A Game of Cat and Mouse

Title: A Game of Cat and Mouse

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: H/Hr

Category: Drama/Romance (SWS, basically)

Summary: Out in the wilderness, Hermione discovers feelings for Harry that she didn’t know she had. Like every other fic ever written, basically, but out in the woods. Ooh.

Disclaimer: Not mine…but I think HP seriously needs a series in the erotica section.

A/N: This may or may not suck, and it may or may not be plausible, but it’s kinda hot, so I’m posting it anyway.

They’re on the run…on the hunt. It’s been this way for months now, hiking through the countryside, doing everything the Muggle way. Voldemort has a harder time tracking them that way; he’s forgotten Muggle methods, and his followers never knew them.

Ron’s no longer with them. His family needed him, and Harry insisted he go.

Now it’s just the two of them. Sleeping huddled together against the cold under a makeshift tent. Living off the wilderness and what they can obtain from the little towns they pass. It’s a bizarre existence that neither of them is used to, and it gradually awakens something strange and primal within them the longer it lasts.

He clings to her in his sleep, as if subconsciously seeking the comfort of her body and simultaneously begging her not to leave him. As if she ever could.

He watches her whenever she bathes in the small streams they tend to camp near. She knows it started as him looking out for her, making sure nothing attacked her when she was at her most vulnerable, but he is elementally a male. He watches her now, hidden in the trees, with lust and yearning, and she never lets on that she knows. She understands his needs, and she understands her own. In this new life they’re living, she’s willing to accept that she likes the way he looks at her.

Sometimes she puts on a bit of a show for him, stripping her clothes off with greater care than she normally would, running her hands over her body in a way that would make any hot-blooded male sweat. Sometimes she hears him groan from his hiding place while he gets off on it. She doesn’t feel so helpless when she knows she has that kind of power over him.

One particularly cold night they hold each other as close as possible, but body heat alone isn’t enough. Under the cocoon of blankets and cloak’s they’ve made, she reaches under his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin. His responding shortness of breath draws her to his lips like a moth to a flame. He responds eagerly with hands and mouth, delving under her shirt and palming her breasts. Their kisses and caresses grow languid as the heat of arousal allows them the comfort to fall asleep.

After that night, she finds herself becoming more of an exhibitionist when she goes to bathe. The water is becoming increasingly more frigid as winter approaches and her stomach clamors for a full meal, but the heat of his gaze allows her to forget all that for a time. She focuses all her attention into teasing him, angling herself to give him an eyeful, bringing water up to her chest to let it run down her body in rivulets for his eyes to chase, subtly touching herself in the most intimate of places.

It becomes a game to her after awhile, and she extends it to all aspects of their life. When she’s not thinking about horcruxes and Voldemort, she’s devising new ways to arouse the boy she’s for so long considered her completely platonic best friend.

At night she presses her body into his so that he can feel her curves, and if he spoons against her for warmth, she’ll squirm and stretch against him until she can feel him grow hard, nestled against her backside.

During the day, she brushes against him whenever she can, bends strategically to give him a nice view of her breasts or backside, finds discrete ways to touch him ‘accidentally’ in intimate places. He is, in his typical male way, oblivious to the thoughts running rampant in her head, but he reacts brilliantly to her machinations all the same. She is slowly and deliberately seducing him, and she enjoys it.

She likes the way his breath quickens when she whispers in his ear, letting her lips brush against his skin. She likes the way he jumps a little when her hand ‘accidentally’ bumps into his bum or crotch as they walk. She loves the look on his face when she shows him a nice stretch of skin. A part of her doesn’t know why she’s doing this. Another part of her doesn’t care; it only wants to see that look on his face while he’s hovering over her, cock poised at her entrance.

Fucking Harry has become her greatest obsession. She imagines his sighs against her skin, calloused thumbs against her nipples, long fingers stroking and probing her sex. She wonders how his hips would rest between her thighs, what his cock would feel like against her palm, if his skin is salty to the taste.

At some point, she knows she’s crossed a line in her mind. What started as an escape from reality has become something more…something much more…a passion, a fire, a desire deeper than lust.

At some point, he’s become her whole world. She’s paying attention to things she never did about him before – things like the cleft in his chin, the lock of his hair that falls so gracefully over his scar in its own disorderly way, the tiny scar on the middle finger of his left hand that she doesn’t know how he got. She catalogues these things carefully.

Maybe she only feels this way because he’s the only person she’s had contact with for at least a month. Maybe the lack of civilization is wearing down her inhibitions.

Or maybe she’s just falling for him.

“It’s getting too cold to keep doing this without magic,” Harry says to her one night in what must be late October. She isn’t quite sure, but she knows he’s right. Even his body around her isn’t enough to stave off the chill. “I think we need to start finding places to stay the night.”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed. “Voldemort will have a harder time tracking our stays in hostels than warming charms.”

“All right,” Harry says. “Tomorrow, we’ll keep an eye out along the way.”

Hermione agrees, but she wonders if she heard a bit of sadness in his voice, if he’s thinking about not being able to watch her anymore…and she has to admit to herself that she’s going to miss it, too.

Perhaps, she thinks, it’s time to finish seducing him.

The next day they do find a place to stay the night, a cottage being rented out to tourists and travelers. It’s not much, but it has a bathroom and a bed, and after their time in the wild, it sounds like heaven to Hermione.

She showers and shaves her legs, and she wonders if he’s wondering about her, if he’s fantasizing about what she’s doing, if he’s out there with his cock in his fist and his mind full of her. The thought makes her squirm with need and steels her resolve. It’s time.

Stepping out of the steamy bathroom, she watches the expression on his face as he takes in her soaked curls, rosy cheeks, and the bathrobe that dips low between her breasts.

“Your turn,” she says, walking past him to sit on the end of the bed. He stares a moment longer and then turns abruptly, scooping up a bundle of clothes as he leaves.

Hermione waits for the sound of the shower spray before she starts to prepare herself.

When the door opens once more, she’s positioned herself on the bed, her robe riding as high up as she can get it without revealing everything. She’s languidly rubbing lotion into her thigh when Harry sees her and stops dead in his tracks. She smiles.

“It’s been forever since I’ve shaved,” she says. “Feel how soft my legs are now.”

He steps forward hesitantly, and when he’s close enough, she grasps his hand and guides it up her calf for him, watching his eyes trace the path of his fingers. His face is flushed, his muscles tensed under his T-shirt, and there’s a noticeable bulge in his boxers. She leans closer.

“Feels nice, doesn’t it?”

He nods dumbly as her forward position gives him a better view of her cleavage.

“Harry…I know you’ve been watching me,” she whispers. His eyes dart up to hers.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” His hand jerks away, but she catches it in her own.

“I’m not angry,” she says gently. “But I knew all along, Harry.”

He frowns bemusedly. “Why…why didn’t you –“

“I didn’t say anything because I liked it.”

Harry quirks an eyebrow. “You’ve been teasing me, haven’t you?”

Hermione shrugs delicately. “I like the way you look at me.” She reaches for the tie of her robe, tugs it undone, and leans back as it falls open. “But I want more than looking now.”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and his eyes rake over her as if he’s never seen her before, but he doesn’t move, hesitating and unsure. Slowly, surely, as if approaching a timid animal, she rises and lets the robe fall from her shoulders. His eyes flicker over her breasts and stomach, the fingers of his right hand twitch, but still, he doesn’t move. She finally places her hand on the back of his neck and pulls his mouth to hers.

His reaction is surprisingly immediate. Seeker reflexes, she thinks as his tongue strokes hers and his hands, tickling her waist, draw her closer. The shocks of pleasure to her center are everything she was hoping for.

She draws him back, onto the bed, onto her, his warm weight pressing against her hardened nipples and into her hips. She tugs at the hem of his T-shirt, eager for his skin, and he pulls back to shed the garment. His body is lovely, and she sets about memorizing it, tracing the ridges of his abdomen, circling his nipples. Impatiently, he claims her mouth again before he moves to her neck, suckling at her pulse point and nipping at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. His hands, in the meantime, stroke her sides and cup her breasts. He works lower and uses his lips and tongue against her, nursing hungrily at each nipple as her body floods with heat and she squirms against him, desperate for the feel of his cock against her sex.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against her stomach just before his tongue dips into her navel. “Couldn’t help myself.”

She strokes his damp hair as his breath flows hotly across her stomach. She waits breathlessly as he slips lower still, and then she feels his lips graze across her labia and his nose brush her clit. His tongue laps hungrily at her slit, and she holds on for dear life as his ministrations drive her quickly and steadily over the edge. The sensation is powerful as his tongue works its way inside her, and as his hands graze her thighs, she goes spiraling overboard.

All at once, he is on top of her with his cock pressing at her weeping entrance, and before she comes down from her high he is inside of her.

Her body tenses at the unexpected invasion, but at the same time there is a fullness, a delicious stretching sensation that she wants more of. He feels perfect inside her, long and hard and hot, not overwhelming, just enough…just right for her. They’re right.

He’s been still for her, kissing and caressing, but now he starts to move. The friction is like electricity that sweeps through her nerves and sets her skin aflame. Every sensation – the head of his cock against her walls, the light tickling of his hair against her skin, the slap of his testicles against her bum – arouses her that much more. This is real, so, so very real, as much dirty and sticky as it is beautiful and pleasurable, and she loves the reality of sex with Harry. It’s him and her, together, mingling sweat and sharing skin – she’s fucking Harry and the very thought turns her on.

Her blood boils in her veins and pounds in her ears as her second orgasm hits. She grasps him with all her body, bucks and screams and breathes his name, and he pumps frantically into her until she is flooded with his release, and it seeps out between them as he thrusts one last time and collapses against her.

He rolls off her and she waits for him to speak. She’ll not be the first; she’s determined. She started it all, and if she has her way, he’ll be the one to finish it.

It is quiet, too quiet, as their breathing slows to a normal pace and she avoids looking at him.

“I thought you were a virgin,” he finally says, and she wonders why that, of all things, is what he comes up with first.

“I am,” she says quickly, then meets his eye with a blush. “I was, I mean. My hymen broke when I was eleven,” she explains. “During a flying lesson, when I fell off my broom.”

“So…so I didn’t hurt you, then?” he asks, and the concern in his voice makes her want to melt into a puddle of goo.

“No, I’ll just be a little sore…but that’s normal.”

Harry turns tentatively on his side to face her. She likes the sight of him disheveled and coated in sweat – at least, she likes knowing it’s her handiwork that got him that way.

“What we did…what does it mean?” he asks.

She turns to face him, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. “What do you want it to mean.”

Harry shrugs uncomfortably. “I…I need you with me, Hermione. I don’t know if I can do this without you. So…so I’ll take whatever I can get.”

Hermione feels her heart swell. “Do you want all of me, then? This is…more than just lust or hormones or…something?”

He nods. “I do…I want it all.”

“Good,” she says, reaching for him, “Because I need to be with you.”

There is nothing more to be said. She knows and he knows that, whatever obstacles they met along the way, this is the way it’s supposed to be. As he lifts the blankets over them, they seal it with a kiss – they belong to each other.

His body curls around hers, and this night, her mind is not controlled by lust, but love. Finally, they are warm, and fed, and – relatively – safe, and she no longer needs her escape into fantasy. The reality, she finds, is much better.

The End

A/N: Well, I decided to write a second installment in this universe, inspired largely in part by a manip mmefleiss did for the first part, located here - http://mmefleiss.livejournal.com/51270.html - which is NOT work safe, by the way. It is lovely, however, and it made me want to write some wilderness smut. So here you go.

~

She thought things would be easier after they had sex. She thought she’d be able to focus, that she’d be satisfied.

Instead, the problem is worse. Every hour of every day, she feels his eyes on her, and her blood rises in response, flushing her skin, and at those times, she can think of nothing but having his hands on her.

They only spend their days in the wilderness now, finding what shelter they can for the nights. They don’t get as much sleep as they should, naked and tangled under their sheets. Harry finds his way inside her at least once a night, sometimes twice, sometimes more. He never tires of her, and she is glad because she doesn’t know what she would do if he stopped touching her.

He no longer watches her bathe; he helps. Usually, they have a bathroom where they stay. He follows her into the shower, washes her hair with firm but gentle fingers, lathers the soap between his hands before he spreads it over her body, over her breasts – suds clinging to her nipples – down her stomach, between her legs. Sometimes he’ll let her rinse off before he takes her against the shower wall. Sometimes he can’t wait, and she likes those times better. Those are the times when he thrusts into her as if his life depends upon it and when they finish, she has to clutch him to stay standing.

Sometimes there is only a bathtub, and then their activities make a terrible mess. They are too enthusiastic to avoid sloshing.

And then there are the times when there is no bath, and they go back to the streams to bathe. Harry isn’t so helpful then; he likes the way her nipples harden in the cold and the way her skin looks against the autumn leaves. He washes her a little unconventionally then, with his tongue, following the trails of water along her body right into the crevice between her legs. She doesn’t mind his methods.

Now and then, she wonders how much of what they do is about them and how much is about escape. She knows she loves him with every ounce of her being. He has been her world for as long as she can remember. He is her purpose in life.

Their sex isn’t often loving, though. It’s hurried and rough and animalistic. There are no leisurely caresses or tender gazes.

One day, they are walking, quite ordinarily through another ordinary wood. They don’t speak; there’s nothing much left to talk about. Harry walks slightly behind her, and she can feel his eyes on her, so she chooses to provoke him. Subtly, but with rather good acting skill, she thinks, she drops her wand, and bends over at the waist to retrieve it.

When she stands up, he is upon her, turning her around forcefully. She sees a flash of fire in his eyes before his lips are crashing onto hers, invading her. She welcomes him in, undeniably turned on by his aggression. She wants to be taken.

He turns them, and then her back is against a tree. The lumpy bark jabs into her skin, but the feeling only adds to the growing arousal between her legs. She wants him there as soon as possible.

His hands burrow under her shirt and palm and squeeze her bare breasts as he continues his assault on her mouth. She is moaning, keening, arching into his rough hands that pinch and tease her nipples.

His hands slip down and his lips shift to her neck as she clings to her shoulders, and she is about to protest when she feels him pop the button of her jeans and tug down the zipper. She struggles for breath as he shoves down her pants and his teeth nip at her skin. Her underwear is next, the elastic biting into her skin as he yanks them down. With one hand he struggles to undo his own fastenings; with the other, he probes her sex, torturing her clit and pressing firmly inside her with two fingers. She moans and tries desperately to kick her pants off over her shoes; eventually, she decides to rid herself of all of it, shoes included.

He finally opens his pants and pushes them down with his boxers, freeing his upright cock. Hermione is completely ready when he hoists her up, the tree scratching her bum, and nothing short of impales her.

She curses loudly as he his thrusts begin, hard, fast, and deliberate. The rough friction, inside and out, sets her ablaze. Soon she is only whimpering, almost crying as the sensation threatens to consume her completely. She needs release like she never has before.

Harry grunts and growls like a rutting animal as he nears his climax, and she is begging for hers, clutching all around him, digging her fingers into his shoulders.

Then it is upon her, flaring up inside her, and she almost sobs in relief. She clenches and then explodes, crying out into the forest. Fire flows through her veins and she shudders, completely overcome as he cries out his release and spills out inside her.

As her nerves settle down to a slow tingle and her legs start to shake, she realizes he hasn’t even taken the knapsack off his back. She wonders what drives them to this, to this frantic coupling at the faintest signal.

They clean themselves up and carry on.

And through this sexual haze, they are getting no closer to their goal. They’ve found not one horcrux in the many places they’ve searched. Each failure leaves Harry more frustrated, and Hermione more hopeless. She has no answers for him, and she doesn’t know how to find them. She doesn’t know why she’s there if she can’t help him.

He is cursing as they come out of another cave empty-handed. She is silent, solemn.

“Let’s find somewhere to stay while there’s still light,” he says, briskly, and she can only nod and follow.

They find an inn in a small village, a little shabby, but clean. Harry takes his shower without her and goes to bed. She has her turn in the bathroom and stays up, reading, researching. She must find the answers.

Hours later, her eyes are beginning to blur, but she presses on.

“Hermione, come to bed,” Harry says, startling her. She turns in her chair to look at him.

“I’m not done yet.”

“You’re going to be too tired to walk tomorrow. Come to bed,” he tells her, and reluctantly, she does so, feeling his words like a weight. She is a burden now. She has no answers, and she cannot find them; if she keeps searching, she won’t be able to keep up. She has nothing to offer.

Reluctantly, she turns out the light she’s been reading by and joins him in the small, rickety bed. He draws her into his arms, but she feels more isolated from him than ever. She thinks he is sleeping when she starts to cry, but he is awake to notice.

“What’s wrong, Hermione?” he asks quietly.

She tenses, sorry to have shown him anything. She would rather suffer in silence.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, eyes glittering in the darkness. “I know you better than that.”

She sighs and looks away. “I can’t find the answers anymore,” she says. “I can’t help you…I have nothing left to offer.”

“Hermione, I don’t need you for answers. I need you because you keep me sane.” He pulls her closer and kisses the back of her neck. “You’re the reason I get up every morning. I couldn’t do this without you.”

She wants to believe him, wants to be needed and loved, but she needs proof. She turns over and reaches for him under the covers.

“Is it…because of the sex?” she asks.

“No! I mean, it’s great, but it’s because of you, just…who you are. I mean, that’s why I can’t keep my hands off you. It’s just…you. I need you.”

She sighs and sinks into his embrace. “Really?”

“Really,” he kisses her forehead and traces down her spine. She tilts her head up and finds his lips, chapped but eager for hers. Her body molds against his and all is right with the world again.

He rolls her gently onto her back, still kissing her with a slow passion that spreads heat throughout her body. No one but Harry has this effect on her.

Off goes the T-shirt she put on for bed, replaced by Harry’s hands, stroking fire over her stomach and breasts. She writhes and his mouth moves to better satisfy her, suckling down her neck, to her chest, where he licks and bites her nipples until she wants to beg him to get inside her.

Lavishing kisses on her stomach, he peels off her flimsy cotton panties, fingers trailing down her legs as he does so, making her squirm again. He’s very good at what he does.

Back up her legs he goes, up to her center that burns for him. He caresses her aching clit with his tongue, probes inside her just enough to tease, strokes her trembling thighs with steady hands. She whimpers.

Still working her closer to the edge, he removes his boxers and slides up her body, his chest brushing against hers as his manhood brushes against her folds. She reaches for him, consumed by the need to touch him, to feel the hard muscle of his back and know he’s hers.

Harry kisses her deeply and then his cock surges inside her. She moans, ecstatically full.

He moves over her and inside her, pushing another thought from her mind with every thrust and every brush of skin on skin. His lips meet hers often, as if he’s desperate for them to be joined every way possible. She knows the feeling well.

She is flooded with heat, struck with a new wave of tingling pleasure every time he moves inside her, caressing her sensitive walls, and she clutches at him, feeling her release growing closer…eminent, so that unless he stops this very moment, she will come gloriously.

He thrusts into her again, panting into her ear as he does so, and the whisper of breath beckons her to her release, to clench all around him and cry out as she is taken over completely by sensation, lights flashing behind her eyelids as her climax hits every nerve in her body.

She bucks against him and trembles with aftershocks, sparks still flying where they’re joined and her toes still curled with pleasure.

He grows frantic as he continues pumping into her, almost growling as he chases her release, and she helps him on, pressing against him and kissing his mouth and neck and squeezing him inside her, urging him to let go.

He does so with a cry and after a few sharp thrusts as he explodes within her, he collapses against her, his sweaty body covering her own as he catches his breath.

“That might be the best it’s ever been,” she whispers, and he doesn’t reply verbally, but she feels his enthusiastic nod against her shoulder.

He rolls over and gathers her against him. Their skin sticks slightly as she slides her thigh over his.

“I love you,” she admits, looking not into his eyes but at the smooth skin of his shoulder.

“I love you, too,” he says. She meets his eyes in the darkness and knows that it’s true.

They’ll be all right.

The End

Again.

A/N 2: This isn’t going to be a WIP now. It’s just become a two-shot instead of a one-shot. No more chapters, unless I get inspired again.