Who Do You Want?

\"Who Do You Want?\"


Chapter Eight
\"The Torture of Pleasure\"


A/N: Chapter title accredited to my fabulous beta, June W.


Disclaimer: With this disclaimer, I proclaim that I do not own any of the concepts, ideas or intellectual property related to Harry Potter or anything else created by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made from this endeavor.

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When Hermione woke the next morning, the first words she heard were, \"I\'m sorry.\" She blinked several times, letting her eyes focus on Severus\' face in front of her.


\"For what?\" she groggily replied.


\"For passing out on top of you and leaving you tied down,\" he apologized.


\"I got myself out just fine. It’s not my fault I\'m so damn sexy I make you pass out after coming.\" She winked at him.


He chuckled at her brashness, as she was right. She was too damn sexy last night, willing to let him do those things to her. All the blood drained from his brain during his climax.


After breakfast, Hermione sent an owl off to Minerva about the Charms apprenticeship, and Severus finished the healing potion with Hermione\'s blood. The rest of the morning was spent in quiet reading, both in comfortable chairs in his study.


During lunch, Severus began to ask Hermione questions about Muggle Chemistry. Since it was very similar to Potions, she found it easy to study during her summers home from Hogwarts, along with other Muggle sciences her parents encouraged her to learn during the holidays.


While lunch settled, they went for a walk and he showed her the stream that ran through his property. They stopped for a while and enjoyed the quiet solitude of the forest, the gurgling of the water the only sound to fill their ears.


\"You know what I like about you?\" Severus asked softly.


She shook her head.


\"You know how to enjoy the quiet.\"


They didn’t speak for the rest of the walk back, enjoying the silence and each other\'s company. Severus held her hand the whole way back, which Hermione recognized as a very intimate and personal gesture from him.


When they got back to the cottage, they both settled on the couch.


\"Tell me about yourself, Severus.\" She paused. \"You don’t have to tell me about being a Death Eater, but you can tell me about your childhood, your life at Hogwarts, your family — whatever you feel you can share with me now.\"


\"Let\'s just say my childhood was less than charmed,\" he began, his face guarded. \"My father was a bully, my mother was weak, and I was unpopular and not very well liked. I was lonely, bitter, and angry, but I guess those three emotions followed me into adulthood as well. Harry\'s father and Black made my life hell at Hogwarts. Lupin sat by and let them torture and humiliate me; he did nothing to stop them, though he knew it was wrong. Pettigrew was part of their gang, but he only hung around where the power was, willing to switch sides to curry more favor. But he was always quick to add a last kick in the ribs before scurrying off.\"


Hermione gave a snort. \"Scurry is the perfect word to describe him,\" she added.


He continued, \"I know I cannot change the past, but let\'s say I try to forget it at times.\"


She grabbed his hand and rubbed his knuckles with the pad of her thumb. \"Tell me about the family of Snape.\" She saw his face lighten, and knew this would be a pleasant topic for him.


\"Now that is something I\'m proud of. Originally, the Snape family comes from Spain.\"


\"Spain?\"


\"Yes. Where on earth do you think I get this hair and my eyes from? Certainly nothing native to this latitude, I assure you.\" He gave her a slightly imperious look. \"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,\" he said with a lightly mocking glare at her, \"my family originally comes from Spain. We lived in the southern region near Granada. How we came to England was during the invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588. There were some Spanish wizards in the service of the King who were ordered to go with the Armada. What they didn’t expect was to have English wizards skilled in controlling the weather.\"


Hermione\'s eyes went wide, for she was familiar with her English Muggle history and knew the story well.


\"When the Armada was sunk off the coast, most of the Spanish made their way to Ireland, but a few, including my ancestor, made their way to the Cumbrian coast. Since my ancestor failed to protect the Spanish fleet against the English wizards, he never bothered to go back home where he would have been brought before the Spanish Inquisition. At the time, the Inquisition had a few wizards on the council, so that if a witch or wizard was brought to trial, the council wizards would be able to keep them imprisoned through magic. My original family name was Snapetta, but it was Anglicized to fit in with the local population.\"


She stared at him with rapt attention. This gave her a whole new perspective on some of the Muggle history she knew. She wanted to ask more about the Spanish Inquisition and if the Catholic Church knew there were wizards, but held her tongue. There would be time later for plenty of questions; and she enjoyed the sound of Severus talking, his voice rumbling through her body with the vibrations from his chest as she leaned into him.


He continued talking about the Snape family and their long line of prominent witches and wizards, their involvement in the Goblin Rebellions in the 1600s and 1700s, and their work with the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1692. He also mentioned various Snapes who served on the Wizengamot or as Deputy Ministers.


It had only been in the last hundred years that the Snape family began to recede from prominence, and Hermione noted that Severus seemed a bit saddened by the fact. Part of her knew, without him telling her, that Severus was hoping to bring glory back to the Snape family name, and fearing that his youthful choice to become a Death Eater may have irrevocably destroyed that chance. Especially since he did not have a personal hand in the downfall of Voldemort, his chance to bring the Snape family name back to its former heights now seemed crushed. This may have been part of the reason why he was sitting upstairs alone in the study during Harry’s party, but she would never voice those thoughts.


When he finished telling her about his family, she asked him about the wizards he mentioned in the Spanish Inquisition and the magical community in Spain during the Renaissance. The rest of the afternoon was spent with him answering her questions. For the first time, he didn’t mind her asking them. He was flattered she was so interested in him and his family. He so rarely had a chance to talk about something personal in which he felt great pride, besides Potions.


After their steak dinner, they sat on the couch. Hermione was swirling her glass of vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, inhaling the bouquet in between sips, letting the rich tannins wash over her tongue.


Something was nagging at the back of his mind. He knew he might regret it, but he had to ask it to quiet the unsettling sensation that thought was causing.


\"Yesterday, you said to Potter that I know what to do with a woman\'s body…as opposed to some other men,\" Severus asked with even measured tones. \"I know I shouldn\'t be prying, but I have to ask for my own peace of mind. Have you and Potter been intimate?\"


\"You’re worried that Harry and I dated? And maybe that\'s why he came here the other day?\"


Severus gave a small nod.


\"We kissed once and one time only. We had had some butterbeers, and I think it was his curiosity that got the better of him. He certainly wasn\'t attracted to me in that way, and neither was I towards him. But he kissed me, and let\'s just say it was forgettable and awkward. He has a lot to learn about kissing. We both agreed that we are not meant to be, and later he admitted I wasn\'t his type. End of story.\"


He hid a secret smile. They watched the fire burn for a while, enjoying each other\'s company. Severus finished his wine and watched her, as she continued staring at the fire.


\"Since you were too kind to let me indulge in one of my fantasies last night, it seems only fair that I return the favor,\" he acquiesced.


Still watching the fire crackle merrily, she made a small humming noise. \"The pleasure was all mine,\" she said, not looking at him, a simple smile played on her lips.


\"But I insist,\" he purred in a sultry tone.


Watching the way the wine clung to the side of her glass as she swirled it, she brought it up to her lips and took one long swallow of the dark liquid. She exhaled, noticing the rosemary and leather notes in the wine he mentioned earlier.


\"Women\'s fantasies usually tend to grow out of situations, a story connected with emotions. Not so much a setting.\" Her eyes flicked to Severus, who was still watching her, then back to the glass on wine in her hand. \"My fantasy was to meet a dashing man with a razor sharp mind. He would seduce me, then take me back to his house where we would make love for days on end. In the process, I would fall in love with him, and he with me.\"


The only sound in the room was of the wood popping, as bits of trapped resin burst within their kindling confines.


Of course she was describing what had happened between them already.


\"You\'re making that up,\" he said.


\"No,\" she answered, turning her face to look him squarely in the eye. \"I\'m not. When you’re as lonely as I felt for so long, you can’t help but dream. And that was my wish.\"


\"If I recall, it was you who seduced me, Miss Granger.\"


Hermione smiled from the use of her formal name. \"Doesn’t matter. The end result is the same.\"


\"Hermione.\" He settled closer to her on the couch and picked up her hand. \"Am I really what you wanted?\" Kissing her hand, he let his eyes close, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to make the lump in his throat disappear.


\"Not until that night in the study. When you asked me who do I want…I finally realized it was you.\" She looked down and saw his head bowed, her hand still held to his lips. \"You were that man with the mind I was always searching for, the one with the strong will. When you asked me, that\'s when I knew. That\'s why I was willing to risk your scorn, because if I couldn’t have you, I didn’t want anyone else. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.\"


He felt like a silly lovesick fool who had done something he swore he\'d never do: become sentimental. Hermione\'s confession touched him in the deepest parts of his soul. She wanted him more than any other man in the world. Trying his best, he couldn’t stop the few tears escaping. They rolled down his cheek and onto her hand. He had cried and smiled more in the past four days than he had in the previous twenty years. For another reason he couldn\'t explain, he didn’t feel weak, but stronger, though since early childhood he had been conditioned to think of tears as a sign of weakness.


Placing a hand under his chin, she lifted up his face and said, \"If you want to help fulfill a fantasy, make love to me. Make love to me so slowly it almost hurts.\"


He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers with agonizing slowness. His hands crept along her shoulders at a sloth\'s pace until his hands finally snaked up her neck, and he held her head in his hands. He held his mouth away from hers only just enough so that their mouths weren\'t touching, but she could feel his breath wash over her face in warm waves.


He brought his face forward and pressed his lips against hers. She couldn’t wait for his tongue, and it took ages until his mouth finally parted and she felt his tongue seek entrance into hers. Her lips parted at a glacial pace, and their tongues danced to a slow rhythm of their own, thoroughly exploring and memorizing the interior contours of the other\'s mouth.


The dizziness of their first kiss was matched by this kiss. It was the anticipation that was driving Hermione\'s mind into a spin, and she felt like her stomach had disappeared to another part of her body. She let out a long-suffering sigh as the kiss lingered. As the kiss progressed, he brought his body close to hers and began to press against her, pushing her deeper into the couch. It wasn\'t until he had his full weight on her that she realized they had even moved.


He pulled back and gazed deeply into her eyes, locked in a gaze that had no end.


His hand grazed her cheek with a feather light touch, and her eyes fluttered shut from the heady sensation of his warm fingers on her skin.


Rising up, he picked her up from the couch and carried her into his bedroom as he did the night before. This time she was awake, and they could not stop staring into each other\'s eyes. She was amazed at the amount of tenderness in his eyes.


He laid her down on the bed, then kneeled down on the floor beside the bed and began unbuttoning her shirt. As each button came undone, Severus finally broke eye contact with her as he kissed the newly uncovered flesh, as if he was worshipping a holy relic. To Hermione, each touch of his mouth was like a butterfly alighting on her skin.


When her shirt was gone, the rest of her clothing went quickly afterwards, followed by Severus\' clothes.


Moving down to the foot of the bed, he began kissing her feet. Each dainty toe received a chaste kiss on their tips. Once all her toes were blessed with his mouth, he began to suck them, first taking her little toe in his mouth and running his tongue around it. Soon he had three toes in his mouth, and Hermione was panting as she watched him. Normally her feet were so ticklish, but what he was doing to them did not make her laugh. She was sublimating, from solid to steam.


When her toes were thoroughly attended to, he dragged his fingers up her ankles and kissed his way up her legs. He seemed to find a new spot to fixate on as he made his way up, spending minutes at a time studying the skin, touching it, then tasting it. An eternity was spent on her knees. Oh, the knees! What he did to them made her more than wet; she was sopping, feeling her juices run down between her legs in anticipation of him.


At the top of the insides of her thighs, he stopped. With his sensitive nose, he could smell her arousal and wanted to bow his head in prayer between her legs, but this was her fantasy. She wanted him to make love to her so slowly it hurt. He knew the aching between her legs would grow as painful as it would for him, so he delayed any release she could have and moved to her hands. Like her feet, he began to make love to each digit with his mouth, moving up her arms in the same way he did with her legs, pausing at the inside crook of her elbow for an extended period of time, then to her shoulders, then down to her breasts.


He had not spent enough time on her breasts for his liking, and now he would get his fill. Trailing his fingers around the mounds of flesh, he drew ever-smaller concentric circles around them until he almost touched the areolas. Her nipples were adamantine before he even touched them; and when he lightly flicked them, Hermione sucked in her breath sharply in reply, arching her back as if she was about to peak.


Bringing his mouth to hover over one breast, he let the warmth of his breath warm her skin. Opening his mouth, he brought it down over her erect nipple and suckled gently. The feeling of his mouth went straight from her breast to between her legs, and she felt herself gush with a fresh wave of wetness; the heat between her legs was already throbbing. She knew she would ache soon, even more than their first night together. And then he moved his mouth to the other breast.


He lavished endless attention on both her breasts. Watching him caress and play with them was a study in patience, but she never grew bored with his attentions there. His was the only mouth that had ever found its way there, and the sensation was still much too new for her to tire of it. His deft tongue and teeth kept bringing her to new edges of pleasure. Not quite orgasms, but uncontrollable shudders that racked her body, making her writhe and undulate.


His head began to dip down her stomach, and the wait was antagonizing. She didn’t know if she had much more patience to continue lasting under these conditions. Feeling his breath on her curls, she began to draw up her knees. Positioning himself between her legs, he slowly brought his mouth down and began to gently probe her folds, licking the engorged flesh languidly. He wanted to savor her taste, bring her to a slow orgasm that would build from her toes up.


His tongue made rhythmic circles around her clit, but never over it. His mouth would then dip down to her opening and then tease it, making promises; then go back up to her clit, circling it again, but never touching it. By the third time he did this ritual, she was whimpering and begging him for some release. He obliged, raking her tongue over her clit, then down between her lips into her folds, then diving into her entrance.


She gave a great cry when his tongue entered her, and she begged more earnestly for him to enter her with his cock. He couldn’t refuse such sweet pleadings, so he raised himself up and positioned himself over her.


Lifting her legs up higher, he placed her hands on her knees so she could hold them close to her chest, opening her up wider to accept him. He ran the tip of his cock around her entrance, teasing her some more, spreading her slick wetness over himself before he began.


When she felt the tip of his rock-hard erection probing against her opening, her eyes shut tight, as it was too strong a feeling for her to fight. He slid himself in slowly, enjoying the tightness of her engulfing him.


Hermione\'s mouth went wide, and she let out a harsh gasp. He was filling her slowly, and it felt like his cock went on forever. When he was settled in her fully so his sac rested against her arse, he gave one little extra thrust and she felt just how deep he was in. It was heaven to finally have him inside of her, and she let herself grasp him with her snug warmth.


He pulled back at a snail\'s pace, and the sensation of friction inside of Hermione was too much.


She cried out, \"More!\"


When the tip of his cock was about to slip out, he slid back into her again, this time a little faster. With each stroke, he pulled out almost completely only to sheath himself in her completely. Each advance and retreat happened a little faster, and the orgasm building in her would incinerate them both.


He was positioned over her, supporting himself upright on his hands as they stared into each other\'s eyes again, his strokes becoming faster. Both of their faces were exquisite examples of the torture of pleasure — eyes pleading, brows furrowed and raised, mouths open — as indistinguishable sounds escaped them both.


Severus\' pace had quickened more, and now he was slamming into her, his hips meeting with the backs of her thighs. He placed his hands just under her knees as Hermione clutched at the headboard and bedding.


Unable to hold back any longer, Hermione choked out a strangled, \"I love you,\" and broke apart under him, her body consumed in an intense orgasm.


He joined her immediately and they came together, each crying out for the other, eyes shut so tight they were unable to see the joy of the other, wrapped up in their own rapture.


Severus finally understood the meaning of the term \"make love,\" for he felt that he had poured every emotion into her and she had given everything of herself to him, all in that bright blinding flash where their souls were one. Now he understood why she said she would make love to her ideal man until he wept. He wanted to weep from the sheer joy of what he felt with her.


Laying on their sides facing each other, they continued to gaze into each other\'s eyes. In the dim glow of the firelight that illuminated the room, Hermione could see the tears form in his eyes.


\"What\'s wrong?\" she whispered.


\"Nothing. I didn’t think you meant what you said. That you would make love to a man until he wept.\"


Her face was one of awe. \"I thought it was only a figure of speech…I had no idea that was possible.\"


He pulled her into a kiss that told her it truly was possible. She began to weep from her joy as well.


In the backs of their minds, \"Sensible\" Hermione and \"Detached\" Severus tsked and shook their heads, but the \"In Love\" Hermione and Severus promptly locked them behind the door for the time being, so they could continue to enjoy the moment. All cynical and skeptical thoughts about being in love had fled their minds, and they basked in the wondrous feeling of emotions that flowed between them.


They drifted off to sleep entangled in each other, drunk on love and afterglow.


Sometime in the middle of the night, both were roused by the chill of the night, as they had fallen asleep on top of the covers. They took a shower in the dark and then crawled back into bed.


Hermione pushed Severus to lie on his side facing away from her, and in the dark she drew sensual patterns with her fingers on his back. She would start from his tailbone and then lightly touch his skin, moving her fingers up to the tops of his shoulders, then she would drag them back down the center of his spine or down his sides, and repeat. He would let out a low sigh of approval, and the occasional chill would race up or down his spine. She found the softest spot on his body was a patch of skin just around his hipbone. Soon she heard his even breaths, and knew he was asleep. Drawing the covers back over their bodies, she snuggled up behind him and drifted off as well.


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A/N: If you\'ve never been brought to orgasm from breast play alone, let me tell you, if the man has the patience and talent, it can be quite the experience. So Hermione on the verge of an orgasm from Severus\' attentions just might be quite possible.