Chapter 15

Chapter 15

For the next two and a half weeks, she tortured him – or so it seemed to Severus. He should never have agreed to twice-a-day kissing – not in public, and certainly not in private. Not anywhere.

He had only briefly considered seeing whether she would make good her threat to kiss him publicly, before deciding that was a chance he simply could not take. Dumbledore was already probing for information, and when Minerva returned to her normal activities, he started to notice that she seemed to be watching him with Hermione, too.

Even if there wasn't anything really wrong with him kissing Hermione, it was none of anyone else's business. And if he was totally honest with himself, he wasn't entirely convinced he would be able to control himself, even in public.

As it was, she was testing every drop of the legendary self-discipline he had managed to develop over the course of a lifetime of doing things that had required it. Things like spying or protecting Potter and his friends.

Things that really should have seemed a lot harder than resisting one determined young woman.

Thinking about it now, as he lay in bed trying to sleep, he realized nothing could have prepared him to resist a Hermione who was bent on seduction. His self-control was stretching thinner every day – he was really starting to believe that he wasn't going to last another minute without making love to her, so he had no idea how he would manage to last the rest of his self-imposed month. He was even a little bit grateful that Potter was due to arrive tomorrow!

Well, almost, anyway.

He was beginning to suspect that Hermione had an overabundance of previously untapped potential in the field of strategic warfare. She certainly seemed to think so. She seemed to know just when to time her demand for the day's kisses so as to catch him in a weak moment.

Not that he really had any strong moments when it came to that, but how did she seem to know the perfect moment every time?

He would have thought she was using magic, but after the debacle with the potion and her guilt over the chair spells, there was no way she would do that again. And with his skill at Occlumency, she couldn't use Legilimency without his knowledge, even if they hadn't made that agreement not to do that to one another.

The students had been back for nearly two of the two and a half weeks that Hermione had been torturing him. At first, he had assumed teaching would provide a welcome and effective distraction from his total immersion in all things Hermione. At a minimum, he had thought, teaching his classes would prevent him from spending so much time with her.

Unfortunately, his students were, as usual, a bunch of dunderheaded fools who managed to get on his nerves constantly – and then, just when he had depleted his reserves of self-discipline to keep himself from killing them all, class would end and Hermione would appear, ready for some "private time."

Private time, indeed. They seemed to be spending every spare minute together – come to think of it, his agreement to twice-a-day kissing really wasn't making much difference, considering they were, by now, kissing more like ten or twenty – or perhaps a hundred or a thousand – times a day. It was hard to keep track when you had snogging sessions that lasted hours. How long could possibly be counted as a single kissing session?

He should have realized he was in trouble the very first day, when she had Flooed into his lab before breakfast. He had commented on his surprise at seeing her there so early; giving him a mischievous look, she had said, "I thought I would let you get today's first kiss out of the way, so you wouldn't be worrying that I might do it at lunch or something." They had wound up snogging for fifteen minutes before realizing that they were about to miss breakfast entirely.

Later that same day, when she had come by to try out some more potions after lunch, they had never gotten around to any potions at all. Instead, they had spent the entire afternoon getting familiar with each other's mouths.

Now, two and a half weeks later, she often Flooed in for a few moments several times each day. Last night, she had even dropped in near bedtime; her reasoning had been that Potter was due to arrive tomorrow, so they had to get ahead on their kissing quota. When he had tried to point out that they were already way, way ahead if two a day was the agreement, she had pouted and insisted that they had to get further ahead. And then she had started kissing him, making him quite forget to argue anymore.

Severus refused to look too closely at the fact that if he had really been opposed to all this, he could quite easily have closed the Floo connection. Of course, that could be justified quite easily by his worry that she really would start kissing him in public if he denied her the private time that she wanted.

It really was a miracle that he had held onto his determination not to take things too far until a full month had passed. Each day, they seemed to edge closer to the brink. His hands, of their own accord, seemed to delight in removing the outer layers of her clothing – her robes were nearly always tossed aside within moments of being in his presence; usually, by the time he came to his senses and stepped away from her, whatever she was wearing underneath the robes was untucked, unfastened, and gaping open.

This morning, she had dropped in just after the first-years had completed and left his class, and they had wound up missing lunch altogether. Even now, hours later, he could still feel her straddling him, could hear her moaning with delight as she pressed against him. The memory of it made him hard, and he feared what would happen if she dropped by tonight.

He sometimes wondered if she was as frustrated as he was. Was she walking around in a constant state of arousal? It certainly felt to him like he was – he was semi-erect nearly every waking moment – except the moments when he was actually with her or actively thinking about her, at which times, he was fully erect instead.

He sighed and started to get out of bed, planning to take yet another ice-cold shower. Just as he stood, though, she Flooed into his fireplace and announced, "I came to kiss you good night."

"Hermione, what are you wearing?" he asked, floored at the sight of her.

"This?" she asked disingenuously. "It's called a nightgown, Severus. I was on my way to bed, and I wanted a kiss good night, so I dropped by here first. Is that some kind of problem?"

"You know we agreed to wait a month," he groused. "How am I supposed to stick to our agreement if you show up looking like that?"

"I agreed to that under duress," Hermione declared. "I didn't want to wait a single minute, let alone an entire month. So don't think for a second that I'll be sorry if we make love tonight instead of waiting two more weeks."

"Hermione –" he began, but she cut him off.

"I know, I know, you've said it all before. But, Severus, do you have any idea how frustrated I am? I can't sleep, I hardly eat, I can't concentrate – this can't possibly be good for me!"

He doggedly stood his ground. "This isn't easy for me, either, Hermione, and you coming here dressed like that isn't helping matters any."

"Too bad. I never agreed to make it easy for you. Why should I? If I have to suffer, then you do, too."

"You think I'm not suffering?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, then, stop being ridiculous and make love to me already."

"I can't," he insisted.

"Of course you can. You just don't want to," she accused.

That was it! Anger flaring, he yanked her up against him. "Don't tell me you don't feel how badly I want you, Hermione! You know better than that!" He pressed his hips into hers, making sure she felt the evidence of his desire.

Instead of backing down, she pressed closer against him. "I just can't take much more of this, Severus. I really can't!" She suddenly burst into tears. "I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin and there's nothing I can do that will make it better. Please don't make me wait anymore! Please, Severus, I can't take it."

"Shhhh," he soothed, his own anger and frustration forgotten. "Don't cry, it's all right." He kissed her lips gently, then began kissing her tears away. He kept murmuring soothingly and kissing her until she calmed down.

Predictably, things started to heat up between them, and before he knew it, they were lying on his bed, with her nightgown up around her waist, and he was making love to her with his tongue. He couldn't give her everything she wanted – he needed to be sure she really knew what she was getting into, so he was determined to wait the full month if it killed him.

But he could, at least, give her relief from her frustration.

Moments later, she called his name as she orgasmed. He watched her face, thinking her pleasure was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He crawled up and lay next to her, taking her in his arms and cuddling her close.

After a long time, she whispered sleepily, "Thank you, Severus. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he whispered back. "Now go to sleep," he told her firmly, but unnecessarily, as her breathing had already grown slow and even.

He lay awake watching her sleep for a long time before he drifted off himself.