Mastering Temptation

CHAPTER NINE: Setting Ground Rules







Hermione didn’t say anything to Severus when she left work. Things had been tense since they had kissed in his office earlier in the day. Her mind wouldn’t stop replaying it over and over and her body just never came down from its heightened state of arousal. Several times through the afternoon she had considered locking the door and saying to hell with professionalism, but she squashed those thoughts, knowing that they needed to talk before anything else happened.





She rushed home to shower and change into her jeans and a loose button down shirt before she started making dinner. She put the chicken into the oven and then opened the wine and set it on the kitchen island to breathe. She was just finishing up the salad when she heard the soft whoosh of the floo being used. She knew that it was Severus; she had left the connection to their office open for him to use when he was ready.





“I’m back here, Severus.” She called, tossing the salad with sweet tasting vinaigrette.





Severus stood in the middle of a warm, cozy living room and admired her home. She had obviously put a lot of time and effort into making it warm and inviting. Cream colored walls were set off by dark red fabrics mixed with browns, gold, and dark wood. Photographs littered the mantle and most of the other flat surfaces in the room. Severus could see that her friends meant a lot to her. He supposed that they were her family now that her parents were no longer living.





He followed the scent of food cooking through a small dining room and an arched doorway that opened into a fairly large kitchen to find her standing at the counter filling goblets with white wine.





“Hello, Hermione.” He wasn’t sure what to say to her. She looked up, a little half-smile on her face when she handed him a glass.





“Hello, Severus.” She said softly. “Dinner is almost ready, why don’t you take off your jacket; there is no need to be formal here.” She said, staring down at her own casual attire and bare feet.





Severus glanced down at her pretty little feet tipped with their pink painted toenails and almost smiled. He took a sip of the sweet, honey flavored wine and set his glass back on the counter so he could deal with the buttons on his jacket.





“Do you need some help?” Hermione asked staring at him over the rim of her glass, one hip leaning against the countertop.





“No thank you, that wouldn’t be a good idea.” He said darkly as he loosened each fabric covered button and shrugged out of the jacket. Hermione took it from him and hung it on a hook near her back door. “I hadn’t expected you to live in Wiltshire.”





“Oh, well this house was a gift.” She said, chuckling as she reached for an oven mitt and pulled the chicken from the oven. “Lucius and Draco did not like my flat in London. In fact Lucius went insane when I was burglarized and bought me this house. Though he didn’t tell me until much later that he had actually deeded the house in my name, I thought he was renting it for me because he wanted me close to his house for work.”





“He can be generous when he wants to be. He and Draco are both quite taken with you. I admit to being fascinated at how you get along.” Severus said, watching her fill two plates with chicken, potatoes and salad.





“I wasn’t happy with him at first, but then I came to realize that he wanted to do something nice for me, and this was just his way. To Lucius, giving me this little house was trivial. As far as getting along with them….well I try to judge them by their actions now, no their pasts. They aren’t so bad if you take a firm hand with them.” She laughed, handing him a plate. “The dining room is through there, I don’t usually have formal dinners.”





“I don’t particularly enjoy them. Lucius however likes a formal table.” Severus said, standing at the table wondering where he should sit. Taking the head of the table seemed presumptive of him. “Where should I sit?” He asked, watching her as she set her plate to the left of the head seat.





“Sit here.” She said, indicating that he should in fact sit at the head of the table. She accio’d their glasses as well as the bottle of wine. “Now eat, you barely touched your lunch.”





“You have a preoccupation with feeding me.” He said, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves.





“You don’t take proper care of yourself, Severus, so I have taken it upon myself to make sure that you do.” She said, watching him eat.





“My care is not in your job description.” He said, enjoying the light, yet savory flavor of the meal.





“No, but there is something in my nature that makes it impossible for me not to fuss over the people close to me. I was an only child, so it’s not as though I had younger siblings, or even little cousins to care for. I have no idea where it comes from.” She said.





“I noticed that about you. When I think back, I can see it in the way you were with Potter and Weasley, but it was watching the way you handle Lucius and Draco that made it very clear that you are a natural care giver.” Severus said. “I am still in awe of the fact that you took Lucius’s walking stick, he’s crucio’d people for touching it.”





“Oh, well, it wasn’t the first time I’ve taken it from him. He puts on a show of indignation but he’s more amused by it now than anything else. The first time I took it from him he had just hit a house elf in the back of the knees with it. So I whacked him with it to show him how it felt.” She said, laughing at the memory. “I don’t think he will ever completely change, but he is trying very hard. It would be easier on them both if people would just give them a chance.”





“Once upon a time I would have argued that Lucius was incapable of change, but I can see that he is making the effort. He likes you and I can see that you are good for Draco.” Severus pushed his empty plate away. “I ate all of it, are you happy now?”





“Yes, I am very happy now. Was it to your liking?” She asked.





“It was delicious, thank you.” He said.





“So do you want to talk about this afternoon here at the table or should we take our wine to the living room?” She asked.





“I’ll follow you.” Severus said, reaching for his glass as she got up and walked into the living room. He took a seat at the end of the sofa, setting his glass on the end table while she tucked one leg beneath her and sat right beside him.





“So….this afternoon.” He watched her lick her lips lightly as though remembering the taste of the kiss. He had done the same countless times during the day.







“Should I apologize?” He asked, watching her face trying to determine where to go with the conversation.





“No, you’ll hurt my feelings if you say that you are sorry or that you regret kissing me.” She said softly, reaching for his arm and looking down at the mark forever branded into the skin there.





“I regret a lot of things, but kissing you isn’t one of them. I shouldn’t have done it, but I’m in no way sorry that I did.” He told her, wondering if she realized that she was the first woman he had allowed to view, much less touch the dark mark.





“I want you to know that I have never, ever had intimate contact with someone I work with before you. I never even entertained the thought until recently.” She said, running her fingers over his arm.





“So the kiss was something you had considered previously, not just an impulse?” Her feather soft touch tickled slightly over his wrist and palm.





“The night of Draco’s birthday, when I touched you my stomach tightened and I didn’t know what to think. But over the next few weeks my thoughts began to stray more and more. I was so afraid you would notice.” She raised his arm and placed a soft kiss against the brand as though that simple caress could heal the damage done to him because of it. “Had you ever considered it before this afternoon?”





“Since the moment I walked into my office and saw you bent over my desk I have entertained many thoughts regarding you. I can’t look at you because I knew you would pick up on them eventually.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and looked down at her tiny, soft hand against his own larger, calloused one.





“So that’s why you wouldn’t look at me.” She said, shifting into his lap so she was sitting astride him, looking down. “What are we going to do about this, Severus?” She asked, tunneling her fingers through his hair and tilting his head back so he was looking up at her.





“Well, for one thing we need to get something straight right from the start.” He said, wrapping his fingers around her wrists and pulling her hands free. He moved so quickly she didn’t have a chance to react before she was pinned beneath him on the sofa, her wrists held tight in one of his large hands and stretched high above her head. His other hand was gripping her chin. “You may run things in the office. You can fuss over me and force me into taking better care of myself until your heart is content. But when it comes to this, when it comes to you and me and our intimate activities, I am the one in control, not you.”





Hermione sucked in a ragged breath and stared up at him in shock. She licked her lips again and whimpered softly with arousal. In her previous relationships she had always been the more dominant partner, but had longed for a man who knew how to be in control and how to make her lose it.





“Okay.” She said softly, her hips pressing up into him involuntarily. For the first time since she had come back into contact with him, she saw that old familiar smirk on his lips.





“You acquiesce so quickly.” He said, letting his hand slide down the front of her throat. “Do you like having control wrested from you?”





“I don’t know…you are the first man to try it.” She said, her breathing becoming more ragged as his fingers danced just inside the neck of her shirt.







“And how do you feel right now?” He asked, pressing soft kisses along her throat and behind her ear.





“I don’t know…oh gods that feels good.” She whimpered.







“I’m not going to have you tonight, Hermione.” His deep, velvety voice murmuring low in her ear had her lifting her hips again.





“Why not?” She arched her neck and cried out softly when he nibbled the side.





“It is too soon. No need to rush is there?” He stilled her hips with a firm grip. “We have to be clear on a few other things as well.”





“Like what?” She asked, trying hard to obey his unspoken command to lie still.





“The parameters of this relationship. When we are at work, we have to be very careful. I don’t want gossip to spread.” He said pressing a soft kiss against her lips. “Until we have a clear understanding of just where this is going, we should keep it to ourselves.”





“Are you afraid of what people will think?” She asked, even though they were thinking the same thing. His fingers bit harder into her wrists and he gave them a light tug, stretching her arms just a little.





“I don’t care what others think, Hermione. I just prefer a little circumspection where this relationship is concerned. We do work together and should word get out that we are…..spending time together, the gossip could be quite ugly.” He said.





“And what happens when you fall in love with me?” She asked, a slight smirk on her pretty lips.





“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” He said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I can tell that you aren’t going to relinquish your control easily are you?” He released her wrists and as he suspected, her arms went around his neck and she pulled him down for a kiss. “That’s fine with me, I like a good challenge.” He said before giving in to their mutual desire for another kiss.