R/T Fic: Another Kind of Magic, Part Four
Title: Another Kind of Magic (4/7 + Prologue & Epilogue)
Authors: godricgal and mrstater
Illustrator: hrymfaxe
Format & Word Count: chaptered fic, this part weighs in at 3990 words
Rating & Warnings: R for sex (this part contains an image that is NWS)
Summary: Something magical has been brewing between Remus and Tonks all summer long. But what happens when an Order assignment requires them to do things the Muggle way?
Authors' Notes: Written for the occasion of gilpin25's birthday, October 25, 2008.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
Part Four
Remus wasn't entirely sure where he was when he woke, but as he took in, through blinking eyes, the strange light filtering in through dark curtains, the unfamiliar furniture looming in morning shadows, and -- in comparison to the heavy blankets that made up his bed at Grimmauld -- the much lighter weight of the duvet above him, the sight of Tonks asleep beside him brought to mind her words from the previous night about feeling at home with him: new and exciting though it was, waking to find Tonks next to him felt as natural as anything could. An entire morning and afternoon in this pseudo-life lay ahead of them, presenting a world of possibilities, each of which had the potential to be more terrifying than the one before, but Remus only felt a pleasant sense of anticipation for whatever might come next.
If Tonks hadn't been so very real and warm beside him, Remus wondered if he would have had no other option but to put his memories of the previous evening down to a dream fuelled by hope and long-suppressed desire. But her lips were still faintly reddened; her hair was tousled beyond the norm after a night's sleep. His stomach turned over pleasantly at the thought of what they'd done last night: from getting ready for bed together, sharing a sink and mirror as they'd brushed their teeth, exchanging what could only be described as silly toothpaste foam grins between their reflections, to slipping beneath the covers and finding a perfect niche in each others' arms, nothing but thin pyjama material between them; he was fairly certain they'd spent a couple of hours, time passing like rivulets of falling water, doing nothing but sharing kisses that started soft and slow before crescendoing to something much more fiery and purposeful.
No longer able to tolerate the space that the night had put between them, inconsiderable in normal terms though it was, Remus reached for Tonks. She rolled into is arms so naturally, as though she'd done it before in dreams, not really waking, but wrapping an arm around his middle as her head fell to his shoulder. Remus felt a swell of affection that puffed up in his chest as he was struck with a desire to have her awake beside him. For a few minutes he simply watched her, taking in all that she was in restful repose, but then he pressed a long kiss to her forehead, ran his hand, flat-palmed, up her arm to her neck, where his thumb passed over the muscles there and then travelled further, across her jaw.
Tonks stirred softly, her arm tightening briefly around him as her knee pushed between his thighs so that their legs entwined. He kissed her again, this time high on her cheekbone, and she blinked sleepily once, twice, then looked up at him though heavily-lidded eyes.
"Morning," he whispered.
"Mm," was the only reply she made as her eyes fluttered closed again; but he didn't miss the smile that was only just shy of becoming a full grin begin to spread across her face as she buried it in his shoulder.
For a while, Remus stroked her hair and pressed the odd kiss to her forehead and temple, but then his hand drifted down to her waist where he slipped it under the hem of her pyjama top to trace filigree patterns across her lower back, then followed the path of her spine to her shoulder blades. He felt her breath quicken against his neck; every so often she inhaled sharply and her body arched towards him as her hand clutched at his t-shirt. He loved that he could do that to her and each response to his touch made him want to touch her more, to tease out more vocal responses, to see if he could push her over the edge...
He rolled her onto her back and looked at her for a moment, searching her face for a hint of doubt or reluctance about what he was doing, but he found only a slightly dazed expression and a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth that clearly said she was very pleased for him to carry on. Thus assured, he once again slipped his fingers under her top until his hand rested on her tummy, smooth and firm, then he bent his head to kiss her lips for the first time that morning. They were soft and yielding as he moved across them in a kiss so slow that he felt as though he was melting into her, or she into him. When she opened her mouth and the warm wetness of her tongue met and slid against his, Remus felt himself slip way into a world in which nothing existed beyond the covers that shielded them from the cool of the early summer morning.
Tonks gasped when his thumb brushed the underside of her breast, her breath sending shivers down Remus' spine. Her head fell back to the pillow, leaving Remus' mouth to forge a path down her chin to her neck, tasting her skin as he went. Her hands at his back made their way under his t-shirt, pulling him closer against her. It wasn't long before his fingers made their way down to the hem of her top, this time with the intention of pulling it off. But before he did so, he met her eyes in question. At her affirmative nod, Remus wasted no time in helping her to sit up so he could pull the garment from her body, letting his fingers trail across her bare skin as he did so. Even as he was dropping the top over the side of the bed, Tonks' moved to remove his own top, and with those layers between them gone -- abandoned on the floor, they sank back onto the bed together.
In relationships past, awkwardness and guilt, overshadowed by a relentless doubt that pervaded every thought, had precluded intimacy on this level. But this was...beyond anything...a realisation of so many dreams, and even if it seemed, in academic terms, somewhat premature to be thinking of it as an experience or forward step in his existence that fell into the category of life-changing, that was exactly how it felt, even as he lived it.
He could touch Tonks with confidence because he trusted her to say if it became too much. So he lowered his mouth to her breast, pulled her nipple into his mouth with lips and tongue, savouring each move she made in response, every sound. He felt sure and safe in entrusting his heart to her, and their eyes met often, unguarded, as they learnt each other in this new way.
And indeed, these explorations were, entirely, mutual. The pleasure evoked by Tonks' touch was mingled with wonderment that he was wanted by someone as amazing as her; that she could be so evidently delighted to run her fingers through his hair, to rub her cheek against the stubble on his, to taste the hollows of his collarbones and throat as if they contained something sweet and delicious; that she, inexperienced as he and in full knowledge of what he was, would be so bold as to sweep her hands down to his hips, exposed by his low-slung pyjama bottoms, to let her index finger trace the trail of hair from his navel down beneath his shorts, tugging, slightly, at the waistband, which made him suck in his stomach as a thrill coursed up from the place on his skin where her finger rested.
Her kisses last night had been enough to affect him as they did now, and of course with their legs tangled and their bodies pressed tightly together, she could have been in no doubt of it. Then, she'd made no move to encourage anything further, and he'd been equally content to ease into this shift in their relationship, to savour her lips and tongue and the tantalizing contours of her body through her clothes. Now, though, she was ready for more, for all of him -- he read it in the eagerness and certainty he found in her expressive dark eyes, the mirrors into her very soul, and it compelled him to divest himself of the rest of his clothing.
As he shimmied out of his boxers, Tonks, flinging off her own pyjama bottoms, moved to peel off her underwear.
"Wait," said Remus, impulsively. "May I?"
Tonks flushed as she lay back against the crisp white bed linens, but her smile was one of being absolutely pleased by his request.
"I'm all yours," she said, and, naked, Remus stretched himself out beside her, his lips pressed to her shoulder as he skimmed his fingers over the bright pink cotton of her knickers, watching her eyes glaze and her lower lip catch between her teeth as he explored her secret places through the thin cotton, loving that he could make her feel these sensations, bring her this physical pleasure.
During the night she'd told him that she'd never been with anyone before, not for lack of opportunity, but for wanting to save this special act of intimacy for the right person. No one had ever felt right to her, she'd told him, and he'd scarcely believed that look in her eyes could mean he was the right person. But now, as she breathed his name and covered his hand with hers, guiding his fingers up to the narrow bikini-cut top of her knickers, he believed it; though he hesitated at the enormity of this, the fortune that had, for once, deigned to favour him, her other hand touched him in such a way that rendered him powerless to do anything but remove her knickers and position his body over hers.
Holding his weight off her, he placed his hand in the warm V between her legs and closed his eyes and remembered the contraceptive charm he'd committed to heart so many years ago at Sirius' insistence, though Remus himself had scarcely harboured the hope that he'd ever be lucky enough to have the opportunity to utter it.
As he opened his mouth to speak the words, his eyes snapped open.
"The mission!"
Tonks blinked at him. "It doesn't say no sex."
"No, but it says no magic. I almost performed a contraceptive charm."
"Oh!"
For a moment they stared at each other, asking each other with their eyes what they should do.
"Well," Tonks said at last, bucking her hips up against his hand and grinning mischievously, "I reckon we'll just have fun figuring out how to do it like Muggles."
Her grin seemed pushed away by her scrunched forehead. "Erm, do you know how Muggles do it?"
Remus dropped onto one elbow, running a hand through his hair. "Actually, I do." When she looked at him with an arched eyebrow that clearly said 'Do tell,' he quickly added, "Thanks to Sirius, who went out with a Muggle girl one summer. Mainly to wind up his parents. From all accounts, I'm not at all sure fun really comes into it."
"Why? What do they do?"
Remus scratched his neck, wondering how he could be lying here, naked, with Tonks, and yet still feel embarrassed as he recalled that awkward teenage conversation.
"They've these things called condiments."
"Condiments?" Tonks' eyes were round with incredulity. "You mean like ketchup or relish?"
"No." Chuckling, Remus rested his hand on her pale, flat belly. "They're apparently these rubber things that go on..."
He found himself loath to continue -- the clinical nature of the topic was rather a mood-breaker -- but Tonks wasn't following him. "Go on what?"
"Erm...the man."
"Oh." Tonks looked away, her hair spreading out on the pillow. "I don't really like the sound of rubber. Makes it seem a bit impersonal, doesn't it? Like putting gloves on to touch each other."
"Quite. And talking of condiments, I don't relish the idea of poking about in some chap's drawers for his contraceptives."
Tonks wrinkled her nose. "Merlin knows what we might find."
Remus was glad Tonks was following his line of thought and didn't seem to be in favour of hunting for Muggle sex toys, but he sighed heavily. "This doesn't exactly solve our dilemma."
Turning her face to him again, Tonks said, "Of course it does."
"Oh?"
"What's losing another few points when we've already lost so many?" She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled his head down so she could say huskily in his ear, "I've wanted you for a long time, Remus Lupin, and I'll be damned if we don't do this properly."
Remus didn't lose a second replacing his hand over her. Again he was interrupted before he could get out the words, this time by Tonks.
"You do a wandless Contraceptive Charm? Very smooth."
Unable to help himself grinning widely with pride -- he'd worked especially hard to do so, after Sirius' accounts of how terribly awkward it was messing about with a wand when there were other wands mixed into the equation -- Remus said, "I always thought the young lady would prefer I have my hands occupied with other things..."
He moved his fingers, and Tonks moaned. "Indeed."
Remus whispered the charm. And then, with nothing at all between them anymore, he stretched over her once more, and, after looking into her eyes for a long moment, he kissed her deeply and pressed into her.
She was trembling in his arms, breathing heavily, which matched completely his own demeanour.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she said, her voice trailing off into a half-moan as he lowered his weight more completely onto her. "You?"
Remus inclined his head until her lips just touched his. "Never more so."
He pressed his lips into hers, hard at first, but then softening as he kissed her again, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth as her hips rose slightly beneath him and he pushed his down against her. The sounds that echoed between them at this simple movement electrified him. She felt amazing around him, so warm, and Remus found it hard to believe that it was him, them, sharing this thing he'd always imagined would be so terrifying in such a natural-feeling way. He was truly at home with Tonks and that they made this discovery for the first time, together, was made of the stuff of dreams.
Remus pulled back slightly to look at Tonks, to commit to memory everything he could about the moment. She was beautifully flushed, the healthy red of her cheeks spilling down her neck and across her chest. Her dark eyes flashed with impossible brightness; that they might shine so for him was incredible to Remus. Her small, delicate fingers reached up to touch his face, and he leaned into her touch, darting his tongue out to catch the fleshy part of her thumb when it brushed across the corner of his mouth, and kissed it.
Anticipation was, by that point, boiling in his blood, the intense pleasure that pulsed low in his body having lit a fire that burned for more. Slowly and carefully, Remus drew his hips back, and they both vocalized the sensations the movement evoked. There were a few stops and starts as they tried to move faster, but it wasn't long before they found their rhythm. Though Remus was aware that this experience was entirely new for the both of them, there was no sense of awkwardness or of holding back as he'd imagined there might be on the few occasions he'd allowed himself to think about doing this, both with an as-yet unknown woman and, more recently, with Tonks herself. He'd always thought he'd be too shy, too unsure, to fully commit, but in the here and now, he found he was no such thing, not only because he felt so completely comfortable with Tonks, but because he was acutely aware that it was so very new for her, too, and with that came a responsibility to make the best of it for her. And so he gave her everything. His hands curved over her breasts; his tongue played on her neck, traced her ears; he ran his hands over her thighs, his thumb curling round to the inside, just brushing the place where their bodies joined.
Amid so many sensations and emotions, Remus found himself captivated by the way Tonks moved beneath him, her responses to his touch, both in sound and movement. When she came, crying out, her body arching and her hands gripping his back, Remus let himself go and in turn, pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair with a sound so deep and guttural it seemed to originate from somewhere outside his body.
They shared snatched breaths, pounding heartbeats, flushed skin, and glazed eyes in the moments of stillness that followed, taking it in turns to press kisses to each others' faces, to whisper words like 'oh' and 'wow' before finally they pulled apart and rolled into a side-by-side embrace.
Remus kissed her long and deep, his body still humming and tingling all over as Tonks ran her fingers through his hair, over his back and shoulders, before, at length, they lay completely still. With her face buried in his chest, her slight body wrapped protectively in his arms and the memory of what they'd just shared forever ingrained upon his soul, Remus wondered how it was possible for a person to feel so much and not explode from the force of it all.
"I..." he said, before he'd really given thought to what he wanted to say.
Her face lovely, awash in the afterglow of their love-making, Tonks looked up at him expectantly.
He really wanted to tell her that he loved her, because he was fairly sure that he did, but it was so soon. Just yesterday she'd been a colleague upon whom he had what he'd thought to be a slightly inappropriate crush; today they'd lost their virginity together, and not just because they'd got carried away, lost in a moment -- though he supposed that, technically, they had -- but because it had been something he'd wanted, with her, more than anything. And he was fairly certain the same had been true for her. But to tell her he loved her...Surely it was too soon for that?
Finally, after a deep breath, he settled on the less committal, "I could fall in love with you, you know."
She closed her eyes, briefly, an Remus fancied the expression on her face was one of savouring the moment, but when they opened again, it was to flash with mischief, and she said, "Could?"
"Will fall -- am falling," he corrected, finding, then, that though he wanted to give them both a little time to get used to this giant change in their lives, he could not bear to leave her in any doubt of his sincerity.
She searched his face for what seemed like an age. "Me too," she said, eventually, and they kissed again. For some time they were both lost again in the gentle teasing of lips and tongue and caressing hands, until a stomach -- Remus couldn't be sure whose, with their bodies pressed together as they were -- gurgled.
Somehow, even this interruption and its reminder of basic human existence hardly broke the romantic mood. Indeed, there was something intimate about a stomach growling. They'd shared a meal together last night, but waking together, sharing the first pangs of hunger...well, it was yet another thing Remus had never experienced before. Hunger, certainly; but never till now accompanied by the pleasant promise of Tonks' smiling face across the breakfast table.
"One of us wants breakfast," he said, starting to roll from his position over her -- but Tonks held on to his shoulders and kissed him.
"I'd rather stay here, and keep falling in love."
Remus was so touched, of course, that he could only respond in kind, and might well have taken up that enticing suggestion if not for the insistence of his -- this time indisputably -- stomach.
"How about a compromise?" he asked, and, pressing his lips once more to hers, sat up and found his discarded underpants and pyjama bottoms from the tangle of sheets and duvet at the foot of the bed.
Tonks sighed dramatically, but sat up, pulling the thin white sheet up over her breasts, concealing her skin, but not the perky bumps of her nipples, and gazed at him with her head cocked in a characteristically quizzical manner.
"Why don't I go down and make us tea and toast, and we'll have breakfast in bed?" he suggested, for they -- mainly he -- had finished off their pizza the night before.
"What's the matter, Lupin? Don't trust me to work the Muggle bread toasting box thingy?"
"I think it's simply called a toaster." The bed squeaked as Remus got up and stepped into his pyjamas. "And I wish you wouldn't call me Lupin after we've just made love."
"You've been calling me Tonks."
Remus gawped. "But you won't let me call you--"
"Don't even think about it--"
"What'll you do? Hex me to oblivion and lose us even more points?"
"That reminds me." Tonks' face abruptly drew up into a mask of earnest perfectionism. "How much damage did we do with that impressive bit of wandless magic you did?"
"You encouraged me," said Remus. So piqued was his curiosity by the question that, without thinking, he started to Summon their score sheet. Tonks stopped him in the nick of time, and half a minute later he'd bounded downstairs and then trudged back up again, clutching a stubbed toe and their parchment. And apparently a look that said they'd lost an alarming number of points, as well, given the way Tonks went white and clutched the sheet tightly between her breasts, closing her eyes, muttering something that sounded a lot like 'shit' and falling back against the pillows.
"It's not the points," said Remus, coming to sit at the edge of the bed, "so much as this."
Under the "Other Penalties" heading, in red capital letters, was the phrase: 'IMPEDO PROGENIES USED - 7:26 A.M.'
"Oh God," Tonks groaned into her pillow. "That's not how I imagined the Order finding out about us. Down to the bloody minute..."
"The Order won't," Remus reassured her, laying a hand on her shoulder, though his thoughts matched hers. "Only Sirius."
"Only." Tonks' tone was laced with cynicism.
This was very true. They would pay dearly for him to edit their score sheet before it was handed over to Moody, as he'd done for the others who'd got themselves into (not quite so) embarrassing predicaments. But buying his silence would be a much more tricky task -- Sirius had many good qualities, but holding his tongue on a meaty piece of gossip was not among them.
Still, Remus couldn't help grinning in the face of his certain torment.
"Of all the things Sirius has teased me about over the years -- and believe me, I've been subjected to a great deal more than your average man -- I'd accept none so willingly as being teased because I really and truly slept with you."
Tonks looked up at him with a smile and something of the afterglow of what they'd done here making her heart-shaped face so very lovely to him. She wouldn't mind so very much, either, and that made Remus want to love her again.
Before he could, however, Tonks sat up and snatched the list from him.
"The names will be changed to protect the innocent," Tonks said. "But we'll lose the points all the same. What have we got left to reclaim some shred of dignity?"
Read Part Five
A/N: Those kind enough to leave a review will get a wakeup call from Remus...
Authors: godricgal and mrstater
Illustrator: hrymfaxe
Format & Word Count: chaptered fic, this part weighs in at 3990 words
Rating & Warnings: R for sex (this part contains an image that is NWS)
Summary: Something magical has been brewing between Remus and Tonks all summer long. But what happens when an Order assignment requires them to do things the Muggle way?
Authors' Notes: Written for the occasion of gilpin25's birthday, October 25, 2008.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
Part Four
Remus wasn't entirely sure where he was when he woke, but as he took in, through blinking eyes, the strange light filtering in through dark curtains, the unfamiliar furniture looming in morning shadows, and -- in comparison to the heavy blankets that made up his bed at Grimmauld -- the much lighter weight of the duvet above him, the sight of Tonks asleep beside him brought to mind her words from the previous night about feeling at home with him: new and exciting though it was, waking to find Tonks next to him felt as natural as anything could. An entire morning and afternoon in this pseudo-life lay ahead of them, presenting a world of possibilities, each of which had the potential to be more terrifying than the one before, but Remus only felt a pleasant sense of anticipation for whatever might come next.
If Tonks hadn't been so very real and warm beside him, Remus wondered if he would have had no other option but to put his memories of the previous evening down to a dream fuelled by hope and long-suppressed desire. But her lips were still faintly reddened; her hair was tousled beyond the norm after a night's sleep. His stomach turned over pleasantly at the thought of what they'd done last night: from getting ready for bed together, sharing a sink and mirror as they'd brushed their teeth, exchanging what could only be described as silly toothpaste foam grins between their reflections, to slipping beneath the covers and finding a perfect niche in each others' arms, nothing but thin pyjama material between them; he was fairly certain they'd spent a couple of hours, time passing like rivulets of falling water, doing nothing but sharing kisses that started soft and slow before crescendoing to something much more fiery and purposeful.
No longer able to tolerate the space that the night had put between them, inconsiderable in normal terms though it was, Remus reached for Tonks. She rolled into is arms so naturally, as though she'd done it before in dreams, not really waking, but wrapping an arm around his middle as her head fell to his shoulder. Remus felt a swell of affection that puffed up in his chest as he was struck with a desire to have her awake beside him. For a few minutes he simply watched her, taking in all that she was in restful repose, but then he pressed a long kiss to her forehead, ran his hand, flat-palmed, up her arm to her neck, where his thumb passed over the muscles there and then travelled further, across her jaw.
Tonks stirred softly, her arm tightening briefly around him as her knee pushed between his thighs so that their legs entwined. He kissed her again, this time high on her cheekbone, and she blinked sleepily once, twice, then looked up at him though heavily-lidded eyes.
"Morning," he whispered.
"Mm," was the only reply she made as her eyes fluttered closed again; but he didn't miss the smile that was only just shy of becoming a full grin begin to spread across her face as she buried it in his shoulder.
For a while, Remus stroked her hair and pressed the odd kiss to her forehead and temple, but then his hand drifted down to her waist where he slipped it under the hem of her pyjama top to trace filigree patterns across her lower back, then followed the path of her spine to her shoulder blades. He felt her breath quicken against his neck; every so often she inhaled sharply and her body arched towards him as her hand clutched at his t-shirt. He loved that he could do that to her and each response to his touch made him want to touch her more, to tease out more vocal responses, to see if he could push her over the edge...
He rolled her onto her back and looked at her for a moment, searching her face for a hint of doubt or reluctance about what he was doing, but he found only a slightly dazed expression and a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth that clearly said she was very pleased for him to carry on. Thus assured, he once again slipped his fingers under her top until his hand rested on her tummy, smooth and firm, then he bent his head to kiss her lips for the first time that morning. They were soft and yielding as he moved across them in a kiss so slow that he felt as though he was melting into her, or she into him. When she opened her mouth and the warm wetness of her tongue met and slid against his, Remus felt himself slip way into a world in which nothing existed beyond the covers that shielded them from the cool of the early summer morning.
Tonks gasped when his thumb brushed the underside of her breast, her breath sending shivers down Remus' spine. Her head fell back to the pillow, leaving Remus' mouth to forge a path down her chin to her neck, tasting her skin as he went. Her hands at his back made their way under his t-shirt, pulling him closer against her. It wasn't long before his fingers made their way down to the hem of her top, this time with the intention of pulling it off. But before he did so, he met her eyes in question. At her affirmative nod, Remus wasted no time in helping her to sit up so he could pull the garment from her body, letting his fingers trail across her bare skin as he did so. Even as he was dropping the top over the side of the bed, Tonks' moved to remove his own top, and with those layers between them gone -- abandoned on the floor, they sank back onto the bed together.
In relationships past, awkwardness and guilt, overshadowed by a relentless doubt that pervaded every thought, had precluded intimacy on this level. But this was...beyond anything...a realisation of so many dreams, and even if it seemed, in academic terms, somewhat premature to be thinking of it as an experience or forward step in his existence that fell into the category of life-changing, that was exactly how it felt, even as he lived it.
He could touch Tonks with confidence because he trusted her to say if it became too much. So he lowered his mouth to her breast, pulled her nipple into his mouth with lips and tongue, savouring each move she made in response, every sound. He felt sure and safe in entrusting his heart to her, and their eyes met often, unguarded, as they learnt each other in this new way.
And indeed, these explorations were, entirely, mutual. The pleasure evoked by Tonks' touch was mingled with wonderment that he was wanted by someone as amazing as her; that she could be so evidently delighted to run her fingers through his hair, to rub her cheek against the stubble on his, to taste the hollows of his collarbones and throat as if they contained something sweet and delicious; that she, inexperienced as he and in full knowledge of what he was, would be so bold as to sweep her hands down to his hips, exposed by his low-slung pyjama bottoms, to let her index finger trace the trail of hair from his navel down beneath his shorts, tugging, slightly, at the waistband, which made him suck in his stomach as a thrill coursed up from the place on his skin where her finger rested.
Her kisses last night had been enough to affect him as they did now, and of course with their legs tangled and their bodies pressed tightly together, she could have been in no doubt of it. Then, she'd made no move to encourage anything further, and he'd been equally content to ease into this shift in their relationship, to savour her lips and tongue and the tantalizing contours of her body through her clothes. Now, though, she was ready for more, for all of him -- he read it in the eagerness and certainty he found in her expressive dark eyes, the mirrors into her very soul, and it compelled him to divest himself of the rest of his clothing.
As he shimmied out of his boxers, Tonks, flinging off her own pyjama bottoms, moved to peel off her underwear.
"Wait," said Remus, impulsively. "May I?"
Tonks flushed as she lay back against the crisp white bed linens, but her smile was one of being absolutely pleased by his request.
"I'm all yours," she said, and, naked, Remus stretched himself out beside her, his lips pressed to her shoulder as he skimmed his fingers over the bright pink cotton of her knickers, watching her eyes glaze and her lower lip catch between her teeth as he explored her secret places through the thin cotton, loving that he could make her feel these sensations, bring her this physical pleasure.
During the night she'd told him that she'd never been with anyone before, not for lack of opportunity, but for wanting to save this special act of intimacy for the right person. No one had ever felt right to her, she'd told him, and he'd scarcely believed that look in her eyes could mean he was the right person. But now, as she breathed his name and covered his hand with hers, guiding his fingers up to the narrow bikini-cut top of her knickers, he believed it; though he hesitated at the enormity of this, the fortune that had, for once, deigned to favour him, her other hand touched him in such a way that rendered him powerless to do anything but remove her knickers and position his body over hers.
Holding his weight off her, he placed his hand in the warm V between her legs and closed his eyes and remembered the contraceptive charm he'd committed to heart so many years ago at Sirius' insistence, though Remus himself had scarcely harboured the hope that he'd ever be lucky enough to have the opportunity to utter it.
As he opened his mouth to speak the words, his eyes snapped open.
"The mission!"
Tonks blinked at him. "It doesn't say no sex."
"No, but it says no magic. I almost performed a contraceptive charm."
"Oh!"
For a moment they stared at each other, asking each other with their eyes what they should do.
"Well," Tonks said at last, bucking her hips up against his hand and grinning mischievously, "I reckon we'll just have fun figuring out how to do it like Muggles."
Her grin seemed pushed away by her scrunched forehead. "Erm, do you know how Muggles do it?"
Remus dropped onto one elbow, running a hand through his hair. "Actually, I do." When she looked at him with an arched eyebrow that clearly said 'Do tell,' he quickly added, "Thanks to Sirius, who went out with a Muggle girl one summer. Mainly to wind up his parents. From all accounts, I'm not at all sure fun really comes into it."
"Why? What do they do?"
Remus scratched his neck, wondering how he could be lying here, naked, with Tonks, and yet still feel embarrassed as he recalled that awkward teenage conversation.
"They've these things called condiments."
"Condiments?" Tonks' eyes were round with incredulity. "You mean like ketchup or relish?"
"No." Chuckling, Remus rested his hand on her pale, flat belly. "They're apparently these rubber things that go on..."
He found himself loath to continue -- the clinical nature of the topic was rather a mood-breaker -- but Tonks wasn't following him. "Go on what?"
"Erm...the man."
"Oh." Tonks looked away, her hair spreading out on the pillow. "I don't really like the sound of rubber. Makes it seem a bit impersonal, doesn't it? Like putting gloves on to touch each other."
"Quite. And talking of condiments, I don't relish the idea of poking about in some chap's drawers for his contraceptives."
Tonks wrinkled her nose. "Merlin knows what we might find."
Remus was glad Tonks was following his line of thought and didn't seem to be in favour of hunting for Muggle sex toys, but he sighed heavily. "This doesn't exactly solve our dilemma."
Turning her face to him again, Tonks said, "Of course it does."
"Oh?"
"What's losing another few points when we've already lost so many?" She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled his head down so she could say huskily in his ear, "I've wanted you for a long time, Remus Lupin, and I'll be damned if we don't do this properly."
Remus didn't lose a second replacing his hand over her. Again he was interrupted before he could get out the words, this time by Tonks.
"You do a wandless Contraceptive Charm? Very smooth."
Unable to help himself grinning widely with pride -- he'd worked especially hard to do so, after Sirius' accounts of how terribly awkward it was messing about with a wand when there were other wands mixed into the equation -- Remus said, "I always thought the young lady would prefer I have my hands occupied with other things..."
He moved his fingers, and Tonks moaned. "Indeed."
Remus whispered the charm. And then, with nothing at all between them anymore, he stretched over her once more, and, after looking into her eyes for a long moment, he kissed her deeply and pressed into her.
She was trembling in his arms, breathing heavily, which matched completely his own demeanour.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she said, her voice trailing off into a half-moan as he lowered his weight more completely onto her. "You?"
Remus inclined his head until her lips just touched his. "Never more so."
He pressed his lips into hers, hard at first, but then softening as he kissed her again, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth as her hips rose slightly beneath him and he pushed his down against her. The sounds that echoed between them at this simple movement electrified him. She felt amazing around him, so warm, and Remus found it hard to believe that it was him, them, sharing this thing he'd always imagined would be so terrifying in such a natural-feeling way. He was truly at home with Tonks and that they made this discovery for the first time, together, was made of the stuff of dreams.
Remus pulled back slightly to look at Tonks, to commit to memory everything he could about the moment. She was beautifully flushed, the healthy red of her cheeks spilling down her neck and across her chest. Her dark eyes flashed with impossible brightness; that they might shine so for him was incredible to Remus. Her small, delicate fingers reached up to touch his face, and he leaned into her touch, darting his tongue out to catch the fleshy part of her thumb when it brushed across the corner of his mouth, and kissed it.
Anticipation was, by that point, boiling in his blood, the intense pleasure that pulsed low in his body having lit a fire that burned for more. Slowly and carefully, Remus drew his hips back, and they both vocalized the sensations the movement evoked. There were a few stops and starts as they tried to move faster, but it wasn't long before they found their rhythm. Though Remus was aware that this experience was entirely new for the both of them, there was no sense of awkwardness or of holding back as he'd imagined there might be on the few occasions he'd allowed himself to think about doing this, both with an as-yet unknown woman and, more recently, with Tonks herself. He'd always thought he'd be too shy, too unsure, to fully commit, but in the here and now, he found he was no such thing, not only because he felt so completely comfortable with Tonks, but because he was acutely aware that it was so very new for her, too, and with that came a responsibility to make the best of it for her. And so he gave her everything. His hands curved over her breasts; his tongue played on her neck, traced her ears; he ran his hands over her thighs, his thumb curling round to the inside, just brushing the place where their bodies joined.
Amid so many sensations and emotions, Remus found himself captivated by the way Tonks moved beneath him, her responses to his touch, both in sound and movement. When she came, crying out, her body arching and her hands gripping his back, Remus let himself go and in turn, pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair with a sound so deep and guttural it seemed to originate from somewhere outside his body.
They shared snatched breaths, pounding heartbeats, flushed skin, and glazed eyes in the moments of stillness that followed, taking it in turns to press kisses to each others' faces, to whisper words like 'oh' and 'wow' before finally they pulled apart and rolled into a side-by-side embrace.
Remus kissed her long and deep, his body still humming and tingling all over as Tonks ran her fingers through his hair, over his back and shoulders, before, at length, they lay completely still. With her face buried in his chest, her slight body wrapped protectively in his arms and the memory of what they'd just shared forever ingrained upon his soul, Remus wondered how it was possible for a person to feel so much and not explode from the force of it all.
"I..." he said, before he'd really given thought to what he wanted to say.
Her face lovely, awash in the afterglow of their love-making, Tonks looked up at him expectantly.
He really wanted to tell her that he loved her, because he was fairly sure that he did, but it was so soon. Just yesterday she'd been a colleague upon whom he had what he'd thought to be a slightly inappropriate crush; today they'd lost their virginity together, and not just because they'd got carried away, lost in a moment -- though he supposed that, technically, they had -- but because it had been something he'd wanted, with her, more than anything. And he was fairly certain the same had been true for her. But to tell her he loved her...Surely it was too soon for that?
Finally, after a deep breath, he settled on the less committal, "I could fall in love with you, you know."
She closed her eyes, briefly, an Remus fancied the expression on her face was one of savouring the moment, but when they opened again, it was to flash with mischief, and she said, "Could?"
"Will fall -- am falling," he corrected, finding, then, that though he wanted to give them both a little time to get used to this giant change in their lives, he could not bear to leave her in any doubt of his sincerity.
She searched his face for what seemed like an age. "Me too," she said, eventually, and they kissed again. For some time they were both lost again in the gentle teasing of lips and tongue and caressing hands, until a stomach -- Remus couldn't be sure whose, with their bodies pressed together as they were -- gurgled.
Somehow, even this interruption and its reminder of basic human existence hardly broke the romantic mood. Indeed, there was something intimate about a stomach growling. They'd shared a meal together last night, but waking together, sharing the first pangs of hunger...well, it was yet another thing Remus had never experienced before. Hunger, certainly; but never till now accompanied by the pleasant promise of Tonks' smiling face across the breakfast table.
"One of us wants breakfast," he said, starting to roll from his position over her -- but Tonks held on to his shoulders and kissed him.
"I'd rather stay here, and keep falling in love."
Remus was so touched, of course, that he could only respond in kind, and might well have taken up that enticing suggestion if not for the insistence of his -- this time indisputably -- stomach.
"How about a compromise?" he asked, and, pressing his lips once more to hers, sat up and found his discarded underpants and pyjama bottoms from the tangle of sheets and duvet at the foot of the bed.
Tonks sighed dramatically, but sat up, pulling the thin white sheet up over her breasts, concealing her skin, but not the perky bumps of her nipples, and gazed at him with her head cocked in a characteristically quizzical manner.
"Why don't I go down and make us tea and toast, and we'll have breakfast in bed?" he suggested, for they -- mainly he -- had finished off their pizza the night before.
"What's the matter, Lupin? Don't trust me to work the Muggle bread toasting box thingy?"
"I think it's simply called a toaster." The bed squeaked as Remus got up and stepped into his pyjamas. "And I wish you wouldn't call me Lupin after we've just made love."
"You've been calling me Tonks."
Remus gawped. "But you won't let me call you--"
"Don't even think about it--"
"What'll you do? Hex me to oblivion and lose us even more points?"
"That reminds me." Tonks' face abruptly drew up into a mask of earnest perfectionism. "How much damage did we do with that impressive bit of wandless magic you did?"
"You encouraged me," said Remus. So piqued was his curiosity by the question that, without thinking, he started to Summon their score sheet. Tonks stopped him in the nick of time, and half a minute later he'd bounded downstairs and then trudged back up again, clutching a stubbed toe and their parchment. And apparently a look that said they'd lost an alarming number of points, as well, given the way Tonks went white and clutched the sheet tightly between her breasts, closing her eyes, muttering something that sounded a lot like 'shit' and falling back against the pillows.
"It's not the points," said Remus, coming to sit at the edge of the bed, "so much as this."
Under the "Other Penalties" heading, in red capital letters, was the phrase: 'IMPEDO PROGENIES USED - 7:26 A.M.'
"Oh God," Tonks groaned into her pillow. "That's not how I imagined the Order finding out about us. Down to the bloody minute..."
"The Order won't," Remus reassured her, laying a hand on her shoulder, though his thoughts matched hers. "Only Sirius."
"Only." Tonks' tone was laced with cynicism.
This was very true. They would pay dearly for him to edit their score sheet before it was handed over to Moody, as he'd done for the others who'd got themselves into (not quite so) embarrassing predicaments. But buying his silence would be a much more tricky task -- Sirius had many good qualities, but holding his tongue on a meaty piece of gossip was not among them.
Still, Remus couldn't help grinning in the face of his certain torment.
"Of all the things Sirius has teased me about over the years -- and believe me, I've been subjected to a great deal more than your average man -- I'd accept none so willingly as being teased because I really and truly slept with you."
Tonks looked up at him with a smile and something of the afterglow of what they'd done here making her heart-shaped face so very lovely to him. She wouldn't mind so very much, either, and that made Remus want to love her again.
Before he could, however, Tonks sat up and snatched the list from him.
"The names will be changed to protect the innocent," Tonks said. "But we'll lose the points all the same. What have we got left to reclaim some shred of dignity?"
Read Part Five
A/N: Those kind enough to leave a review will get a wakeup call from Remus...