Chapter 8: The Nightcap
The space between the terrace and his bedroom door stretched, a corridor of shadow and anticipation. His hand was warm around hers, his grip sure, but he didn’t pull her. They walked, the only sound the distant, eternal sea and the quick, light rhythm of their footsteps on cool tile.
He pushed the heavy door open and guided her inside. The room was cavernous, dominated by a vast bed draped in white linen. The windows were open to the night, the muslin curtains floating on a slow breeze.Draco turned to face her, but didn’t reach for her right away. He just looked at her, his eyes like polished steel in the dim light.
“So,” he said, his voice low.“Brandy.”
A breathy, nervous laugh escaped her.“Right. The brandy.”
“An embarrassingly transparent ruse, Granger.” He stepped closer, erasing the polite distance. “But you still came.”
“I’m here for the excellent host experience.” Her chin lifted, a flicker of that old defiance. “Ginny’s orders.”
A slow smile touched his lips. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint Ginny.”
He didn’t kiss her. Instead, his hand came up, fingers skimming the line of her jaw, tracing the frantic pulse at her throat.It was a question. Her own hands, which felt clumsy and purposeless, rose to settle on his chest. She could feel the solid beat of his heart through his thin shirt.Fast.As fast as hers.This was the variable she couldn’t calculate. The rush of blood, the dizzying void where logic used to be.It was terrifying. It was the most alive she’d felt in months.
He must have seen the flicker of fear in her eyes, because his touch gentled.“Tell me to stop,” he murmured. “Tell me you want the brandy, and I’ll pour you the most boring, polite drink you’ve ever had.We’ll discuss the refractive properties of moonbeams on seawater. Perfectly safe.”
She shook her head, the movement small but decisive.Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. “I don’t want safe.”
That was all he needed.The careful control snapped. He closed the final distance, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other splaying across her spine, and kissed her.Not like on the terrace—that had been discovery. This was possession.It unraveled her completely. The taste of him, wine and salt and something uniquely Draco, flooded her senses.Her hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer. He groaned against her mouth, a raw, honest sound that vibrated through her. He walked her backward until her shoulders met the cool, solid wood of the door, his body pinning hers. The ridge of his arousal pressed against her stomach, and a jolt of pure, sharp desire shot through her.
She arched into him, a silent plea. His mouth left hers to trace a searing path down her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin where her pulse hammered. “Tell me what you want,” he breathed against her collarbone, his hands sliding under the hem of her sun-warmed shirt.
“You,” she gasped. “Just you.”
Clothes became obstacles, discarded in impatient, fumbling movements.His shirt on the floor, her trousers kicked aside. When he finally lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist, she felt weightless, anchored only by his hands gripping her thighs. He carried her to the bed, laying her down on the cool linen as if she were something precious.The moonlight streamed in, painting his pale skin in shades of silver and shadow. He knelt over her, just looking. His gaze traced the lines of her body with an intensity that felt more intimate than any touch.She should have felt exposed, vulnerable.Instead, she felt seen.
“Hermione,” he said, her name a reverence on his lips.Then he lowered his head.
He didn’t rush.He worshipped. His mouth charted a slow, devastating course from the hollow of her throat, over the swell of her breast, down the plane of her stomach. His hands followed, learning her, mapping every curve and dip with a tactile curiosity that stole her breath. When his tongue dipped into her navel, she shuddered. When his fingers finally, finally brushed through the curls between her legs, she cried out.
“Shh,” he whispered, his lips against her inner thigh.“I have you.”
His mouth found her center, and the world splintered. It wasn’t gentle.It was deliberate, expert, relentless. He licked and sucked and teased until her hips lifted off the bed of their own accord, her fingers tangling in his hair, not to guide but to hold on.Pressure coiled, tight and impossible, deep within her. She was babbling, half-words, half-sobs, his name a litany. Just as the coil was about to snap, he pulled away.
She whimpered in protest, blind, desperate.He moved up her body, kissing her deeply, letting her taste herself on his tongue.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough.Her eyes fluttered open. His face was above hers, strained with his own restraint, his grey eyes black in the dark. He was sheathed now, the tip of him pressing against her entrance.A question, again.
She answered by lifting her hips, taking him in.
He slid home with a deep, seamless glide that punched the air from her lungs.They both stilled, fused, breath mingling.The fullness was overwhelming.Perfect. His forehead dropped to hers, a shaky exhale warming her lips.Then he began to move.
It wasn’t frantic. It was deep, rolling thrusts that filled her completely, each one brushing a spot inside her that sparked lightning behind her eyelids. He adjusted the angle, found a rhythm that made her see stars. His hands were everywhere—clasping hers, gripping her hip, thumb circling the sensitive peak of her breast.The careful, controlled Draco Malfoy was gone. In his place was a man stripped bare, his face a mask of raw, unfiltered pleasure. “You feel… Merlin, Hermione…” he rasped, his pace faltering for a second before regaining its purpose.She was lost in the sensation, in the building storm. The earlier climax he’d wrung from her had only primed her, made every nerve ending hyper-aware. It gathered faster this time, a tidal wave rising from her toes, swamping her. She clenched around him, her back bowing off the bed.He felt it. “Come for me,” he gritted out, his thrusts turning punishing, perfect.“Now.”
The wave broke. It crashed through her with a force that was almost violent, a silent scream trapped in her throat as her body convulsed around his. The pleasure was so acute it bordered on pain, white-hot and all-consuming.As she pulsed around him, his own control shattered. A choked, guttural sound tore from his chest, and he drove into her one last, deep time, his body locking as he found his release inside her.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing and the distant sea.He collapsed beside her, his arm thrown heavily across her waist, his face buried in her hair. Their skin was slick, the room humid with the scent of sex and salt air.
Her mind, usually a whirlwind of analysis, was blissfully, utterly empty.
He stirred first, shifting to pull her against him, her back to his chest. He nuzzled the nape of her neck, his breath still hot.No one spoke.The moonlight crawled across the floor.
Just as her eyelids grew heavy, the comfortable silence thickening into sleep, he spoke. His voice was sleep-slurred, the words muffled against her skin.
“Complications,” he murmured, the ghost of a laugh in it.She smiled in the dark, her hand finding his where it rested on her stomach. She laced their fingers together.His grip tightened.
Outside, the waves continued their slow, patient erosion of the cliff.Inside, something else had shifted, irrevocably, in the foundations. The map was being redrawn, not with ink, but with the feel of his skin against hers, the unspoken promise in his touch, and the terrifying, thrilling understanding that nothing about this would be simple, or safe, ever again.