Chapter 9

AN: Sorry for the delays in posting and replying to reviews. It's the last weeks of term, and I'm swamped with essay-writing, research, and job hunting. Thanks to astopperindeath for her divine patience with me.

Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,

To reach, and feed both at once body and mind?

~Paradise Lost, Book IX

Pink cheeks and sweat decorated her pretty face, giving her the appearance of a hardworking milkmaid. No bucolic milkmaid, though, ever had such desperate lust in her eyes, or lips parted in a perfect, cock-ready moue.

All hunters know when the prey is most vulnerable, when to start the quiet movement through the long grass to the weak, wobble-legged youngster.

He could have her right now, if he wanted, but he longed to draw it out, to heighten every aspect of her frustration before providing her release. It would cement her fixation on him, he told himself.

"Granger?"

"Yes?" She licked her lips and gazed hungrily at his face.

"Duel."

He said it quietly, in sync with a sweep of his wand that sent blue lightning at her heart. As he'd taught Lockhart, opponents often fire on "two."

The air flared red as his bolts connected with her shields. He barely dodged in time when they shot back at him, reflected perfectly.

Counter, fire. Dodge, block, attack. It was a dance to the music of hexes, lit by fire and magic, with their breathing keeping time. He liked to imagine he led even as she pushed him back toward the creek.

Two Haymaker Spells later, both of them were soaked to the skin and trying to get a footing on the slippery rocks in the stream. Her trainers were an advantage here, giving her grip where his boots slipped. He fell when ducking a spell of hers and righted himself just in time to fend off her intended coup de grace.

He scrambled to the bank as she swatted away the horde of locusts he'd summoned, but he knew she would be right behind him. He managed to throw up a barricade of stone and mud, buying time to rebalance.

The wall fired like clay in a kiln, then crumbled to the ground. Behind the rubble, she stood on the bank, dripping wet and looking like wrothful Gabriel, with glowing wand in place of fiery sword. Seducing her, never a chore, was now a positive gift.

Water flew from her hair as she twisted away from each barrage of his spells. She only sent a few back at him, but those he barely blocked. The ruthlessness that he'd been teaching her, the resourcefulness and creativity added to her intellect was proving to be dangerous. He would have been pleased with himself had he not just barely escaped her Slicing Spell.

She slipped when she ducked from his Fireball. It was all the opening he needed.

"Expelliarmus!"

Her wand flew to his hand like a bird to seed, its owner landing on her pert arse in the moss.

He slumped against an apple tree, exhausted, and rewarded himself for being alive by watching her pick herself up.

"Not bad, Granger," he said to her inquisitive, needing-to-please look.

"What? No scathing remark?" She smiled. "I must be amazing, then."

He snorted. "Hardly. You're unexpected, or you will be, on the field of battle. And there are tricks yet to learn, Granger, and those Dark books won't read themselves."

"Mmm." It did not appear that she heeded his words; she extended her hand and stepped toward him, still smiling just a little. "And I look forward to it. Wand, please."

He ignored her, and she moved closer, body swaying under her soaked clothes.

He gave her his best smirk.

"Come and get it."

Kimonos had less silk than his voice, modulated and pitched perfectly, a tone that had got him laid once or twice without any other currency. He let the words hang in the air and watched her face tint itself pink.

In a rush of movement, there were soft lips pressed upon his mouth, and she was flush against him, every curve apparent to his grasping hands. She absorbed him into her mouth, tongue against tongue, and it took only a minute to discover the sucking motion that made her whimper. Tracing his finger along the back of her thigh, he held it and drew it up to his hip, grinding his erection against her...

...and she pressed her wand into his neck.

She let the kiss continue for a moment...her libido gave her little choice...but she pulled away from his wonderful mouth when he stilled.

It had been so easy. So easy to kiss him, and let him kiss her, as she slid her hand up his arm to retrieve her wand from his careless grip.

"Anything... is a weapon." It escaped her lips like a bird from a cage, flying to his surprised face. She stared up at him, watching his pulse beat against the tip of her wand.

This was her first duel won, and she wished it wasn't. It was not how she wanted to win.

But she had triumphed according to his rules and with his tutelage. His hard eyes reflected that, and she blinked into them.

His eyebrows rose when she withdrew her wand.

She shook her head and walked away, stopping short of the creek to stare at the water. Water that had seethed and bubbled under her curse. It had borne her first attempt to duel Snape, and now it soaked her clothes again. Trial by water, she supposed. To this end.

Snape's arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her tightly against him as he pressed his wand into her temple.

His voice was warm in her ear. "Never turn your back on an opponent."

Her breath shuddered in her tense body

Should I fight him?

Do I want to fight him?

"Do you yield?" he murmured, digging his wand in a little harder.

That was quite a question at this juncture. Hermione bit her lip, thinking it over, weighing the possibilities, as only she could.

"Do you yield, Granger?"

She dropped her wand to the ground.

"Yes," she said, keeping her voice as even as she could with the blood pounding in her thighs.

His wand vanished from her temple a moment before his teeth nipped at her neck. She sighed in his tight grip as he suckled at the sensitive skin along her vein. This was what Ron had failed at, this slow seduction of her most erotic areas, and now she was melting under Snape's expertise.

With long fingers, he flicked open the first few buttons of her blouse, exposing the lace edge of her bra.

"Lovely undergarments, Granger," he said, tracing the skin along the border of her bra, tingling her nerves in the most pleasant way. She leaned back into his chest and felt his erection digging into her lower back. His hands traveled lower, touching, revealing, until the shirt lay on the ground in a damp white heap. Slowly, he began to slide the straps of her bra down her shoulders, nipping and sucking at each patch of skin they passed. Hermione shivered at the near pain, at the knowledge that maybe he would leave a mark on her skin; marks she could hide under clothes, but never from herself.

Some part of her, the part that he would call "Gryffindor idiocy," rebelled against her passivity.

She squirmed in his grip, turning around to stare up at him. She wasn't sure what action she should take, but she could hazard a guess.

He groaned when she slid her palm over the bulge in his trousers, thrusting his hips into her hand.

"You've been reading some extra-curricular books, I think," he said, lids lowered in pleasure as she massaged him.

"Mmm." Squeezing gently, she made him sigh, but he pushed her away when she started fumbling at the button on his trousers.

"My move," he murmured into her questioning gaze, smirking.

He deftly unbuttoned her jeans, opening them only enough for a sliver of her black knickers to show through. With a hand on her shoulders, he spun her back around.

"It will be better this way, Granger. Trust me."

How much he asked for with those last two words. And she, at this point, was prepared to give it.

This, she realized moments later, was a man who knew what he was doing. His hand cupped her pussy perfectly, exactly as hers did when she touched herself, allowing access to everything. No fumbling, just a brief search until he could tweak her clit with short, upward strokes and make her knees tremble.

His free hand must have been busy, for warm air suddenly brushed her nipples. She would have touched them herself but for an onslaught of circular caresses that erased her brain and made her arch away from him, grinding her hips into his cock in helpless retribution.

Snape pressed his fingers to her mouth, and she sucked blindly, groping for any additional sensation to increase the pleasure. She was rewarded when wet fingers and cool breath pulled her nipples into peaks.

"You make such lovely sounds," he said into her ear, sliding his fingers past her clit to tease her entrance, "and with so little stimulation. Want to know more, Granger?"

"A-ahh!-always." She spread her legs. Shift as she might, his infuriating fingers evaded her cunt, continuing to trace the sensitive edge. Frustrated, Hermione reached behind to roughly rub his erection, pressing the cloth into the hard warmth. He inhaled sharply and nipped her neck.

"Then," he said, making her whimper with a last little flick as he slid his hand from her knickers, "I think we'll need to lie down. Before one or more of us falls down." With that, he stepped away from her and brandished his wand.

A bare mattress appeared on the ground. With a mock bow, he extended his arm towards it.

And she froze.

Damn.

He was ragingly hard and had been so ever since she emerged from the stream with water pouring from her shirt. Keeping himself in check had been difficult. Every moan of hers, every movement as he touched her had sent a surge to his cock.

Now she stood, like a half-naked deer, frozen to the spot and staring wide-eyed at the mattress.

Back to the coaxing, then.

"Steady, Granger," he said quietly, stepping back to her and brushing a finger along the side of her neck. He kept the stroking up, trying to relax her as he thought frantically with what little blood remained in his head.

Yes, he could stop now. Send her back with her clothes spelled into neatness, knowing that she would probably finish herself off the second she reached her bed. His hand was not a pussy, but it could serve once she left.

Damn it, though, he wanted her. Not a wank to a memory of red hair. Not a ginger whore. Her, Granger, in her soft flesh and wanton curls.

"Come, Granger," he said, watching as she slowly relaxed under his touch. "It's not forbidden, and it won't get you in trouble." Even now, like this, he could lie.

"But... I mean, I didn't bring any condoms, or anything, and I don't know any spells..." She was babbling, though with the classic Granger sensibility.

Good thing, too. He cursed himself for a lust-addled fool and pressed his wand to her abdomen, murmuring the spell.

She gasped and pressed a hand to her stomach. He had heard the spell felt odd, but that was a sign that it was working.

"There. No further protection necessary. Condoms indeed." She was breathing easier now, as evidenced by her full breasts rising... and falling... and rising...

His cock protested his trousers.

Thank all the gods, she stepped forward and knelt on the mattress, looking up at him.

She attempted an impish smile. "W-well, what are you waiting for?"

With a wave of his wand, all their clothing but her knickers appeared in a heap on the ground. Unrestrained, his cock jutted at her, encouraged by her smooth curves and parted lips. Merlin, if she was any other woman he would stand in front of her and wrap his hand in her curls while those lips worked over his cock...

He gently pushed her back on the mattress, brushing her hair from her breasts and shoulders to allow his mouth full access to her nipples. She gasped as he sucked at them and whimpered when he bit ever so gently. She was new, sensitive, and so beautifully responsive that seducing her was almost too easy, like giving candy to a child.

Almost. If his plans could go through with minimum effort and maximum enjoyment on both sides, he was not going to fight it. With that thought, he tweaked her exposed nipple, carefully twisting until her whimper became a sound of protest, then soothing it with caresses.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her knees part. Glancing up, her face was open with the pleasure from his sins, tilted back to expose her creamy neck. Little moans escaped her with every movement of his fingers.

"Want something, Granger?" he said after trading mouth for fingers.

"Uhmmhmm," she moaned, opening her eyes to look down at him, all frustrated indolence.

Abandoning her nipples, he backed down the mattress until her covered cunt lay in front of him. He slid her knickers down her legs, smirking at the damp crotch of the crotch, and tossed them on top the heap of clothes.

She moaned when he blew on her cunt, and he caught her hand as she reached down to touch herself.

"No, Granger. Much as I would love to watch you finger yourself for me, it will have to wait." But it was a very lovely idea and would no doubt fuel his wanking for a month.

"Then... bloody... do something!" She thrust her hips at him, legs spread wide to reveal her lovely self.

In answer, he plunged two of his fingers deep inside her.

"Ahh!"

She fucked his fingers even as he moved them inside her, and he quickly abandoned any idea of finding her g-spot. For, as he pumped his hand back and forth in counterpoint to her hips, she tightened around him, and her breath came in pants.

It took only a few small licks and a moment of sucking on her hard clit to make her come undone around his fingers.

It was the like the spells and it wasn't like the spells; no, it was better than the spells, his fingers inside her, thrusting, seducing her until his warm soft tongue descended and tipped her over into the moaning mess around his fingers that she was. Hermione pushed herself onto his fingers, trying to find more sensation, anything to prolong the orgasm, and she shuddered anew when he brushed her clit.

His fingers slid out of her, and she whimpered, both in pleasure and disappointment. She felt limp, perfectly content to stay where she was until her senses returned.

Hands gripped her hips, tugging, and she followed them lazily, flipping over to her stomach. He pushed on her hips, lifting her to her knees and spreading her legs.

She sighed when he slid into her, soft and filling as his fingers had not quite been, and she leaned into his slow descent.

Then he grabbed her hips and fucked her so hard she had to struggle to keep her face out of the mattress.

Each thrust almost hurt. He was big inside her, and she was not used to this level of sensation, this depth of penetration. Hermione leaned away from him a little, easing his pounding inside her. His bollocks slapped against her cunt once or twice, on particularly hard thrusts, and it sent small tingles of remembered pleasure through her.

He grunted with each stroke, moving his hands over her back, her arse. He spread her arse cheeks apart and groaned anew and made her gasp at the taboo view he must be enjoying.

"No..." she ground out, afraid.

He released with a squeeze of each cheek, resuming a harder grip on her hips.

"Ah, fuck, girl... I'm go... going to... unnh!"

He shoved deep into her, forcing her body forward, as his cock grew inside her and pulsed. His hips jerked for a time, with each throb, but he eventually stopped, breathing hard.

Hermione slid forward and collapsed to the mattress; he whimpered as she came off of his softening cock. There she lay, feeling his come start to trickle down out of her cunt and onto her thighs.

And all she had now, as the orgasm cleared from her mind, were questions.