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“Tom! You fucking asshole!” I mutter under my breath, as Tom, the fucking asshole, headbuts me in the kneecaps.
Tom continues to try to headbut me.
“I’m going to turn you into stew someday,” I threaten.
Tom pays me no mind, because Tom is a sheep.
I heave the feed into his trough. Dinner distracts him long enough for me to go check on the goats—Petunia, Poppy, and Pomona. I stop to deliver extra treats and a scratch to our ancient (yet feisty) alpaca, Minerva.
The June shadows lengthen with the setting sun. “Good night, girls!” I call into the yard as I round up the hens, shutting them in the coop for the evening. Fluffy, Norberta, and Aragog flutter their wings as they settle.
I make my final rounds before going up to the house for the evening. I check on Moody, our three-legged raccoon. He’s suspicious of me and gives me a hiss, as usual. Dobby, our albino porcupine, climbs up the side of his enclosure. I sneak him a branch from a wild raspberry bush—his favorite.
The barn and the animal pens sit in front of our cornfields. On one side is the apple orchard and farm store; on the other is our strawberry fields and pumpkin patch. The strawberries are just past ripe. The corn is still only a foot or two tall. Apples and pumpkins won’t come in until autumn.
But it’s not the U-pick fruits and vegetables that draw crowds to Weasley’s Wonderful Wildlife Sanctuary. People come for the animals. Our farm animals are for petting and feeding. Moody the raccoon and Dobby the porcupine are long-term rescues, while others cycle in and out for rehabilitation. Right now, I’m taking care of a blind owl my sister, Ginny, lovingly dubbed “Pig.”
But the farm is quiet now, visitors and staff having gone home. It’s just how I like it.
Returning to the house, I put a lasagna in the oven and head upstairs to shower. George—my business partner and brother—is due to arrive any minute, along with my parents and the rest of my siblings and their children.
Friday night is family dinner night. And it’s my turn to host.
By the time I step out of the shower, I can already hear my family members bickering downstairs, along with the shrieks and small crashes that always seem to accompany small children wherever they go.
I pull a dark blue t-shirt on and my cleanest pair of jeans, the ones with only one small hole in the knee. I don’t need to give my mother any more excuses to lecture me.
Immediately, I’m overtaken by a horde of nieces and nephews as I step into the kitchen.
“Can we go pet Minerva, Uncle Ron?”
“Please, Uncle Ron!”
“Can we feed the chickens?”
“I’m going to give Moody a kiss!”
I laugh, shooing the pack of children out the door. “You know where the treats are in the barn.” I look especially at Victoire, who always seems convinced that she’s going to be the one to charm Moody. “And you leave that poor raccoon alone!”
“I’ve set the table, Ron,” my mother tells me. “There’s the adults here, with Bill and Fleur—and then Percy and Audrey—and of course, George and Angelina. And your place setting…?”
She does this every time. “No, Ma,” I sigh. “Didn’t bring anyone to family dinner. Again.”
She clucks her tongue.
“You never bother Charlie about this!” I protest.
“Well, Charlie has his dragons,” she replies.
“Komodo dragons,” Percy interjects. “They’re Komodo dragons he’s researching, Ma.”
But my mother just waves her hands. “Charlie has his dragons. Ginny has Harry.”
“And I have the farm.”
My mother raises an eyebrow. “George has the farm and Angelina.”
“And a child!” George reminds. “He’s a damn handful—”
“George! Language!” she quickly reprimands.
“I have nobody I want to bring to family dinner!” I insist.
George raises a mischievous eyebrow. “Nobody?”
I know my brother well enough to know that I should feel nervous. “No…” I start to say.
“Perfect!” He pounces. “Come to the bar tonight.”
“Absolutely not,” I answer. “I have to be up at four tomorrow morning to feed the animals.”
“I’m going!” Bill says. “It’s been forever since us brothers have had a night out!”
I fold my arms. “Ma, you hear this? Bill and George are trying to convince me that I’ll find a nice girl to bring home to Friday family dinners at a bar.”
Instead of taking my side like I expect, Ma only snorts and says, “You’ve already tried looking elsewhere.”
“See!” George yells.
“Come out with us tonight,” Bill begs. “You won’t regret it.”
“Don’t you both have children?” I ask.
“They’re having a cousin sleepover at our house,” says Angelina.
Percy walks in the kitchen. “Have you managed to convince Ron yet?” he asks.
“No,” I insist.
“Really?” Percy looks confused. “We were sure that as soon as you heard she was—”
“Percy!” George claps a hand over our brother’s mouth.
Percy promptly elbows George, and Bill joins in on the scuffle.
“Boys!” shouts Fleur, Bill’s wife, with a huff. “Set a good example for the children!”
“They’re not even here right now,” protests George. “They’re in the barn.”
The oven dings.
“What were you trying to say, Percy?” I ask, but it’s quickly lost as Dad pulls the lasagna out and people take their seats at the table.
“Somebody call the kids up to the house!” Dad says.
Dinner proceeds with a great deal of chaos. Percy hollers at his children to eat their salad; Angelina chastises George for refusing to eat his. Ma starts telling Dad that Ginny and Harry are having a wonderful time on their honeymoon, and pointedly asks me if I think my best friend is enjoying married life.
I do my best to ignore them.
Dishes follow, with no less chaos than at dinnertime. Fleur spins the dish towel and executes a perfect rat tail on Bill, then runs shrieking from the room as he starts to chase her. Dominique and Louis follow their parents.
Fred hangs off Angelina, his pudgy baby fingers grabbing at her earrings. Molly and Lucy each cling to one of Percy’s legs, immobilising him as they chant “More dessert! More dessert!”
“See, little brother,” says George, clapping a hand over my shoulder. “Who wouldn’t want this?”
“Yeah,” I say dryly. “I can’t wait to bring someone home and add to the chaos.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Audrey waves a hand at me. “You want a family, Ron. You’re the favorite uncle for a reason.”
“That reason has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that there’s a petting zoo and a corn maze in my backyard.” The joke rolls off my tongue easily, but it’s covering up a real insecurity.
“Ronald!” my mother demands. “Start drying dishes! They’re stacking up; and goodness knows where Bill has gone…”
Judging by the shouts from the living room, it sounds as if things have escalated into an all-out brawl. That’s where Bill has gone.
“You should go tonight,” Dad advises. “Have some fun with your brothers.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, drying and putting away the glasses. If even he’s meddling in my love life, it must be bad.
“Maybe Hermione will be there, too!” chimes in Percy.
I almost drop the glass in my hand.
“Percy!” George hisses.
“Hermione,” says Fleur, returning breathless from the living room. “That was the girl Ron had a crush on when he was in high school, no?”
“She moved away,” I say. “And she was just a classmate.”
“A classmate who you were in love with,” reminds Bill.
“I was seventeen!” I protest.
“And what about those summers after that? When she came home from school to work at the farm?”
I look at my feet and hope nobody in my family notices how red my face has gone. “I haven’t seen her in a few years. She went to the city for dental school.”
“Ginny told me she’s back,” says Angelina. “She’s taking over her parents’ practice. They’re retiring.”
“Why would she be at the bar?” I point out. “And we’re just old friends, anyhow. Old friends who lost touch.”
Hermione might be an old friend, but there’s not a single other old friend I spent so much of my teens and early twenties imagining what it would be like to kiss them. Not that I can tell my family as much. I’d never hear the end of it.
“Who knows, Ron,” says George. “The night is young. The beer is flowing. The women are—” Angelina elbows him in the stomach.
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
“Noted,” George gasps.
“Fine,” I agree. “I’ll go to the bar. But I’m driving. I don’t want to get stuck staying later than I want with you fools.”
And that’s how I find myself driving my rusted truck down the highway and into town, pulling into the dusty parking lot of the one and only Three Tractors.
Through the open windows comes the sound of laughter and the pulse of an actual jukebox. Nobody has introduced the patrons of Three Tractors to Spotify.
But they seem to be doing just fine without it.
I take a deep breath, and wipe my palms on my jeans. I pull the backwards hat off my head, run my hands through my hair, then replace it.
“Nervous?” George teases.
“No,” I retort. “Why would I be nervous?”
I immediately think back to the last time I saw Hermione. It was maybe four years ago, now. The sweetness of her smile, the smell of citrus that always clung to her long dark hair, the softness of her perfect tanned legs in my lap as we sat on the couch after a long day at the farm—
I take a deep breath.
Hermione isn’t even going to be here.
Why would she be here?
I’m not here because of a crush I haven’t had since I was twenty-two. I’m here to have a nice night out with my brothers.
Bill just pats me on the back.
When we walk through the door, a loud cheer goes up from the locals parked at the bar. “Weasleys!”
Percy goes up to order us drinks, and returns with four cans. We all groan.
Percy has the worst taste in beer. It took him far too many adult years in which he earned adult money to learn that PBR tastes like secretly drinking in your neighbor’s field around a bonfire and praying your mother can’t smell the violence of a hangover on you the next morning.
“You buy the next round, then!” Percy says defensively as we all complain at his choice.
“Cheers,” I say, and we all clink our cans together. I lift mine to my lips to take a swig and then stop. I can’t move.
Because across the dimly lit room, through the raucous sound of the crowd, is her.
Her hair is in two long braids. One of them falls over her shoulder as she leans over a pool table, and my eyes fall to her chest, all that skin beneath the white tank top—
“Earth to Ron!” calls George.
I cough.
Bill follows my gaze. “Go say hello.”
“Challenge her to a game of pool,” offers Percy.
“Invite her to next Friday’s family dinner,” George suggests.
I shrug. “It’s fine. I’m sure we’ll catch up later.”
Bill looks at me for a long moment, but lets me be.
My eyes wander back to the pool table, as Hermione bends over, knocking a ball into the pocket, blue jeans perfectly hugging her hips.
God, I want to touch her. I wish I could taste her. I wonder if her hair still smells like oranges, if I can still make her laugh.
I take a long sip of my beer.
“I should go over there,” I say to nobody in particular. I ignore the little voice in my head that suggests she might not be interested in seeing me.
Each of my brothers immediately descends upon me with advice.
I turn my back to the pool table so I can think for just a moment, so I can catch my breath and come up with a plan. A pickup line. No. Too cheesy. Hermione likes clever.
“Does anyone have gum?” I ask.
“Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?” chides George.
Percy just hands me a mint without comment.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I think we need a game plan, boys,” says Bill.
“As if I’d take advice from any of you,” I scoff.
“We’re all married, little brother, in case you didn’t notice,” says George.
“No offense, but I don’t think any of you actually had anything to do with your marriages. I’ve met your wives. I think they get credit, not you.”
“What? I’m incredibly charming,” protests Bill.
“And I’m hilarious,” adds George.
“Actually, Ron’s right on this one,” Percy admits. “I think I was just along for the ride.”
“See? Thank you. Point proven.”
But George simply hides a smile.
I feel a tap on my shoulder, and turn around.
Deep brown eyes pull me under, silencing the sounds of the bar around us. I glance at her lips.
Red.
Those red lips are moving.
All at once, my senses return full force.
“Ron! It’s so good to see you!”
Hermione Granger pulls me into a hug.
I wrap my arms around her. Her head fits perfectly against my chest, and I catch a whiff of citrus. God, her hair still smells wonderful. And her skin is so soft.
Fuck, this would be an incredibly inopportune time to get a boner.
“Hermione!” I say, voice cracking. I immediately blush. “I heard you were back in town.”
She steps back, brushing a loose curl from her forehead. Tiny gold hoops glint in her ears. Those are new. I hungrily look at her, desperate to catalogue all the ways she’s changed over the last few years. I need to know everything I can about this woman.
I want to know if she wears socks to bed and what movie she watches when she needs to cry. I want to know what her voice sounds like when she first wakes up, how she organises her bookshelf, whether or not she sings in the shower. There are a thousand little intimacies I crave to share with her.
“Care for a game of pool?” Hermione asks. “I’d love to catch up.”
“Uh,” I say.
“Yes!” George answers for me. “Yes, he would love to play pool with you!”
Percy gives me a shove.
“Alright,” Hermione smiles. “Let’s go.”
She grabs me by the hand to lead me through the crowd to the pool table. I nearly pass out.
Hermione takes her cue stick.
“You break,” I say, motioning for her to start the game.
Hermione raises an eyebrow. “How gallant.”
“I’m gallant as shit,” I reply.
This makes Hermione laugh, and the sound of it convinces me that I could fly. Probably all the way to the next universe.
God, I’m absolutely head over fucking heels for Hermione Granger.
Hermione sinks a ball into a pocket. “You’re stripes,” she says.
“You’re good at this.”
“Thank you.”
She goes again.
I get distracted by her collarbones. By her hands. Her lips. The smell of her hair and the sound of her laughter.
She keeps having to remind me between turns that I’m stripes, because I keep forgetting.
We catch up in snippets of conversation. She’s just graduated dental school, and is happy to be moving back to the town we grew up in. I tell her that I own the farm now with George. She offers me congratulations.
The game goes quickly. I’m good at pool, but Hermione is better. She plays dirty, sipping on a plastic cup full of red wine and leaving lipstick marks around its edges. I can’t be expected to focus on the rules of this game in the presence of something like that. Not when I keep thinking of all the places she could leave her lipstick marks on me.
Hermione calls the last pocket and sinks the black ball. “Good game,” I say.
“You’re terrible,” she snorts.
“Play again?” I ask, my voice getting lost in the din.
“What?”
I lean closer, and her gravity pulls me in. I’m such a fucking goner. “Play again?”
She presses a hand to my shoulder, standing on her tiptoes to bring her mouth closer to my ear. “No. Let’s go outside. I can hardly hear myself think in here.”
“Okay,” I agree. “Outside.” As if I would do anything other than give this woman whatever she wants, whenever she wants it.
Outside, the dark night air cools my heated skin. We lean up against the rough brick wall of the building, shoulders inches from touching. It’s quieter out here, the sound of cicadas and spring peepers replacing the crackly croon of Don McLean’s voice from the old speakers. We both face forward.
“I actually hate bars,” Hermione admits. “I always get so excited to get all dressed up, but then it’s too loud and people are too close and I get overwhelmed.”
“Why did you come tonight?” I ask, curious.
Hermione turns, her shoulder and entire arm pressing up against mine. My breath catches. I gulp. She looks up at me through her lashes and cocks her head to the side. I have to force my eyes off her red lips.
“Truthfully,” Hermione says slowly, “I was hoping that I’d run into you here.”
I blink. “Me?” I manage to squeak.
She nods. “I wanted to see you.”
“You did?”
Hermione laughs. “Did you want to see me, too?”
DID I?!?
But I manage to play it cool, and say, “Yeah. I did.”
“I don’t want to go back inside,” says Hermione.
“No,” I agree.
I can’t help but feel as if I’m missing some kind of social cue as she looks at me expectantly. “We could… go somewhere else.”
“Right. Um. Do you need a ride?”
Hermione laughs. “Ron. I mean go somewhere else, together.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Yes,” I say, stumbling over my words. “Yes, absolutely, I would love to, let me just…I have the keys to my truck right here, actually. In my pocket. And the truck is right here. In the parking lot. We can go, and let’s just—”
“Ron,” Hermione interrupts. “Take a deep breath.”
I inhale slowly. Thank goodness I only had half a beer. It’s like the universe knew that Hermione fucking Granger would ask me to drive her somewhere. Together.
I point to my truck. “That’s mine.”
“Okay,” smiles Hermione. “I’ll go get in it.”
I stand stupidly, watching her walk away from me and towards my truck. My lips part slightly as I watch her long braids fall down her back, and the way her ass looks in those jeans…
I shake my head and refocus. “Wait!” I cry, and run ahead of Hermione to open the truck door for her.
“Gallant as shit,” she laughs as she gets in.
“Ron Weasley, gallant as shit, that’s me.”
I practically jog around to the other side and get in the driver’s seat.
“Where are we going?” she questions.
“I know the perfect place,” I say.
We drive in amiable silence, a warm summer breeze coming through the rolled down windows. There’s a little dirt road at the back of the farm’s property. It leads to a perfect, private spot along the river. I used to go fishing here all the time.
When we pull up, I throw the truck in reverse and drape my arm over the passenger seat, looking out the rear window as I back in. When I put the truck in park, Hermione’s staring at me, wide-eyed.
“What? Is something wrong?” I ask.
She just blinks. “No. Sorry. Got a little bit distracted.”
“Oh. Well, we’re here. I have a blanket. We can sit by the river and listen to the water.” I race around to the bed of my truck and pull out a blanket. Hermione’s already making her way down the faint path, lit only by moonlight.
“Coming?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.
“Got the blanket.”
“Perfect.”
We set up down on the banks of the creek, water rushing pleasantly by. I sit cross-legged, and when Hermione plops down next to me, our knees press together. She doesn’t move it away and my eyes stay glued to the spot where our skin is a mere two layers away from touching.
“Say that again?” I emerge from my knees-almost-touching reverie and realise that she’s talking to me.
Hermione giggles easily. “I was just saying that we had so much fun together those summers on the farm.”
“I didn’t know you really remembered those.”
“Of course I remember.” Hermione sounds offended. “We spent all our time together. Remember when you got stuck in the greenhouse with that spider—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I cut her off, bumping her shoulder with mine. “Remember when you bought the wrong face paint for the county fair and painted your whole face to look like a cat’s before you realised how bad it stained on skin?”
“Oh my god. Ron! I’d almost forgotten how embarrassing that was!” Hermione cries, but she’s laughing.
“We had some good times.”
“The best. And we can have more, now that I’m back.”
I look in her direction, the moonlight casting a silvery glow over us. “You’re back for good, then?”
Hermione sighs contentedly. “I think so, yes. I want to take over my parents’ dental practice. Without them, everyone in the entire county would have to travel a lot farther for dental care. And so many in our town are elderly, can’t drive, and just…don’t get preventative care because it’s too hard to access. And a lot of our farmers refuse to see any kind of medical professional, until they’re in terrible pain and it’s a lot more difficult to treat. But a lot of them know me, know my parents, and it makes it easier to come in.”
“You won’t miss the city?”
“It was a lot of fun. But I was ready to come home. What about you? Owning the farm now?”
“Yeah. Fred and George bought it right after our last summer. But when…” I take a deep breath. “When Fred died in the accident, George couldn’t manage it all by himself. And I realised I wanted to step in. It’s been amazing. I love my job.”
Hermione leans her head on my shoulder. “I heard about Fred. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s been shitty,” I admit. I swallow past the lump in my throat that comes up whenever I talk about my brother.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hermione asks.
I shake my head no. “I just miss him.”
She gives me a few minutes where she doesn’t expect anything of me, and she doesn’t say anything, either. It’s nice.
After the last hour or so of nerves and anxiety around Hermione Granger, I remember that I can relax around her. That she makes me nervous, but she also makes me feel safe.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” I confess.
“Wanted what?”
“Just to be somewhere with you. Alone. Grown up.”
“Oh, I think I have some idea,” Hermione chuckles.
“What do you mean?”
She takes my hand in hers in the dark. “I mean, I had such a crush on you in high school. And those summers we spent working together at the farm—god, I just fell even harder for you.”
“You—you did?”
“How could I not? You were the one person who would always argue back with me. We were inseparable, best friends all summer.”
“Why did you never say anything?”
Hermione shrugs. “I was scared. I got busy with school. I wasn’t home as much. I didn’t think it would be fair to try and start anything with you when I was never here.”
“But you’re back now?”
Hermione looks at me and smiles. “I’m back.”
I’m terrified. Does this mean she wants me now? What if she’s just being nice, and there was something wrong with me before?
The air is humid and warm around us.
I stand up. “It’s hot,” I announce.
Hermione looks up at me, amused. “It is.”
“Let’s go swimming,” I say.
“I—I don’t have a bathing suit,” Hermione stammers.
“Me neither.” I pull my shirt over my head, and am gratified when I see Hermione’s eyes run up and down the full length of my body. Maybe she was telling the truth—it just wasn’t ever the right time for us. Maybe it’s the right time now.
I unbuckle my belt, and slide it out of my jeans.
“Are you suggesting skinny dipping, Ronald Weasley?” asks Hermione in mock horror. “How scandalous of you!”
“Are you joining me, Hermione Granger?” I ask, sounding far braver than I feel. I offer her a hand to help her up.
She takes it, standing close to me, and pulls off the white top. Looking up at me in the darkness of the night, her eyes never leaving mine, she unhooks her bra and lets it fall softly to the blanket at our feet. “Yes, I’m joining you.”
I freeze, not sure if I’m allowed to look at her boobs, and equally unsure if I can stop myself. Fireflies blink around us, and it all feels so magical.
Hermione unbuttons her jeans, and the sound of her zipper lowering sends desire burning straight through me. She shimmies out of the denim, followed by her panties, and then she splashes straight into the creek.
I’m left standing on the banks, half dressed with half an erection and all the way in love.
“Get in here!” she shouts.
I shed the rest of my clothing and hop gracelessly over the rocks and into the deeper pool where Hermione floats peacefully. The water is cool, smoothly flowing around us. Above, there’s the moon and the stars. The breeze rustles pleasantly through the grass. Crickets chirp and frogs sing.
“What a beautiful night,” Hermione sighs.
“It sure is,” I agree, looking right at her.
“How many stars do you think are up there?” she muses. “I missed seeing them, living in the city. I forgot how many there are.”
“Let’s count them.”
She giggles at my suggestion, and the sound makes my heart flutter and my dick hard.
“Okay. I see one up there. That’s part of the Big Dipper, actually.”
“Which one?” I ask, crouching in the water and getting closer to her. Our naked shoulders touch.
Hermione points. “Right up there. See that shape? How those brighter stars kind of form a rectangle?”
I’ve known how to find the Big Dipper my entire life. But I want Hermione Granger to show me. “Where?”
She drifts behind me in the water, putting her hands on my shoulders to steady herself in the lazy current. “Right there.”
“Over there?” I point in completely the wrong direction.
“No,” she laughs again. “Okay, one second. I’ll show you the correct spot.”
“Thank you,” I say cheekily.
Hermione presses closer to me underwater. Her touch is soft, hesitant, like she’s not sure I want it. I feel her breasts against my shoulder blades and suppress a shiver. There’s the gentle brush of her temple against mine.
“Okay,” Hermione says, just as breathless as I feel right now, “Look up. And just a little to the left.”
“I see it now,” I whisper. But I’m not looking at the sky. I’m looking at Hermione’s red lips, now so close to mine.
“You’re not even looking!” she protests, splashing me. I tug her closer, even as I sputter with river water in my face.
“I saw it!” I insist. “But then I got…distracted.”
Hermione and I face each other, our heads level just above the quietly moving water. I see my own desire mirrored in her eyes and illuminated by the full moon hanging above us.
I want to kiss her.
I want to do much more than kiss her.
Does she want it, too?
My breath comes fast and shallow.
I dip my head, the tip of my nose skating down the slope of hers. We’re a breath away from touching, and she tilts her lips towards mine—
“AAGHAAH!” Hermione shrieks, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my torso.
I think I black out a little at the sudden sensation of our naked, wet bodies pressed so tightly together. And then I come to my senses and ask, “What? What’s wrong!”
“Something just touched my leg!”
“We’re in a creek, Hermione. Things live in here.”
“No, don’t say that! Ron, get me out of here!”
“What?”
“Ron! What if it was a snake?”
“In the river?”
“Yes, what if it was a snake?”
“It definitely wasn’t a snake.”
“I didn’t say it was rational! I feel about snakes the way you feel about spiders.”
“Say no more.” Grasping her thighs, I hold her tight to me as I exit the water as swiftly as possible.
I let her down and we stand in the cool grass. Hermione says primly, “Thank you.”
“I…had no idea you felt that way about snakes.” I try not to laugh, and allow her what little dignity she’s pretending to have right now, naked and afraid of an imagined reptile.
She bites her lip. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
I laugh. “A little. But so is my fear of spiders. We’re even.”
She laughs then, too, dissolving into giggles.
I’m glad for the distraction, because it saves me from having to ponder the potential awkwardness of asking her if she noticed my extremely noticeable boner while she was clinging to my body as I rescued her from what was, in all probability, a minnow.
“I’ll save you from spiders if you’re always there to save me from snakes.” Hermione holds out her pinky for me to swear to it.
I hook my pinky around hers. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
“Deal,” I repeat again, and we both laugh.
But we don’t let each other’s pinkies go.
I look into her dark eyes, and the slightly smudged makeup around them. Her perfect red lips. I raise my other hand, cupping her face, and her eyes flutter closed.
“Darling,” she whispers, “are you going to kiss me or not?”
That’s all the encouragement I need as I tug her closer and crash my lips onto hers. She moans against me, her hands pressing against my chest.
The kiss is hot and breathless, full of tongues and teeth and roaming hands, our bodies slick against one another. I groan loudly when Hermione bites my bottom lip, and I swear I can feel her grin.
She pushes her hands against me, never breaking the kiss, and I walk backwards slowly until I feel a tree trunk behind me.
Hermione steps back, for just a moment.
“Shit,” I say, cupping her face with my hands. “Your lipstick. It’s smudged.”
Hermione smiles wickedly. “Remember how I told you I came to the bar, hoping I’d run into you?”
“Yes…” I say, unsure of where this is going.
“What if I told you that I put red lipstick on tonight, hoping you’d ruin it?”
“Woah,” I breathe, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say.
She leans in, kissing gently along my jaw. My head thuds back against the tree trunk, giving her access to my neck. She peppers light kisses along my throat, sucking at the spot just below my ear that has me begging for more. Her lips move down, and she runs her tongue along my collarbone.
“Rougher,” I ask, “mark me. Make me yours.”
Hermione grazes her teeth along my shoulder, then bites it before replacing the sensation with soft, gentle kisses.
Her hand moves between us, slowly tracing down my abdomen before grasping my cock.
“Holy shit,” I swear as her lips follow her hand lower and lower, until she’s kneeling in front of me. “You don’t have to—”
“Shut up, darling,” she purrs. “You didn’t think when I said I wanted you to ruin my lipstick that I only wanted to kiss you?”
“Oh my god,” I squeak. “I think you’re going to be the death of me.”
I look down to see her eyes looking up at mine, and then hiss with pleasure as she runs her tongue along the length of my cock. She swirls it before taking me fully into her mouth.
“Fuucckkk,” I groan.
Hermione starts a torturous rhythm, sliding my dick out of her hot mouth before taking me even deeper. Little breathy moans in the back of her throat add to the already exquisite sensation.
The bark of the tree is rough at my back as I start to thrust into her mouth. She hums in approval, and I look down to see her reaching a hand between her thighs, touching herself, continuing to use her other hand to stroke me.
The sight of her getting off, red lipstick now smudged across her cheek and all over my dick, kneeling before me and yet having me utterly powerless has me gasping.
“Hermione…” I trail off with a deep moan. “Fuck, I’m going to come, baby. Where do you want me to—”
Wordlessly, Hermione responds by taking me even deeper, my cock hitting the back of her throat with a muffled “Mmhmm.”
I wrap her braids around my fist, pulling gently on her hair. This devious woman brings something out in me, a dirty mouth I didn’t even know I had. “You want me to come in your perfect little mouth? You gonna let me fuck that lipstick off you, baby?”
Hermione looks up at me, wide-eyed, and gives a quick nod without slowing down.
“I couldn’t stop looking at your red lipstick smudges on your cup all night. I kept thinking about those lips, it’s why I kept forgetting if I was stripes or solids while we were playing pool. I might be ruining your lipstick right now, but you’re the one ruining me .”
Hermione groans. Her mouth is hot and slick and the sounds our bodies are making are obscenely hot. I can’t fucking hold back another moment, and when I break, she takes it all.
“Holy shit,” I say, winded. “I think that’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Hermione stands up, wiping at the corner of her mouth, red lipstick a mess. “Well,” she says like the little minx she is, “the night is still young.”
I grab her roughly by the back of the neck, relishing in the little whimper she lets out, and capture her lips in a searing kiss. “Get on the blanket.”
“Only if you’re coming, too.”
“Of course I’m coming.”
We fall onto the ground in a tangle of limbs, and she pushes me onto my back.
Fine. That’s what I wanted, anyways.
I kiss her neck. I bite her earlobe. I take her breasts in my hands, feeling their weight, their softness, and the way that right now, they’re all mine.
Then I grasp her by the hips and drag her up my torso.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Sit on my face, Hermione Granger.”
She squeaks. “Ron!”
“Please, baby?”
Her body immediately turns soft and pliant in my hands. “Well, when you ask like that…”
Her thighs bracket my head and I feel like I’m drowning in the most beautiful woman in the world. I slowly guide her hips until she’s right where I want her, but she still feels tense. Unsure.
I nibble at her inner thigh. She sucks in a breath.
“Relax,” I say, my voice gone hoarse with desire.
I keep one hand on her hip and splay the other palm across her lower back, tugging her closer. My nose brushes her clit, and her thighs clench.
Fuck.
I start slowly with my tongue, licking from her entrance to her clit. I swirl it just around that sensitive nub, then close my lips around it and suck. I try different things, paying attention to how Hermione’s body reacts to each one.
Soon, she’s riding my face recklessly, gasping and pulling at my hair, taking her pleasure exactly how I want her to. “Just…a little to the left,” she instructs. “And a little more pressu—oh, fuck!”
I love how liquid she’s become, the way her body writhes. Hermione surrounds me, soft thighs tensing and flexing as she rolls her hips and above me she is my sky and all of my stars. I continue to lap and suck until her breathing fractures and she’s nothing but moans and whimpers and desperation. She comes apart around me.
And fuck, if it doesn’t have me ready for round two.
Once she catches her breath, she shakily slides down until she’s lying on her back at my side. “Wow,” she says.
“Just wow?” I ask cockily.
“Fine,” she says. “Holy fucking shit!”
“That’s more like it,” I reply, rolling over her, my body pressed against hers.
She kisses me then, hard and deep. Her tongue runs along my lower lip before she tugs on it with her teeth. I move, kissing down her throat to her breasts. My lips wrap around one stiff nipple, and I tease it with my tongue. Her back arches, pressing her body against mine.
“Rougher,” she begs, repeating my request from earlier. “Mark me. Make me yours.”
My teeth release her nipple, and I move to suck at the skin at the top of her breast, where her perfect bronzed skin was spilling out of that white top earlier. Right where everyone will know she’s mine. I waited years for this, and I’m not holding back now.
I splay my palm over her rib cage, dragging my lips across her body to kiss and suck the skin over her hip. With one hand I part her thighs before settling between them. I lose all semblance of control then, biting her inner thigh and sucking the delicate flesh there hard enough to leave a mark.
“Mine,” I groan. “All mine.”
Hermione whines. “Touch me, darling. Taste me. Anything but this teasing.”
I remember every move that made her come apart earlier, bringing her whimpers and moans into the night air with my tongue. Her hands fist in the blanket, twisting it. I slide one finger, and then a second inside her, curling them upwards until I find just the spot. Hermione throws one arm over her face as she bites back a scream. “Oh, oh, oh!”
“That’s it, baby,” I coax. “Come for me.”
“Ron,” she moans.
“Fuck, it’s so hot the way you say my name like that.”
“Oh, Ron,” she says again, breathy and out of control.
“Good girl.”
“Oh, fuck!” With that, Hermione’s thighs shake, her hips buck, and she cries out with wordless ecstasy.
I don’t release her from my ministrations, dragging out her orgasm until she collapses back against the blanket, practically melting into the ground. I crawl up her body, kissing her cheek, before lying on my back.
Hermione brings my hand up to her mouth and presses her lips to it gently.
Then she straddles me, kissing my face and neck and hands, until we’re both giggling.
She’s soft and warm over me, and I want nothing more than to be inside her. But—
“Hermione. I…don’t have a condom.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I do.”
“What?”
She reaches for her jeans, in their neat pile next to the blanket, and fishes a condom out of one of the pockets. “I waited years for this, remember? If I got the chance, I wasn’t willing to risk having to wait another night.”
I grab her face with both hands, and give her what can only be described as a smooch. “You’re amazing!”
Hermione smiles smugly. “Always the tone of surprise.”
I grab the foil packet, ripping it open and rolling it on, flipping us so Hermione lies beneath me. Her eyes widen as she says, “Woah. You’re strong.”
“Always the tone of surprise,” I whisper.
We lose ourselves in one another as I press into her. I groan against her neck at the feeling of us so close, at the way she pulls me even nearer.
Slowly, I thrust in and out, trying to memorise everything about this moment. Hermione’s hands wander down my back and squeeze my ass. Her body arches up to meet mine and I bury my face in her sweet, citrus-scented hair. She gasps in little breathy moans that threaten to send me right over the edge.
“Faster,” she whines.
“I’m going as fast as I can, baby.”
She groans in frustration and bites my neck.
Sweet god, this woman is killing me over and over, and with her I’d happily die a thousand little deaths.
“I wasn’t asking,” Hermione informs me. “I was demanding.”
That’s all it takes for me to give in. I’m hers to command, after all. “What do you need?” I ask. “If I go any faster, this is going to be over way too soon—”
She pushes against my chest and flips over onto all fours in front me, pressing her ass against my cock. “Take me, darling. And don’t be gentle.”
Fuck.
Well, if she insists.
With a knuckle I trace down the length of her spine before guiding the tip of my cock to her entrance and Hermione arches her back, taking me deeper inside her than before. She grabs my hand, pressing it against her clit.
“Show me, baby,” I pant, breathless in her ear. “Show me how you need me to touch you so I can feel you come around my cock.”
Hermione keeps her hand over mine, rubbing in tight circles over her clit. She moans loudly and drops her hand, letting me continue on my own. She pushes her hips back, feeling my cock move inside her, and says, “Now darling, I believe I asked you to fuck me.”
“Shit,” I swear, and keep furiously making those small circles against her clit. With my other hand I grip her hip hard enough to leave a mark.
“I want to feel you tomorrow,” she gasps. “I want everyone to know that you’re finally mine.”
She clenches around me and I hope she’s close because I’m trying to think of anything but the perfect slide of our bodies against each other, the delicious friction between us, and god, it’s like she’s fucking made for me.
“You’re perfect,” I murmur. “I’m yours.”
We both pick up the pace, and when Hermione screams my name it sounds like a curse and a prayer and a promise all in one. I fuck her through her orgasm, leaning forward to bite the spot where her shoulder meets her neck and feeling her body jerk in pleasure in response.
She falls off the edge, and I shatter alongside her, grunting and groaning with mono-syllabic curses. “ Fuck, you’re perfect,” I manage to get out.
We collapse to the ground together, sweaty chests heaving.
Hermione gives me a soft forehead kiss before exhaling a gentle sigh of contentment. I trace little patterns across her shoulder, her stomach, her thighs, because I can’t keep my hands off this woman.
We lie still in the long grass. A firefly blinks, dipping in lazy circles over our heads.
“So,” I say, suddenly extremely nervous. “Would you like to…um…stay the night? It’s just me at the farmhouse.”
“Oh, Ron,” Hermione says, and my heart drops. “I’d love to, but—”
“No, it’s fine. You don’t have to explain.”
She presses a finger to my lips to quiet me. “Let me speak, darling. I’d love to, but I’m staying with my parents right now, until I get my own place set up. And I simply cannot bring myself to do a walk of shame in front of my father tomorrow morning. Also, I need to feed my cat breakfast, or he’ll be a perfect little terror.”
I nod, trying not to take the rejection personally.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she says.
“It is,” I reply.
“Are you busy tomorrow?”
“Busiest day of the week at the farm.”
“Do farmers take lunch breaks?”
I bite back a smile. “They can be persuaded to, yes.”
“Perfect.” Hermione presses a kiss to my lips. “I’ll be at the farm around noon tomorrow. And I’ll be ready to be very… persuasive.”
My heart skips a beat, and I pull her closer, kissing her neck. “I should get you home, then. Sounds like you’ll need to be well-rested.”
Hermione giggles. God, the things I would do to make her laugh, for the rest of this life and through whatever comes next.
Between lots of stolen kisses, we get dressed and back in the truck. I put my hand on her thigh as we drive into the night.
When we reach an intersection with a flashing yellow stoplight, we both pause and squint.
“Who could possibly be walking down the shoulder at this time of night?” Hermione asks, incredulous. “And with zero reflective gear, no less!”
“Oh, fuck,” I groan. “I think I know who it is.”
Percy spots my truck, and starts waving enthusiastically. Bill sees me, too, and sticks out a thumb as if hitchhiking.
I am an awful brother.
I abandoned my entire family at the Three Tractors.
I pull over, ready to apologise. Bill yanks open the passenger door, then freezes when he sees Hermione sitting there. Hoots and howls from my brothers fill the night air as they realise who’s in the truck.
“I’m sorry!” I yell, trying and failing to get them to quiet down. “Get in the back.”
The three of them squeeze in. They’re very obviously three sheets to the wind, giggling like children and arguing over who has to take the middle seat.
“Where were you, Ron?” asks Bill knowingly.
“Got distracted,” I say tersely.
“Hermione, long time no see,” says George. “Welcome to the truck.”
“Thank you,” Hermione laughs.
“Hey, weren’t you wearing lipstick earlier?” Percy asks innocently from the back.
I reach behind the seat to smack him.
“Must’ve rubbed off,” replies Hermione airily. I shoot her an apologetic look, but she just smiles and shrugs.
“So…” says Bill. “What did you two get up to?”
“Fishing” I answer at the same time as Hermione chirps “Stargazing!”
The car goes quiet.
George breaks the silence.
“Are you coming to next Friday’s Weasley family dinner, Hermione?”
I nearly swerve off the road. God, I could kill my brother sometimes—
But Hermione intertwines her fingers with mine reassuringly. “Yes,” she says simply. “And maybe the next one after that?”
I squeeze her hand, and no amount of brotherly teasing can wipe the smile off my face.
The world slows down, as if the universe is giving me the chance to pause this moment and enjoy it fully. It’s just Hermione and me, falling in love in the middle of the night.