The moment I saw the look on my father's face I knew I was screwed. He was pissed, something I had anticipated when I gave her the other ring. I straightened my spine. I needed to remain focused. She would not get that ring.

"What the hell was that, Theodore?" He snarled. My father had dragged me out of the ballroom and into a small room off to the side. If I had to guess I'd say this was meant to be a fainting room once upon a time.

"That was the ring I gave her," I answered, smoothing the wrinkles his hand had left in my suit jacket. I hoped that the party had been fun enough and distracting enough that people didn't see as my father dragged me away like a child being punished for misbehaving.

"That is not the ring that I gave you to give to her."

"The ring you gave me belonged to my mother." I kept my tone calm, very matter-of-fact. Something that would either make him even angrier or would keep him from blowing his top. There was really no telling which way it would go until it was too late.

"I'm well aware of that, Theodore, I am the one who gave it to Ophelia. And as I told you at the table the other day, she doesn't need it anymore. You were to give it to your betrothed."

"And I chose to not do that. I will hold onto it and perhaps give it to my future children." I refused to truly think about future children and the actual solid idea of procreating with Coco.

"I gave you an order, Theodore."

"I'm a grown man, I'm about to be married. I made the decision to not give my mother's ring to Coco Fucking Selwyn."

My father scoffed.

"You are hardly grown, you're still acting like a child, throwing a fit over something like a ring that belonged to a woman you never even met."

"She was my mother." I roared, letting him get the better of me again. It was a battle in a war that I was always on the losing end of. "I might have never gotten to meet her but she was my mother and that was her ring, and Cordelia Selwyn does not deserve my mother's ring."

There was a sharp intake of breath and a click. I whirled, hurrying to the door that had just snapped closed. I yanked it open to see Coco storming back into the ball.

"Grown." My father chuckled. "Sure you are." I glared at him but didn't give him the satisfaction of fighting back as I headed into the ballroom, scanning the room for Coco.

I saw my friends, most of them, Draco hadn't come but I hadn't expected him to come. He rarely came to parties anymore with the obvious exception of my birthday party. And even then he hadn't come out of the house until basically everyone was gone.

Alistair caught my eye and he brightened, gesturing to the others. They were heading my way, but my attention was already moving on, looking for a very pissed-off woman. Or at least her brother, I had a feeling if I found Baz I would find Coco.

Making it all the more difficult was the knowledge that this was the Selwyn's house, there was nothing stopping them from going anywhere in the damned mansion.

"Have you two seen either Baz or Coco?" I asked as my friends finally made it up to me.

"Yeah, actually, Baz was talking to us until Coco came through, she dragged him out to the garden-" Alistair replied, "Ew why are the Fawleys here?" Blaise's head whipped around and I rolled my eyes. I did not have time for Blaise and his ex-step-father drama.

"Everyone was invited," I responded before pushing past them and heading for the doors to the garden. It was officially nighttime, but the Selwyn family's garden was well-lit, making it still habitable. Of course- they had a damned hedge maze

Yes, they had a hedge mage, but Coco had a loud mouth.

"She doesn't deserve- I didn't ask for it!" She was ranting. I followed the sound, just glad I wasn't seeing anyone else out there to hear her.

"Coco." Baz wasn't shouting, but I could still hear him, telling me I was getting closer.

"Fuck him. Fuck him, fuck his dad, and fuck his stupid fucking friends."

"Give me the bottle."

"No." I made my way through the maze until finally I turned a corner and there they were, Coco had removed her heels and was standing up on a stone bench, Baz was sitting on the ground, having apparently given up on getting the bottle out of her hands, as she still gripped it by the neck.

"You're welcome to insult me, and I encourage you to insult my father, but do not insult my friends." I stepped into the clearing so they could see me and Baz scrambled to stand.

"Go fuck yourself." Coco lifted the bottle to her lips and chugged. It was just wine, so nothing too hard but even with wine, chugging wasn't the best idea.

"You're being ridiculous."

"That is my right as a human being. I can be ridiculous if I so choose." She shrugged and took another long drink. I watched her throat as she swallowed each gulp, when the bottle was empty, she dropped it, the grass cushioning the glass so it didn't shatter.

Baz ran his hand over his face and groaned.

"You really said she didn't deserve the ring?" He asked. I rolled my eyes.

"Yes."

"Yes, he did because he's a fuck head." Coco declared.

"I'm going to do something," I warned Baz. "And she is going to be very mad at me for it. But I do need you to lead me to her room." Baz remained silent, his eyes wary.

I took that as a yes and withdrew my wand

"Don't you dare, you son of a-"

"Silencio." Coco was cut off mid sentence, her voice vanishing. Her eyes widened and I could tell by her body language alone that if she hadn't been silenced she'd be screaming. Well I was prepared to make that even worse. I stepped closer and before she could move, I hefted her over my shoulder. She kicked her legs but I held tight.

"Lead the way."

Baz hesitated but then led me towards the house- not going through the ballroom but through a different entrance.

The Selwyn family home was huge- just as large as our home, but I could see as we moved through the halls that several areas were unkept, they were dark and I knew if I headed that way I would bounce off of a barrier meant to keep people from traveling where they weren't meant to. It was a common practice. Few people actually bothered to keep their entire massive home open, even during parties which would just make it easier for people to get lost.

I struggled to keep Coco from seriously injuring me or herself but finally, after far too long a journey, Baz pushed open a door and flicked on the light.

Coco's room looked exactly how I thought it would- like a clothing store exploded. I dropped her on the bed and Baz closed the door, joining us in the room. I ended the spell and the moment it was gone, she was shouting, scrambling up from the bed, fixing the skirt of her dress to ensure she wasn't showing anything inappropriate.

"How dare you, and how dare you?" She turned her rage on her brother. "He's an asshole, that's just his personality, he inherited it from his father. You don't have an excuse, you traitor." She snapped.

"You chugged a bottle of wine, Everyone in the ballroom saw you chug the first half!" Baz defended himself. I internally groaned at that one. Of course, she couldn't keep her breakdown to herself. It had to be a spectacle.

"I don't care." She snapped. "I wouldn't care if Merlin himself watched me chug every bottle in the bloody wine cellar."

"Go to bed. You're acting like a child."

"Yeah? Did you get that line from your daddy?" Coco snarled.

"Yes, and perhaps if you'd had a father to keep you in line none of us would be in this situation!" I roared back. Coco reeled back as if I had hit her.

"Get out." Her voice was low, dangerous. I'd never seen Coco Selwyn really lose her temper but this reminded me of the birthday party after the punch had been thrown. Deadly calm.

"Coco." Baz started, reaching a hand out towards his sister.

"Get the fuck out before I throw you out." she turned and walked through a door that I assumed was her bathroom.

"We should go," Baz muttered. I could hear it in his voice that he didn't like this, he didn't like Coco being mad at him. I thought back to school and it was rare that the Selwyn twins truly fought. They often squabbled as I assumed all siblings did, but big fights- that seemed either really rare or they had been good at hiding it. And seeing as Coco didn't seem like she was capable of hiding anything ever…

I headed out the door without a second thought and heard the sound of Baz's footsteps behind me.

"You can find your way back to the ballroom." He gestured.

"You're not going back?" I asked.

"No." He crossed the hall to another door, opening it. I shouldn't have been surprised that their rooms were directly across from each other, but I still was. In a home the size of theirs, they still had their rooms in the same hallway.

I shrugged and did in fact find my way back to the ballroom. Everyone was still socializing.

"Theodore." Blaise grabbed my arm- not unlike how my father had and pulled me off to the side. This was exhausting. "Why didn't you tell me the Fawleys were back in England?"

"Unfortunately the PI that I had trailing them had fallen off and I completely lost touch," I responded, forcing as much sarcasm into the words as I possibly could. The look Blaise gave me would have scared off anyone else, but alas, we'd been friends for far too long for an angry look from the man to scare me.

"Nott."

"I didn't really know they were back. I saw Tate at The Dragon's Den the other night but honestly, I didn't really think about it." I had been too busy thinking about his dirty hands all over the woman I was supposed to be marrying. Actually, if he was at the party it was a great chance to rip them from his body and-

"I'm going to head out." Blaise ripped me out of my violent fantasy.

"What?"

"The bride isn't even here anymore and I really don't want to run into Reid or Tiberius. So, I'm going to go. Congrats on the wedding you don't want." Blaise patted me on the back and walked out of the ballroom to apparate home.

I rolled my eyes, It was ridiculous that Blaise was still hiding from the Fawleys, it had been nearly four years. And it wasn't like any of it was actually his fault, but whatever. Far be it for me to shame Blaise for running from his perceived problems when I was prepared to do the exact same, I was waiting for the right moment to sneak out of this hell of a party.

"Where are my children?" Genevieve Selwyn asked as I went to walk past- my eyes on escape.

"Coco wasn't feeling well, so Bastian took her up to her room," I answered. It wasn't really a lie. Genevieve's shoulders slumped a tiny bit.

"Oh, I see."

"I'm sure it was just- all the excitement." Yeah, right, if she knew anything about her own daughter, she'd never believe that.

"I'm sure it was." the tone told me she absolutely knew it wasn't.

"Right." I turned to go, stopping when she cleared her throat.

"She really is a good girl, Theodore. She's just- not comfortable with letting herself seem vulnerable. Ever." Genevieve looked down into the wine glass in her hand. I was a little surprised to see that it held water as opposed to wine, unless of course, it was straight vodka. I certainly hoped it wasn't.

"I- I'm sure." I finally managed to say. "Goodnight, Genevieve. If my father is still around here somewhere let him know I went home early. I might have whatever got Coco sick." Genevieve nodded and lifted the glass to her lips. She wore the same red lipstick as her daughter, the red that Coco had started wearing when she was quite young. I remember she'd gotten in trouble for it a lot as the professors found it unsavory for such a young girl to be wearing such a bold color. Even then, Coco had held her head high and declared that if they thought less of her for her lipstick then that was a reflection of them, not of her.

I apparated home, going straight to my room to pour myself a glass of whiskey, and tossing the jacket to my suit to the floor, it would hang itself back up. I pulled my wand and conjured up a fire in the fireplace, sitting in my usual chair. On the table between the fire and my chair sat the chess board, remnants from the last game Draco and I had played still littered the field. I had decimated him- of course. The table between the two chairs held a book- flipped upside down to hold the reader's spot. It was the book Draco had been reading. He came over often enough that I left any books out that he'd been enjoying. Sometimes he just needed to get out of his family's home. And while I didn't think of myself as the greatest company in the world, we were both content to just- have another person around, quietly existing. No expectations, no incessant talking. That was something that I had never been fond of and something Draco had lost patience for after two and a half years with his blasted Aunt Bellatrix around constantly running her mouth.

Maybe that was why I couldn't stand Coco, she was seemingly always talking, she always had something to say no matter what the subject, and she would be going on and on without even pausing to take a breath. A pity, I could think of so many other, better, ways for her to use that mouth of hers. Her full red lips parted wide, taking my cock-

What?

My eyes shot open and I sat up. No, not allowed. I was not going to let myself think about Coco like that. Yes, I had taken- extreme notice of her body, I had kissed her like I was suffocating and she was the last breath of air on earth, yes I'd even gone as far as to grind my erection into her back- I had no real explanation for that one. But I hadn't allowed myself to truly think about her in a carnal way before.

I closed my eyes but the image was still there, clear as day, Coco on her knees in front of me, wearing that little silk dress she had worn at the birthday party, Her eyes were focused downward, not in submission but in concentration as she took every last inch of me down her throat.

I groaned, I could practically feel it- how warm and wet her mouth would be, her lipstick leaving rings around the base of my cock. I blindly reached for my wand, knocking the book onto the floor- Draco would be mad. I didn't care. I flicked the wand and heard the click of the door lock. I dropped the wand and transferred my glass to my left hand. With my right, I quickly loosened my tie before unbuttoning my pants.

My hand reached down into my slacks, tugging down the waistband of my boxers until my cock sprang free. I wrapped my hand around it and immediately tensed, nope. I wasn't going to do that. I pulled my hand back- my hand wasn't like her mouth, my hand was dry, there were a couple of little callouses- it wasn't anything as she would be and that thankfully pulled me out of it. I quickly tucked myself back into my pants, zipped my slacks up, and took another drink of whiskey.

A shower would help, I decided. A nice cold shower. I took another swallow of whiskey and began to strip as I headed for the bathroom. Again the clothes would take themselves where they belonged, the laundry or to be hung back up, and my shoes as I discarded them would vanish into the closet.

I had no idea how muggles survived.

I turned on the shower and as the room filled with the sounds of water hitting the cool tile of the shower floor, I dropped my boxers and stepped into the spray.

It was still cold, but that felt like a good thing as each drop slammed into my shoulders, the droplets warming against my fevered skin as they ran down my body.

As the shower warmed- my thoughts of Coco didn't dissipate.

If anything they got worse, Even with my eyes wide open I could imagine her, her nails dragging against my stomach and down my hips- her hands wrapping about my base as her head bobbed- taking me down her throat over and over-

"Fuck it." I snarled as if there was someone else to blame for my current predicament. My cock stuck out straight from my body, twitching of it's own accord as blood flowed and pulsed through it's length.

The water provided enough lubrication as I started to stroke. This wasn't going to be slow or soft, I wasn't looking to savor it. I wanted her out of my head. I didn't want to see how well she took my cock as I fucked her mouth in my head. I didn't want to imagine how soft and silky her dark hair would feel gripped in my hand as my hips thrust forward with vigor, I hated that I could see how her blue eyes would water but she wouldn't tap out- she would never tap out. That would be too much like letting me win.

"C- Fuck." I stopped myself from hissing out her name as I came, my cum painting the wall of the shower instead of the back of her throat. I let the water wash it away, resting my head against the cold tile as my body went back to normal and I was hit with the worst realization of all- that image of her was never going to leave my head. I was stuck with it now.