Delicate

Chapter Four: Fighting It









Well I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you

\'Cause falling in love just makes me blue,









“Be careful with that!” It was the second time that Severus had snapped at her in a half hour time period, something he hadn’t done in years. He reached out for the jar in her hand containing dried mandrake root and placed it on the table in the center of the room. “I don’t want to have to go to the school and harvest any more before term begins.” He groused before returning to the crates he was currently unpacking.







“I wasn’t going to drop it, Severus, I am perfectly capable of handling potions ingredients, thank you very much,” she snapped back. He looked up long enough to shoot a frown her way before returning to his task. He was behaving oddly and had been since the previous night when she returned home from the seamstress. She wasn’t sure what to make of his behavior, he didn’t seem angrywith her, but he was certainly frustrated. She wondered why, had he not slept well?







“I want the cabinets ordered alphabetically. If the two ingredients will interact unfavorably with one another then put a wood divider between them,” he said in his ‘teacher’ voice.







“I know how you like your ingredients stored, Professor,” she said, rolling her eyes and growing quickly annoyed with his bad attitude. “What bug bit your bum today?”







He looked up and scowled slightly. He was being a git and he knew it, she hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t deserve his attitude but he had no idea how to behave around her now that he knew. It was his own fault, really, for reading her diary when she had been out. She had never said anything or given him an indication that she had feelings for him and had he not gone snooping he would never have known. He most certainly wouldn’t be having vivid dreams of tying her hands together above her head and running his tongue over every smooth inch of her body that had him waking up with his cock so hard that it hurt.









“The condition of my arse is not a topic for conversation,” he said, wincing at the sound of his biting tone. He couldn’t seem to help it; she had inadvertently stirred something inside him that he thought long buried.









“Alright, fine! Instead of talking about your arse how about you tell me why you are acting like one because for the life of me I cant think of anything I may have done to be on the deserving end of your anger,” she said as she shoved jars and bottles onto their correct shelves.







“I didn’t sleep well,” he lied. “I apologize.”







“Maybe you should add some belladonna to your tea before bed so you are better behaved tomorrow,” she said with a mock smile of sweetness.







“Maybe I should,” he said distractedly as he watched her stretch onto her toes to put jars on the top shelf of the cupboard. If she stretched just a little more the khaki shorts she was wearing would ride up and give him a glimpse of the lower curve of her bottom. He delivered a mental slap in the face to himself, he shouldn’t be ogling her behind and he certainly shouldn’t be wondering how it would feel in his hands. He was turning into a dirty old man.







“Well, if you are going to be an arse to me every time you have a bad night maybe I’ll take to drugging you in secret,” she chuckled, reaching for the next box of ingredients. He panicked immediately when he saw the giant red ‘X’ on the box and lunged for her.







“Hermione, no!” She shouted, grabbing her wrist and jerking her backwards just before she could breach the tape with her knife.







“What did I do?” She asked breathlessly, her heart pounding in fear and surprise.





“That box is filled with poisons, Hermione; I marked and warded it for safety,” he said as he swallowed hard. She dropped the knife and he watched it tumble blade over hilt to the floor as he continued to hold her wrist in his grip. It was then that he realized how close he was to her. Close enough that he could smell her, the soft, sweet scent of her filled his nostrils and he felt his trousers tighten as arousal began to course through his veins.





She realized it as well, he could see her reaction to it and watched in arrant fascination as her eyes grew heavy and her pupils dilated just before she cast her gaze downward and focused on the buttons of his shirt. As his gaze slid lower he caught the tiny throb of her pulse pounding in her throat and the soft flush slowly creeping upwards along her chest. Lower still were the telltale points of her breasts pressing against the thin cotton of her tank and begging for attention. His eyes journeyed back up and he applied gentle pressure to the fine bones beneath his fingers and she gasped, her eyes closing on a little whimper that she couldn’t control.





“Do not touch any of the boxes marked with the ‘X’, Hermione. I will take care of those myself,” he said hoarsely as he released her wrist. She immediately placed her hands behind her and Severus no longer questioned the nature of his assistant and friend. “Please excuse me; I am not feeling quite myself.”





He walked away from her at a quick and determined stride, disappearing through the door and letting the heavy wood slam shut behind him. He took the stairs two at a time, needing distance between him and the temptation standing in the basement lab. Once inside his study he closed the door and turned the lock, moving to the window where he could enjoy the cool breeze on his overheated skin and let the scent of the trees wash her scent from his nostrils.





His cock pulsed behind his zipper and he struggled to ignore it, to ignore the heat and the prickle of electricity that zipped through his groin at the confirmation that she was submissive. He shouldn’t have been all that shocked by it, her journal indicated that she recognized it in herself, but what had him aching and shuddering in dismay was the fact that some innate part of her recognized the dominant in him and responded to it. Which had him responding to her in ways that were entirely inappropriate.





Why is it inappropriate? That little voice in his head was going to get him into trouble. He had been trying to ignore it ever since he read that blasted journal and realized that the little witch had feelings for him that ran deeper than friendship. It tried to convince him that there was nothing at all inappropriate about lusting after a young woman, a woman young enough to be his child. She’s not a student anymore, she’s of age, she wants you, she wants to submit to you, she wants to be yours, take what she offers, take her to your bed, she could be the one you have waited for, she could belong to you. Over and over that bloody voice tormented him, taunting him and egging him on.





He fisted his hands in the hair at his temples and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to will away the vision of her slowly rousing to his touch. Her responses were untutored as was demonstrated by the way she slowly averted her eyes from his. It was headier because she wasn’t trained to look away, her reaction was instinctive. The more he thought on it the more he realized that she had been submitting to his nature in subtle ways for a very long time. Like the way she always placed her hands at the small of her back when he approached her. It was something she had done as a student as well, but only with him, never with her other professors. Or the way she would always keep her head just a little lower than his, never presuming to put herself above him in any way. All of it instinctual none of it forced or trained.





You would be her first Dom, her only if you play your cards right. She could be the one to end the loneliness that plaques you, she could be the woman you have been searching for all this time. He growled and reached down to squeeze the firm bulge in his trousers, his cock so hard that it hurt. His frustration with his wayward libido was palpable and he wanted to ignore it but found himself too uncomfortable to manage. With another irritated growl he released the buttons on his fly and reached inside, wrapping his fingers around the hot, pulsing length of his tumescence.





He was grateful for the secluded, un-plotted location of his property as he stood in front of the window and slowly stroked his length from base to tip. With every forward tug of his shaft he would squeeze just below the crown then rub his thumb over the nerve rich tip, smearing the oily drops of ejaculate that wept from the tiny slit. As his eyes stared unfocused out the window at the trees and rocky shore outside he imagined what her reaction would have been had he used his hold on her wrist to restrain her while he explored her body.





He imagined sliding his hand along the curve of her waist, feeling the stiff boning of the corset that he knew she would be wearing beneath her clothes. He would edge his fingers beneath the hem, slowly inching upwards to cup the heavy weight of her breast. He would stroke her nipples, squeezing and rolling them between his fingers until she begged him to stop. Only then would he begin stroking his way lower, loosening the fly of those little shorts and slipping inside, dipping his fingers into her knickers to stroke the satin smooth flesh of her sex.





He knew she would be wet, slippery and scalding hot to the touch. His imagination was so vivid, detailing just how smooth and tight her pussy would feel as he slid his fingers into her. Three lovers and all of them had failed to please her. He wouldn’t fail, he would pump his fingers into her until she was screaming and convulsing around him, primed for his cock to slid inside and lay claim. He would ride her supple young body until she bowed beneath him, coming so many times that she….





The imagined feel of her coming around him and the mental picture of her naked beneath him, her arms restrained, her back arched in ultimate surrender with his cock buried deep inside her was more than he could take. His body shook and he groaned as he spilled into his palm, spurt after spurt of wet, sticky semen pooling in his palm as he panted and stumbled backwards to his chair as dizziness washed over him. He uttered a spell to cleanse his hand and let his hands fall limply to the arms of the chair, his chest heaving as chills raced over his skin.





“I am seriously fucked,” he muttered, realizing that he had wanked off to thoughts of her yet again. It was becoming a habit, a bad one. He had to fight it; he couldn’t afford to give his heart again, especially not to someone so young, not to another Gryffindor and especially not to someone who was so tied to a Potter. The first time his heart had been broken it had nearly killed him, he doubted he would survive a second time. No, it was better this way. They would both be better off if he just forgot.





~@~





“Ugh, can you be any more pathetic?” Hermione asked herself as the door slammed closed and the sound of Severus’s steps echoed on the stairs. She rolled her eyes and folded her legs beneath her, falling to the floor hard enough that it jarred her causing her teeth to click together. She was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. He had barely touched her and she was soaking her knickers! She groaned and covered her face with her hands, resting her elbows on her knees as she shook her head back and forth.





“You’ve got to get over this!” She gave into the urge to cry and let the tears flow, soaking her hands as she fought within herself. She hated loving him. Unrequited love was the worst feeling in the world. It was like a wound slowly festering over time. It hurt, the aching and longing unbearable at times. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy living with him; she hadn’t gone into it blind to that fact. But she had thought, perhaps, that it might dampen her feelings to see him every day. She had thought that by being with him constantly, seeing his bad habits and being constantly subjected to his stubbornness and extreme snarkiness that she would somehow love him less.





But it wasn’t the case. His bad habits were rather minor, like leaving his drinking glass sitting on the side table or making notations in the margins of books and magazines as he read. He wasn’t habitually snarky, at least not to her, unless they were debating. His behavior earlier had been the first time he had been anything other than pleasant to be around. All in all living with him had only served to encourage her love, to nourish it and force it to grow.





“Why him?” She asked herself, sniffling as she let her stress out through her tears. “Of all the wizards I could have fallen in love with, why him?” Why did it have to be the one man who could never love her back?







Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love by Tom Waits



Well I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you

\'Cause falling in love just makes me blue,

Well the music plays and you display

Your heart for me to see,

I had a beer and now I hear

You calling out for me

And I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you.



Well the room is crowded, there\'s people everywhere

And I wonder, should I offer you a chair?

Well if you sit down with this old clown,

Take that frown and break it,

Before the evening\'s gone away,

I think that we could make it,

And I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you.



Well, the night does funny things inside a man,

These old tomcat feelings you don\'t understand

Well I turn around and look at you,

You light a cigarette,

I wish I had the guts to bum one,

But we\'ve never met

And I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you.



I can see that you are lonesome just like me,

And it being late, you\'d like some some company,

Well I\'ve had two, I look at you,

And you look back at me,

The guy you\'re with has up and split,

The chair next to you\'s free,

And I hope that you don\'t fall in love with me.



Now it\'s closing time, the music\'s fading out

Last call for drinks, I\'ll have another stout.

Turn around to look at you,

You\'re nowhere to be found,

I search the place for your lost face,

Guess I\'ll have another round

And I think that I just fell in love with you.