Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 9

"Fucking hell, not you again," Malfoy muttered without looking up from his paperwork, and Harry mentally chalked up a little tick in the success column, because getting Malfoy to swear at work was definitely a victory.

"I do work here, you know," Harry said, propping himself up against the wall of the temporary office Malfoy was assigned.

"Then may I assume you're approaching me for some work-related matter?" Malfoy asked, carefully setting his quill aside. He looked up at Harry then, his face smoothed into a bland expression and all Harry could think of was how Malfoy looked on Saturday morning, his hair sleep-rumpled and his cheeks flushed blotchy pink, his lips parted around gasping breaths as he fucked Harry with quick, sure strokes. Neither of them had lasted long, and then Malfoy had disappeared sometime during the few minutes Harry was in the bathroom cleaning himself up.

"Er, no. Not exactly," Harry admitted.

"Then I'll repeat my earlier sentiment," Malfoy said, looking away from Harry and shuffling through some papers. "Fucking hell, not you again."

Harry swallowed back a smile and ticked another mark into the success column. "I think we should talk."

"And I assume I won't be rid of you until you've said your piece?" Malfoy sighed. "Well, go on. Let's get this over with so I can get back to work."

Harry took a slow breath and tried to push away his sudden rush of nerves. "I was thinking maybe we could do this on a more permanent basis."

Malfoy frowned at him. "What, Scarhead, you want to be my boyfriend?"

"Hardly," Harry scoffed in what he hoped was a convincingly scathing tone. "But the sex is good. I just thought maybe we could keep doing that without having to wait for the next Ministry function we can both get pissed at."

"We don't even like each other," Malfoy said. "It probably won't work."

"So what if it doesn't work?" Harry asked with a careless shrug. "We don't like each other, as you pointed out. It's not like we've got a friendship to ruin over this."

Malfoy's frown deepened and turned contemplative. "So it would just be sex. Nothing else."

"Yeah. Just sex," Harry said, and his heart pounded while long seconds ticked past. Part of him wanted to come clean to Malfoy, to tell him that there was something between them and it could probably become something really good, if only they'd give it a chance. But he forced himself to keep silent. He didn't know how Malfoy would react if he suspected Harry might want more, and Harry still wasn't quite sure where he wanted this thing with Malfoy to go. But this was a starting point. From here, he could figure it out.

"Well," Malfoy said at last. "I suppose we could give it a try. This doesn't change anything between us, you know. I still hate you."

"Malfoy," Harry grinned, excitement and relief making him feel a bit giddy. "I don't think you'd be as great a fuck as you are if you didn't hate me."

"Hm, you do have a point," Malfoy told him with a slow smirk. "Why don't you come over tonight and we can work out the details of our arrangement?"