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Don’t sleep with someone you hate. Just don’t.
And before you tell me that’s an obvious rule, I know. I am exceedingly well versed in rules, both the technical and commonsense varieties. I know it’s an obvious rule, something any smart girl should know. However… occasionally when you’re a smart girl there are extenuating circumstances and in the moment you may mistakenly think that you, bright spark that you are, have found the exception. You’ll think you’ve thought it through, taken everything into account, and it is a good idea.
No, it’s not.
It really isn’t.
Don’t do it or you’ll find yourself suffering from an abundance of regret and utter life derailment all because of one impulse shag with Draco Malfoy. Or whoever you chose to hate shag. Obviously, I can’t assume that everyone feels as I do about Draco Malfoy.
There are some fools in the world.
To be clear about how stupid this decision was or wasn’t, I was trying to be selfish. From the very beginning, it was a study of self-seeking. That was the whole point. I picked Malfoy and his aggravating, taunting personality on purpose because I wanted to have sex with someone I didn’t care about and whom I wouldn’t be required to handhold the entire time.
I chose him specifically because I found him irritating.
I should perhaps contextualise things a bit more for clarity’s sake. This all started because I wanted to have an orgasm that I didn’t have to ask for. Just one. It didn’t seem like that much of a demand, considering I’ve been sexually active for years now.
Unfortunately, when I get laid, I often feel more like a sex educator than a girlfriend. Yes, that’s my labia. No, it’s not my clitoris. Yes, I’m sure. No, I won’t orgasm if you just keep rubbing there. No, that’s actually my labia on the other side. No, it’s not hard to tell whether a girl’s orgasmed. If you’re not sure, she hasn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that sex is about more than individual fulfilment. I’ve read the books about the psychology of sexual intimacy. I do like the boys I sleep with, but I would also like them to care about me and my sexual fulfillment, voluntarily, without the pointed reminders.
And then I would like to not lie there trying not to let my mind wander as he tries to lick or rub me to nirvana, and not feel too resentful when I eventually sit up claiming that ‘it’s alright, it still felt nice’ when he’s too frustrated to continue because I didn’t want him to give up entirely on the idea of the female orgasm.
I feel a sense of moral responsibility about it all.
I know I’m mothering. I don’t try to be. It’s an inherent aspect of my personality to at least try to educate people, and men especially know practically nothing, so it feels obligatory to bring them up to speed. However, sometimes when I lie there having my labia massaged in counterclockwise circles for the umpteenth time, I think about the next girlfriend and how much she’s going to owe me.
I think, given the number of boys I’ve educated, that I deserve to actually have some good sex myself. Is that somehow unreasonable? A rhetorical question. And yet, something about being the one who did all the work and taught them everything about the female body. As soon as they get somewhat competent in bed, they break up with me. That part is hurtful, if I’m being honest.
Enter Draco Malfoy.
He was an absolutely entitled wanker, just the sort I generally avoided. He went to our school not because he deserved to be there, but because he was a legacy admission and his family had donated enough money to have a building named for them. Pretentious, annoying, undeserving of anything, but still inevitably swarmed by ingrates.
I loathed him.
However, Ron had just dumped me only to move on to Lavender Brown in a matter of days, and she was already bragging to everyone about how incredible Won-Won was in bed. Oral sex without being asked. He understood how bra clasps work and gave long back rubs.
Somehow Ron came out sounding like a sex god who’d just been waiting for a woman who’d appreciate his talents while I was cast as the bitter, frigid shrew who’d nearly broken his spirit with my inability to be satisfied.
It was a bad look and I was more than a little embittered about it.
I looked at Malfoy and thought, if he’s shit, I’ll blow his cover, and if he’s actually decent, I’ll finally get to have some good sex that I didn’t spend months working up to.
Simple no-strings attached sex with Malfoy. I wouldn’t feel badly ordering him about what to do, or feel obliged to be encouraging. If the rumours were true, I would get the sex I deserved, if they were not, I’d knock that bastard down a few pegs and bring him and his cocky smirking to heel. It was going to be a win for me either way.
To my surprise, and contrary to all the longstanding consensus regarding monied private school boys, Malfoy knew his way in bed. It was a thrilling at first but, once I had more time to think about it further, incredibly frustrating. Why would such a thing even be allowed to happen? It felt karmically unjust.
I have dated some of the sweetest, most sincere men imaginable, and they cannot comprehend the g-spot with a lecture and a diagram.
Malfoy was as good as rumoured, and I was fucked, literally, figuratively, metaphorically, any way you can think. He did it. Four mind-blowing orgasms and I didn’t have to fight for a single one.
I do like to give credit where I consider it due, but telling that smug toerag that he was incredible in bed far exceeded the bounds of my humility.
I left the next morning before he woke, and since the night we hooked up, I had been pretending he didn’t exist.
Admittedly, it wasn’t my most mature decision, but it felt reasonable when I first locked eyes with him again. What else was I supposed to do? Just because Malfoy had some intensely intimate knowledge about my anatomy, that didn’t mean I wanted to have conversations with him or acknowledge his existence.
Ignoring him was a way of implying he had been nothing memorable without actually having to outright lie about it. Clever, right? I had thought it was fairly clever at first.
Malfoy did not like it very much at all. Apparently he didn’t know how to behave when girls weren’t throwing themselves at his feet in the hope of marrying into his ridiculous peerage.
In response, he had devoted a horrifying amount of effort to reminding me that he did, in fact, exist. And he did so with all the subtlety of a peacock. Suddenly he was enrolling in all my classes and joining my study groups and spending an egregious amount of time in the library. Rather than just prove what a twat he was and tell everyone that I’d slept with him, he’d begun trying to force me into acknowledging him.
It was ridiculous to watch and resulted in an utterly juvenile but also strangely addictive game. He’d try to needle me and I’d pretend he wasn’t there. I don’t know if it’s a sign that I’m getting old or just have the wrong personality to put up with relationships, but it was more interesting than any of the dating I’ve done. Apparently Malfoy just hated being ignored, and I experienced an electric thrill every time his expression blackened and his grey eyes went dark with frustration as I loftily refused to treat him as worthy of my attention.
I’d been on a winning streak until we ended up on the same bus.
It was pouring that day, and I sprinted out to catch the passing bus in order to get to class. I didn’t even notice who else was there while I was being shoved forward. Half the city seemed to be trying to cram itself onboard. The rain only got harder, and I was trying to shift back and find a handhold when the bus sped up and I fell back onto someone’s lap.
I gave a small gasp and was halfway back on my feet before strong hands caught me by the hips and pulled me back down.
“Granger, my darling, I thought we were friends,” Malfoy muttered in my ear before I could scream bloody murder. I blinked with surprise as his hands slid around my waist, pulling me snuggly onto his lap.
It defied reason that he was even there. Why would he be on a bus? Didn’t he have some revoltingly overpriced car and driver he could inflict his presence on? Or was riding my bus a premeditated attack, intended to catch me off-guard?
I barely had time to wonder before his pointy chin was resting on my shoulder.
“Didn’t you like this position?” he drawled, so close to my ear I could feel the heat of his breath.
I had two choices. I could kick him and call him a pervert, or keep up with my game of pretending he didn’t exist.
It felt unethical to choose the former. After all, there are so many unsatisfying men in the world, it would be unfair to rob women of one of the few decent philanderers. It wasn’t Malfoy’s fault he had the depths of a wading pool and the dick of Adonis. At least he was raising the performance standards for the gentry whoring their way through the student population. Future legacy admissions would curse his name.
The thought brought me a keen sense of joy.
Besides, I would not admit defeat in our game.
I elected to ignore him and act unimpressed with these latest efforts at my attention. He had to have done a ridiculous amount of scheming to pull this off, and now it was my duty to make all that effort be for naught.
He wasn’t even there.
I stared straight ahead and didn’t give the slightest indication that I’d noticed I was sitting on someone’s lap.
The bus lurched, and I bounced forward, trying to find something to hold in order to keep steady, and using my toes to push myself back so I wouldn’t go flying into another passenger.
Malfoy shifted.
And groaned.
I froze and sat there, realising that the tables had turned. Malfoy’s underhanded attempt to get my attention had backfired on him spectacularly. He was sitting under me with a hard on from my arse.
I wanted to laugh aloud.
I kept my expression carefully neutral, but a giddy tingle ran through me.
The bus sped up, and I allowed my hips to roll back with the rev, sliding up the length of Malfoy’s hardening cock where it was nestled firmly against my arse. It was shameless, I know, but it wasn’t like there was anything down there he wasn’t already intimately acquainted with. His hips bucked, and he swore under his breath, his fingers biting into my waist, causing shivers to roll down my spine.
But he still didn’t let go.
A quick flush of heat spread through my core, but I kept looking out the window at the streaming rain, as if I couldn’t feel Malfoy’s hardened cock where it was now nestled between my thighs. I shifted my weight, tilting my hips so that my pelvis was angled down against his cock and relaxed so that my hips rolled against him with every bump.
I felt giddily amused by the thought of Malfoy ejaculating on the bus, and then being sticky inside his drawers for hours of classes.
That would teach him not to pester people who were just trying to get to class.
His low inhalations and suppressed near-whimpers were music to my ears as the bus rolled on, the driver oblivious to the sexual torture he was helping me inflict.
When the bus came to another stop, my hips slid down, and when the bus continued on, I slid back up his cock and my back pressed against his chest and I felt him throbbing through the fabric of my knickers. He groaned into my hair, his hand on my thigh squeezing in a way that sent a sharp jolt through my body.
“Fuck.” His fingers were almost bruising in the way he gripped my waist as I sat and ‘innocently’ bounced against him. “Granger, you menace. Sit still.”
I continued to pretend he didn’t exist as I wriggled tauntingly on his lap.
I could feel him tense every time I moved. Then he shifted, and I thought for a moment, he’d finally given up and was shoving me off, but instead, he reached under and unfastened his trousers. I started with surprise at the warm soft skin of his cock rubbing against my bare thigh under my skirt.
He chuckled.
“Two can play this game,” he said softly, his breath ticking along the nape of my neck in a way that sent a shiver running down my spine.
My heart was pounding. I had never done anything like that before, never ever. I was absolutely not the type. A smart girl. Responsible. The mothering type. Not an exhibitionist. Not even the type who usually had one-night stands, present company excluded.
None of that stopped the wicked spark of anticipation spreading through my body as I rolled my hips again, sliding his bare cock against my covered core. A heady growing tension made my head light and my pulse race as I kept my expression carefully neutral.
His cock rubbed through my knickers and I felt myself grow suddenly damp.
Shit.
That had not been part of the plan. This was supposed to be entirely one sided.
Before I could do anything to reverse course, his hand slid between our bodies, long, slender fingers under my skirt which was covering us, and he pulled my knickers to the side so he was nestled right between my legs, nothing in between. His cock pressed bare against my core.
Now he’d feel that I was wet. Damn. This was ruining my entire facade of indifference. My face burned with embarrassment, but I still didn’t move to stop him.
Female arousal was involuntary, I rationalised. Biologically speaking, wetness wasn’t even necessarily caused by arousal. Sometimes it just happened.
Speaking to Malfoy, however, would be a formal, voluntary acknowledgment. That would mean losing our game. I would never resort to it.
I had self-control in spades. There was no way I was going to give up during such a short bus ride.
To prove my defiance, I responded by squirming and grinding down against him, as if trying to find a more comfortable position for myself, and he gave a strained whimper. I guess he didn’t expect that. I could practically hear him biting his lip as his hips jerked.
He sighed, almost a groan, and the sound sent a low ache of want straight through my core.
Apparently not to be beaten, at the next bump, Malfoy shifted under me, one hand pulling me off his lap just enough that the head of his cock was pressed between my legs, the tip just barely sliding in as the bus came to a stop.
I gasped as he filled me.
Malfoy coughed to cover up the noise, and then stayed unmoving as I sat there. My eyes were wide, and I froze, just the tip of his cock inside of me, and despite my shock, I was already clenching, wanting him deeper.
Don’t move, Hermione. That would let him win.
But god, just this was enough to send my mind spiralling back to his flat. The glorious moment when he sank into me the first time, the low groan he gave as if being inside me left him undone. Money or not, I could see why women slept with him.
I would willingly fail a pop quiz to hear that sound again.
Which is why, when, bus sped over a hill, I allowed the momentum to pull me back, sinking down, taking him to the hilt. I bit my lip to hold in a moan as I clenched and his hands shook and he groaned, softly, just barely audible, but it was that same moan.
My insides fluttered, as much in response to the sound as the sensation.
The road levelled out for a long stretch and after several seconds of panting as if to catch his breath, his hands relaxed, sliding up and down my hips in almost casual familiarity. If anyone looked, we’d appear to be nothing more than an annoyingly flirtatious couple, but he was breathing heavily over my shoulder.
“Still ignoring me, Granger?” His tone was a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
I pressed my lips together and pretended I still didn’t hear him.
“Alright then,” he said after a moment, his voice calm, casual, but I could hear the threat underlying it.
His fingers trailed under my skirt, finding their way between my legs where my knickers were pushed aside, exposing me. His fingers dipped against my core where I was slick and then trailed back up to stroke my clit.
“It’s not polite to ignore people,” he said with a lofty drawl. The bus bounced again, and he sank deeper. He drew a sharp breath and my entire body went taut as his fingers moved in slow circles.
My hips rolled involuntarily.
I wanted to feel him thrusting inside me again. To have him slam in hard and then do it again with that smooth languorous tempo that somehow annihilated every unwanted thought in my eternally overthinking brain.
It was all so infuriating and unfair. My parents raised me from the cradle to despise the gentry, and until now I have been unfailingly dutiful in doing so.
But they had not prepared me for the likes of Draco Malfoy.
I should be completely unattracted to him. The mere thought of his pointy features, which were undoubtedly a symptom of inbreeding, should leave me repulsed.
But indifferent to my objections to everything that he represented, my body was horribly attracted to him, as if my ability to enjoy sex hinged on not feeling morally responsible while it was happening.
God, is that why I’d enjoyed it? Because Malfoy was such a lost cause I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be providing a learning experience?
What a horrible thought.
“Fuck, Granger, stop,” he said, his voice was breathless, somewhere between an order and a plea, his hands clamping around both my thighs in an attempt to still me, and I realised I’d been unconsciously squirming, trying to find a source of friction and getting very close.
I went completely still despite the way my body instantly protested, pressing my lips together as I tried not to even let my weight shift. It was fine. It was manageable. I could do this.
He was just there, inside me, filling me. Enough of a stretch that it made my heart skip a beat. I could feel the heat and hardness, and it took conscious effort not to move on instinct. A precipice just beyond reach, but so painfully close.
Hermione Granger, don’t you dare.
The buildings, blurred by rainfall, sped past, and I had just finished convincing myself that I could maintain my composure and make it all the way to my stop when his hand slipped back down and he started touching me again.
My entire body trembled as I held back a whimper. He was such a bastard.
“Look at this scrape you’ve got us into,” he said, his voice conversational as his fingers began stroking slowly between my legs once more, the movement completely hidden under my skirt. A longer skirt meant to indicate a proper young woman, not so Malfoy could use it to secretly finger me.
My eyes were wide with indignation.
I had done nothing. I was the victim in all of this. I could barely keep from turning to glare at him for such an unreasonable accusation.
Ignore it. He’s trying to bait you.
“Are you really going to pretend you don’t feel me right now?” He pinched my clit, and I clenched so hard he swore.
“Fuck! Don’t do that. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuck. Do you do daily kegel exercises or some shit? Fuck.” He half-groaned and his hips just barely lifted to nestle deeper. “Oh, I know you probably do. You’re such a perfect swot.”
He drew another breath and seemed to have recovered, his fingertips moving to resume their unhurried sexual torture, running lightly along my inner-thighs and then moving touch where he was buried inside me in a way that made my legs tremble.
He began rubbing in a way that was painfully slow. Soft teasing little circles that were barely touching my clit so that anticipatory desire shot through me.
“Such a good girl, aren’t you?” He whispered into my ear as if we were co-conspirators. “Always in control, always the best at everything.”
My cheeks went painfully red. How dare he say such things to me?
My entire body was beginning to shake.
Before I could react or remember not to react, he stroked my clit just hard enough to make me go rigid, right on the precipice. I made a strangled sound in the back of my throat as I trembled and he stopped and made a quiet, soothing noise against my neck and waited until I could breathe. Then he resumed stroking.
I wanted to cry with frustration.
It was so offensive. Most men can’t even find the clitoris when they’re staring right at it, but here was Malfoy somehow able to do it from behind me, under my skirt, while on a bus without a soul noticing. And believe me, I was checking to make sure no one was noticing because if Malfoy got me arrested for public indecency, I would be obliged to kill him.
He pressed his thumb against my clit, still rubbing in those teasing, unsatisfying circles and I had to bite back a pleading whimper.
“I wonder what you’d do if I made you come, right on this bus,” he said, and his touch grew barely firmer. I stopped breathing and I don’t know if it was from horror or hope.
I would have said something in reply at that point, but my attention and every fibre of my being was focused on trying not to move, not to make a sound, not to tilt my hips so that his fingers could stroke just there.
I was on the verge of vibrating like a crystal goblet, resonating with a rising frequency, but I refused to shatter.
“Think you can do it quietly?” The way he asked was a mixture of threat and offer.
I clenched again without meaning to. I don’t know how it was possible to become more tense than I already was, but his slow, relentless touch was steadily ratcheting my body more and more taut, until I was certain I couldn’t possibly get any closer without toppling over the edge.
“Fuck…” he half moaned against my neck in response, his breath burning hot with want. “If you do that again, you’ll have my come running down your thighs when you get off this bus.”
My eyes widened, but it was all I could do to keep quiet, to keep still, to keep from climaxing.
I pressed my lips tightly together and stared ahead, trying steadfastly to ignore him.
There was only one stop left. I could hold on until then.
With most men it was a monumental effort to get off, I was more than capable of not having an orgasm if I didn’t want one.
Malfoy, however, seemed to have a death wish, because he wouldn’t stop stroking. His fingers found my thighs and pressed them a little further apart. “Spread your legs for me, good girl.”
My legs parted of their own volition.
“Perfect. Oh you’re perfect,” he said, breath warm and unsteady against my ear as he slid his hand, firm and very possessive between my legs, his fingers stroking where we were joined in a way that was intensely erotic, while the heel of his palm pressed against my clit in manner half torture and half relief. A small sound escaped my throat.
Don’t give in. Don’t give in. Just a little longer. Your stop is close.
I focused on the thought. I’ve always struggled to keep my attention on sex long enough to climax. This was the first time in my life I was actively trying to do the opposite.
We passed the last stop, his fingers still gently, almost absentmindedly, stroking. His cock still buried rigid inside me. My legs were trembling. There was sweat on my temples and beading down my back, heat flooding relentlessly through me as I finally reached out for the button overhead.
It was just beyond reach. I leaned forward, sliding excruciatingly up the length of Malfoy’s cock. His long and shamefully dexterous fingers between my thighs didn’t stop, as if he were determined to touch me until the last possible moment.
My fingers fumbled as I hit the button.
As the light at the front illuminated, the bus sped up, lurching forward.
My body was slammed back against Malfoy’s. One sharp thrust to the hilt after all the ache, all that relentless teasing.
I gave a soft gasp and barely managed to press a hand against my mouth as I shuddered and climaxed. Violently.
God… god… god damnit.
The effort of not uttering sound, of not moving at all, made the pleasure coursing through my body feel as if it were compacting like an imploding star. I shook with a violent degree of restraint as every muscle in my body shuddered.
It was as if all my efforts to hold it back drew things out, making it blistering in its intensity as it kept going and going.
As I tried to breathe through it, I realised Malfoy’s cock was pulsing, his hips jerking up. I could feel liquid warmth in my core as he spilled inside me with a shudder of his own, his face buried in my hair.
I dropped my hand from my mouth, chest heaving. Breathless. Gasping. Nearly boneless. I looked around, still trembling, half expecting to find the entire bus staring.
No one had noticed. We were so over crammed that everyone nearby was absorbed in staying upright.
I could see our stop ahead as I tried to catch my breath.
Malfoy was saying something, but I was too dazed to hear it. I was speechless with shock.
We’d just had sex on a bus. I had just had sex.
On a bus.
I had class in a matter of minutes.
I sat there stupefied, not sure how to even proceed. There were no rules, common sense or otherwise, about what to do after such a situation. Common sense simply dictated: Do Not. There was no heartening addendum of: ‘but if you do…’
I shakily gripped a handrail and stood up slowly, giving Malfoy enough time to tuck himself back inside his trousers before my skirt was no longer covering him.
My face was burning and I could feel his come on my inner thighs. I snagged the strap of my book bag as I pushed through the crowd of riders to reach an exit without looking back.
The bus lurched to a stop, and everyone crushed together to disembark. As soon as my feet touched the pavement, I took off towards the nearest building.
I heard him call my name, but I ignored it as I bolted through the rain towards the closest building.
My lungs were burning when I got inside and I rushed to the nearest bathroom, slamming into the first stall, cleaning up as quickly as possible while I composed a rapid to-do list of things I would need to do after class. Get a contraceptive pill for one.
My god, you could light a pyre with the searing heat of my embarrassment. I went to the taps and splashed my face with water, trying to compose myself.
I pressed my hands over my face and muffled a scream of disbelief. At myself. At Malfoy. At my obstinate determination to win at a stupid game.
I shut off the tap and closed my eyes, releasing a slow, deep breath. I could be calm and rational about this. No one would ever know. I’d go to class as usual and then take care of everything afterwards.
I was still winning. Malfoy had yet to make me voluntarily acknowledge him. We hadn’t been caught. Everything was fine.
With a marginal degree of feigned composure, I straightened, gathering my things, and hurried out of the bathroom.
“Granger—“ Malfoy was standing right outside the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin as I ran straight into him.
“I have class,” I blurted, the words escaping me before I had time to think.
I gasped and stared at him in horror.
All that effort, that whole accursed bus ride, and then he won by surprising me outside the bathroom.
We stood gaping at one another and a slow, triumphant light filled his eyes and spread across his face. Victory.
I wanted to shriek with outrage and bolt before he had a chance to gloat, but he was very strategically blocking the door and when I tried to duck under his arm, he squished his body to one side and nearly took my nose off.
Snake.
I drew myself up, hot with indignation, and he reached out, tucking a curl behind my ear.
“Hello, Granger,” he said with a smirk, his fingertip lingering against my cheek.
Why in god’s name was he being affectionate?
It was probably to rub it in that he’d won. He really was just awful.
I glared, jerking my face away from his caresses and folding my arms. “I have class.
If I was going to lose from saying something as asinine as that, I was at least not going to be late for said class.
“Granger,” his tone an odd mixture of smug and long-suffering. “We need to talk.”
“We do not,” I said coldly, finding for the first time in my life that I did not want to have a discussion about something. “I have no desire to talk to you. Ever.”
The sharpness in my voice wiped the smug look off his face. He sighed and looked abashed.
“I’m sorry — “ he appeared to be at a loss for words. “I know you're pissed at me. I got carried away — I swear, I didn’t mean for things to go so far. I got competitive and — caught up in y—” He stopped and then seemed to amend what he was about to say. “In the moment. But it was too far. I know that.”
“It’s fine,” I said, not entirely sure what he expected apologising to accomplish and just wanting the conversation to be over. Just brush it off. Act like you have sex on buses all the time. No big deal. Then run away.
I waved a hand dismissively. “It happens.”
He gave me an incredulous look. “What? No it doesn’t.”
I winced. Fair enough. “Fine. It doesn’t happen, but it did, and I don’t want to talk about it. Now or ever. Please move.”
I shoved at him but he refused to step back, instead he leaned into my hands.
“You’re mad, aren’t you?”
I stared up at him incredulously. “Of course I’m mad. You could have got us arrested, you idiot.”
He caught my hands in his, holding them captive against his chest. “I know. It was idiotic. You have no idea what you do to me.”
I shot him a sceptical look and tried to extricate my hands from his grip, but instead he squeezed them until I could feel his heartbeat as he stared at me.
“Come over tonight, so I can make it up to you,” he said.
It was obvious by the way he said ‘come over’ exactly how he imagined himself making this up to me. I released a disbelieving breath. Only Malfoy would think that the solution for foolish sex was having even more sex.
I looked him squarely in the face.
“I hate you,” I said, expecting that declaration to finally be enough to drive him off.
He didn’t even have the courtesy of looking surprised or offended. Instead he raised an eyebrow. “I know.”
I blinked in surprise. “Then why do you want me to come over?”
His smirk tugged at a corner of his mouth as he leaned into my palms. If anyone passed, they’d probably think we were making out.
“I want to change your mind,” he whispered in my ear.
My heart skipped a beat, but I kept my voice indifferent. Haughty. “I’m not going to change my mind about you, Malfoy.”
He smiled then. I could just barely see it from the corner of my eye because we were standing so close.
“That sounds like an interesting challenge. Don’t you think?” Then his lips brushed against my neck, just below my ear.
“It sounds completely stupid,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady as his lips trailed lower, towards my shoulder. But my fingers curled treacherously against the hard planes of his chest.
He didn’t even lift his head, but I could feel the smirk on his lips where they were pressed just above my collarbone. “If you don’t think you can win, just say so.”
I shoved him away, hot with indignation. But he only stepped back an arms’ length, because his fingers were still holding my wrists captive.
That was absolutely not why I thought it sounded stupid. The premise of the game was what was faulty, not my abilities of resistance.
But there was already smug triumph spreading across his narrow features, as if he could already taste my defeat. My refusal taken as an admission that I didn’t hate him as much as I claimed.
That bastard. He’d cornered me.
I glared at him. Clearly I had no choice. Better open war than whatever underhand tactics he might employ otherwise. Besides, it wasn’t as if I was planning on seriously dating again, Ron had quite successfully put me off relationships for the foreseeable future.
I drew myself up, lifting my chin defiantly. “Fine. Tonight. Your place. What are the rules?”