**Author's Note: This is the final chapter of "Come to Me." Stay tuned for a sequel titled "Even I Have Pride," coming soon! Also note the name change-where_is_truth, under new management, is now hip_to_ship.**
CHAPTER SIX
Welcome to the game
What's in a name
They called him Young Master.
He'd fit in perfectly there from the moment he'd arrived by himself, his suitcase full of his father's business papers, papers that represented all the money Lucius Malfoy had been siphoning from his businesses into Muggle banks and accounts for years.
It was the only thing Draco took with him from his father, from the life his father had crafted for him.
The privileged, the children of the Death Eaters-how they'd been scattered. Some of them killed, others simply missing, parents dead, parents institutionalized. Lucky Draco, as he thought bitterly to himself sometimes, had one of each. A dead bastard of a father and a mother too mad to recognize him.
He'd flown from his name and those who would have seen him dead and found a place in Boston, a place where the eclectic rich were as common as boats in the bay and stars in the sky. He didn't have the requisite paperwork bloodlines or the pedigrees, but he had the money, and by Merlin, he had the charm.
Clever as ever, he'd hosted parties, giant fêtes with lightshows that defied imagination, decorations that dissipated as soon as the party was over, and helping at every step were the servants he'd hired, a network of American Squibs so extensive he knew he'd never be betrayed.
And through it all, none of the Boston society knew who he was. He was only the Young Master, and occasionally they dared to call him by what they believed was his first name-Drake.
Finally alone for the first time in his life, he'd taken his peace, his independence, and he'd committed it all to one cause. Now, as he slid from her gasping, he knew she'd been worth the time, worth all the trouble.
Virginia Weasley, young, spiteful Ginny, had been Draco's first sure thing, the first thing he'd known he'd wanted only for him. While everything else in the Malfoy heir's life had been dictated by his father, chosen by his father, demanded by his father or provided by his father, Ginny was the one thing his father would have hated.
Ginny was the one thing Draco couldn't have, and so he became more and more determined to do just that-have her. He'd dreamt of her, of that long red hair spread out over his pillows, lashed out over black satin.
Instead, however, he'd taken her standing up like some kind of animal, impatient and impulsive, and he didn't have a damned bit of regret about it. But there were tears standing in her eyes, and they made him strike out.
"Regrets already, Weasley?" he bit out, feeling his own words pierce as he stepped away and casually zipped up the black pants he wore. If she'd bothered to look any closer, she would have seen those long fingers of his shaking.
Is our little plain Jane
Gonna risk everything?
She barely heard him for the blood pounding in her ears, and she laid her bruised head against the pillar that had bruised it, her hands still pressed to the polished wood. Her shirt, now ruined and buttonless, hung open, revealing a white lace bra and skin nearly pale enough to match. Her lips were parted to accommodate the deep, racing breaths she was taking, and though her eyelids drooped, she kept her eyes on him.
"No regrets," she said between breaths, opening her eyes a bit wider to pin him with a shade of her customary glare. "But that doesn't keep me from being ashamed of myself." She was defensive and well knew it; after all, how foolish, how shameful was it to have flown all those miles, just because someone wanted her to, and just to be taken in a passion so hot it felt like rage?
And how bloody idiotic was it to let someone like Draco ever, ever hold the reigns?
She knew she'd said the wrong thing-or the right thing-when he advanced toward her, eyes iced in anger. With a sudden move, he'd slammed the heel of his hand into the pillar just millimeters from her face, and she flinched even as she felt a tug deep down, a quickening of her already-cooling blood. Some men were just seductively angry, she thought as he visibly tried to hold back his anger. There was something fascinating about watching a cold-blooded man heat up.
"Ashamed, are we? That's bloody fucking fantastic, coming from someone whose family lives like a burrow of rabbits." He wanted to shake her, wanted to wipe that hateful look from her freckled face. But the hateful look melted of its own accord, and she regarded him openly, without guises, without anger.
"Why?" she whispered then, wondering how much longer her knees would hold her. "Why me?"
"You never looked at me with fear," he said, leaning in and even now seeing challenge instead of fright in her eyes. "And always there were the Weasleys, doing everything just right and always knowing they were right."
She thought of the only exception even before he spoke it, wondering how many times Tom Riddle would come back to haunt her.
"And then there was Ginny, consorting with the enemy." He lowered his forehead to hers then, exhausted with the relief of having her there, wrung out by the anger, the violence, the lust taking turns through him. "And so I thought if you could have a little bad, what was so wrong with me getting a little good?"
Her eyes locked with his, and seconds ticked by, then minutes, and finally she broke away and found that her legs could walk, could hold her weight. She slid away from his nearness and walked unsteadily across the foyer, hugging her arms tight around her and keeping her back to him, though she knew it wasn't wise.
"I thought you were dead," she said, casting her eyes to the ceiling and blinking back the wetness that wanted to gather. There were too many things to process, to many feelings to mull over. So she chose to keep it simple, looking over her shoulder at him when she had herself under control. "I need something to wear."
Is she gonna strike the match
That'll surely light the flame
Is she carrying the torch for love in vain
He'd sat alone at the huge, long dining table for so long it seemed odd to have someone sitting across from him. But she looked right there, in a black silk robe bewitched to fit her, her red hair spilling flames over her shoulders and down her back. Mistrust shone blatantly in her eyes, and she didn't bother to hide it. It was one of the things he'd remembered about her, one of the things he'd held onto.
The Weasley crown jewel was nothing if not forthright.
"How did all this happen?" she finally asked, picking at the food in front of her. How could she eat, sitting across from him? Across from the man who was supposed to have been her enemy, who was supposed to have been dead, who'd just made her little more than a trembling puddle on the floor?
He'd been a bit of a fascination for her, that much was true. A substitution in her fevered, post-possessed mind for the absent Tom Riddle, the long-since nonexistent boy who'd cherished her words, no matter how facetiously. Draco had the style, had the sheer drive. Who hadn't wondered what it would be like to be wanted with the single-mindedness that marked a Slytherin, courted with that common factor of sheer determination? He'd had the rawness, and she had watched it from afar and wondered what would happen if someone like that could be redeemed.
He regarded her with the air of a man in control, and that alone infuriated her. "All things come to those who wait," he said mockingly. "It was all a matter of time… and money… and want." When she cast her eyes down, he sneered, more to protect his own vulnerabilities than to mock her. "And I wanted you very much."
The color rose over her cheeks before she could stop it, flattered and embarrassed at the same time.
"Oh, rot, Weasley, let's not pretend to be shy now," he snorted, watching as the color burned into anger, into temper. He'd very nearly decided it was what she looked best in. But there was something else needling him, something underneath the urge to push her buttons, as it were.
Jealousy was Slytherin-green and crept like a snake, clever and covert.
"It isn't like you're a blushing virgin, Weasley," he said bitingly, wondering who had been there for that pleasure, wondering who had given to her and taken from her for the first time, wondering why it bloody well hadn't been him.
She was his obsession, and she was more.
Her emotions were close to the surface, rubbed raw by travel and confusion and lust, and she slammed her two small hands on the table, ignoring the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
"'Tisn't as though you're a fucking innocent schoolboy yourself, Malfoy," she said, stressing his last name. "If you were, I don't think you'd have been able to pull that sick, twisted torture act with me, would you have?"
She didn't know how he did it and likely wouldn't ever know, but in an instant's time he'd gone from chair to table, crouched in the center of the long, ebony surface with his hands grasping her forearms and his eyes boring into hers. Long fingers dug into tender flesh, but he didn't shake her as he'd have liked to. Instead, his voice was cool and curt, a smile flickering over his lips to mask the offense she'd bred.
"Sick, am I? Twisted? Oh, yes, Ginny. I'll have you remember I'm not the one who flew thousands of miles by Muggle transport at the beck of three words." His voice dropped to a harsh whisper, and he could feel himself growing hard just looking at her, thinking of her reactions earlier. "It took even less than three words to have you wet-knickered and fucking ready for a man you couldn't even see." He shoved her away then, hopping onto the floor even as she fled.
She wended her way through the many rooms of the large house, knocking things over at will to keep him from being so close on her trail, wanting to get away, wanting to escape him and herself. When she came upon a bedroom filled with light from flickering candles set on ornate silver candelabra, she gasped.
It was the bedroom she'd seen herself in, the one she'd never been able to see him in. Hearing his footsteps behind her, she ran deeper into the massive black-adorned bedroom, striking down candelabras to block her path.
If she died here in flames, then at least she'd not endure his shaming anymore, the cruelty he seemed to have brought her there for.
His face was cold when he strode through the door, master of the house even in a room full of fire. The ice of his grey eyes seemed to grow cooler in contrast to the flames, and as he crossed the room to her, she knew she was cornered.
She stood her ground, trembling, as he advanced toward her. Deliberately, calculatingly, he grabbed her wrist and thrust her hand into one of the masses of fire wreathing the room. Though it was very, very warm, the green-tinged blaze did not burn her.
"I'd be a bigger fool than your father if I'd have something as dangerous as real fire in the same house as one so volatile as you," he said, jerking on her wrist hard enough to make her stumble toward him. Clamping an unyielding hand around her other wrist, he shoved with all his might, throwing her onto the black bed, surrounded by the inferno she'd created.
Is the gonna break the locks
Take a look inside the box
Knowin' that she could release Pandora's shame
Ginny backpedaled, bunching the black velvet throw and black silk sheets at her heels as she tried to make her way away from him, to the head of the bed. But his gaze never wavered, and though she didn't realize she was doing it, she slid her tongue out to wet lips that seemed parched.
He felt every nerve in his body tense at the unconsciously seductive gesture, and he climbed onto the bed one knee at a time, prowling toward her.
"You didn't like the way we did it the first time, Muggle-lover, then we'll try it again." He shackled her ankles with his hands, pulling swiftly and surely, sending her sliding spread-eagled over the satin sheets and closer to his anticipatory hands.
Don't do this again, don't do this again… but she couldn't get away from his eyes, from his heat, from his want.
"Didn't say… I didn't like it," she managed, her breath coming in gasps. "It's so bloody hot in here," she managed, tossing her head restlessly. Sweat was beading over her forehead, and she could see it sheened over his, as well.
He paid no mind to her, however, wrapping the tail of her robe's sash around his hand once, then twice, untying it. In no more than a minute, the robe was open and he bit back an oath.
She'd apparently not bothered with any of the underwear once he'd given her the robe.
Her body laid before him, fully exposed, and for the first time he saw what he'd been thirsting for. Her red hair was spread out like a pillow itself, shining to rival the flames. She was slight, fine-boned, her collarbone, ribs, and hips making faint lines along the pale flesh. Her breasts rose and fell with the labored rushes of her breath, her nipples sweetly pink and hardened with arousal.
He laid his lips to follow his eyes, brushing his mouth lightly over her breasts but keeping his eyes high, on hers.
He didn't know what was more arousing: her body reacting beneath him or the way she kept her eyes unwaveringly on his.
The flames crackled around them, heating the room but not endangering them, swirling in arcs over the bed and climbing to the ceiling. Keeping one hand lightly covering her ribs, he slid the other one down, playing his fingers in the ginger curls that lay at the apex of her thighs, springy and already wet.
She was panting now, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth, and she wondered how it was he'd gotten her exactly where he wanted her.
And I wanted you very much, she heard his voice ricochet through her head.
To be wanted much was to want much.
He laved one taut, straining nipple with a rough tongue, scraping his teeth over it and grinning predatorily as her hips jumped to meet his hand more firmly.
Leaning back, his own breath now labored, he slid the hand over her ribs up, gliding over her perspiration and the wet trails his own tongue had left to cover her breast with a large hand, pressing his thumb into her nipple.
Her heart fluttered wildly under his touch, like something caged trying to escape, and there, finally, was something about her he fully understood.
"It's like snagging the Snitch," he said, finally closing his eyes to try and catch his breath.
"Draco, please…" She hadn't the words for what she wanted, hadn't the pride to stop the begging. She lifted one hand to tangle in the silky thickness of his hair, the other clenched in the slick sheets below her.
"Please what? Go on, Virginia. Say the words."
But all she could do was shake her head from side to side, pulling at his hair while simultaneously pushing at his head, sending him lower down her body. Slowly untangling her fingers from the sheets, she ran a trembling hand over her body, feeling the muscles jump in her stomach.
This is the dream, she thought, a wordless scream leaving her lips as his mouth fastened over her, teeth scraping gently over the sensitive bundle of nerves at her center, tongue piercing and retreating, bringing her close and drawing her away.
Finally, those long fingers, those seducer's hands, stroked over her slickened lips, then two fingers slid into her, filling her. He curled them slightly, sending her hips rocketing off the bed as she came.
"I'll damn well not be still this time," he grated out, withdrawing his fingers and, with an evil smile, running his tongue over one, then the other. His robes were gone, cast to the floor thoughtlessly, and when he entered her he did so gently, rocking above her, their unbroken gazes locked on one another.
The muscles in his arms bunched and relaxed as he pistoned into her, but as she reached her second orgasm he reached his own peak, and his arms gave out, spilling him onto her, chest pressed to chest, racing heart pressed to racing heart.
"Come to me," he whispered, stroking a hand with uncharacteristic reverence over her hair.
"I did," she responded, and as she curled her arms around him, the tinted flames around them began to dissipate.
Oh, welcome to the game
What's in a name
Dear Mum, Dad, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron,
America is really quite wonderful. Though the first day was a bit rough, things smoothed out soon enough and I believe I'm acclimating wonderfully. It's surprising how many people you can connect with in a short time.
I'll be sending along souvenirs soon; there will be something for each of you. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's so much here to learn and so many new things to experience, I feel it will take quite a long while before I'll be looking to come back to England.
Think of it this way-I've been here less than forty-eight hours, and already I've learned enough to change my life. I would tell you what I've done so far, but honestly-it's just beyond description, and I don't think you'd all want the tedious details.
Write often, and I will as well.
Much love,
Ginny
And of them all, the rambunctious, big, red-haired clan, only Bill noticed the black owl with its silver trappings, the characteristic showy affluence, and he smirked slightly.
He was certain Ginny was right; he didn't want the tedious details of the things his little sister was doing.
Back in Boston, it took less than a week for the elite to discover her.
They called her Young Mistress.