Tugging At My Damned Heart Strings!!!!

Tugging at my damned heart strings!!!!

(slightly nsfw)

“Mother found out about us. She says she’ll tell father if I don’t put an end to it.” Draco’s whisper-soft voice is a wrinkle in the dead night, but its effect on Hermione’s heart feels irreparable.

She sits up, his arms falling away. “Your mother is blackmailing you?”

He shrugs. “It’s more common than you’d think on my side of the pond.”

Her gaze drops from his settled eyes to the lines of muscle and scarring on his naked chest, committing every visible inch of him to memory. Their bodies are pressed against each other under the covers, soft and sated. There are angry scratches down his abdomen, where she likes to dig her fingers when he makes her see stars.

She swallows the pain, but can’t resist the tension building behind her eyes or the blurring of his silhouette. Is this his way of saying goodbye? One last blissfully oblivious shag before they part ways?

“Hey, look at me.” He curves his hand over her cheek, luring her eyes back to his. “Don’t cry.”

She looks down, ashamed that she’s emotional when this clearly means nothing to him.

“Hermione,” he says in a gentle and patient voice. “What am I to you?”

“You’re ev—” She stops herself, feeling her skin flush with heat. “Why are you asking me?” She’s struck by another wave of grief. “To wrench out my feelings before you toss me away?”

“Only trying to gauge them,” he amends, brushing his thumb across her lips. “I find myself at a crossroads and need your guidance.” His hand sails down her neck to her shoulder, where his thumb draws lazy patterns on her skin. “You see, there’s this girl, and while she and I started off as something rebellious and unattached, I fell for her. And now I don’t know what to do.”

Her stomach swoops, drawing forth a hundred manic butterflies. “My guidance, you say?”

“I’d be very grateful.”

“Well, I hear this girl’s rather clever and could find a way to make it work even without his family’s obnoxious hoard of wealth.” She weaves her fingers through his, staring at the signet ring on his finger. “So my advice to you is, stay with her… because she’s fallen too.”

He raises her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. Candlelight splashes over his fair lashes, turning his amused gaze molten. “I was hoping she’d say that.”

She climbs onto his lap, using her free hand to maneuver herself over him and into her. They sigh deeply, their gazes locked, their hands still weaved together. “Stay with me, Draco,” she murmurs against his lips, turning the plea into a deep kiss.

He turns them over so her curls splay out across both pillows and he’s hovering above her. He takes his time examining her face, neck, collarbone, chest, and their connected bodies, before building a slow rhythm with their hips. His breathing grows heavy, the weight of his gaze heavier. She feels connected to him in all ways two people can be connected, and a shade tender after believing she’d lost him for good.

“I will,” he says between open-mouthed kisses. “There was never any doubt who I belonged to. I just needed to know you felt the same way.”

(545 words, prompt from twitter: blackmail)