A/N: For urbanmama1, I wanted to get this posted before you skip town, and here it is! Whew! Can't believe I managed it :D I really hope you enjoy this chapter, as I hope everyone else does too! xx

Chapter Two - Lesson One

She held his hand until they reached his bedroom, suddenly leading him and pausing just inside the door to glance shyly back at him. He smiled, and she relaxed under his gaze as he ran a hand through his hair and closed the door behind them.

He swallowed as she shuffled her feet against his rug. It had been much easier to think about what came next when they'd been standing out in the open, with the sounds of the approaching storm to drown out the rapid beating of his heart. But now, they were here, in his room, utterly alone. And he knew so many things now, things he'd only allowed to rise to the surface as fantasies during his most quiet moments, the days before Harry would arrive for the summer... visions of Hermione's lips on his neck and other places that made him blush to recall...

"So..." he said, and he nearly laughed at how predictable it was, that little word you said when you had to break the tension... or die trying.

"So..." Hermione echoed, and it was the repetition that tugged the corners of his mouth up into a grin.

"You've gotta tell me what to do, or I'll just keep standing here," he said, the corners of his eyes creased with the intensity of his nervous smile.

Hermione rolled her eyes, and he bit his lip as tension melted away into familiarity.

"Ron, teachers always make you try on your own as well..."

He took a step in her direction. And she only just suppressed a gasp, leaving him wondering what kind of power he really had over her...

It became instantly impossible to move any closer, as if his feet were suddenly made of lead. So he extended a hand in her direction, waiting with his heart in his throat for her to take it. And she did. He tugged, and she stepped slowly closer, until she was nearly beneath him, his downward-tilted head acting as the eaves under which she took shelter.

Her eyes locked onto his, and he switched his intake of breath from nose to mouth, shallow puffs of air fluttering against the frizziest parts of her hair, framing her face. Letters strung themselves together in meaningless patterns, and he could do nothing but kiss her, knowing that anything he could say would spew from his lips as complete gibberish.

So he bent his neck, lifted a hand to the back of her neck, and crushed her lips against his slightly opened mouth. Her bottom lip slipped easily between his, and his knees bent, slack from shock as her body collided with his, torsos sealed together as his fingers curled around the back of her head. He allowed his shy tongue to trail hotly from right to left across her lip, feeling her body tremble against his as she moaned softly. He felt the vibration of her gentle urgency as she moaned again when his tongue moved away, up on her tiptoes now to gain better access. And he tried to catalogue the sounds she was making, the first as pleasure and the second as frustration. So she liked what he was doing before...

He shivered from sternum to toes, sliding his free arm around her waist to hook against the inward curve of her lower back. How did they fit so well together? Even her feet, now sliding on top of his, felt exactly right. But he had to be at least a foot taller than her. And his ribs were probably too jagged against her collarbone.

But yet... it was perfect.

He had only one experience to compare this one to, but he found that he couldn't exactly pull up the memories with Lavender properly, like Hermione's proximity acted as an eraser, distancing him even more from the things he'd tried not to think much about anymore anyway. He laughed into her mouth, cut immediately short when her tongue brushed up against his top lip. He groaned against her and opened his mouth to her, actually jolting against her with shock as her tongue met his. He'd only felt this intimacy with her one time before, a few minutes ago, in his bed. But this felt entirely different now, after their conversation outside. His head spun as he fully accepted the fact that he'd admitted to loving her. That she'd said it back...

…and her hand slipped under his shirt, palm flat against his skin.

He separated from her kiss, dragging her lip back for a moment as she resisted, shaking his head and sighing out a ragged breath against her nose.

"If it's already this good," he half-laughed, half-whispered, "then what happens later?"

She reached back to remove his hand from her head, sliding his palm around until she was pressing it to her own cheek. Her eyes drifted shut as she smiled contentedly.

"I don't know..." she said, "but it's going to be nice to find out." And then she opened her eyes, bit her lip, and he couldn't take another moment of their separation.

He crushed her body up against his, lifting her feet off the ground as he kissed her again. She squealed as her arms shot around him to steady her body, and he leaned back, arching his back to hold her weight against his chest. Their tongues met, his knees weakened, and he was sure he'd have to learn how to do this differently, if he hoped to survive his life with her...

Her fingers trailed up his spine to cut through the hairs at the nape of his neck, and he had had enough of remaining upright. He moved his head back, disconnecting his lips from hers again, and he registered a moment of frustration pass across her face before he grinned and tipped them sideways, on top of his bed. She squealed again, covering her mouth as she realized how loud she'd been, and he rolled against her, dragging her up to his pillow and half-covering her body as she reached down awkwardly. He furrowed his brow as her right hand slid down his side, around towards his back, and lower still.

"Hermione, what-" he began, but then her hand was halfway into his back pocket and he froze.

"I'm looking for your wand," she whispered, and as he sucked in a breath, he saw how flushed her cheeks had gotten in the past few seconds, and how shifty her eyes were.

"Other pocket..." he managed to whisper back, and she smiled shyly as she shifted underneath him to reach her left hand down his side now.

"I knew it was in your right. I'm just backwards... under you like this..." and as she found his wand and slipped it out of his pocket, he made futile, but desperate, attempts to stop physically reacting to every sodding thing she was doing and saying.

But now she was holding his wand, and bloody hell, he was far too turned on by something so innocent. She casually flicked it before twisting to set his wand on his bedside table. When she settled on her back again, he blinked at her, purposefully distracting himself with curiosity as he pondered what she could possibly have just done. She was too damn good at nonverbals now.

"What-" he began, but she grinned as she read his mind.

"Silencing charm, just in case, so we don't wake anyone..."

"Oh..." he mouthed, swallowing hard as all of the possible implications of needing a silencing charm nagged his brain, forcing him to forget most other things.

He moved his left hand, simply to get more comfortable. But his fingers caught the hem of Hermione's shirt and tugged it up, completely by accident... and his skin was against hers as his head dropped a few inches. And he couldn't move away, skin somehow magically glued to hers.

But he watched her eyes sparkle with some half-formed idea, clouded, no doubt, by their shared passion of moments ago...and when she opened her mouth, he held his breath.

"You should... do more of that..." she said, eyes flicking down in the vague direction of his left hand, still attached hopelessly to that tiny patch of exposed skin just above the hem of her pyjamas.

He rolled off of her, pressing his hand even tighter to her as he rebalanced on his side, facing her. And had he seen a flash of fear cross her face, or perhaps disappointment? She had no idea how much he wanted to touch every inch of her, did she?

Well. She probably did.

He grinned as she turned her head in his direction, fluffy curls spread far across his pillow.

"Okay, just tell me to stop if you don't like it..." he said through his grin, conflicting feelings in the fact that he'd never been so nervous and yet, he couldn't stop grinning proudly at her. Like he'd watched every moment leading up to this one, the height of her perfection.

But now, he had an idea.

With a timid palm, he lifted her shirt, revealing her belly button, stomach sinking and rising with her unsteady breathing. Her ribs came next, peeking one by one out from under thin cotton. And then, he stopped. And he lifted his hand up away from her skin, until only the tips of his fingers remained touching her. She shut her eyes, cheeks so flushed and soft...

And he moved his fingers, like feather tips against silk. She breathed out, muscles tightening before relaxing completely, as if turned instantly, and by his simple touch, to liquid.

He moved his fingers again, all the way to the edge of her torso, left until they curved down along her side. She moaned somewhere distant, as if lost in a dream. And he moved his hand again, back the way it had come.

"Oh, God... Ron, that feels amazing..." she said, writhing slightly beneath his hand as he moved his fingers again.

"Really?" he whispered, stunned and mesmerized to see tiny ripples of goose bumps along her skin in the wake of his fingers.

But in lieu of verbal confirmation, she reached across to take his hand, lifting it from her stomach to her lips. She opened her eyes, kissed the tips of his fingers, and let him go. He couldn't move or breathe, until her fingertips brushed across his own lips. He kissed her automatically, her index and middle fingers imprinting his tingling mouth. And he somehow knew exactly what she wanted him to do next. He dropped his head without pause for thought, and he pressed his lips to her belly button, as soft as he thought possible.

She gasped, arching her back to press her stomach further up against him. And in the midst of adrenaline-induced bravery, he managed to press his tongue to her skin, dragging it along the flat, smooth plane of her stomach, up until his nose tangled against her bunched-up shirt. He found himself nearly on top of her again, only making the realization when he felt his heart beating against her hipbone.

She tasted absolutely flawless. And that was really the only way he knew to explain it. It was as if he was tasting the pure essence that embodied her, stretching across her heart and soul to engulf everything he loved.

Her hands were on his back, and then somehow against his skin... and he pulled away to widen his eyes in her direction as she bunched his shirt up under his arms, lust flooding her eyes. And he tried to believe what he was seeing, though it was difficult, having the knowledge he did of his own appearance, narrow waist beneath reflectively white skin...

He nearly asked if she knew what she was doing, if this was what she really wanted, but he bit his tongue, remembering her speech and anticipating another annoyed eye roll if he dared to question her now. He smiled down to his toes and let her work pointlessly with his shirt, attempting to somehow get it off of him without moving his arms. But he finally took pity on her and rolled off of her to bend an arm behind his head, yanking from the back of his shirt, until he reemerged, bare-chested. He shook his hair out of his eyes as he dropped his shirt off the edge of the bed.

Hermione was propped up on her elbows, her shirt still bunched at her chest. Her eyes roamed, taking in the sight of his naked torso with greed.

"H-Hermione?" he whispered, as if calling out tentatively to a sleeping friend, not wanting to wake them, but needing to reach towards them, in some way, so he wouldn't be alone.

But then her fingertips were against his chin, the lightest touch he'd ever felt, and she moved them down, along the curve of his neck. He instinctively tilted his head back to allow her better access as his toes curled with pleasure. He rolled fully onto his side as she rolled onto her own, to face him, and her hand wandered lower, across bone and light ginger hairs, straight down until she stopped, halfway down his stomach. He forcefully held a deep breath as her index finger drew a circle around his belly button, and then again, increasing in circumference with each pass.

He swallowed a moan as her fingers explored lower still, stopping as she bit her lip, just at the top of his jeans. Right there.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked, and as he searched for her eyes, he found them locked onto her own hand, still paused, immovable, a mere centimetre north of the top button of his jeans.

Was she as nervous as her shy inquiry suggested?

"Absolutely..." was all he could manage through the tightened muscles of his jaw, clenched unknowingly until now, in an effort to keep everything still, quiet, and under control. She was so close to finding out how much he wanted her...

But she lifted her hand, rested her head against his pillow, and found his eyes in the dark. He found strength in her gaze, though he thought it ironic. The one person who could render him speechless also gave him the strength to speak.

"Before," he whispered, licking his suddenly dry lips, "I wanted to... touch every part of your skin." He blushed, but he didn't need to stop. Her eyes grew with wonder as he found her hand with his own, playing absentmindedly with her fingers. "It's so..."

He searched for the word as she waited. But he couldn't find it.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked earnestly, and he knew she could sense the quiet desperation hidden beneath his calm words.

She pushed away from the pillow and sat, and he watched her chest rise and fall deeply as she took a heavy breath, preparing herself... to remove her shirt completely, swiftly, dropping it to join his own on the floor, out of sight. She stared down at him, heaving each breath as she waited for him to approve.

He rolled fully onto his back, wide eyes on her worried lips.

"Y-You haven't answered my question," he whispered, and she began to laugh, a low rumble at first, but soon full and broad, teeth showing as she sank down on top of him, gasping through excitement as the skin of her stomach laid flat against his.

"You could kiss me, if you like," she grinned, and he mirrored her lips with his own before merging them once more into one.

It wasn't long this time until he found himself once again pinning her to the bed, and her leg wrapped around his like it was perfectly natural and normal, a gesture so automatic that it briefly stopped his heart.

He slid his lips away from her mouth, across her jaw, and down her neck. When she pressed her head deeper into the pillow, he knew he was doing the right thing. Was she showing him now, or had he completely taken over? It seemed unimportant to note who was teaching whom... and when he reached her collarbone, the noises she made caused him to forget all about keeping anything secret. His hips pressed firmly against hers, sliding lower to mold easily down along the curve of her thigh and knee. And then she did something entirely unpredictable… she bent her knee up between his legs, just as his lips cleared that first noticeable outward curve of her breasts. His head dropped more firmly against her, tongue blazing along her skin towards the top edge of her bra, and when he felt lace, he also felt her hand tighten in his hair, alerting him to the fact that he couldn't possibly take enough notes. He'd not even noticed her hands moving against him until her nails dug painfully into his scalp.

He made a meaningful sound of appreciation as she gasped, his tongue now making its way across the top of her bra, left to right. But as he dropped his head another inch and caught sight of that perfect swell, shockingly hardened tips beneath cotton, he shuddered against her and squeezed his eyes shut.

He felt sure that he wasn't supposed to complete the course in one lesson...

They breathed together, unchoreographed chaos, and finally, he felt her words before he truly heard them, tickling the top of his head.

"Your turn."

He swallowed, lifted his head, and blinked down at her. She nodded, and he was on his back before he could think straight. Her leg moved with him, but she sighed with irritation as her pyjamas twisted, and he watched her take note of his jeans, just as twisted now against his own legs.

Another bite of her own swollen lip, and he wondered if she could possibly be thinking what he was thinking...

But as he considered the likeliness of this prospect, she pressed her whole body to the side of his, and he gasped loudly, embarrassingly, at the renewed close contact. Her flushed cheeks puffed up as she grinned, and he shrugged with a lopsided smile, unable to hide under her careful scrutiny.

And then, her lips were sucking and biting at his right shoulder. And the world turned faster.

She wasted no time there, pausing only briefly to taste his collarbone, before dropping lower. He would have never known how nervous she was... if he hadn't been able to feel it reverberating through her bones, tiny shivers against his highly responsive skin.

And then, she did something he'd not thought she'd be bold enough to do. Her tongue flicked down first, and his whole body seized...

"Fuck..." he breathed, before he could stop himself.

But she must have known, from his lack of restraint, just how lost he was in every sensation, because she lowered her whole mouth, open and hot, against his nipple.

"Oh my God..." he sighed. He'd never, ever, known it could feel like this. "This... isn't... fair..." he choked out between her gentle nibbles, her hand now shaking its way across in the wake of her kisses, over his goose bump infested shoulder.

She finally lifted her head an inch from his body, and he found himself aching for the moment of her return. But then he could see how much he'd unraveled her, and he tried to focus.

"Was that okay?" she whispered, so small and light.

"Yeah! Bloody hell..." Sod it. He couldn't have held back his enthusiasm now if he tried. And he wasn'ttrying...

She giggled - actually giggled - and he grinned lovingly down at her as she looked up at him, her cheeks positively burning. His fingers ran airily down her spine, and she melted again beneath his touch.

"When I was really small," she said slowly, "Mum used to draw letters on my back with her fingers and I'd guess the message. Calmed me down when I had to get to sleep."

His smile softened as she closed her eyes.

"Well, flip over then, and I'll do you," he said, roots of his hair even trying to blush as he realized his extremely poor phrasing. But Hermione laughed and turned away from him, looking back over her shoulder at the last second to lift her eyes to his... and subsequently stop his heart in its tracks, yet again.

She bent her knees to relax as he rolled to his right side to face her mostly-naked back, leaving just enough space between them to reach a hand up to brush the length of her hair over her shoulder.

"Okay," he said, trying hard to be clever with his choice of secret message, but failing to manage it in such a state...

He touched the tip of his index finger to her warm skin, but he was distracted momentarily by the possibility of staring without her cross-examination. Finally, as if waking from a daydream, he remembered his task, and trailed his finger as softly as possible along her skin, listening for the telltale signs of her enjoyment, signs he'd learned so very much about in just one night...

He completed the 'I' and paused to let her consider it. And, exhaling contentedly, he began the 'G'. After the 'O', she shuffled against the mattress.

"I, G, O?" she questioned, and he could have almost bet she was wrinkling her nose in confusion as she tried to uncover his plan.

"You'll get it," he reassured her, and she settled again for the 'T'.

"Oh," she sighed, and he smiled as he breathed in the wonderful scent of her hair, nearly inhaling a few stray pieces as he lost his depth perception.

'Y', 'O', and then she shuffled again.

"Ron, what-"

But he added the 'U', and slid bravely closer to her as he dropped his hand.

"I got..." she paused, then laughed.

"'I love you' was too-" but he interrupted himself with a yawn... "-obvious."
Still laughing, she reached back and took his hand, drawing it over her body to rest against her stomach. He swallowed hard as his body seemed to move on its own ever closer to her, until the parts that weren't touching - along the zip of his trousers, the inward curves of his thighs - burned almost unbearably with the distance.

A distance of mere centimetres, yet endless miles.

"How did I do, on my first lesson?" he whispered into her hair, closing his eyes.

"You'll get an O for sure," she whispered back, and the last thing he remembered, before dreaming of her, was the feeling of her spine, pressing back more tightly, comfortingly, against his chest.