He woke in the middle of the night to a sensation so startlingly exquisite it didn't register as real at first—just a flicker of pleasure in a dream, a soft pull from the edge of sleep into something warmer, needier. A pulse of heat low in his belly, a gentle stroke that sent a ripple up his spine and anchored him instantly to the now.
His brow furrowed, breath catching as he surfaced from the velvet fog of slumber, body already responding before his mind fully caught up. He blinked slowly, the shadows of the room sharpening into shapes—soft candle remnants still flickering faintly in sconces, the moonlight pooling across the duvet in silver ribbons. The world was quiet. Still. Except for her.
"Love…" he rasped, voice cracked from sleep, a low rumble in his chest. His hand found the curve of her back beneath the sheet, palm splayed across warm skin. "What are you doing?"
Hermione didn't lift her head right away. She was draped across him, her hair like silk against his chest, her breath steady, focused. But her hand was wrapped around him in a slow, deliberate rhythm, stroking him from root to tip with the kind of reverent attention that felt like worship. Each movement was unhurried, almost innocent in its curiosity, but beneath it was something deeper. Intentional. Knowing.
"I woke up," she said quietly, finally glancing up at him, eyes drowsy but bright, like she'd been thinking about this long before she acted on it. "And I couldn't stop thinking about it."
She tightened her grip slightly, just enough to make his hips twitch, to draw a groan from somewhere deep in his throat. Her thumb ghosted over the head of him, smearing the first bead of slickness, eyes flicking down to watch the motion with fascination.
"I wanted to see it," she murmured, the words brushing over his skin like a spell, "to feel what it's like in my hand… the weight of you. The heat. Maybe…" She leaned in, lips grazing his collarbone as her voice dropped to something darker, "...maybe taste it."
His entire body stiffened beneath her—not in protest, but in pure, unfiltered reaction. His hands curled into the sheets, breath stuttering out of him in a single, shaky exhale.
"Hermione," he groaned, her name a prayer, a warning, a plea. "You're going to kill me."
She smiled, slow and soft and impossibly wicked, her gaze full of mischief and fire. Then she shifted further down his body, her breath trailing lower, lips brushing a path over the ridges of his abdomen, each kiss a deliberate act of devotion.
"I just want to taste it," she whispered against his skin, her voice so gentle it made his heart ache.
She didn't wait for permission.
Instead, she shifted down between his legs with that lithe, confident grace that always knocked the air from his lungs. Her hand tightened slightly as she leaned in, brushing her lips over the tip in a featherlight kiss—soft and maddening. Then she licked him. A slow, wet stroke from base to crown, her tongue flattening against him like she meant it, like she wanted to taste every inch.
Draco choked on a groan. His back arched, eyes fluttering shut as his hips twitched toward her mouth. "Fuck…"
She hummed in response, and the vibration made his entire body jolt.
Then she took him in.
Just the head at first, sucking softly, swirling her tongue in teasing circles while her hand worked the rest of his shaft in steady, gliding strokes. She moaned low in her throat, like she was the one being touched, and the sound of it went straight to his spine.
"Gods Hermione—" His voice cracked, hips straining upward, his hand finding her hair and twisting into the curls at the nape of her neck.
She hollowed her cheeks and sank deeper, eyes fluttering closed, one hand braced on his thigh while the other kept moving in time with her mouth. Her lips slid down, inch by inch, her throat relaxing as she took more of him, slow and steady, relentless in her focus like she had something to prove. Like she wanted to ruin him with nothing but her mouth.
And she was. She was ruining him.
"Merlin—fuck, baby—" His head fell back. His voice was wrecked, almost hoarse, his chest heaving as her tongue did wicked, clever things that shattered every remaining thought in his skull. "You feel so—fuck—you're gonna kill me—"
She pulled back with a lewd pop, just long enough to whisper, breathless and smug, "I want to make you come."
And before he could even respond, before he could beg or praise or worship her like she deserved, she took him again—deeper this time. Her nose brushed his skin, her throat fluttering around him as she swallowed him whole.
And Draco? He nearly lost his damn mind.
Draco's hand clenched tighter in her hair as her mouth slid down his length again—slow, steady, merciless. The wet heat of her, the silky drag of her tongue, the obscene, perfect suction as she swallowed him down—it was driving him mad. His muscles were taut, thighs trembling beneath her as though every nerve had been pulled too tight.
And still, she didn't rush.
She savored him.
Her pace was maddening—teasing and coaxing, building him up only to back off just enough to keep him right on the edge. Her mouth was heaven, her hands confident and sure, and every time he groaned her name, she hummed around him like it was praise, like it fed her.
His head thumped back against the pillow, breath shuddering as he tried—and failed—to keep some semblance of control.
"Hermione—fuck—baby, please—" The words were torn from him, hoarse and broken, his voice barely more than a gasp. "You're gonna—fuck—please, don't stop—"
She eased off him with one final, deliberate lick, dragging her tongue slowly up the underside of him as her hand kept stroking him with practiced, devastating rhythm. Her lips were swollen, cheeks flushed, curls wild around her face like a halo of sin.
"You like that?" she murmured, voice like velvet soaked in honey and smoke. "Being in my mouth like this? Letting me taste you? You're so fucking hard for me, Draco…"
Her thumb swept over the head of him again, teasing out more slick, more heat. Her eyes were locked on his, intense and utterly feral. "I can feel how close you are," she whispered, leaning in to kiss the tip, lips brushing against it like a prayer. "You gonna come for me?"
He was panting now, the muscles in his stomach clenching as pleasure coiled low in his spine, sharp and inevitable.
"Gods, yes—yes, Hermione—fuck, I'm—"
Her mouth was back on him before he could finish, and this time she didn't hold back. She took him deep, her throat fluttering around him as she moaned, low and possessive. Her pace was faster now, precise and relentless, and it was too much—her tongue, her lips, the obscene sounds of her mouth working him with such devastating hunger, as though she'd made it her life's mission to destroy him.
And then he shattered.
With a desperate cry that cracked something in his chest, Draco came hard, hips jerking helplessly as her name spilled from his mouth like a litany, raw and reverent. His whole body convulsed, hands fisting in her curls as his climax tore through him like lightning, brutal and blinding.
But she didn't stop.
She took it, moaning around him like he was her favorite spell, her tongue still flicking gently, coaxing him through every last wave until he was shaking beneath her, gasping, ruined.
When she finally pulled back, her lips were swollen, her mouth glistening, her eyes dark and so goddamn proud of herself.
He just lay there, chest heaving, heart pounding, staring at the woman who had just completely and utterly unmade him.
And she smiled. Like she knew.
"Best head of your life?" she asked sweetly, voice soft and smug as she crawled up his body and kissed his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his stunned, slack mouth.
He blinked, dazed. "Baby. I saw stars. I think I left my body."
She laughed, low and wicked, settling herself against his side with the satisfied hum of a woman who knew her power. "Good."
Then she whispered against his ear, voice silk and sin. "That was just the warm-up."
He was still panting, still dazed, still trying to remember how his legs worked, when Hermione straddled his hips in one smooth motion. She moved like she'd been waiting for this moment forever—like his body was hers to command, and she was done being patient about it.
Her bare skin dragged over his, slick and hot, and he whimpered. Actually whimpered, low and broken, like a man who'd already been ruined once and was about to be ruined better.
"Hermione…" His voice cracked. "I need a second, love, I—"
"Oh no," she whispered, leaning down to kiss the corner of his mouth, her breath wicked against his ear. "You don't get a second. Not after the things you did to me last night. I'm not done with you."
Her hips rolled and he gasped, the overstimulation blurring with fresh, dizzying arousal as she reached between them and guided him back against her, dragging him through the slick, aching heat of her folds. Not taking him in yet—just letting him feel how ready she was.
How much she wanted him again.
"Fuck—" His hands flew to her hips like instinct, fingers digging in, desperate to anchor himself. His eyes met hers, wild and glassy. "You're going to kill me."
She smiled like it would be an honor.
Then she sank down onto him in one long, excruciating slide.
They both groaned, him in wrecked disbelief, her in breathless bliss, as her body took all of him, deep and tight and impossibly warm. Her nails scraped down his chest as she settled fully onto him, head falling back, chest rising in a trembling gasp.
"Gods, yes," she breathed. "You feel—fuck—so full. So perfect."
His hands couldn't stop roaming—her thighs, her waist, the curve of her back. "You're unreal," he rasped, utterly shattered. "You're fucking divine."
She started to move—slow at first, drawing her hips back until just the tip of him remained inside her, then slamming back down with a moan that made his toes curl.
Her rhythm was purposeful, punishing, like she wanted to ruin him again—and Draco had never felt more at her mercy.
Every time she moved, he felt the drag, the clench, the shudder of her around him. And she watched him—never breaking eye contact, drinking in every gasp, every broken sound he made like they were her favorite confessions.
"You gonna come again for me?" she murmured, voice sultry and low as she rocked harder. "Gonna let me milk every last drop out of you?"
Draco nodded, helpless, already on the verge.
"Say it," she whispered, leaning down to kiss his throat, sucking a mark into his skin that would definitely show in the morning. "Say you're mine."
"I'm yours," he gasped. "Fuck, Hermione, I'm yours."
Her pace snapped into something deeper, needier, and he was gone again—eyes rolling back, hands scrabbling at the sheets as his release crested sharp and overwhelming. His cry echoed off the walls, and Hermione followed seconds after, shaking above him, head thrown back, a moan breaking loose from her throat that sounded like pure worship.
They collapsed into each other, shaking, wrecked, trembling with aftershocks.
And when he could finally breathe again, when the stars stopped sparking behind his eyes, Draco rolled them gently so she was beneath him, kissing her like she was the last bit of magic left in the world.
"I'm never letting you sleep again," he whispered, voice raw.
She just smiled, breathless. "Good."
The room was quiet now, save for the soft hum of candlelight and the sound of their breathing—deep, uneven, slowly syncing into something calmer, quieter. He didn't pull away from her. His body was still pressed to hers, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, like if he moved even an inch he might lose the only thing that had ever truly grounded him.
Hermione's fingers threaded gently through his hair, slow and tender, scratching lightly at his scalp the way she knew soothed him. "You alright?" she whispered, voice hoarse but warm.
Draco let out a shaky breath against her skin, his face buried in the crook of her neck. "No," he said truthfully. "You've absolutely destroyed me."
She smiled—he could feel it against his cheek—but her arms around him tightened just a little more, like she needed him just as much. "Good," she murmured. "Maybe now we're even."
He rolled them gently onto their sides, cradling her against him, brushing sweaty strands of hair from her face. His thumb traced the curve of her cheek, her jaw, the soft flutter of her pulse under his touch.
"I didn't know I could feel like that," he said, voice barely more than a whisper. "Not just the sex—gods, that was—" he laughed softly, like he couldn't believe it himself, "—but you. The way you look at me. The way you see me."
Her eyes glistened in the dim light. "I always saw you, Draco. Even when you didn't want me to."
He kissed her then, slow and reverent, like her lips were an answer he hadn't dared to ask for. His hand moved across her back, soothing and gentle, tracing idle circles as they breathed each other in.
"You terrify me, you know," he murmured.
"Why?"
"Because I think if you ever asked me to burn the world down for you, I would."
She went quiet at that, eyes searching his—serious, unflinching. "I'd never ask for that," she said softly. "But I'd stand beside you if it ever started to burn."
Something in him cracked at that. Something deep. And for the first time in years, he didn't feel the need to hide the break. He just let it show.
They stayed there, wrapped in each other, bodies still tangled, hearts wide open. Her fingers played lazily at his chest, drawing invisible constellations on his skin, and his arm curled tighter around her waist, like he'd never let her go again.
And when sleep came—slow and warm and honest—it came to both of them at once.
Still holding each other.
Still home.
***
The drawing room was filled with light, not the timid kind that crept shyly through curtains, but the bold, golden blaze of late afternoon in its full command. It poured through tall enchanted windows in rich, steady sheets, gilding the edges of polished mahogany and draping the room in warmth that looked like peace but wasn't. The air shimmered faintly, almost humming, as if the light itself carried tension beneath its brightness. Everything glowed too beautifully, too deliberately, as though the house were trying to disguise what it already knew—that calm like this was only ever borrowed. The wards in the corners flickered, restless, catching the edges of a truth the room didn't dare speak aloud.
Astoria Greengrass sat at the center of it all, the still point in the room's uneasy glow. She didn't recline or lounge. She existed the way fine art does—placed, intentional, every detail composed to hold its power.
The silk of her robes caught the light when she breathed, champagne and soft gold, delicate enough to suggest gentleness to anyone foolish enough to mistake it for vulnerability. Her posture told a different story. Shoulders straight. Chin tilted just enough to command attention without seeming to demand it. A curl of hair traced her jaw like an accent mark, and her smile carried the cool precision of someone who understood that silence could be a sharper weapon than speech. She didn't need to move. Her presence filled the room with the quiet elegance of control and the faint promise of danger that came with it.
Draco stood nearby, too still to seem comfortable, one hand braced against the marble mantel as if he needed the stone to steady him. His posture might have looked deliberate from across the room, but Hermione had seen it before and knew better. His stillness wasn't composure. It was containment. A way of keeping every unspoken thing locked inside his body where no one else could see it. The hand at his side twitched now and then, a small betrayal, a pulse of energy that slipped past the walls he'd built around himself.
His face remained an exercise in control—eyes detached, mouth neutral, every muscle trained to obey the habits of old breeding. To anyone else, he looked calm, the perfect host in perfect command of his surroundings.
Hermione knew the truth hiding in the lines of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders. He was holding himself together through sheer force of will. Beneath the polish and the poise, there was a man close to breaking, fighting to stand tall in a room that already felt like it was closing in.
Hermione saw everything at once from the doorway, where sunlight poured in behind her in long, warm beams that stretched across the floor. She hadn't stepped inside yet. The air held itself still, balanced on the edge of something unspoken. Even the house seemed to pause beneath her gaze. The enchanted vines beyond the windows stopped their lazy movement. The air thickened. The wards stirred faintly at the edge of her awareness, quiet and alert, like a creature that had lifted its head to listen.
Astoria Greengrass stood in the center of it all. She didn't reach for Draco like someone overcome by feeling. She moved with the kind of ease that only came from privilege, the grace of someone who had never been refused.
Her body angled close enough to suggest intimacy without crossing a line. Her laugh rang out too perfectly, a note placed where silence would have told the truth. And then her fingers, pale and polished to a mirror shine, drifted forward in that practiced way meant to seem accidental. They brushed the inside of Draco's wrist, a touch so brief it could have been nothing, but it stayed. It clung to the air like scent, faint but deliberate, a reminder of contact that should never have lingered.
Hermione watched without blinking. The feeling that rose inside her wasn't heat. It was sharp and cold, a clarity that stripped everything of pretense. She didn't need to guess what was happening. Astoria's smile gave it away, too measured, too aware.
Draco's stillness told the rest. He didn't pull back, but he didn't lean forward either. His body was caught between discomfort and obligation, his silence stretched too thin to hold. Hermione saw the game for what it was. Every piece. Every calculated glance. Every trap set beneath the guise of civility.
She stayed where she was, framed in the doorway, her presence cutting through the light and shadow like something the room itself had called into being. The sun caught in her hair, loose around her shoulders, each curl glowing as though it held its own light. There was no wind, yet a few strands lifted faintly, drawn by the hum of her magic. Her dress, soft and slightly rumpled from the greenhouse, brushed her ankles.
The neckline had slipped just enough to reveal her collarbone, where a smudge of earth remained. A stain of rosemary marked her wrist, and the faint scent of sage clung to her skin. She looked nothing like Astoria, polished and deliberate. She looked alive. Real. A creature of soil and light, carrying the scent of something still growing.
But it was her eyes that changed the room. That strange gold-brown gaze didn't turn on Astoria in accusation or on Draco in plea. It found the space between them—the narrow, dangerous space that should not have existed. Her eyes held it there, calm and steady, without anger or indulgence. She saw what had happened, saw what it meant, and her silence pressed through the air like a quiet verdict.
She didn't have to step forward.
The room had already shifted around her.
She was part of it now, and everyone inside could feel it.
She stood perfectly still, yet the air around her began to shift. It started as a quiet pulse, something felt more than seen, a hum that seemed to rise from the bones of the house itself. Behind her, in the corridor she had come from, the vines along the arches stirred to life. Their movement wasn't violent. It was slow and deliberate, as if the walls themselves were breathing, as if something old and patient had decided to wake up.
"You have some nerve," Hermione said. Her voice was low, shaped by calm instead of volume, soft enough to be mistaken for a whisper until it cut clean through the golden afternoon light.
She moved with the measured grace of someone who understood how power worked in silence. Her bare feet crossed the marble without sound, her presence drawing attention not by force, but by gravity. The house seemed to recognize her the way living things recognize their own. Its old magic coiled around her like smoke, the air thickening with quiet reverence. Even the flames in the hearth leaned toward her, flickering lower, waiting.
Astoria turned at the sound, smiling with the easy arrogance of someone who had never once feared consequence. Her robe shimmered as she shifted, the champagne silk catching the sunlight in thin, sharp flashes. The tilt of her head was deliberate. The slow curl of her mouth was rehearsed. "Oh, Hermione," she said, voice rich with mock sweetness. "I hadn't realized you were back. You mustn't sneak around like that. People might get the wrong idea."
She said it with the lazy charm of someone pretending not to notice the knife in her own words. Every syllable was polished to perfection, elegant and cruel in equal measure. Hermione didn't rise to it. She kept walking, slow and silent, her calm carrying more weight than any outburst could. She stopped in front of Astoria, sunlight tangled in her hair, the floor beneath her humming with restrained magic. Her voice came again, quieter this time, so calm it made the air tremble.
"Get out."
The words didn't echo. They sank, heavy and final, sinking into the floor and walls until even the house seemed to hold its breath.
The warmth bled out of the light. The vines along the walls flared in bursts of crimson and violet, blooming hard and fast before wilting to ash. The scent of their death hung sharp in the air, like smoke and sap and warning.
For a moment, Astoria said nothing. Her confidence faltered, a flicker too quick to name, before she forced a brittle laugh. "Jealousy doesn't suit you, darling," she said, though her voice had lost its smoothness.
Hermione's mouth curved, slow and deliberate, her gaze steady and unbothered. "Then let me try something else." The words carried no heat. They didn't need any. Her hand rose from the folds of her dress, her wand appearing with the kind of grace that came from certainty rather than haste.
"Enough," Draco said, his tone slicing through the thick air. His voice was low, controlled, and sharp enough to draw blood. "Tori. Don't speak to my wife like that. It's time for you to leave."
Astoria's smile sharpened. She leaned against the chaise as though bored, her tone dripping with poison disguised as ease. "We've only just started," she murmured. "You had better manners when I was the one in your bed."
Draco's eyes narrowed. "Get. Out."
Her laugh cracked through the stillness, brittle and too loud. "What's the matter, my dragon?" she purred, her voice curving around the insult like silk hiding wire. "One night with a mudblood cunt and you think you're redeemed? Playing the hero now?" Her gaze slid to Hermione, lingering there with a cruel kind of curiosity. "Since when do you care about anyone but yourself?" she sneered. "Look at her. She drifts through your house like a ghost wearing hand-me-down silk. Do you really think that name on her finger makes her yours?"
Draco didn't move. But the air around him changed.
The wards beneath the floor groaned, deep and resonant, as if the house itself was warning her. Magic rose in slow, invisible waves, gathering behind him, coiling like something ancient stretching its claws. His voice, when it came, was steady and low, stripped of anything human but truth.
"Since now," he said.
Then he took one step forward.
The air dropped a few degrees. The light dimmed as though the house itself had drawn breath through its teeth. Along the baseboards, the vines began to stir, no longer decoration but alive again, curling slow and deliberate, listening.
"She," Draco said, and his voice was low, steady, and sharp enough to draw blood, "is my wife. Not something for you to mock like you still matter."
His tone carried an elegance that came only from someone who had learned how to turn fury into precision. "You forget where you are, Astoria. You think your name buys you power here. It doesn't. This is my home. And you," he said, his voice flattening into something quiet and final, "are a guest I'm finished entertaining."
Astoria's smile faltered. Her fingers adjusted her sleeve, a small, nervous motion that betrayed her calm. She glanced down once. The vines had crept closer, brushing against the silk of her robe. The sound they made was soft, but unmistakable. She looked back at Hermione.
Hermione hadn't moved. She stood bathed in light, her silence the sharpest judgment in the room.
Astoria gave the faintest twitch of her wand hand, more pride than power, and then she was gone.
No clever farewell, no dramatic flare. Just the crack of apparition and the fading scent of her perfume.
Silence fell, heavy and charged.
Draco exhaled, the sound breaking the air like a held note finally released. He turned to Hermione, chest rising and falling, every breath thick with leftover adrenaline. When he spoke her name, it came out rough, scraped raw at the edges. "Hermione." The word sounded like confession and apology tangled together, soft but frayed, as if saying it hurt. "She means nothing," he said, though his voice wavered beneath the effort of trying to make it sound whole.
Her eyes met his. Whatever lived there undid him faster than rage could have. It wasn't anger. It was the kind of hurt that sinks quietly, the kind that doesn't burn—it bruises.
"She touched you," she said. Her voice was calm, almost gentle, but the truth in it was a blade. He flinched before he could stop himself.
"And I didn't touch her back," he said too quickly, the words stumbling out like they were chasing air. He took a step toward her, voice cracking, too human to hide behind control. "Because I already have everything I want. Right here."
Her laugh came sharp and sudden, without joy. It sliced through the quiet like a blade drawn fast. "Don't insult my intelligence, Malfoy." The way she said his name stripped it of affection. It sounded like distance, like exhaustion dressed as anger. "You can still fuck her if you want to. This marriage—this whole arrangement—it's just a leash, and you hate the hand that holds it."
Something changed in him then. His eyes darkened, not with fury, but with pain he didn't bother to hide. When he spoke, it wasn't defensive. It was raw. "It's not fake." The words landed hard, cutting through everything between them.
Her expression broke a little. Her magic didn't. It swelled in the space around them, trembling but controlled, humming against the floor like a pulse made visible. "Oh no?" she said, stepping closer, voice low and shaking. "Since when? Since you decided I was convenient? Since you chose to fuck me instead of her?"
"Since I'm in love with you," he said.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't rehearsed. It tore through the room like a crack in stone, a sound too heavy to disappear, and for a moment, everything stilled. Even the house stopped to listen.
The magic stilled. The breath. The light through the high windows. Even the vines, once curling toward the doorframe, froze mid-motion, as though listening.
The air thickened, trembling on the edge of something vast. And between them, where all the words had fallen and burned, silence settled—dense, alive, and merciless.
She looked at him, unable to move. Her fingers flexed once, then closed again. Her mouth opened, but the words didn't come. This wasn't what she had expected. Not from him. Not like this.
"I don't need you to believe me," Draco said. His voice shook, not with fear, but with the weight of the truth he could no longer keep inside. "It's real. For me. It always has been."
The space between them tightened, pulled thin as wire. Somewhere in the walls, the vines withdrew. The house, like the war between them, had gone still.
Hermione stood with her arms at her sides, fists trembling. It wasn't weakness that made them shake—it was control.
The vines at her feet pulsed once, then stilled. Her breath hitched, caught between fury and disbelief, and her eyes held him there.
He had said it too plainly, too raw, too late. The words hung between them like a spell spoken without a wand, charged and irreversible. They didn't rise. They sank, heavy and alive, threading themselves into the floor and walls, into the air that struggled to move between their bodies. There was no undoing it now.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet but sharp enough to split the silence. "Since you're in love with me?" she asked. The words weren't a question. They were a wound. "Now? Now you say that?"
Draco took a step before he thought to stop himself, drawn by the sound of her voice, by the tremor that had always undone him. But she lifted a hand. Not to curse. Not to strike. Just to hold space between them.
When she spoke again, her voice cut through him clean. "You think you can touch me in a hallway and then hide behind this? You think one sentence erases everything?"
He tried to breathe, tried to find language that didn't sound like an apology. "I didn't know how else to say it," he said. The words came uneven, scraped from somewhere deep. "I didn't mean for it to happen like this, but I meant it. Every word."
She looked away, only for a second. The room felt too full, too alive with the ghosts of what they'd both been pretending not to feel. When she looked back, her eyes were steady, shining with something close to heartbreak. "You don't get to say it like it's a weapon," she said quietly. "Like love is something you use to make the truth softer. Not when your body still remembers hers."
Draco's breath caught. The muscles in his jaw tightened. Then, quietly, he said, "My body remembers you." The words came out rough, almost broken. "All of it. Only you."
Her lips parted. No sound followed. The air between them shifted again, heavier now, the kind of quiet that feels like prayer. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft enough to undo him. "I wasn't supposed to fall for you."
"I know," he said. His tone was low, steady, tired in the way only truth can be. "I wasn't supposed to fall for you either."
He stepped closer. Slow, measured. Close enough for her to stop him if she wanted to, but she didn't move. Her breath came in shallow waves, and for the first time, neither of them was pretending.
"You were supposed to be my punishment," she said, voice trembling under the weight of it. "A contract. A reminder."
He moved another inch closer, the air thick with something fragile and unspoken. "And you were supposed to be my leash," he said softly. "But you're the only thing that's ever set me free."
Her breath caught. The truth landed inside her like light through a crack, bright and unbearable. His hand came up, slow and careful, to touch her face.
The tension in the room shifted. It didn't disappear—it changed. It burned quieter, deeper, reshaped into something neither of them could name.
"What am I supposed to do with that?" she asked. Her voice was quiet, even, stripped of anger but sharp with feeling. It wasn't a demand. It was a truth she didn't know how to hold.
"Anything you want," he said. The words came rough, barely above a whisper. His thumb brushed her cheek, his breath shaking. "Break me. Banish me. Or…"
"Or?" she whispered, her voice trembling on the edge of breath. It wasn't uncertainty that made it shake. It was electricity, that dangerous pulse between fear and wanting. She already knew what he was going to say, but she needed to hear it, needed to feel it spoken into the air between them.
"Or kiss me," he breathed. His eyes searched hers like a man already on his knees. "And let me try again."
Whatever came next wasn't reasoned. It wasn't born of forgiveness or choice. It was instinct—pure, explosive, unstoppable. She shoved him backward through the open doorway, her palm hitting his chest with a crack that broke the silence wide open. It wasn't an act of dominance. It was everything that had built inside her finally breaking free, emotion made flesh, power finding its voice. The sound of it filled the room, echoing off the walls like a spell meant to shake foundations.
He staggered back, not from surprise but from the force of her—of everything she'd been holding in. When his back hit the bedpost, the breath that left him wasn't pain. It was a groan, low and rough, torn from the base of his throat, heavy with hunger and surrender all at once.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't joyful or mocking. It was something cracked and breathless, torn straight through his ribs. The sound held disbelief, a little fear, and the strange, quiet awe of a man who had finally understood that he'd already gone too far to turn back. His gaze found hers, dark and wide, and the air between them changed. He looked at her the way men look at storms when they know they won't survive them. And still, he stepped closer.
"You want to punish me?" he rasped. His voice was low and wrecked, a sound that didn't plead but offered itself up. "Then do it properly."
"Shut up," she said, her voice cutting through the air with terrifying control. It shook, not from fear but from the effort of holding back everything that wanted to come loose. "Just shut up."
It wasn't a warning. It was release.
She didn't give him time to breathe. She moved like a current that had already decided its path, her body closing the distance before thought could catch up. Her hands found him first, then her mouth.
The kiss landed like impact. It wasn't tender, wasn't searching for forgiveness. It was raw and wild, a collision that tasted like fury and need, like years of silence finally set on fire. It was both ending and beginning, breaking and binding in the same breath.
She kissed him like it was punishment and mercy tangled together. Her teeth caught his lower lip, her breath hot against his skin. He gasped, the sound rough and unguarded, and she used it to press him harder against the bedpost, every inch of her body claiming space. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling until the seams strained.
He didn't resist. He let her do it. Let her take everything he had left to give.
And in that moment, she wasn't a wife or a lover or a question he needed to answer. She was the storm itself—uncontainable, holy, and entirely his undoing.
When her nails scratched against the thin skin beneath the open collar, when the first few buttons slipped free and scattered to the floor, he groaned into her mouth, not in resistance but with a sound low and guttural and utterly wrecked.
She kissed him harder, deeper, with the kind of ferocity that made his knees buckle and his fingers dig into the small of her back, pulling her into him like he couldn't tell where her fury ended and his need began.
There was no tenderness left in the moment. Only fire. Only pressure. Only the burning, unrelenting truth of two people who had finally stopped pretending they could survive each other in silence.
He met her fury with equal fire, kissed her back with a growl buried low in his chest, hands gripping her waist like he had to hold her there or be flung into orbit. And he realized, somewhere in that heat, in the clash of lips and breath and barely controlled chaos, that the fight had always been foreplay. That every stare, every silence, every time she'd looked at him like she knew exactly what he was and dared him to be more—that had all led to this.
When he reached for the delicate strap of her dress, his fingers shook with a reverence he didn't try to hide and a restraint that made his every breath feel like penance.
She moved on her own terms, shrugging the fabric from her shoulder in a slow, fluid motion that carried none of the theatrics of seduction and all of the quiet fury of a woman taking control of her own body. The dress fell to the floor in a soft breath of sound, puddling at her feet like spilled moonlight, but it wasn't for his eyes. It was for herself. For the storm still trembling in her ribs, for the heat curling low in her stomach, for the truth burning beneath her skin that she refused to silence anymore.
She stood there without apology, framed by the low flicker of candlelight and the long shadows that painted her curves in gold and rust, and for a heartbeat, time seemed to stop. Her breath was steady. Her gaze burned with something ancient and unblinking. She bared herself like a statement, like a vow, and he could do nothing but stare at her with the breath locked in his chest and his heart stuttering against the cage of his ribs.
Then her hand struck his shoulder, hard and certain, and the force of it sent him stumbling backward toward the bed.