Nobody can know
With a giggle and a flick of her gown, they slipped inside the doorway and shut the sound of the party behind them. Eager hands clutched at the robes parted at his neck, lips reached to devour one another. Carefully pinned curls tumbled down as a hand delved into them.
Roughly half a year had passed since the start of their relationship, and no one was the wiser. Heated glances across meeting rooms preceded late nights on desktops long past everyone else headed home for the evening. Theirs was a coupling of mutual satisfaction—nothing more.
Yet the timing of their rendezvous increased in frequency, and their locations varied, ranging to riskier locales. Weekly impulses turned into daily shags at the office, in the stairwell, in an overnight room at the Leaky Cauldron, and now in the private sitting room of the Macmillan Estate during another one of the Ministry’s galas.
Draco didn’t waste a second charming the handle locked before pinning her against a lovely plum velvet chaise he thought perfectly paired Hermione’s turquoise dress.
“Silencio maxi—“
He knocked her wand down and interrupted the incantation with a searing kiss.
“I didn’t silence the room on purpose, Granger.”
She was so cute when she wrinkled her nose like that.
“But how—“ Once again, her words stuttered to a halt then transformed into whimpers as he parted the high slit of her dress and bent to kiss her thigh.
“You just…need to keep quiet. Can you be a good girl and do that?”
She nodded frantically as he inched his lips upward. Over the many weeks of their dalliance, Hermione had learned the thrill of forbidden fruit. Though she was one to usually exercise caution in every aspect of her life, somehow Draco brought out a side of Hermione she didn’t even know existed. The idea of someone catching them in the act both terrified and excited her.
Several agonizing, muffled cries later, they rearranged their outfits. As she began to cast charms on her hair and neck where prominent bruised kisses marred it, he once again interrupted her.
“Leave it. I like your hair down better.”
“Draco, it’ll be immediately obvious what we’ve been doing if I don’t at least glamour my skin.”
“What if I don’t want us to be a secret anymore?”
She froze. Us. It was one thing to privately entertain the fantasy of an open relationship, but to go so far as to suggest it, especially in such a public place?
“What happened to this just being for fun?”
“Don’t counter my question with another question,” he shot back just as quickly.
“You never once indicated before that you wanted more. Quite the opposite, in fact. You made it explicitly clear that nobody could know, not our friends, not our family, and certainly not the entire public outside those doors.” Her voice rose in pitch along with her confusion.
“Well I’m telling you right now that I want more. I fucked up, Granger. I’m sure you noticed that I can’t go a day now without seeing you, touching you. It pisses me off that I can’t escort you to these functions, or take you home, much less bring you breakfast in bed. I went and fell for you and now like the selfish arse that I am, I want everyone to know.”
His eyes, open and unwavering, gazed into hers as his hands cradled her face, begging silently for a response to his confession. How could she deny what she had secretly craved almost from the beginning?
“Alright—”
His face lightened in triumph.
“—but I have stipulations.”
He chuckled. “Of course you do.”
“I will agree to an equal amount of time since we started all this for you to woo me. That’s six months of no sex. You will romance the pants off of me, and I mean that literally. After that time, we will re-evaluate. And I will glamour my neck before we walk out these doors.”
He lifted her fingers up for a kiss, as soft and gentle as he wasn’t just moments earlier. “Deal. But you leave your hair down.”
A muttered spell later, her skin was as blemish-free as it was at the start of the evening. With one hand, he unlocked the door before offering her his arm, which she didn’t hesitate to take for the very first time as they stepped back into the rush of sound and lights. In his other hand, he tucked turquoise lace matching her gown into his pocket. She could get them back in six months.