"So what was it you tried with ol' Weasley that he found so objectionable?" Draco asks in a low voice, tracing his fingers up and down her arm.

They're on her sofa – unbroken from the previous weekend's three-wizard grappling match on it, but Hermione is optimistic that could be rectified tonight. She tries to concentrate.

"Well, let's see. Sex outdoors, at night, but alone. You know, no one was around. Shouldn't have been that big a deal. A few brambles in the bum, that's all. Bit itchy after, nothing a well-aimed charm couldn't fix."

"Pish tosh," Draco agrees idly.

"Messing around in public but hiding it. You know, discreet. No exhibitionism or anything."

"Could there be?"

She stops and eyes him warily. "Not with Ron."

"Not talking about Ron."

"Then yes, quite."

"Good. Continue."

"The event in question was a bit of under-the-table fun at a dinner party Harry threw," she clarifies, perhaps unnecessarily. It seems important somehow.

"Fun for Weasley, or fun for you?"

"Neither, really, in the end."

"I see. I think it could have been more fun if people had known and were forced to be very polite about what was happening under the table. But I suppose it depends on the audience present."

"It does," she confirms. "But I can see the potential if it were a dinner party that deliberately makes Theo uncomfortable, for instance."

"Indeed. Although it might not make him uncomfortable at all, but that's a different conversation. Go on."

"Shagging in the loo out at the pub."

"Didn't like that, did he?"

"I even made it easy for him! I wore a skirt and everything."

Draco's eyes darken, almost alarmingly. "What a waste."

Sensing an opportunity, Hermione offers up the next detail on purpose. "I wore outfits just for him."

This has the desired effect. He's almost predatory. "Like what?"

"Well, things I knew he'd like. Old school uniform for one, although I find that one somewhat uninspired."

Draco plainly sees potential for improvement.

"My Healer robes when I'm doing work for St Mungo's, but with some strategic modifications."

"Go on."

"Specific sorts of underthings, many of which reside in the drawer I stopped you from rifling through Friday night."

"I wasn't going to rifle through your knickers," he huffs, but takes a sideways glance in the direction of her bedroom, "but now…"

She swats his arm and he looks back at her again. "What else?"

"Well, I told him I'd like him to wear certain things, too, but then he started to baulk."

"…like what?" He's reserving judgment.

"Like a Quidditch uniform. The trousers lace up at the crotch, you know."

"He objected to that?" Draco practically yelps.

"I think he got on board with it," she giggles, "but it did take some convincing. That was true for most everything I wanted to try, though."

"No wonder you ended it," he mutters. "Were the two of you ever compatible?"

She sighs, not wanting to get sad and ruin the lighter mood of things. "I suppose, for a while. We probably were. Some of it was that he was a safe choice, I think, the choice people expected me to make."

"Most people thought you'd wind up with Potter, actually."

"Well, maybe it was off all along, then. I was clearly the last to notice."

"No, I think he was the last to notice."

"He ended it, you know. Not me."

This stops Draco in his tracks. "What?"

He's incapable of continuing and Hermione reluctantly fills in the gaps. She brought it up, after all. She looks down at her hands, finding it easier than looking at him.

"I'd tried to end it a couple of times. I knew we were beginning to want different things. I told him he was – was wasting his life with me -"

Draco snorts at the absurdity of this and makes no effort to hide it. Hermione does her best to ignore him, to ignore the fact that it's exactly what Draco will be doing with her, too.

"- but he wouldn't hear of it. I think he still had hope that – I don't know, that whatever he'd been picturing for so long could still happen. Then I started working less and I think it got his hopes up, that maybe those things were about to happen at last. But all I wanted to do was find out everything I'd been missing all those years, trapping myself in my own lab."

"Like sex outdoors."

"Among other things." She smiles at him, grateful for a brief reprieve. "And it was probably unfair of me. I knew he wasn't comfortable with a lot of what I wanted to do. I think I kept hoping he'd come around while he kept hoping it was a phase. Anyway, I just kept pushing for different things and finally, he ended it."

"Do you think you were maybe trying to force his hand?"

This has not occurred to her. Had she been, in a way?

"…Maybe. Maybe I was. I don't know. I've never thought about it like that."

"If he had been game for all the new and exciting sexual activity, would you still be together? You said you'd tried to end it anyway."

"We probably would be," she admitted, "if only because he probably still wouldn't have accepted that we weren't well matched."

"Because you don't want to raise your own ginger Quidditch team?"

Hermione has waffled on bringing this up, but it really needs to be said. And it's probably right to mention it before they have sex, even if it's a bit of a downer.

"Whether they play Quidditch or not, he was quite insistent that he wanted children. Plural. Maybe not seven, like he grew up with, but several. And I -" she looks at her hands again.

"You don't know if you do," he finishes succinctly.

She'd love to leave it at that, but she can't. Nothing about this is casual for him and he deserves to know.

"I don't know if I can."

Draco is quizzical, waiting for her. How could she know this? She sighs again. "I don't know if you remember, but in our fifth year, in the Battle in the Department of Mysteries -"

"Oh, I remember that. My father was sent to Azkaban for it," he says wryly.

"Not the battle," she gives a breathy laugh. "I'm sure you remember the battle. But I don't know how many details you'd ever heard. During it, I was hit with a curse by Antonin Dolohov, right in the stomach. It was miscast but also hard to identify, and -" she inhales deeply, pledging to toe only the most necessary line, "- a lot of the damage was somewhat mysterious. The Healers didn't know if it would affect anything in that area."

Draco considers this solemnly. "You and Weasley never tried?"

"No!" She's shocked and realises a little late that her verbal aversion to it sends a different message. She laughs a little in retrospect. "…No."

"But he was clearly willing to roll the dice anyway."

At her silence, he looks at her again. Finally, she lifts her eyes to meet his, questioning and serious.

"Unless he didn't know."

She can't answer. How have they got here? She wants to rewind the last ten minutes.

"Why didn't he know? Why didn't you tell him?"

"I don't know. It's an awkward thing to bring up when you're seventeen and the boy you fancy has the icks when you mention your period. More in-depth conversation about fertility or general anatomy is avoided like the plague. Then, it's not as if you're going to be trying for children in the beginning of a new relationship anyway, and we were both barely out of school. Then, we'd been together so long it seemed strange that I hadn't mentioned it."

This is a weak excuse for a healthy relationship, which Hermione's having to face they hadn't had. But admitting this much would have opened Pandora's box on the rest of the curse, which she had never wanted to do, and still doesn't.

Draco is still quiet and has been for several minutes. Hermione doesn't know how to change the subject. She wants to, desperately, but nothing acceptable is springing to mind.

Malfoys need heirs.

She can freely admit she'll be disappointed if they never shag. But this might change his mind about her, she knows, and it's important that he know this much.

"I'm going to say two things completely independent of one another," he says at last, and he's got her interest. She looks at him, almost furtively.

"One is that I don't care about that. I mean, I care in the way that it ought to be your choice and I hope very much that curse didn't make the decision for you."

She doesn't believe him but still feels her eyes prick slightly with tears. Also, just like everything else so far – he knows, now, and he's an adult. He can decide if he still wants to be here.

"The other is that a family friend of ours is a Healer. She's the institute Healer at Durmstrang, but her background is in Dark magic. If you'd be interested in a consultation, I can reach out. I don't want to overstep, though. I have no idea who you've seen or what you've tried, so if you're not interested, I'll never bring it up again."

Hermione considers. It's been ages and ages since she's been examined by anybody aside from Stotch. And maybe an outside consultation could be fruitful. She wouldn't give the Healer any more detail than necessary and see what the Healer can discern on her own. Maybe she'll see something different if she's not led in any particular direction.

"Yes, I would like that," she finally responds. "Thank you."

She's not sure what's behind his offer. She's not ready to admit her own relief to herself, that he didn't sprint the other way. He says he doesn't care about heirs – and what nonsense, she berates herself, as if they'd be together long enough for it to matter. The far more pressing issue is that she wants more dates. More food and conversation and pudding. It's not quite casual for her, either, not anymore.

Her throat begins to thicken and she tries to swallow around a lump. Horrified, she stands.

"Excuse me," she says with a little difficulty. "I think – I think I just need some time to myself tonight, if that's alright."

A collaborative breaking of her sofa has become the furthest thing from Hermione's mind. She turns her back to Draco and puts a hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice coming from higher up. He's standing, too. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'll leave if you want me to, but – why don't you take a bath, or something, for a while and I'll put together some dinner?"

She doesn't really want him to go. She just desperately needs an exit to the conversation. She nods. Also, undeniably interesting is what he'll cobble together for food. Draco Malfoy, in a kitchen? Her kitchen? She has to see it.

Unable to talk with any kind of confidence, she waves him in the general direction of it and retreats to her bedroom. He meanders into the kitchen and begins to rummage in cabinets with more assurance than she'd feel in his place.

Casting a privacy charm, she picks up her pillow and screams into it for seventeen whole seconds of lung capacity.

Hermione lifted the privacy charm on her bedroom before realising she still wanted one during her bath – at least, for the start of it. While the water runs hot and fills the tub, she allows herself a few minutes of good, hard crying. Pure self-indulgence, maybe, but sometimes it just feels necessary.

She slips into the water, feeling thankful the bath and general steam will excuse that she's now red in the face and probably more than a bit blotchy.

She really hadn't intended for this to turn into an emotional evening. Draco keeps blindsiding her in different ways. They'd started out with relatively optimistic talk about possible exhibitionism and she'd wound up disclosing a significant chunk of her secret. Not the most salient point of it, no, but still. No one else even knows about the possibility fertility impact of the curse.

She should have broken up with Ron years ago. She should have had the determination to just do it, over his protests. Why hadn't she?

A loud *crack* from the kitchen makes her jump before she cackles out a laugh. A house-elf. She bets he brought a house-elf in to help in the kitchen. That shouldn't be as funny as it is and she feels a little punch-drunk. She should absolutely refuse a house-elf in her kitchen, in fact, but she can't bring herself to leave her hot bath just yet.

She lifts the silencing charm on her bathroom and yells out, "That had better not be a house-elf in there."

Draco approaches the door and she thinks he leans against it. "Hermione, your pantry is in deplorable shape. I needed basic supplies. I promise, he won't stay to help out if it makes you feel better."

"Marginally," she grumbles on principle.

"Can I rifle through your knicker drawer, yet?"

"No. You still haven't taken a pair off me."

"…Could I select a pair to take off you?"

"…No. Bugger off."

Laughing under his breath, he leaves.

Yes, she should have broken up with Ron ages ago. Not because she thinks Draco would have asked her out; it was clear that he wouldn't have. But his roommates might have forced his hand sooner. Even if they didn't, Hermione's had to admit a few truths over the last week. She's had better sex since she ended things with Ron. She's been having better conversation and general friendship since she ended things with Ron, across a variety of participants.

She's been having more fun in life overall.

When she tries, Hermione can't imagine having taken Ron to Thorpe Park. She's not entirely sure why, but the idea of being there next to him gives her a funny feeling. It's wrong, somehow. She can't imagine having had the conversation she just had with Draco, with Ron instead. Well, obviously, as she had plenty of chances to and never had. They'd grown further apart than she really realised on her own.

She's laughed more in the past week than she can remember doing in the past year.

She's cried more, too. Well, no; probably not. Her bad day Thursday and this hard talk tonight make it seem more drastic. It's been a week of some lows, but also some very high highs.

A light knock at the door. "Are you coming out anytime soon? Or do I need to send Jasper in to assist you?"

"Jasper?" She's momentarily diverted. Who else is in her flat?

"The elf."

Of course. She gives herself a little shake. She really is distracted. "You said he was delivering supplies only. I better hear him Disapparate or you'll be in trouble."

"You'll have to come out of there if I'm in trouble, or I'm afraid I'm not very afraid." His level of smugness should be illegal.

"So you've cooked all by yourself, have you? I'm not coming out without the promise of food. And you're constantly wanting to delay things with food, so why stop now?" She starts to rustle around anyway, reaching for a towel.

"I can bring it in to you, if you let me," he offers slyly and she stops.

"What sort of food am I meant to eat in the bath?"

"You'll have to let me in and see."

Hermione considers. Why not, really? If anything, this is finally an escalation against the physical boundary he's held in place. And it's finally not Hermione trying to bust it down. With a quick wave, she reheats the water and fills the tub with bubbles. Her confidence levels are healthy enough, but sitting on her arse in tepid water like a drowned rat off a recent crying jag isn't her cup of tea.

Draco enters cautiously, balancing a tray. Hermione recognises it as her one and only cutting board and covers a grin with one hand. He does a double-take at her – not sure what he was expecting, Hermione wonders a bit – and almost bobbles the tray before recovering.

He sits cross-legged on the floor, to her general astonishment, and proffers up a makeshift charcuterie board. He's managed to collect some meats, cheeses, olives, and a few lonely raspberries.

As she surveys it, he supplies, "You forbade me from having any help. It's the best I could do on my own."

"You did quite well, given what I had out there. I know it wasn't much. I'm more surprised that those suit trousers are sitting on my bathroom floor."

He lifts an eyebrow. "The trousers on the floor itself, me wearing them on the floor, or -"

"Mostly that you can bend that way while wearing them. I never thought suits were meant to be particularly flexible," she comments, nibbling on some cheese.

He grabs some salami and adds a salacious wink. "Well, I am flexible, and they're tailored to do what I need."

"I see. So, you're comfortable there, then?" And flexible, her brain notes.

"Immensely."

Hermione gives him a sceptical look but says nothing, grabbing a raspberry.

"Well, I prefer it to sitting on the loo, at any rate," he clarifies, taking the final raspberry and tossing it in the air to catch it in his mouth.

"Show off."

"Don't sound so surprised." He gives her a moment to swallow her next bite before saying, "We should talk about something."

She fixes her gaze on the hair products lining her sink. Next to those are the two camouflaged bottles of potions she must take every morning. She sighs. "As long as it's something new and not more of the same from before."

"Well, it's a bit of the same. But the earliest bits," he reassures her with a hand. She's not sure she believes him and it must show on her face. "I could… sit in there with you, if it would help?"

Would it? Hermione isn't sure. But she's not about to turn it down. If nothing else, she'll have an easier time talking without looking him right in the face while she does it. She gives a curt nod, unsure of where he means to go.

Wisely, he casts an extension charm on the tub before stripping down to his pants. Hermione can't help staring, now, and doesn't feel guilty about it. She's starkers, after all, covered in bubbles or not.

He's gorgeous. It's unfair. She'd seen his arms in the t-shirt earlier today. She'd felt his back and shoulders. She'd seen his calves and even his knees – gasp, according to Theo. What a scandal.

But he is halfway to a scandal, standing here in her bathroom, steadily removing clothing. Hermione soaks in his broad chest, the defined abdominal muscles, the perfect angular line from his hips down into his pants.

"Just because of how you're looking at me, I'm going to sit behind you," Draco says, almost primly. She muffles a snort and might succeed. "Today was the first day you've been after something besides getting me into bed. I've felt quite objectified up to now, I'll have you know."

"Poor darling."

He climbs in, one leg on either side of her, and does his best to keep the water inside the tub. She hardly moves as he settles in. Her arms are resting on her knees, raised in front of her. He drapes his own over them and winds his fingers between hers, putting his chin on her shoulder. He's scooted back in the tub, though, and he's not pressing his chest into her back. She thinks she knows why.

"Earlier today, you said he hadn't wanted to tie you up. I won't say his name." His chin moves against her shoulder and she finds it a little hard to focus on what he's saying. He's so close. She feels his breath on her skin.

"Please don't."

"Did he, though? Tie you up?"

"No."

"Have you been tied up?"

"No."

"I'm happy to do that for you, at some point."

She tries to turn around and he steadies her, but not enough to stop her aggravated words over her shoulder. "If you're about to plan eighteen more delays to things -"

He barks out a laugh. "Oh, I've made you wait a whole week. 'Poor darling,' indeed."

She fumes, facing forward just to be stubborn, now – although, come to think of it, he's made no motions to turn her around, either. Infuriating.

Evenly, he says, "Doing that involves a level of trust. I'm not saying it can't happen on a one-off, but I want you to trust me when I do it to you."

'I do trust you' is on the tip of her tongue, but she bites it back.

"From what I've gathered, you say what you want during sex. You'll tell me if you want or need something different. And I hope you will. But I'm also direct. Generally speaking, I like to be in charge. I'll like to tell you to do things, to wear things. To act things out. So, my question is – can you take direction as well as you give it?"

His mouth is so close to her shoulder, to where it meets her neck.

"I've never had to, but I don't see why not."

His lips press onto her skin as he shakes with silent laughter. "You've 'never had to' or never had the opportunity to? Never been told to? They're different, you know."

Hermione rolls her eyes and leans her head back. She's trying for his shoulder but his body is too far away. "Fine. No one's ever told me what to do, for whatever reason. But I'm not opposed to it."

She feels the barest brush of something against her back before it's gone, Draco shifting his weight away from her again. His fingers play with hers, his long arms swallowing her up.

"I've thought about you a hundred different ways," he says into her ear, his voice husky.

"Only a hundred?" She can't help taking the piss. It helps her steady her own breathing a smidge. Her heart is racing in an aggravating manner.

"A hundred different ways is a lot, thank you. Try and make a list. I bet you can't get to a hundred. And of course the best ones made the most frequent reappearances."

"What were the best ones?"

"No, not tonight. You don't get to know that yet. I can safely say you've turned several of them on their head, though. I might have to rework my list after everything I heard today." He starts on her ear, his lips capturing her earlobe. She shivers.

"I think I'd like to see this list," she manages, feeling slightly cross-eyed.

"Maybe one day. Probably after I lose a bet to you over something or other. That's usually how confidences get surrendered in my flat."

"I'll keep my eyes out for opportunities, then."

"Do." Draco's moving his way back down her neck, to where it meets her shoulder. Her hair is up but haphazard, wild flyaway curls akimbo. He nudges them away and presses his tongue to her skin just before his lips land a kiss there.

Hermione can hardly think straight. His hands are still tangled in hers and although he's still persistently avoiding pressing his chest to her back, she can feel his uneven inhalations through his arms. She tilts her head back and to the side, hoping he'll close the gap, and he does.

His mouth finds hers and he makes that noise, that addictive noise, the one of desperate want. She abandons his hand and wraps hers up and behind herself, stroking her fingers through the hair at his neck. Her breasts break the water line and she doesn't know if he looks or not, but the colder air makes her nipples harden. She makes a sound of her own, completely involuntary, and he gasps against her.

Hermione leans back, trying to find him. To help, she clutches the fingers tangled in hers and wraps his arm around her, pressing them together. At the same time, she tightens her grasp in his hair and finally, finally, she feels him solidly against her.

"Is this one of those things you need?" he asks in a voice that could make her melt.

"Yes," she exhales. "But you've never shown much inclination to give me those things up to now."

Draco grips her body to him and she feels the hard throb at her back. "Well, playtime is over. But I'll give you what you need, in ways you didn't know you needed it. If you trust me to, that is."

Hermione can't hold in a groan. She leaves his hair to locate his spare hand, doing nothing in particular as far as she can tell, and places it around her breast. "Let me see, then."

"You've waited a week for this," he growls and she nearly convulses. "I've waited almost fifteen years. I'll do it my way."

"That week was beastly of you."

Gods, won't he touch her? Rake his hands over her, use his fingers, his tongue, his mouth, his teeth? She's hot, throbbing, shaking under him. And she feels his own response, hard against her.

"How do you have this much self-control?" Hermione feels pathetically weak, needy, desperate for it. For him.

"Fifteen years of practice, love," he says, not moving. He waits until she's practically shoving her breast up into his hand before he deigns to finger her nipple. "I could savour every second of this for hours."

"Don't, though," she whispers, the closest she'll come to begging, and then her mouth immediately makes her a liar. "Please?"

Draco pinches her nipple once, hard, and she gasps against him. "Yes or no?" he asks.

"Yes. Yes, that."

He pinches again and rolls it between his fingers, keeping the tension in it, drawing it out. Hermione wants to scream. It's hard, pebbled, as desperate as she is. Draco's mouth attaches to her neck and he sucks on it while he pulls her nipple in time. Four, five, six pulls. Hermione finds herself rocking her hips onto nothing in the tub with the same rhythm, wanting something; anything.

His other hand, still twisted together with her fingers, moves down her stomach and between her legs. She tries to move her hand out of the way and he stops her, gently placing it where he wants it.

"Show me," he says, just long enough to stop working on her neck.

Hermione hesitates and he places his hand back on top of hers. "I want to know how you like it. How do you touch yourself? Show me."

Can she take direction? Sure. Has she ever done this? No. But after all, it's not like he's staring at her from across the bed. Perhaps sensing her propensity to overthink, he goes back to work on her neck, sliding down to her shoulder. His fingers start playing with her nipple again, circling the hard areola and flicking the peak until she groans against him. His other hand is still resting atop her own, which slowly starts to move.

He shadows her, finger to finger, as she rubs around her clit and dips inside. The water changes the feel a bit, but not a lot, and she'd slip in and out enough times to feel her own wetness either way. She can feel how turned on she is, hot and swollen. His finger doesn't follow her own inside and she wishes he would.

But it won't take her long. She rests her head against his collarbone, relishing his uneven breathing on her cheek. He pinches her nipple again as she pinches her clit between two fingers, and she lets out a small cry. Three more tight circles on her clit and she starts to shudder. His other arm grips around her middle, pressing her to him as if he wants to feel it through her.

As orgasms go, it's not overly strong. But she's never felt someone else attuned to it the way she is, the way he's intent on experiencing it.

Hermione realises his finger over her own is continuing to lightly press on her clit, fluttering, almost, and he's drawing it out for her. His other hand is wrapped around the far side of her ribcage, keeping them as close together as possible. She feels the throbs of him at her lower back, his mouth by her ear, his breath on her skin.

It's the single most intense thing she's shared with another person.

Draco gives her time to come down, sort of, but the return of his mouth to her shoulder, her neck, her ear doesn't let her drift very far. It's as if he wants to taste every part of her and she wonders if he's intending her to wonder about that part.

His fingers are now avidly playing with her breasts, palming them and rolling them in his hands. He's not bothering to hide his erection any longer and she's glad; she likes the feel of it against her.

Hermione relaxes against him, just letting the various sensations wash over her. She keeps telling herself she trusts him. She supposes that means she should learn to be less impatient and let him do things the way he's been wanting to.

"Would you still never have asked me out?" she exhales, her eyes closing. She nuzzles into his neck and his hands go still before resuming their idle play with her nipples. His hips roll lazily up into her, subtle but distinct.

"Well, never in a thousand years could I have imagined it would be like this," he admits at last.

"Yes, I'm quite different," Hermione murmurs with a sigh. "But we've covered that, I think. I hope, anyway."

"And I've already said it wasn't a recent observation on my part. I've been paying attention a long time. But I can safely say I didn't imagine giving you the first orgasm in the bathtub after a day spent in a Muggle amusement park."

Smirking, she lifts up slightly, trying to see his face. "You think you gave me that orgasm, do you? Seems to me, that was me."

He's caught speechless, somewhere between flabbergasted and offended. She can't quite tell which, but it's funny. The laugh that escapes her only fuels him and he growls into her ear.

"Excuse me?"

She's giggling too hard to respond and he picks her up unexpectedly, making her squeal. Water sloshes about, splattering the floor of her bathroom and she nearly catches the light fixture with her foot.

"I mean, I'm sure you're quite good at it, but so far -"

Draco breathes in deeply, almost a rumble in his chest, and strides with her into her bedroom, bypassing the long-forgotten tray of food on her sink. She's breathless at how easily he handles her; of course, it had seemed like nothing when she was on his back at the park, but this –

She lands on her bed with a *whump,* not noticing the residual squeak of her pathetic mattress at all. Draco stands at the foot of it, looking down at her. His eyes are dark, scanning up and down her naked body, his hair dangling in the way. He tosses it back to keep staring, breathing hard. She's wet and sweaty, undoubtedly red in the face, her hair both plastered to her and curling out from her scalp with wild abandon, but she can't even feel self-conscious under his gaze. Quite the opposite; she begins to grow hot again, feeling the tensions rise in her stomach.

Hermione notices he's still in his pants, a pair of boxer briefs that are wet and clingy and leaving absolutely nothing to her imagination.

Maybe impugning his pride was the way to go all along.

He leans over her, crawling up the mattress – its distress falls on deaf ears – and says, "What do you want me to do to you, Hermione? Tell me what you like."

"No," she refuses, already short of breath, and he levels her with a stare that gives her shivers. She reinforces her position. "I won't. If you're such a good observer, figure it out. Otherwise, it's more of me doing it for myself, isn't it?"

The heat in his gaze could melt wax.

"Contrary sort of witch, aren't you?"

"You said you could show me what I need. I'm calling your bluff."

Hermione has the distinct impression that whatever self-control he's been strong-arming into place for the past week is beginning to crumble. She feels a chill of antsy anticipation and Draco leans onto one elbow, surveying her with new scrutiny.

"So you want to know what I can find on my own," he muses, his eyes dark and glinting blue in the light. "Well, I've found a few places already. Let's see how long you can hold out before you tell me what you want me to do."

Her anticipation splits neatly down the middle, partially forking off into dismay. He's going to draw it out. Of course he is. He's going to have her writhing here, begging. No; she won't beg. She won't.

Hermione swears she used to have more willpower than this. Somewhere in her recent life it's abandoned her, without so much as a by-your-leave. But Draco is determined to drag every whimper, shudder, gasp from her body, wringing them free one by one.

He starts back near her ear, gently pushing her hair towards the pillow. His fingers trace her jaw, and achingly slow, make their way down her neck. His mouth follows a few seconds behind, tongue first, before lips, sometimes the other way around. He nips the soft skin where her shoulder meets her neck, a place she's noticed he likes, and she sighs out a low 'mmm' of approval.

He continues leading the way with his hands, skimming down her collarbone and to her sternum, where he starts to press a light path of kisses down between her breasts. His fingers settle beneath their undersides and he rolls his thumbs to feel their weight, slowly pushing them up and letting them rest back down in a rhythm. His face is nearly between them and he turns so she can feel his breath across a nipple.

Her own level of arousal is tangible, the low heat between her legs increasing. Draco's practically nuzzling into her breasts, letting his exhales rumble across her. His hands continue to roll them up into his face and he kisses the side, the top, the underneath. When he finally reaches a mouth over to one nipple, Hermione thinks she could weep with relief.

It's hot and cold at once, the shocking heat of his tongue with the cold air. She arches her back into him and feels him smile. Without warning, he clasps her breast in his hand and traps her nipple with his teeth, a quick pinch that he soothes when she gasps, circling it with his tongue and pressing a kiss to it.

She's wet and growing wetter, starting to move with him out of her own discomfort. Draco moves a hand down her side, stopping with his thumb over her hipbone. "What do you want me to do, Hermione?"

She remembers, in a flash, that she's determined not to tell him. Her eyes meet his, defiant and stubborn, and he chuckles. "Suit yourself."

His hand comes back up instead of down and she wants to cry. Draco centres himself over her, promisingly enough, letting his weight press onto her lower body. She can feel the twitching and jerking in his pants against her thigh, but he stays on her breasts. He switches out, mouth versus hand, one to the other, tormenting her nipples in an agonisingly slow dance.

Her back arches into him in waves, waves he uses to his advantage with the little pulls and swirls he's making. Hermione wonders if she could come just like this. She's never had anybody dedicate such time and attention to nipple play and she remembers how he pinched and pulled one in time with his mouth on her neck in the tub. She'd come not half a minute later.

She lets her hands start to move, now, going down his torso and he stops her. He takes her wrists in one hand and pins them over her head, dragging his weight against her.

"One day," he pants, "I'll tie you like this."

She feels his erection and moans. Draco shudders against her, dipping his head to her collarbone for the briefest second. He reattaches his mouth to her breast, circling with his tongue in that way that makes her wonder what else he can do with it. One hand keeps her own pinned, but the other starts to snake its way down her body.

Finally. Hermione's knees raise on the mattress, heels to her bum. She can feel her arousal, the flood of want, and his hips roll against her.

"Like this?" Draco asks rhetorically, letting his fingers circle her clit just like she had done. He dips one inside, straight and deep, and pulls it out to swirl her wetness around. She makes a pathetic sort of whimper and he repeats it several times, taunting her desire.

He lifts his hand to his mouth and sucks the finger, watching her while he does it. "I could never have imagined -"

Hermione opens her own mouth and waits expectantly, and he sets his jaw. Slipping his finger back inside her again, he withdraws it to put it in her mouth. She lets her tongue flick against his finger as she licks it and his eyes roll back.

Good. She'd thought his self-control was crumbling before; she'd been wrong. Time to break it down.

He's still managing far better than she is, but at least he's between her legs, now. Hermione still wishes he'd just shag her already and wonders exactly what it'll take for that to happen – probably for her to ask for it. Well, too bad; she'd asked for that several times and he'd desisted. She'll survive off other types of orgasms. Probably.

He does seem slightly more rushed now, though. He's slid in a second finger, letting his thumb work around her clit, and Hermione's astonished by how sexy she finds having her hands pinned down. She thought she'd like it, but combined with everything else Draco is doing, she's practically quivering with want.

He's hitting the perfect spot deep inside, the one that mirrors her clit from the inside out and she can't stop a little cry. Then she realises she doesn't want to stop those anyway. She's been denying telling him what to do, not telling him what's working. He went to explore; she should reward.

"Yes, right there," she wheezes at the same instant he does it again. Her words almost fall out, choking her on them. He presses with his thumb and she feels that quivering get tighter. Her back arches again as she tries to grind down on his hand, her arms overhead pulling her breasts taut.

Draco adds a kind of alternating pressure to his fingers, sliding and scraping and fluttering. Hermione feels an odd sort of stretch to her body, almost feline as she arches upward, and then a sudden compacting. He presses on that one internal spot and she shatters, clenching down in waves.

Her vision goes white and she's stunned by the force of it. Her body keeps shuddering in short aftershocks, and she gradually realises he's murmuring things in her ear. "That's it. That's it. I've got you."

Hermione lays there, limp and sweaty, tucked into his arms. Draco brushes her hair off her face and drops a light kiss on her temple.

His fingers resume their light tracing, up and down her body, while she tries to piece herself back together. "In light of the difference between the two," he says with a smirk she can hear, "you can take credit for the first one after all."

"How generous, from such an arrogant prat," she replies, too exhausted to put any true irritation behind it, and he coughs out a laugh.

"Maybe. But I'm not done with you yet, either."