The Love You Take

A/N: Ladies, I regret to say that this is the end of chapters which are already complete, so the next update may be longer than two days. In addition, I have received my prompt for the SSHG Winter Exchange on Live Journal - but I am committed to completing this story - and have I ever left you in the lurch? Exactly!

Please be aware that this chapter might need a mild BDSM warning for a bit of spanking. I had no intention of "going there," but the Muse was insistent. So was Severus, for that matter. Some Bushy-Haired People need to be more considerate – and that's all he has to say about that.

Love to alpha reader Sshg316, beta reader DeeMichelle, and Brit-picker MagicAlly.

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Chapter 4: The Morass, Part 2


Hermione cried into her professor’s neck, exhausted and humiliated, with only the lessening of the awful sexual compulsion as a comfort. Professor Snape held her safely in his lap, but he neither petted her, nor murmured reassurances as she cried – and she was rather glad. Without a doubt, the uttering of insincere platitudes would have sent her straight up the wall.

Shifting slightly, she looked up into his face; the ugly hooked nose drew the eye away from his extremely fine eyes, black as pitch, with long, curling eyelashes. At the moment, he was glaring at the distance as if it had personally offended him. The stringy hair was baby-fine and attached to an excessively oily scalp; Hermione knew there were girls in her House with similar hair who were forced to shampoo twice a day to combat greasiness. To be fair, she couldn’t imagine either Harry or Ron going to such trouble, so it was not surprising that this man stalked through his days with exceedingly greasy hair hanging about his face – he had no wife to remind him to wash it, did he?

Tentatively, she reached a finger to move a strand of hair back from his face, and she was startled into crying out when her wrist was clamped in a steely grasp.

‘What do you think you are doing, Miss Granger?’ the silky voice demanded, his glare now fixed on her face.

‘I was just …’ she began, but he cut across her.

‘Please do me the courtesy of keeping your hands to yourself,’ he snapped.

Hermione flushed at the rebuff, and scrambling to her feet, she discovered that she was naked.

‘Don’t look!’ she cried, diving for the dressing gown and crouching, her back to him, as she wrapped its voluminous folds about her.

A derisive sound came from him, but he did not speak; she stood then and turned to face him again. ‘I should be getting back to my room, now,’ she said, her chin rising.

Professor Snape returned her challenging look blandly. ‘Be my guest,’ he replied. ‘I should perhaps inquire, though, if you actually read the text I marked for you.’

Brown eyes flashed. ‘I have never failed to complete an assignment you have given me, Professor,’ she retorted.

One sardonic eyebrow rose at her proclamation. ‘Do you recall what information was given regarding the effects of the curse for the first seventy-two hours?’ he inquired quietly.

Hermione felt a wave of futility wash over her. ‘You could provide me with the sedative,’ she began, but once again he interrupted her.

‘I would never do so,’ he replied firmly. ‘The sedative is habit-forming, and it will not truly combat the impulse, Miss Granger – it will only dull the effects, and only for a very short period of time.’

Tears started to her eyes again. ‘Then what am I going to do?’ she cried.

His gaze never wavered from her face, and his manner was unnervingly normal, not at all the unpleasant, sarcastic teacher to whom she had become accustomed. ‘If you are interested in my recommendation, I would suggest that you join me for breakfast here, in my sitting room. After you eat, you will undoubtedly need to sleep, as will I, for we have been up all night, Miss Granger.’

Her eyes darted to the clock over his mantelpiece and she saw that it was just past six o’clock.

‘The compulsion will come upon you many more times over the next three days,’ he continued inexorably, ‘and no matter how much both of us wish that was not the case, there is no point in ignoring the inevitable, is there?’

With a defeated sigh, Hermione sagged onto the sofa. ‘I hate it,’ she whispered, and even as she spoke, she felt the first throb of the return of her torment.

Professor Snape was still watching her closely, and he seemed to know exactly what she was feeling as she felt it.

‘It has been exactly thirteen minutes, Miss Granger, since your last orgasm,’ he informed her as if to convince her further of an argument he had already won.

Hermione blushed scarlet to hear him say it so baldly, but she also felt a feral pulse between her legs as he spoke.

‘You are welcome to fight it, if you wish,’ he said, ‘but I would just as soon deal with it so we can eat our breakfasts.’

Hermione struggled to push the unwelcome desire away, hating Lord Voldemort, Headmaster Dumbledore, and Professor Snape all with equal vehemence in that moment. Trying to concentrate on something else, she stared down at her knees, beginning to mentally catalogue the Twelve Uses of Dragon’s Blood, only to be diverted to thoughts of having his hand thrusting into her, driving her surely over the edge which now beckoned to her again. She was therefore unable to refrain from grabbing that hand when it appeared before her face, and in so doing, she was immediately cognizant of the fact that his fingers still reeked of her scent.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘We will be more comfortable in the bedroom.’

Hermione went with him readily, entering once again the darkened room through which she had passed going to and from the bathroom. He released her hand after they had entered the bedroom, lighting the candles and taking care to close and ward the door against intrusion.

‘Why don’t you get up on the bed?’ he suggested neutrally.

The flaming need licking at her mind and body agreed with this proposal and she complied eagerly, flinging the dressing gown unheeded to the floor and clambering up on the high, old-fashioned four-poster bed. On another occasion she might have been curious to see that her Potions master’s bedcovers consisted of a nubby white counterpane over soft, oft-washed white cotton sheets. For now, all she wanted was satiation – the sooner, the better.

‘Hurry,’ she moaned, beyond the ability to feel shame for her wanton behaviour.

Professor Snape approached her, saying, ‘Why don’t you sit in the middle.’

Hermione felt the thrill again, excitement rising in her. She scrambled to obey him, saying breathlessly, ‘Why? Will it feel better?’

She felt the mattress dip as his weight joined hers on the bed and he settled behind her. ‘The soft tissues of your genitals are going to take a beating over the next few days,’ he explained, his professorial tone detracting somewhat from the erotic possibilities of the topic. ‘If it is possible to vary your position, we can hope to minimise that.’

Unbidden, Hermione scooted back until her back was flush against his chest, and she felt her first flash of desire for the body of the man behind her.

‘Why don’t you undress, too?’ she asked.

He did not respond to her question, but rested his hands on his wool-covered thighs, in whose v-shape Hermione was now nestled. ‘Put my hands where you want them,’ he said.

Hermione felt his breath upon her ear, stirring the hair against her cheek as he spoke, and she felt the stab of wanting again.

‘Not just your hands,’ she said, attempting to turn to face him. ‘All of you ….’

The implacable hands rose to clamp onto her shoulders, pinning her in place. ‘No,’ he growled, and a fresh wave of goose bumps broke over her skin at the feral sound.

Without another word, she pulled his hand to her aching vulva. ‘Do it,’ she pleaded, and she cried out with pleasure when he immediately began to stroke her clitoris. She leant back against him, pulling her knees up and spreading her thighs further apart, giving him more access. ‘More,’ she begged, and he increased the pressure slightly, causing her to buck against his hand.

Grabbing his other hand, she pulled it to her mouth, unceremoniously plunging his index finger into her warm, greedy mouth, and sucked. Suddenly he jerked his hand from her mouth and removed the other from her clitoris.

‘Don’t do that!’ he thundered at her, his lips right next to her ear.

Moving quickly, Hermione twisted to face him, twining her fingers in his hair and pressing her lips to his with inexpert force.

‘Dammit!’ he roared, and before Hermione knew what had happened, he had flipped her so that she lay face down across his lap and his hand came down on her bum with a ringing slap.

‘Ouch!’ she cried, struggling, but he held her in a vise-like grip and delivered another blow, this time to the opposite arse cheek.

‘I have very little choice in this,’ he said, panting slightly as he rained smacks on alternating sides of her bum, ‘but what choice I have, I will exercise, Miss Granger! Is that clear?’

The only thing that was clear to Hermione was that this ignominious spanking was heightening her arousal. Squirming forward slightly, she parted her thighs further, offering her fanny as well as her bum for spanking.

She could not see, but felt her professor’s consternation, for he stopped spanking and remained motionless for what seemed an eternity to the needy naked woman on his bed. At last she spoke. ‘I apologise, Professor, but I can’t reach your hands to put them where I want them – would you please spank me and finger me until I climax?’

There was another eternal moment of silence, but at last he began to spank her again, this time with a touch no less firm, yet with somewhat less force. Now his blows were distributed less on her cheeks and more directly to her fanny, which made a squelching sound with each direct hit, and each impact travelled directly to her clit, a divine form of torture.

After several blows, the same hand cupped her mons, then he slipped his fingers within, curving down and around until his fingertips found her pleasure centre. ‘Yes!’ Hermione cried, ‘yes – don’t stop!’

True to her instructions, the wicked fingers circled, rubbed, and plucked at her while she bucked wildly, trying to increase the contact, until a shattering climax hit her, seeming to spread from her head to her toes like brushfire. The finger movement stopped then, and he simply cupped her mound as the orgasm raged through her body, seeming to hold her anchored by his grasp on her sex.

When her tremors ceased, he moved her gently from his legs and retrieved the dressing gown from the floor. ‘Do you need the lavatory?’ he asked, extending the garment to her.

Hermione pulled the fabric over her nudity and shook her head numbly. ‘No – I only want to sleep.’

It seemed to her then that her professor fled the room into the lavatory, where she was certain she heard him ward the door against sound and entry before all became quiet. She scarcely had time to wonder what sound he wished to conceal before she was sound asleep.