From Wiltshire, With Love

Chapter 26

I want to lick your cunt.

Hermione flushed when she read the message on the Galleon. It was all too real. Everything about their interactions was laced with an element of sexual tension. And now she couldn't rid herself of the image of Malfoy's head between her legs, fingers parting her knees, digging into her flesh, grey eyes watching her. She bit her lip and squeezed her thighs together.

It was all wrong.

Malfoy wasn't for her.

She peeked out the window at the mid-morning daylight. This was the first time since Fortescue's that they were contacting each other during the day. She flicked her eyes over to Ron and Harry, who had each taken turns with the Horcrux books and given up. It had been so long since they'd had a proper lead and the trio was frustrated.

Ron busied himself making a parchment airplane. He noticed Hermione watching him and gave her a warm smile. It was nice, but she didn't feel the thrill of excitement and desire when around Malfoy. She supposed that was due to the nature of their relationship.

In a nutshell, Ron was safe, Malfoy was not. Ron she could trust, Malfoy she could not. Ron was loyal and funny, but he wasn't intellectually stimulating. Malfoy was sharp and she really enjoyed talking with him. Ron she had to browbeat into submission like his mother did. Malfoy was... well he was Malfoy. Sometimes she didn't know whether she was his handler or if he was hers. Ron was awkward sexually around her, sweet and unsure. With Malfoy, she was afraid if she let her guard down for one hot minute they'd be shagging like rabbits.

She chastised herself for even comparing the two of them at all. There was no reason to compare them. She looked down at the message again.

I want to lick your cunt.

She had no snarky retort. None whatsoever. Only a dull ache between her legs.

15 min.

Malfoy was a bad choice for so many reasons. And he wasn't even a choice to begin with. He shouldn't be on the table for discussion. Not even near the table.

No tables.

The problem was, and Hermione felt this acutely, that the more time she spent with Malfoy, the more interested she was in him, and the less interested she was in Ron – at least romantically speaking. And that wasn't fair to her longtime friend. There were plenty of young women fighting for the Order who would be open to dating him.

Maybe it was better to not have any romantic entanglements until after the war if she couldn't sort through her feelings. Malfoy was off-limits and she was only going to hurt Ron by mooning over someone she couldn't have anyway.

"I have a few things to do," Hermione told Ron and Harry, and stood, wondering whose estate plans he planned on giving them this time.

She hoped for the Lestrange plans, but would take what he was ready to give. The raid on Nott manor had gone without a hitch, and Kingsley was pleased with the list of informants Nott had been responsible for.

"Super-secret Order stuff?" Harry's bright green eyes shifted to hers, irritated. He had also given up on Horcruxes and was reading the Daily Prophet, feet propped up on a footrest.

She narrowed her eyes at him, having had quite enough of the friction over her role in leadership. In the beginning, Harry and Ron were proud of her. But they hoped that because of their friendship, she would be an opening to the inner workings of the Order no one else was privy too. When they saw she refused to share the classified information, they became resentful. Having shared everything since first year, her secrecy had caused a rift, and it was getting wider.