your family line causing the curse to take hold faster? I wasn't trying to provoke you. I was trying to understand how this could possibly happen."
He nodded, suspiciously quiet before he said, "You must be right about the emotions part. Your eyes are changing again."
Again Hermione sniffled and nodded back. She could feel the tears welling in her eyes. The very same tears she told herself just last night she didn't have the time or freedom to shed.
The surprises were not over, it seemed, as Lucius, driven by that primal voice from earlier—insistently whispering something to the effect of his female was upset, it was his place to offer comfort, of all notions to have, for pity's sake—tugged her against him, letting her rest her head against his bare shoulder.
She let herself weep for a little while. God, this was a mess. Ron dead, Harry missing, her a newly-changed werewolf who'd just shagged one of their enemies! And she knew the very same unspoken truth he did. Things were only going to get stranger moving forward.
"So," he said after she'd quieted, his voice barely above a whisper. "It wasn't 'ideal', you said?"
Aware he was trying to bring levity to the moment with a version of the 'how was it' question she knew many people asked after sex, she couldn't help but laugh. And then something else came crashing down on them both in that moment. The spontaneity of the whole thing left little room for . . . preparation.
"Oh, no." She roved her gaze about as she started, "um, we didn't—"
"I don't believe either of us had the presence of mind to cast a contraceptive charm at the time, Miss Granger."
"Well, it's still early. Do you think it would still work if we cast one now?"
The wizard looked positively thunderstruck by their moment of mutual stupidity. "Perhaps? Pregnancy is hardly instantaneous."
"Okay." She swallowed hard, jutting her chin over his shoulder at where her wand rested against the ground.
"Once that's done, we really should get some rest." Nodding, he turned, speaking as he reached for it. "If we're going to figure out what to do next, then we're going to need our wits about—" His words slid off as both he and Hermione snapped their heads in the direction of the cave's entrance.
"You heard it, too?" she asked, her question almost unintelligible for how low she spoke.
Lucius nodded. Turning his head to catch her gaze—both their eyes had gone back to amber now at the sounds approaching the cave—he gestured toward her clothes and mouthed the word, Quietly, before pointing in the direction of the wall beside the opening.
She nodded back, moving in shocking silence as he started pulling on his robes.