Chapter Eight – Trusting

Thanks to everyone for your lovely reviews. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your encouragement, and most of all, patience. I have promised never to abandon a fic, and this is no exception.

Please note that this chapter contains explicit sexual content.

"Will you trust me?"

The four most important and frightening words I'd ever spoken. I, who had betrayed and frightened and hurt so many, was asking a monumental thing from Hermione. I had tried so hard to earn that trust, but as I waited for Hermione's answer, I felt my arousal betraying my objectivity, giving away my heart's own investment in the question. If she should reject me, I would be left with nothing, and the young witch sprawled over my lap would continue on, as rudderless as I.

I was being as gentle as possible with her. She had truly frightened me when I burst into the lab and watched her, mad with fury, destroying everything in her path. Blood was splashing down her hand, and the wild look in her eyes was so absent of reason I thought for a moment her mind had finally snapped. The thought of my Hermione, gone forever, was enough to make me put away my wand and take matters in hand – literally. I was going to save her. It was my duty. As the man who loved her, as the Master responsible for her, it was my right. She had to trust me. I wouldn't survive if she did not. And I was so frightened I was barely aware of what I was saying, and would marvel later, as the story was regaled to me by the woman currently lying across my lap.

As my hands slid over her back, I said, "Hermione, I understand now why Lupin asked you to come to me. Even more so, I suspect, than he understands himself. It was because you need me, and I need you in return. From this day forward, I will provide for your needs as your gentle Master, and you will reward me with your obedience. All I desire from you is that you give yourself to me, and allow me to give myself to you.

"And so I ask again: will you trust me?"

She didn't speak, but I felt her body deflate, and settle against mine inch by slow inch. Something in that motion struck me as both beautiful and pitiful. Then, Hermione relaxed and yielded completely. For a moment, I thought I might weep with gratitude. She had answered my question.

She had surrendered to her Master.

I closed my eyes and prayed to anyone listening to let me, for the first time in my adult life, act and speak completely from my heart, unafraid and un-self-consciously.

His warm hand on her back felt so welcomed, so essential. At that precise moment, Hermione wanted to stay in the haven of his comforting embrace forever. She collapsed, dazed and submissive, against him, and Master Snape sighed, almost as if he'd been holding his breath. His hands moved over her as he whispered a soft cleansing spell. His magic, masculine and ardent, washed over her, removing all the mess. It bathed her in soothing, indefinable power, like healing, and for a moment, they were still and quiet.

When he spoke, his voice was rich and intimate, like a lover, and Hermione's abdomen, pressed against his thighs, grew tight and hot. "Good girl. I'm very pleased with you. Now, all I ask is for you to allow me to give you what you need. Master is here, and I'm going to take very good care of you from now on. As I should have, from the very beginning." For some reason, those words made her feel free, like forgiveness. She floated on a soft current of surrender, and it was so powerful she imagined she was actually aloft. She knew something was going to happen - something that would forever change the way she felt about him─and herself.

As if to prove the point, he gently tugged her shirt from the waistband of her Muggle jeans, and pulled it high up on her back. Part of Hermione wondered if this might be skirting the limits of propriety, but that part of her swiftly lost interest next to the part of her that had previously found Snape so compelling. He gently smoothed the charmed cloth over her bare skin. She made a soft little sound, then froze, afraid he might misinterpret her moans and stop.

But Snape seemed to have no intention of ceasing his ministrations. For a long time he sat, merely stroking her neck and her back with his hands. The cool cloth found every troubled, feverish part of her, and eased it. Without thinking, she reached up, and tugged her shirt over her head. If it surprised or shocked him, he didn't show it; he merely took it from her and laid it over the arm of the chair.

He unfastened her bra, and gently rubbed her neck and shoulders, the pads of his strong fingers calloused but sensitive. His nails glided over her back, and she made a noise that sounded embarrassingly sensual. She had always found the act of someone scratching her back to be hedonistically intimate. Everywhere he touched tingled with pleasure. In that instant, she knew. She wanted him. She wanted him to make love to her. Gods, she wanted him to fuck her-

"Would you-" she swallowed, afraid of the answer before she even asked the question. Hoarsely, she continued, "Master Snape, would you be doing this if... even if-"

His hands stilled, and Hermione wished she could see his face. He didn't answer for a long time. Finally, he answered, "Would I do this even if I weren't your Master? Is that what you want to know?"

Hermione cringed, and closed her eyes. Nails raked slowly over her back. "You must answer, Apprentice," he said, and there was almost a playful note to his softly spoken command. "How am I to favour you if you aren't truthful with me? Is that what you want to know?"

She took a deep breath, and the gentle hands drifted over her body. "Yes, sir."

Another long silence stretched as he ghosted his fingers over her flesh. "Yes, Hermione. I would. I've wanted to for some time. Longer than I should admit." His breathing was even, but there was a raggedness to his lovely voice that told her he was being truthful. "Are you – are you allowing this merely because I am your Master?"

She could not mistake the apprehension in his voice. He wanted her, too. She turned her head and shifted slightly, so she could look around her shoulder at him. "No." She swallowed. "I've wanted you, too."

He didn't smile, but his eyes burned, and he stroked her back in ever increasing intensity. "Good. Then I will continue, as your Master first, and then..." he breathed in deeply, and his expression relaxed. "...But I must first take care of your needs. Now, lie back and relax, Hermione."

For the first time since the war, the tightly coiled spring of hair-trigger fury that had taken up residency in her chest loosened. Master Snape had replaced it with a sweeter tension that was no less intense, but infinitely more welcome.

She felt his cool hands moving over her bare back, gently raking his nails over her skin, and she moaned and shifted. "Oh, gods, I'm-"

"I know, Hermione. Merlin, I know," he crooned, his voice whisper-sweet and as soft as the cloth that now lay against her neck. "But this is where I'm going to make it all better. You must believe your Master knows what is best for you."

Hermione shivered. "I do, Master Snape. I do," she whimpered. His hands trailed delicately down the sides of her body, causing her to shiver helplessly and a long, "Ohhh..." drifted from her lips, as if drawn out by his moving hands.

"Oh, yes," he purred, and her breath caught. "You know you're safe, don't you?" he crooned. "That's it. You're so beautiful when you give yourself to me."

Hermione made a soft sound of gratitude as he slid the bra from her shoulders. She rose up on her elbows and allowed Snape to pull the garment from underneath her. She relaxed against him, too stirred to speak. His hands spoke to her skin, a moving Braille of soothing, affection, ease. She had never been so aware of her own body, of another man, as she was at this moment. She was alive down to her fingertips, and she shivered with pleasure.

She reached under her waistband, and with a whispered spell, her jeans were unfastened. His hands stilled. "Hermione-"

She turned back to look at him. "I want this. I need this," she pleaded, not absolutely sure what 'this' was – only that she was sure he would deal with it in a way she could live with. "You said you would take care of me. Please." She pulled her jeans from her hips and discarded them on the floor. She could hear his breathing quicken, and she knew while he was strictly in charge, he was neither removed from them nor unmoved by them. That thought excited her, and she pushed against his lap, feeling his erection pressing against her ribs. His gasp of arousal excited her like nothing ever had before.

"Good girl," Master Snape crooned, his voice less steady than before. Hermione's body tensed as he resumed his gentle stroking of her back, and she turned her head to look back at him. He was watching her intently, with eyes so dark with liquid fire she felt dizzy.

A soft mewling sound escaped her lips unbidden, as goosebumps pebbled her skin. Her answer was to feel his large, warm hand slide between her knickers and her bare flesh, and ease them from her bottom. "Oh gods, yes," she moaned, as a fresh barb of arousal stabbed into her core. She closed her eyes, praying for him to touch her there, oh, please, yes, right there-

His hand drifted across her bottom, ghosting his fingertips over her skin. "So soft. So open, so trusting. I will be worthy of that trust, I promise."

She was moaning with every breath now, and when she blindly groped backward with her hand, he caught it in his, and entwined his fingers with hers. She twisted her arm and brought his hand to her mouth. She feverishly kissed his fingers, touching her tongue to each pad. She heard his soft moan of desire and it thrilled her, knowing she was giving him pleasure as well. It no longer mattered what he did; she would let him do whatever he wanted. She knew he wouldn't hurt her.

Then his hand struck her bare bottom. It was beautiful.

It was not painful, but deliberate and firm, and it felt orgasmically right. Hermione's back arched, and her head came up in shock. "Merlin, oh fuck," she whimpered, her voice trembling. Helplessly, she suckled his fingers, and he answered her with a hiss of desire.

"Master," she gasped, trying to rise on her elbows, "You have to-" Immediately he disengaged his hand from her fingers. "Oh, don't stop! It feels so good."

"I have no intention of stopping. You must take your discipline." His voice was sliding over her body while he continued to gently spank her. He sped up slightly, his hand landing on her bottom and staying there, warm and wanted. Hermione had never been so wet, or wanted a man as badly as she wanted him at that moment. She wantonly writhed against his hand.

Suddenly she felt her body change; there was a deep shift within, and she knew she was going to come. "Oh gods," she moaned, as her groin grew hot, and pleasure blossomed from a single point and radiated outward. She automatically opened her thighs wider, moaning for him to touch her. She was so close to the edge it felt as if she would shatter at any second.

"I know," he cooed, his touch so gentle and insistent she began to rock with the motion of it. Snape stopped his rhythmic patting, and stilled, his hands sweeping over her back and the cheeks of her bum. She could feel the cooling wetness between her thighs, and nearly screamed as his long fingers teased over her distended, puffy slit.

"If I touch you, you'll come for me, won't you? You'll come because you want it as badly as I do." His voice was rough now, trembling with his own desire. "Ask me," he whispered urgently. "Ask me for what you want."

"I want you to make me come, Master," she moaned, praying this was not one of those power games of tease and plead. "Oh, gods, don't make me beg!"

Snape responded with a soft growl that made her clitoris pulsate. "I don't want you to beg. I want you to come." His fingers kissed her pussy lips, and she wailed in relief and pleasure.

"Oh, yes," he hissed. "We're going to draw the anger out of you, one spanking at a time, one orgasm at a time, like poison from a wound. Whatever it takes, as long as it takes, until you're at peace again." He took a breath, and his voice, as soft and sweet as sin, crooned. "It aches, doesn't it?"

She could hear the longing in his voice, his own ache like a wandless spell in the air. She keened helplessly as she felt her juices trickling shamelessly onto the tops of her thighs. He hissed pleasurably. "I'm going to draw that ache out of you, Hermione, and it's going to feel so good, isn't it?"

Her body thrummed with desire, carried on the wave of his relentless voice. "Please, yes, please!" she cried, heedless of the whining, pleading tone in her voice. She rubbed against him, brushing her hardened nipples roughly against his thighs, trying to find the right friction. A long finger slid into her sodden quim, then unerringly circled her clit as confidently as her own fingers. "M-Master," she whispered, brokenly and began to move against his fingers. All the blood in her body rushed to her clitoris. She sucked his middle finger into her mouth, and he gasped his own pleasure, a sweet, dirty sound.

"That's my good, good girl," he groaned, and she licked his fingers deliriously. He pumped his fingers inside her. Hermione tensed, feeling his words hurtling her toward the edge. His words were a dark, seductive vibration against her body. "You want to please me, don't you? ...that's it... let me hear it – come for me like the good girl you are... now, Hermione, now!"

Hermione howled as her orgasm rushed over her, causing her to fishtail in his lap. She held onto his hand, gripping it, feeling her body pulsing, bursting, exploding into heaven. And still he pushed, his insistent fingers slowing, but never ceasing their sweet dance, pumping in and out of her quivering and pulsating core until a second orgasm speared her and sent her screaming over the edge of a madness that made her fury look bloodless in comparison.

She collapsed against his lap, boneless and dazed. His large hands rolled her over, but she was scarcely aware of it. She drifted for a moment, carried on the current of his large warm hands, his beguiling, beautiful voice, urging her to relax and let him take care of her. She was both thrilled and frightened at what had just passed between them. He tucked her against his body, and Hermione clung to him.

Gradually, her head cleared, and she was aware of the state of herself, naked but for her knickers tangled around her ankles, her nose running, her hair in a wretched state, and realised she must look like the pathetic mess Master Snape no doubt thought she was.

She also remembered the laboratory she'd wrecked, and the tantrum she'd thrown that had brought them to this moment. Master Snape adjusted her legs, to make himself more comfortable, and nuzzled against her flushed cheek.

If her Master was displeased, he had a very peculiar way of showing it.