CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Morning After
He had work to do.
It was his first thought upon waking, as it usually was, though this time, he truly meant it. He'd gotten nothing done all week, and he knew precisely why.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, her face relaxed, soft mouth slack with sleep. She'd stayed facing him all night, never moving enough to wake him, her sleep apparently more restful than it had been before he'd found her crying in the loo.
Had she said things to him last night with that soft, sleeping mouth, during…? No-he recalled complete silence, aside from sighs, gasps… her whispered name from his lips.
No, she had not spoken once he had given her leave. She had only said things with her actions, made promises with her eyes. He did not want promises, nor was he likely ever to want promises.
Sharp ears caught the change in her breathing, and he spoke, a night of sleep robbing him of his usual acidity. "You can open your eyes."
Damn, Ginny thought. She'd drifted up slowly from sleep with the feeling of his eyes on her. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, which was more than she really wanted to dwell on. All in all, she didn't want to wake up yet.
It had been a long while since she'd slept so well.
She opened her eyes and her lips canted up in a slow smile, making him regret his command to stop playing dead. That smile was far too knowing for his liking.
She felt better than she had in quite some time, and that, Ginny thought, was a bit of a shock. Of course, up until this morning, she'd been waking up alone. Not that she'd correlate one thing with the other, but there was apparently something to be said for a good night of consensual sex followed by a hard sleep.
"Good morning," she finally said, grinning at him with a bit of feminine satisfaction she hadn't ever reveled in before.
Draco felt something tighten in his stomach, too high to be lust and too low to be breathlessness.
Damn it, he didn't have time for stupid games and whatever… playful idiocy she was trying to engage him in. He had to do two things and two things only. No time for… detours.
First, he had to make certain she wasn't getting ideas.
Second, he had to go to work.
At no point did that plan include analyzing whatever malady was breeding in his abdomen or leaning over and kissing her or hiding her clothes so she couldn't get dressed.
No point whatsoever.
That didn't mean he wasn't a little irked when she climbed out of bed, taking her out of reach for the kiss he wasn't going to give her, easy with her nudity and slipping into the clothes he wasn't planning on hiding. The least she could do is give him the opportunity to exercise his right not to do those things.
You didn't get enough sleep last night, he scolded himself internally. Exhaustion always made him a bit dotty.
"No need to rush off," he said, and he fully meant it to sound sarcastic-he had things to do, after all-but it didn't quite translate.
He rubbed a hand over his hair, watching her carefully as he gave up on trying to locate his pants and wrapped a sheet around his midsection instead.
"I'm sure you have things to do," Ginny said, glancing at him sidelong and leaning over to put on her shoes. Cursed if she didn't feel good. It did something for a woman's self-confidence, she thought, to look at a man who looked like Draco clasping a sheet around his waist and know she'd been with him the night before.
She'd never quite been able to enjoy that with Harry.
It had always seemed like some sort of cosmic accident.
He was still trying to figure out what to say when she started to walk out of his bedroom.
Draco scowled, trying to remember if she'd gotten all her clothing. Had she even put her knickers on? What kind of woman could walk out of his house without her knickers without saying more than three sentences to him?
"Hold on a tic," he said, trying to catch up with her as she unlocked the door and made her way into the hall.
The sheet was a bit longer than most clothes he was accustomed to, however, and he tripped, catching himself on the doorframe and cursing loudly as he lost hold of the sheet.
"You don't need to see me out, for Merlin's sake," Ginny said, turning around and looking at him curiously. Honestly, she'd thought the study a bit odd, but his behavior so far was edging up on disconcerting. She'd taken him for the kind of man who could be completely casual upon waking up with a woman. She didn't know whether she'd love finding out that was untrue or hate it.
Draco considered grabbing the sheet and thought better of it. It was his house, damn it, and if he wanted to walk around absolutely fucking starkers, he'd do it.
As long as his mother wasn't home, that is.
"Before you go running out of here like a frightened rabbit," he started, crossing his arms over his chest and enjoying the look on her face-there, that look that said he'd annoyed her or put her off-balance, that's what he'd been missing all morning, damn it-"I just want to make something perfectly clear."
Ginny tilted her head and looked at him through narrowed eyes. Frightened? She hadn't been the one tripping over a sheet. "You're naked," she said flatly.
"Didn't seem to bother you last night," he noted, his tone a mix between smug and cross.
"Not bothering me now," Ginny retorted, mirroring his stance and crossing her arms over her chest.
She wondered if he realized how completely unbelievable he looked. It was really quite unfair. Surely he had to look ridiculous at some point, but the body she'd spent long minutes working over last night looked just as good as it had felt.
Her cheeks went hot with the thought and she forced her eyes back up to his.
Maybe it was bothering her.
"I just think you should know, before you go waltzing out of here on a pink cloud of loveliness-" He was going to ignore her snort. He absolutely was, as he was being sarcastic- "That last night… what I said…" He trailed off, watching her eyes dip again.
"Which part?" Ginny asked, tapping her wand against her thigh and trying to think of all the household cleaning spells she knew, just to put her mind on something.
"What I said about trusting you," Draco said, his voice at a slightly quicker clip than his usual drawl. "That… didn't mean anything. Not anything more than what I said, I mean."
Ginny raised an eyebrow, and he wondered how that made him feel approximately two inches tall. He knew how birds were. He knew how birds like Ginny were, to be precise. Old-fashioned girls who'd been trained by their mums to read between the lines and entangle a man until he couldn't think straight and turn his words back around on him until he was nearly convinced he'd confessed to every transgression known to man and promised everything under the sun-
"Oh, that," she said negligently, and his brain fell flat at her nonplussed tone.
"What?" he asked stupidly. He was expecting an argument. Tears. Clinginess? Anything?
And bloody bugger it all, he was naked and it was too late now to retrieve the sheet, he'd simply look like a fool.
Ginny looked at him-really looked at him, his expression, his face-and felt a little pity. He was afraid of her, she saw. Of course he was. His money, his looks. How many women had glommed onto that and tried to possess it?
But for heaven's sakes, he was a Malfoy. It wasn't like she was looking for a commitment.
Her stomach felt sick at the prospect.
"You said you trusted me. Trust. It's a five-letter word, Draco, not four." Though he didn't seem to be in a particularly coherent state, the raise of his eyebrows made it perfectly clear that he understood her.
"Well," he drawled, feeling particularly stung for no apparent reason. He was just itching to get to work, was all. That was all. "Good to see your arithmetic skills are intact."
Ginny rolled her eyes, dually grateful for and annoyed with his ability to turn things back to their usual tenor. "I abhor you," she said. "Now that's a five-letter word."
He followed her to the end of the hall, not wanting to wander in front of the windows completely bare-assed naked. He was trying to think of other five-letter words but came up short as she glanced out the window, saw there was no photographer, and breezed out the door.
Once she was gone, all he could think of was an entire plethora of four-letter words.