CHAPTER 1: THE PRINCIPLES OF LUST
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.
- Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
Ginny growled as she frantically powdered at her nose. It was like the inflammatory response: whenever something good happened in her life, like a date, her skin would immediately break out, especially on her face, always on her face. Luckily, this time, it was only one pimple on her nose, but it was one stubborn pimple. She had been trying all afternoon to shrink it with her wand, but the damn thing refused to get smaller so here she was trying to conceal it the muggle way- with cosmetics.
Was this even a date? She had some doubts. He had asked her so suddenly. She was still reeling from the startling question. It was just to finish the interview, she had first told herself, but the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that it was a date. For instance, why couldn't they have continued the interview right there in his office at the appointed time? Why continue it at a restaurant, especially one as classy and expensive as the Unicorn's Horn? And those previous looks he had given her, they definitely signified that his interest in her wasn't strictly business.
"My hormones are against me," she groaned, giving her nose one final pat. Looking back at herself in the mirror, she was finally satisfied with her complexion. She then let her gaze examine the skin tight black dress that went down to her knees, resting on her shoulders in thick straps, and hugging her body in a very flattering way. The dress did wonders for her cleavage, doing a better job at pushing up her breasts than architectural support beams could ever have, and the way it clung to her bottom was sure to drop a few jaws.
Satisfied with her body, Ginny began to apply color to her lips, a rich brown shade, and dusky gray eyeliner to her vivid brown eyes, giving them a sexy hazy look. Finishing off her maquillage with mascara, Ginny performed a quick refreshing charm on herself to make sure everything was sitting well before she slipped on her dress robes, leaving them partially unclasped to display her assets.
Slipping into her matching black shoes, Ginny glanced at the clock, grimacing when she noticed she should have left her flat five minutes ago. "Oh well," she thought; they always said that it was good to keep a man waiting, to play hard to get. However, she had the distinct uncomfortable feeling that Draco Malfoy waited for no woman.
She was entirely right. Just as she had apparated in front of the entrance outside the Unicorn's Horn, the door leading inside swung open to reveal her dinner date, apparently leaving- with another woman on his arm! Ginny's jaw dropped. Malfoy brushed past her casually, not even bothering to acknowledge her presence. His attention was currently ensnared by a captivating blonde woman, her nose aristocratically raised in the air, as she swung lightly by Draco's side, supported by his arm around her waist. Had he even noticed that Ginny even bothered to show up?
She had only been five minutes late, for the love of…well, she wouldn't just stick around outside in the cool night air, pining after a date that never was. Ginny Weasley had dressed up for dinner at a nice restaurant and she would enjoy herself. With these thoughts in mind, Ginny strode inside and asked the host to be seated, only to be disappointed in finding out that Malfoy had made the dinner reservation and there were currently no tables available, as the place had been booked for the entire week.
"Fine then, " Ginny thought, "I can have a good time somewhere else!" And with these determined thoughts, Ginny quickly went in search of a fancy restaurant. After an hour of wandering to and fro Hogsmeade, disappointed, hungry, and immensely fatigued, Ginny gave up trying to find a decent restaurant that hadn't been full. She was about to disapparate home when she passed by the Three Broomsticks and ventured inside to get herself a butterbeer, or better yet, a whiskey.
By the third whiskey Ginny was lost in a whirlwind of her own self-pity. "Malfoy's probably shagging her brains out by now," she thought disgustedly as she took another swig from her glass. "I hope his pecker falls off right in the middle of it!"
She almost smiled at the thought, but grimaced as the bitter liquid scorched down her throat, leaving a slightly burning path down her esophagus that tingled every time she swallowed.
After finishing the third drink, her slightly skewed senses told her that she'd had enough, that and her head pounded from listening to the heavily inebriated wizard next to her who kept telling her the fascinating fact that there were two hundred and six bones in her body, following up with the question: "Would you like to have two hundred and seven?"
The next day Ginny woke up feeling as if two mountain trolls were using her head as a fulcrum in their seesaw games. Groaning, Ginny heaved herself out of bed, rubbing at her throbbing temples. "Oh, what did I do to deserve this?"
Then her bleary half-opened brown eyes fixed upon her scattered clothing from the night before and it all flooded back to her. Draco had stood her up. Well, technically, she stood him up, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he saw her coming in late and had blatantly ignored her for another woman. For some peculiar reason, she didn't know precisely why, Ginny began to cry, loudly, like a small child. Perhaps, it was because she wanted to be that gorgeous blonde that he led home on his arm, waking up comfortably in his arms. She didn't think she would have given it up on the first date, but still, at least that woman had a date; Ginny had spent that entire night drunk and alone. And now she was spending this entire morning, hung-over and alone.
Then, like thunder and rain, Ginny's tears of regret turned into tears of rage, and all she could think about was ripping open Draco's gut, tying one end of his intestines about a pole, and kicking him off a cliff to see if his colon would snap. She grabbed her wand, poking it into thin air in blunt stabbing thrusts. Next, she grabbed her muggle eyelash curler that her dad had bought her while he was in muggle London, and pretended that its metal hinges were clamping around a certain blonde-haired man's over-excited groin. This only served to fuel her anger until she thought about that interview that was due on her boss's desk by the end of the day tomorrow. Her tears of rage ebbed, making way for tears of frustration.
Well she'd just have to go down to his office and beg for the interview. A wave of sickness swept over her at the thought, but she had no choice. It was either beg Malfoy or get fired and become cut off from her only way of financing her Healer education. One look at her appearance told her this was not the way to do it: here eyes were still half-glued shut from sleep, her hair might as well have been a nest, and at that very moment she had a great need to empty the contents of her stomach.
"Isn't this a nice start to a wonderful day?" she thought as she bent over the porcelain throne.
****
"I'm sorry, Miss, but you need an appointment to see Mr. Malfoy."
Ginny glared violently at Malfoy's ditzy secretary. There was no way that Ginny Weasley would take orders from a huge-busted bimbo with nine inch nails and an arse the size of France, who probably had gotten the job for being the slut that she was. Shaking her head angrily, Ginny tried to get thoughts of Malfoy sleeping with other women from her head. Where had this jealous streak come from?
"It's not jealousy," she tried to convince herself, "It's probably the truth."
The bimbo tried once again to get Ginny to leave, but Ginny, who was fed up by now, forcefully pushed past her, reaching for the knob, and forcefully swinging Draco's door wide open to see the man himself right before her with his hand extended. An expression of surprise briefly flickered across his features as he eyed the red-faced woman in front of him, but it was quickly replaced with an expression of nonchalance as he directed his attention to the equally flushed secretary standing just a foot away.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy, for disturbing you, but…"
"Not at all, Matilda," Malfoy stopped her in mid-sentence, "I was expecting Miss Weasley for quite some time now." Then he turned to the now thoroughly embarrassed Ginny. "Miss Weasley," he said offering her his hand. Graciously, she took it and allowed him to lead her into the privacy of his office.
As she heard the click of Malfoy shutting the door, Ginny began to unconsciously smooth her hair and clothing down.
"I apologize for Matilda's behavior. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go through and pick out my own secretaries, my assistant does that for me, and I must have forgotten to mention that manners were required for the position." An amused smirk, tugged at the corners of his mouth as Draco casually surveyed Ginny.
She laughed nervously in response to his joke, almost forgetting that she had come here with a purpose in mind. "Right, Mr. Malfoy…" she began.
"You were wondering why I left early the other night and missed our date, yes?" He raised one eyebrow in question.
Ginny was so lost in his boldness that she could do nothing but nod her head.
"Well, that was really my mother's fault. She arrived unexpectedly and insisted I go home with her immediately. She stays at Malfoy Manor practically all alone nowadays with nobody but house elves to keep her company, so she decided for me that I'd been away from home long enough and practically dragged me back to spend the evening at the estate."
His mother! Of course! How could she have been so stupid? Well, it had been rather dark outside the restaurant. That was the only explanation for confusing his mother with his date. Either that or she preserved very well.
"That was your mother?" Ginny's mouth dropped, making her resemble a codfish. And here she was again…being stupid.
"She does look a bit young, doesn't she?" Draco admitted. "It runs in the family actually, the Blacks were bred with great skin."
"I see," Ginny squeaked.
"Did you think that I had left you for her?" Draco smirked.
Ginny could only stutter in her defense, blushing with embarrassment at the thought of him knowing that her eyes had all but turned green, "I, uh…no, I thought, I thought…" Her temper flared up again as she realized that he had left her high and dry that night. "Don't you tease me! You could have offered to take me home, or at least acknowledge my existence!"
Draco winced in response to her glare, noticing with alarm that her temper was having quite an interesting effect on him. She was genuinely angry, but without intending so, she was getting a rise out of him. "I would have taken you home, Ginny, had it been anyone else but my mother. I wouldn't have canceled our plans had it been anyone else but my mother. But you don't understand, she doesn't particularly take kindly to the women I date."
He had moved forward now, standing inches before her, looking hypnotically into her ever-softening brown eyes.
Date! her heart screamed, He said it twice! It was a date! And from the tone of his last speech it seemed that he regretted having stood her up.
And then all thoughts were banished from her head as he lowered his head to capture her mouth in a fierce, hot, demanding kiss, wrapping his arms covetously around her waist and pulling her flush against his tall frame, forcing her breasts into his toned chest and her stomach flat against a solid testimonial to his lust for her.
In just a few seconds he had her backed up against a wall, pressing himself more firmly into her as his tongue dove into the hot cavern of her mouth, pushing past her perfect full pink lips and seeking out her own tongue. He explored her mouth with an ever-increasing vigor as his hand crept up to deftly undo the buttons of her blouse, softly caressing any exposed flesh that met his fingers in the process.
Ginny moaned into his mouth as his very skilled hands crept up to cup her, as of yet, still clothed breasts, sending a pleasant chill down the column of her spine. Using one leg, he wedged himself in between her thighs, rubbing vigorously as he continued to squeeze and stroke her breasts through her blouse. With her head thrown back, her gorgeous red hair cascading around her like a waterfall, and the narrow column of her exposed throat presented so invitingly to him, Draco easily decided that Ginny was quite possibly the most sexy woman he'd ever seen.
She continued to enjoy his erotic attentions until it registered in her brain just how wanton she was acting. What on earth was she doing? Just last night she swore to herself that she'd never give in on the first date and now here she was, letting him snog and fondle her senseless in his own office and they hadn't even gone out once yet!
"St-stop!" Ginny managed to gasp as she pushed his body harshly away.
"What?" Draco glared and attempted to press her up against the wall again, seizing her swollen lips in another searing kiss. But he received a very nasty shock when he tried to maneuver his tongue into her mouth.
"You Bloody Bitch! You bit me!" he yelled, as he felt the sour metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
"You deserved it!" Ginny snapped back, straightening her clothes. She could feel her temper rising just thinking about what he'd just done. Did he think she was just some whore he could have anytime, anywhere he wanted? Well then, she'd straighten him out.
"Mr. Malfoy," she began, trying her best to sound professional despite the blush that crept up her cheeks, "your behavior just now was very unprofessional, not to mention illegal. I didn't come here to get attacked, I came here for a goddamn interview that you owe me!"
Ginny's indignant speech was met with an equally indignant look and for a second Draco was at a loss for words. What was wrong with her?
Wisely, though, he decided not to pursue it, if there was one thing he'd learned from his past relationships, it was that there was no reasoning with a woman when she was in this state. He decided he'd cut his losses.
"I'm sorry."
The expression on Ginny's face softened for a minute, as if she'd been taken aback, before she set her mouth into a thin grim line. "And my interview?"
Draco gave her an incredulous look. "Still set on that, are you?"
"Yes," she said firmly.
Sighing, he replied, "I'll have someone send you my statement, you can write your article based on that. Don't worry I'll be quite thorough. Will that be good enough?"
Ginny thought for a moment, then nodded. Now that that was out of the way Ginny allowed her thoughts to wander back to their most recent encounter. What just happened here? "Um…Draco…"
"Yes, Ginny." He smirked.
"I…" She paused, she really didn't know what to say and she felt increasingly uncomfortable standing there in his presence with that insufferable smirk upon his face.
"Shall we reschedule the date for tonight?" Draco cut her off.
Ginny blinked a few times before realizing he had just said the very words she was hoping to hear. Grinning like it was her birthday, she nodded.
"Alright then, same time, at the Unicorn's Horn?"
"I'll be there," she said, beaming and fumbling out of his office in much the same manner as she had the day before.
A/n: I forgot to put the standard disclaimers in the first time so here goes… Harry Potter and all things that come from the Harry Potter universe are not mine. The title of the story is from the movie "Hush" and the plot is loosely based on it.
Yeah, I know, Narcissa seems kind of scary, but there are reasons for that, which will become obvious the next time she makers her appearance in this story, which will be soon!
Draco's job is Head of Department of Magical Transport as was mentioned in the beginning of the prologue.
Thanks to: Muddratt, B. Maude, michou, essential42, That's So Raven, Meggie, Burgosdamasco, jan, sexytexy, Annibug, Enter Name, Lady Malfoy, and Jennifer for reviewing!
And sorry to Lucius fans for my killing him off, but it was essential to the plot!