The music is too loud and the club is full of smoke. Hermione doesn’t understand how something as awful as this can constitute ‘having fun’. Her head is pounding in time with the beat of the awful music and the smoke makes her eyes water. Her hair has fallen from the somewhat tidy style she’d chosen for the evening and the dress that had made her feel daringly sexy now makes her feel cheap. It’s too low cut, too short, and she’s worried about making any sudden movements for fear that her breasts may spill out the front.
Overall, the evening has been horrid.
She can see Ginny and Harry dancing together near the stage. Well, she assumes it’s dancing, though it actually looks more like shagging with their clothes on. They meant well when they practically forced her to go out with them tonight, but she again wishes that she could withstand Harry’s Puppy Dog Eyes and had just stayed home. This isn’t what she needed to make her feel better or to get her mind off of things.
No, she needed a large bowl of chocolate ice cream with sprinkles and whipped cream. She all too easily thinks back to a late night last month with freckled skin covered in whipped cream and knows she’ll never be able to eat it again without thinking of how it tasted on his skin. Bloody hell. He’d not only ruined her life, but he’d also ruined her ever having a sundae again without thinking about him.
This is ridiculous. She’s turned down several dances from men who don’t interest her at all (because they’re not him) and feels worse than she did before Harry and Ginny’s little intervention. She deserves a chance to be miserable, damn it. How dare they not give her the satisfaction of spending weeks in her flat wearing his old shirt missing him?
True, Hermione isn’t the type to wallow or whine, but she was hurt more than she’d ever imagined by the sudden break-up of a relationship she thought had a real future and really does just want to be left alone so she can try to heal. She misses him and hates him for giving her silly excuses about why they can’t be together and wants to know what she did wrong and wishes things had gone differently. A new song begins to play and she knows she can’t take it any more.
She stands up and tugs her dress down to try to cover herself, but the material still ends around her thighs, which she feels are far too fat to be flaunting in some club. Her efforts merely result in her breasts straining against the fabric of the slutty dress Ginny chose for her in a way that gives new meaning to the term ‘heaving bosoms‘. She straightens up and makes her way through the crowd of writhing bodies towards the exit. She needs air that isn’t smoke-filled and to get away from the horrible music.
When she reaches the outside, she almost sighs in relief. Joyful silence is all she can hear, which is perfect. It’s a bit colder than she expected, especially in this thin dress, but she ignores the shivers and starts to walk. She considers just going home now but doesn’t want to go back inside to tell Harry and Ginny that she’s left. Instead, she decides that a walk will clear her head, and she’ll probably be back before they realize that she’s gone.
As she walks, she refuses to think about the past eighteen months or about him. It’s been two weeks since he broke things off, after all, and it’s time to accept that she was wrong about their relationship. He didn’t want a relationship. He just wanted good sex (okay, great sex) without anything else.
It isn’t as if she’d planned for things to develop, as she certainly had no idea that one night of somewhat drunken sex following Ron’s birthday party would result in an affair that lasted over a year, but she couldn’t change how she felt. She wants more than sex and can’t understand why it was such a surprise when he’s practically been living with her for a year and they passed that ‘just sex’ part many, many months ago.
However, it appears that she isn’t as smart as she thought. When she bravely asked him if he wanted to move in, officially, his reaction had caught her off-guard. She’d been stunned when he said things were over because it was getting too serious. Too serious? Eighteen bloody months together and he now says it’s too serious? She loves him and stupidly assumed he returned her feelings or else he’d ended things by now.
When she realizes that she’s doing what she promised herself she wouldn’t, she feels defeated and miserable. Of course, it’s probably stupid of her to be reacting as if it was a break-up since he apparently never considered them to be together. They attended family functions together, shagged more times than she could even count, went on holiday together twice, and he had taken over half her wardrobe within a few months but that wasn’t a relationship. Charlie doesn’t do relationships.
“Bloody fucking hell, woman,” an irate voice growls from behind her, “are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Hermione frowns and wonders what was in the supposedly non-alcoholic drink that Harry bought her. She’s hearing voices, which is not the act of someone sober. She shakes her head and mutters about hexing bits as she keeps walking. When a hand grabs her shoulder and turns her around, she gasps and immediately throws her arm out to hit whomever it is.
A soft grunt is the reward for her self-defense tactics. Her eyes widen when she sees Charlie rubbing his gut, where she made contact. Her initial concern fades instantly and becomes anger. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demands as she glares at him. She refuses to acknowledge how good he looks in tight denims and a green shirt that nearly matches the color of his eyes. She also definitely doesn’t ogle his broad shoulders or the flash of freckled skin that is visible where the buttons are fastened.
“Me?” he asks as he recovers enough to glare back. “You’re the one prancing around an empty street dressed like that. God, Hermione. I thought you were smarter than that.”
Oh no he didn’t. Hermione narrows her gaze and feels anger flush her cheek, deliberately ignoring the arousal that accompanies it. “Dressed like what?” she asks in a near growl as she moves closer to him.
A muscle in his cheek twitches and his eyes almost seem to be on fire as he stares at her. “Dressed like a slag,” he says as his gaze moves over her barely covered breasts and down her bare legs.
It’s almost like he’s touched her, which is something she’s only ever felt with Charlie. Her body reacts instantly despite her best efforts to ignore him. “I’m single, Charlie. I can dress however I want. Maybe I’m ‘prancing around’ in an attempt to find someone to take home to shag into exhaustion. Did you ever think of that?”
He smirks. “If you’d wanted that, you would have found someone at that bloody club,” he points out smugly before he scowls. “Besides, you wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” she challenges, annoyed that he feels like he can come back into her life when she’s attempting to get over him and pull this possessive eye-touching-gaze sexiness shite. “Maybe I’ll find someone that can say ‘relationship’ without making it into a curse word. Now, if you‘ll excuse me, I think I need to go back and find someone to take home tonight. I could use a shag.”
She walks past him with her head held high despite the fact that she’s near tears and trying not to shake. Her brave ‘I’m over him’ façade is crumbling at her feet, and she refuses to let him see that she still loves him. She doesn’t make it a half dozen steps before his hands are on her. She’s pushed against the wall of an appliance store with just enough force to let her know he’s serious.
“No, you won’t,” he growls before he kisses her.
She tries not to kiss him back. She does her best to keep her lips tightly clenched and ignore the fact that her body is on fire and her knickers are damp, as they always are when they fight. He reaches beneath the skirt of her dress and squeezes her arse hard, making her gasp as she arches against him. He immediately thrusts his tongue into her mouth, and she knows it’s useless to try to resist. Not that she really wants to anyway.
Charlie moves his leg between hers and pulls her closer as they kiss. Her fingers are in his short hair and she’s kissing him back as she begins to rock against his thigh. She doesn’t care that anyone driving or walking by can see them. All she cares about is the feel of his body and the desperate way he’s kissing her, which says far more than any wordy speeches. Charlie isn’t big on talking, especially about emotional stuff, so this says everything she needs to know.
When he pulls back, he stares down at her. “I fucked up,” he murmurs in a husky voice that is very distracting. “Second chance?”
“I want more than sex,” she tells him softly. “I want you.”
Charlie stares at her and she can see a vulnerability that‘s never been there before. He almost looks scared before he slowly smiles. “You’ve got me,” he promises before he kisses her again.
He slides his hand up her back before he moves it around to caress her breast. She can feel his erection against her leg and shifts so that she can rub him as she rides his thigh. He groans at the friction and tightens his grip on her breast. Her dress is around her waist and she can feel the cool night air caress her arse. Her knickers are soaked now, and the material clings to her cunt as she moves back and forth against his leg.
He kisses her jaw and cheek before he pants in her ear. “Gonna fuck you until you can’t walk, baby. Saw you teasing all those men in this fucking dress and wanted to kill them all for looking at you. Wanted to toss you on the table and fuck you right there where they could all see that you’re mine.”
Hermione moans at his words, wanting to curse him because he knows how turned on she gets when he talks like this. He chuckles knowingly and nips at her neck, biting the sweaty skin before he sucks hard enough to leave a mark. She unbuttons his shirt and licks the vivid ink on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of the dragon’s scales as he becomes more aroused.
“We should---we should stop,” she stammers as he twists her nipple with one hand and squeezes her arse with the other. She’s not forgotten that they’re right on the street not far from a busy club. There are houses nearby and anyone could look out and see them. While the idea excites her, she can’t help thinking that she’d be embarrassed if someone caught them.
“No,” he murmurs against her neck. “Not gonna stop, Hermione. Gonna make you come right here where they can all see. Know it turns you on, know you like the danger.”
“Charlie,” she whines as he pushes his leg against her harder. A part of her knows that they should be talking, should work things out and deal with the last two weeks, but she loves him and realized months ago that his actions speak far louder than words. He’s come to her and his first bruising kiss was his acknowledgement that he made a mistake. His touch confirms that he doesn’t want to let her go. And his soft murmurs against her neck tell her that they’re going to figure this relationship thing out.
They stop moving and he shifts them, rubbing his erection against her cunt as he sends her back against the wall. They don’t bother to move knickers or unfasten jeans right now. Instead, he begins to thrust forward and she pushes down to meet him, feeling his erection grind against her on each push. When they’re both panting and so close to release that she can practically feel it, he releases her breast and moves his hand between them and into her knickers. Her breath catches as he rubs her clit. “Come for me, baby,” he urges as he moves faster.
Hermione grips his shoulders and whimpers as she comes. Her eyes are closed and she shudders as she lets go of everything. When she opens her eyes, he’s watching her with an expression that says ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I want you’. He’s still hard and rocks against her as she kisses him gently, putting everything that she’s wanted to say the last two weeks into that kiss.
He trembles as he comes, spilling into his shorts as he pants against her mouth. They kiss again before he releases her. They’re a mess and it’s quite obvious they’d just nearly shagged. The front of his jeans is wet, her dress is tangled around her waist, her breasts are hanging out of the neckline, and his shirt is pushed off his shoulders. She looks around, pleased to see that the street is still empty, and then back at him.
“You were a prat,” she tells him as she pushes her dress down and fixes the top.
“Yeah, I was,” he agrees as he buttons his shirt. “Can’t promise I won’t be again.”
“I know,” she says with a wry smile. After all, he’s over thirty and has been a confirmed bachelor all his life. “I can’t promise that I won’t be, either.”
“I know.” He looks at her and smiles the crooked smile that she thinks is the reason she fell in love with him. He pulls her against him and kisses her again before he rests his forehead against hers. “Ready to go home?”
Hermione smiles at his words and nods. “Yes, it’s time to go home.”
End