There’s very little worse than having to get out of bed when you’re warm and snuggled against the naked body of your lover. However, the need to pee forces Hermione to untangle her limbs from Blaise’s body so she can roll out of bed. The floor is cold beneath her feet, which makes her walk even more quickly to the toilet.

When she steps back into the room, she smiles when she sees that Blaise has rolled over onto his back and has kicked the covers down. The only way he ever stays under the covers is when she’s curled around him. Her smile fades as she reminds herself that she can’t fall in love with him. It’s dangerous enough being his lover, but she was only able to resist the lust for four months after they started working together.

He has no interest in more than a casual affair, and she’s a modern woman who is happy with her work and friends and doesn’t need a serious relationship to be fulfilled. It’s the perfect arrangement, really, since they’re both getting great sex and letting this intense attraction run its course. True, it’s been six months of amazing sex and conversations that are always stimulating and make her think, which she actually enjoys nearly as much as the sex, but she assumes the lust will fade soon enough.

Things are becoming more complicated because she’s just not modern enough to share her body and be intimate without feelings getting involved. It’s foolish to fall in love with a man that she doesn’t even really know, of course, so she has to remind herself that she can’t go there. They’re lovers and colleagues, but she’s not even sure that she can call them friends. Blaise is an enigma in the best and worst sense of the word, which means she might know where to touch him to make him moan but rarely ever knows what is running through his brilliant mind.

He is private, rarely talks about himself in ways that really matter, and has at least a dozen masks that he wears to keep people from getting too close. It’s probably wishful thinking, but she believes that she’s seen beyond the distant façade that he wears so well and thinks that perhaps he’s starting to have the same trouble keeping things casual. She can never tell with him, though, so it’s disconcerting at the same time she loves the complexities.

She watches him sleep for a few moments before she walks back to the bed and crawls beneath the covers. He opens his eyes and looks at her, alert and aware in a way that lets her know he probably woke as soon as she got out of bed. He reaches up and runs his fingers through her hair before he rolls onto his side. He moves his arm possessively around her waist, pulls her closer to him, and drifts back to sleep. Hermione snuggles against him and pulls the sheet up. She closes her eyes, listening to his even breathing and wondering if he’ll ever let her see beneath the mask that he wears so well.

End