"Sleepy?" Charlie asked as Hermione curled in against his side.

"Yes and no," Hermione answered. "I feel all contented and mooshy. I could probably sleep if I tried, but I don't want tonight to end."

"It doesn't have to, yet," Charlie pointed out. Not wanting to dislodge Hermione if she was comfortable, he groped blindly between the mattress and the balcony doors until his fingers found his wand. Then, he performed several simple summoning charms. When they were complete, his reading glasses and Hermione's copy of 'With Soaring Wings' hovered together in the air and next to them hovered an eagle feather quill. "Take your choice, wife. How would you like to be entertained?"

Hermione's eyes widened and her teeth caught her lower lip. "You're evil. You might as well ask me to choose between rich dark chocolate and... more rich dark chocolate."

Charlie plucked the quill from the air and skimmed its tip slowly along her body, from the outside of her knee along the line of her thigh, over the womanly curve of her hip, which was emphasised by her current position and up to her waist.

Hermione gave a shuddering indrawn breath. "Summon my wand from wherever you threw it, husband," she requested, smiling a satisfied smile at the way the last word felt in her mouth, and Charlie willingly obliged. She took the book from the air, and cast a light-giving spell before she turned over and rested her wand by her side, so that she could maintain contact, and the spell, without holding it.

"I'll read the book. You keep the feather," she suggested.

Charlie summoned the pillows from the downstairs bedroom, tucking them under her head, so that her neck was no longer at an uncomfortable angle. "I could do both, if you held the book," he offered, tracing the newly-exposed line of her spine.

"If you did both, I would be too much of a quivering mess to hold the book," Hermione retaliated.

"Promises, promises," Charlie teased, "but, I'm saving that as an appetiser before the next full course." He lifted her hair away from her neck and shoulders, the better to trace the column of her throat, the line of her jaw and the curve of her ear with the edge of the vane.

"Chapter Ten," Hermione began before Charlie forced another shuddering intake of breath. "I'm never going to be able to read properly," she protested without much vehemence.

"Maybe not," Charlie agreed, whispering in her ear, "but do you know how sexy all those breathless little hitches are?"

"'Portia felt Edward's presence in the way her hackles rose before she turned and saw the angry expression he made no effort to hide.'" Hermione began, pausing occasionally when Charlie shifted the focus of his attack to a new area, or when he followed up by gently laving the sensitised flesh and either blowing on it or allowing the gentle night breeze to do it for him. "'He glared at her as if she had no right to be there, but Portia refused to be cowed. She lifted her chin and scooped a fresh glass from the tray of a nearby waiter, raising it in an ironic salute before she turned away from him with an indifference it cost her dearly to feign.'

"You're too damn distracting, Charlie!" Hermione exploded, dropping the book and spinning to face her husband, which caused her wand light to extinguish. "Swap!"

Charlie grinned and passed Hermione the feather before he picked up his glasses from the floor and slid them on. He pulled the pillows over and tucked them under his chest as he rolled onto his front and propped himself on his elbows. He lit his wand, placing it under his left forearm before he opened 'With Soaring Wings' and found where Hermione had left off.

"And you're still too damn distracting," Hermione complained, as she surveyed the breadth of his shoulders, the open-mouthed grin of his tattoo, and the succulent curves of his behind.

"If it upsets you so much, I'm sure I could put on fifty pounds if you keep cooking for me," he teased.

"Don't you dare!" Hermione ordered, "Not any time soon, anyway. I mean it's not as if I love you for your body... but it helps, and I want you to take care of your health, so that I can keep you around for a long long time. Now, read..." she added as she began to outline his tattoo with the quill, causing it to writhe sinuously under its touch.

"'A firm hand on her elbow steered her out onto the mansion's balcony before she could get over her surprise enough to protest. He slammed the doors behind them with more vigour than was necessary, and added an Imperturbable Charm.

"I didn't realise we had anything left to say that couldn't be said in public," Portia remarked dryly.

"Maybe I'm curious as to why you would turn up at a party where the guest speaker is someone for whom you have so little regard," Edward answered with equal coolness.

Portia could make so little sense of the latter part of his accusation that she focused on the first part. "You're the guest speaker?"

"You didn't even open it, did you?" Edward demanded.

"Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?" Portia asked coolly.

"Well, you... Look, I'm not an idiot. You made it patently obvious that you wanted nothing more than a one night stand—"

"I made it obvious?" Portia demanded. "I made it obvious?" She pressed her index finger into his chest, backing him up against the balcony doors as she spoke. "You're the one who snuck out of the hotel while I was sleeping."

"Only because I didn't want to disturb you!"

"So nice to know that you'd rather chew your arm off than wake me up! I suppose if I'm so hideous, that would explain your performance,"

"My performance?" Edward demanded. "I've heard three hour sermons that didn't mention God as often as you did."

"I faked it."

"No. You didn't. You trembled beneath my fingertips. Your heart raced when we kissed. I was stupid enough to think that meant something. I asked you to stay. I asked you to come here tonight as my guest. When I got back and you were gone, I never thought I would see you again, but instead you turn up with some other guy."

Portia let her hand slide under Edward's dinner jacket. "No, I didn't. I had an invitation all of my own. When did you ask me to stay?"

"In the letter you didn't bother to open."

"In the letter I never saw," Portia explained as she allowed her body to melt against Edward's.

"I left it on the pillow. I didn't want to go, but it was an emergency and you looked so peaceful."

"I wasn't, not for long. I have nightmares sometimes. I must have knocked the letter onto the floor before I woke up. I thought you sneaked out."

"Only in the literal sense," Edward assured her.

"I know. Now, will you shut up and kiss me?"

"With pleasure."'"

"So you aren't a womanising cad, after all?" Hermione asked, as she brushed her lips to one pertly rounded butt cheek.

"Come off it! Mum even managed to paint Ron lily white in the end, Why would she make me anything other than charming, debonair—"

"Conceited. Three hour sermons that mention God less often?" Hermione teased.

Charlie growled playfully and used an arm to tug her down on top of him as he rolled onto his back. "It's only conceited when it isn't true. Okay, so you don't actually do the 'Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!' thing, more 'Oh, Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!' but Mum wasn't all that far off the mark." He rolled them back over and began to pepper her neck and shoulders with kisses.

"Already?" Hermione asked.

"I'm always ready to hear you scream my name, my angel," Charlie answered, working his way down Hermione's body with butterfly caresses, "and there's more than one way to do that."

Hermione almost growled with frustration as he titillated the underside of her breasts. Threading her fingers into his hair, she drew him back to her nipples and keened her pleasure as he nipped and sucked at them before stroking them with callused thumbs. "I can't reach you, when you're down there," she protested.

"Then don't try," Charlie purred."Lie back and let it all wash over you. Nature says you can come half a dozen times for my one. If I take pleasure in watching that happen, are you going to deprive us both because you have some mental score sheet?"

"Stop using logic at me," Hermione protested.

"Only if you stop being illogical. Pander to my manly pride a little. Let me look back on our wedding night and know that I made you come so often we lost count."

"Uh-Huhhh!" Hermione shook her head. "I'd be red raw in the morning. Six."

"Ten?" He raised an eyebrow and smiled that mischievous smile that still made her knees go wobbly.

"Six?"

He continued to fondle her breasts with his hands as his head moved lower, sometimes gently kneading her whole breast, sometimes rolling her nipples between thumb and forefinger, sometimes tracing delicate circles with his fingertips. His lips trailed a wandering path, taking in her rib cage before meandering down her side. He sucked gently at her hip bone before sliding over to savour her navel and winding down the outside of her opposite thigh to her knee. He lifted her leg to reach the tender seam at the back of the joint and then worked his way back along her inner thigh where he skipped right over her most sensitive spots to play hide and seek with her tattoo as it frolicked around her bikini line.

"Charlie?" she moaned and this time she wound her fingers in his hair to push him lower. "If you were a girl, they'd call you a cock tease! If you want me to relax, you better damn well do something."

"Ten," Charlie insisted.

"Eight," Hermione countered breathlessly.

"Done," he agreed as he tucked her legs over his shoulders.

---

---

The morning sky had already taken on a pinkish tinge as Hermione leaned back against her husband's chest and enjoyed the gentle pummelling of the bath's water jets. "If I get purple ear hair, I'm blaming you," she pointed out.

"There's not enough Murtlap in one of those balls to overdose. If there was, I'd have had a problem long ago. Think how much you're diluting it in the bath water," Charlie assured her.

"I was just making sure you knew," Hermione sighed happily as Charlie began to work shampoo into her hair. "How long do you think we've got before our parents get here?"

"Three, maybe four hours," Charlie guessed by the level of ambient light.

"Long enough to watch the sun rise, before we go back bed, then."

"Long enough to watch the sun rise," Charlie agreed.

"Long enough to pour yoghurt all over your stomach and lick it off?" she asked archly.

Charlie burst out laughing. "You've already gone over your self-imposed limit for the night, witch. Your food fetish will have to keep..."

Hermione rolled onto her front in order to claim a kiss before she rolled back again, and ducked her head under the water, rinsing the lather from her hair. "Now who's keeping score?" she asked.