How To Be Bad
Title - How To Be Bad
Author -
joely_jo
Characters - Remus/Tonks
Rating - R (for language and some adult content)
Word Count - 3,313 words.
Prompts Used - Day of Shocks, Mummy, Humour, Location Pic #25, which I interpreted as a London alleyway outside a pub.
Summary - Someone has a fantasy… (or Remus Lupin has blood in his veins)
Author’s Notes - Forget a Day of Shocks as a prompt, this is so cliché I’m shocked it’s not been done before. Or maybe it has. ;) Personally, I’m just thrilled that I managed to use all my prompts. Spawned by the thought that maybe there was some reason behind Tonks turning her hair blonde for Fleur’s wedding.
The Drunken Duck on Watling Street was the kind of place where people went to indulge in darker pastimes than could be allowed in normal civilised company. And tonight it was living up to its reputation in grand style - not that that was a problem for Remus Lupin, in fact, it was perfect for the way he felt tonight. He shrugged his cloak off and hung it up on the rack by the door, then made a beeline for the bar.
“Good evening there, Mr. Lupin…”
Jim Featherstone, the slightly overweight and freckled Saturday night barman, greeted him with a smile and automatically picked up a pint glass ready to fill it for Remus’ traditional order of bitter. But Remus shook his head. “Actually, I’ll have something a bit stronger tonight, Jim.”
If Jim thought anything was untoward about Remus’ request, he did not show it. Instead, he wordlessly picked up a whisky tumbler and poured a generous measure into the glass. He passed it over the bar and Remus took it from him.
“It’s quiet tonight,” Remus observed, with a glance around the room. There were just three other people in the bar with him: a tall man with a nervous twitch and a fat and extravagantly bearded fellow sat in one of the booths discussing something in low voices, then deep in the furthest corner was what appeared to be a mummy, head down, drinking stout from a pint mug.
“Hm, yeah,” Jim said as he began to sort the bottles of butterbeer on the shelf above his head. “They’ve been here since about lunchtime,” he added, indicating the pair sitting in the booth. “They had a goat on a lead when they walked in, but I told them it had stay outside. I’ve got to have some standards, you know.”
“Of course,” Remus agreed with a serious nod. “I mean, letting a mummy into your bar is nothing compared to a goat on a lead.”
“Hey,” objected Jim. “That’s Derek. He’s depressed, okay, his bandages keep unwrapping.” Remus snorted back a laugh and took another drink. There was a moment of silence, then Jim’s eyes twinkled as he added, “Will your wife be joining you?”
Remus swallowed his mouthful of whisky and looked down at his knees. “No… She’s, er… elsewhere. I’m not sure where…” He cleared his throat. “So it’s just me. I… I was in need of a little company, that’s all.”
“Company? Feeling lonely are we?” Jim asked. “Doesn’t sound like the newly-wed Remus Lupin I know.” He arched his brows teasingly and leaned on the bar. “What’s happened with your wife, then? Left you already, huh?”
“What can I say?” Remus deadpanned. “She discovered the truth about me.”
Slowly, Jim’s smile slipped as he tried to adjudge if Remus was joking or not. It was rare that the ebullient wizard was ever unsure of a situation, and on his own territory, he was practically unsinkable. “And which truth was that?”
Remus stifled a grin. “The biggest secret I’ve ever kept from anybody,” he replied.
“Really?” asked Jim, unable to keep the tone of surprise from his voice as Remus glanced back to him, then nodded in confirmation. Remus tracked the expression on the bartender’s face and did his best to keep his own neutral, even as Jim struggled with the suggestion.
To his credit, though, it wasn’t long before Jim regained some of his trademark nonchalance. “Hm,” he grunted. “Whatever makes her happy, I suppose.” He avoided Remus’ eyes as he reached for his wand and began casting scourgify at the dirty glasses in the sink to the right of him.
Remus smirked and picked up his glass again, considering the amber liquid within. “Well… helloooo…” Mischievous eyes flashed with predatory intent as Jim peered over Remus’ shoulder at a new customer entering and, in an instant, his trademark grin popped back into place.
Recognising the look in the bartender’s eyes, Remus turned and scanned the bar himself. It was difficult to see clearly because the lighting was low, just a few tea-lights in small glass pots flickering on every table. The unusual customers were but shadows in the half-darkness.
“Stone the crows.” Jim’s impressed voice sounded in Remus’ ears, but he could no sooner drag his eyes from the woman who had just entered than cut off a limb.
She was gorgeous.
As he stared, he realised that he couldn’t remember the last woman who had knocked him cold as this one had just done. She was turned slightly away from him, smoothing out her black, almost transparent, silk dress, but he could get a good enough impression. Slim, yet with curves in all the right places, a pair of long legs in high stack heels… And her hair… her hair was something else - razor-straight, ice-blonde and glowing with an inner light all of its own - it fell over her shoulder in a thick, glossy curtain, trailing seductively across her breasts until his eyes found themselves glued to the dress she was wearing and the way it clung to her every inch.
Since he was seventeen and had first encountered Liana Kovac, the beautiful half-blooded Veela from Durmstrang Sirius had charmed into his bed after the Yule Ball, Remus had always had a thing for blonde girls and almost see-through silk dresses. He craned his neck, wishing he could see her fully. Her lips were pink and glassy with some kind of sparkling gloss. Swallowing, he considered her pout thoughtfully, his mind painting a testosterone-fuelled picture of himself sucking that gloss right off and investigating just what lay beneath that wisp of black silk. After all, there had never been anything wrong with Remus Lupin’s imagination.
Just as he’d started to mentally push that silk aside, he realised she was looking at him, and that Jim had slipped out from behind the bar and was making his way toward her with a casually rapacious smile on his lips. Bloody hell, he thought, as he realised he’d been caught staring. He looked away from her gaze and focused his attention on the bottles of firewhiskies that lined the back of the bar, as if he were studying them to make a choice.
It was no good. Something entirely hormonal had gripped him, and he found he couldn’t even read the labels on the bottles coherently. He could see her, smell her perfume… Merlin, he felt like he could practically reach out and touch her. An overwhelming urge was pushing him to turn around and meet her gaze again. “Mr. Lupin?”
At first, Remus heard his name as a breathless whisper, tempting him, enticing him, but as it was repeated, and was followed by the thunk of glass against wood, he shot himself from his indecent fantasy. “Jim,” he said, swallowing sharply and turning to face the barman. “I, erm…”
Jim spun the glass he had set down toward Remus, who caught it expertly and stared at its contents. “25-year-old cask strength Glen Mackenzie,” he said, by way of explanation. His eyes sparkled again. “It’s from the lady.” He inclined his head subtly toward the fascinating blonde, who had taken a seat at a table in one of the dimly lit corners.
Serious flirting was not something that Remus Lupin normally engaged in, but without even really thinking about it, he tossed a crooked smile over his shoulder. He looked at the glass and what it represented and paused. “Something wrong?” Jim asked.
“Wrong?” Remus repeated.
“Yeah… Or is that all you get for a glass of my finest firewhisky these days?”
“You, you don’t think that was enough?” Remus blinked. This was two steps away from getting out of hand, but even as the thought entered his mind, he knew that if Sirius were here, he’d be egging him on with the old adage that you only lived once.
Jim chuckled. “Well, as a general rule, something like this here elegant tipple,” he inclined his head at the glass of amber liquid Remus held in his hand, “solicits a little more than a nod and smile.” He grinned. “But then I’m not a married man. My feeling is this is your call; but in my opinion a little extra sugar never spoilt any puddin’, if you know what I mean.”
“I, um… suppose not,” Remus responded, glancing back to the seductive stranger. “And I suppose it would be polite to thank her in person.”
Jim nodded knowingly. “I think you’d be a fool not to.”
With a nod and a purse of his lips, Remus picked up his glass and headed toward the table in the corner. Glancing up with a set of entrancing eyes, the blonde woman gestured to the chair opposite her. “Thanks for the firewhisky,” he said, taking in a deep breath that caught a waft of her perfume. “I’ve never had something this special.” He could barely pull his eyes from her face to indicate he meant his whisky.
“Glen Mackenzie.” Her voice was soft, and as she spoke her shining lips parted and all the images he had been trying to banish came surging back to accost him once again. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a taste of it.”
“Is that true?” He brought the glass to his mouth and took a slow sip. It had to be fifty-five, maybe even sixty percent proof, he thought as he swallowed - easily enough to cloud his judgement in a couple of measures. She was watching him carefully as he took a second sip.
“How do you like it?” she enquired. Remus jumped as he felt her hand slip itself onto his thigh, and belatedly, he realised the intention behind her seemingly innocent question. He swallowed hard.
“That’s, erm, that’s…” he stammered, glancing at the glass of whisky, willing himself to maintain his concentration and ignore the feather-light fingers that were drawing crazy patterns on his thigh. He looked deeply into her eyes, watching the colours that resided there flicker in the candlelight, feeling distinctly as if he was looking more like an idiot with every second that passed.
“I understand,” she murmured, and her fingers brushed just a shade higher. Remus pulled in a sharp breath and snagged her hand before it found its way any further up his leg, bringing it above the table and turning it over in his own. She smiled sweetly, but then guided his hand to her own thigh, where she encouraged him to copy the movements she’d traced on his. Remus let his hand stay just where she’d put it, on the softer than soft fabric of a silken black dress. He felt her hamstring tense beneath his touch and the strange combination of soft and hard under his fingertips made something surge in his groin. He grabbed up his glass and swiftly downed the remaining firewhisky, partly as a reminder to himself that this was still reality, partly to alleviate the tightness in his throat. It failed in both aspects.
“No,” he said in a voice that was suddenly nothing at all like his own. “I, I’m married. I shouldn’t do this.” He bit his bottom lip as she leaned towards him.
“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for,” she purred.
“What were you hoping for?” he heard himself say, even as he cursed his own foolishness.
“Something…” Her hand left his and swept up to her hair, flicking it in one smooth motion over her shoulder, revealing a familiar brown mole in the hollow above her collarbone. “A little bit bad,” she finished. Remus’ eyes settled on the mole, and then he nodded and smiled.
“Well…” he said, rolling the word around his mouth and still smiling. “How about a dance? I believe this is Celestina Warbeck.” He angled his head toward the gramophone in the corner from where a warbling crooner was singing about cauldrons and hot, strong love. “After all,” he added, “you did buy me a drink.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.”
He regarded her for a moment, enjoying the fact that, in a certain light, the fabric of her black dress became completely transparent and allowed him the intelligence that she was wearing nothing beneath it.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he murmured. He stood up and held out his hand.
His partner smiled slyly and replied, “Obviously, you’re not that difficult to fool.” She paused and her thumb rubbed lazily on the skin of his knuckles. “Or perhaps you wanted to be fooled?”
Remus hummed with amusement at that. “There are many things I want,” he allowed. They stepped away from the table and he pulled her close to him.
“Really? Care to share them with me?”
He shrugged his shoulders slowly and didn’t reply. The truth was that nothing he could think of to say to her was decent enough to risk the chance of it being overheard, and Remus wasn’t in the habit of being indecent in public. “Not in company,” he replied finally in a measured tone.
She laughed lightly and her breasts moved against his chest. The feel of her against him made him tug her still closer, so he could place the side of his face against that gloriously smooth mane of hair. “I can smell something nice,” he murmured. “What perfume are you wearing?” He took a long breath of it, trying to calm his thumping heart as much as inhale her scent. She was moving seductively against him, the fluid motion of her hips brushing rhythmically against him, perfectly aware of what her movement was doing to him.
“It’s called Incantation,” she replied in a whisper. “It was a Christmas gift from someone I know.”
“I know it,” he answered, taking another breath of the rich fragrance. “My wife wears it.” The woman in his arms looked up at him with an interested smile. He took advantage of her surprise and kissed her quickly, before she had a chance to assert her dominance over him again.
Pulling away gently, she regarded him thoughtfully. “She does, hm?” She reached up and captured his lips with her own, kissing him a moment; gently she bit his bottom lip, released it then dragged her mouth across it. “Tell me more… about this wife of yours…?” she asked. He looked into her eyes and smiled.
“My wife,” he said as he mirrored her previous movements, ministration for ministration, “is out of her mind.”
A glint came to her dark eyes. “Out of her mind?” she repeated. She pouted and the lines of her face shifted into a familiar expression. “You told me your fantasy was fucking that blonde girl Sirius once…”
His eyebrows shot upwards and he interrupted her, “What did you just say?”
“That your fantasy was fucking…”
Remus gave a long, tempered for the sake of decency, moan. “You said fuck…” he said in a quietly reverential voice.
“No, I said ‘fucking’.” She grinned at his expression. He was practically melting at her feet. “Well, well, Remus…” She arched her eyebrow curiously and rocked back on her heels.
“Mmm…” His voice was just short of a growl, and he reached up and threaded his fingers through her ice-blonde lengths.
His kiss was passionate. The game and teasing tone vanished as he let himself go and felt a surge rush through him as a familiar fire ignited in his stomach. He broke away, but his hands were still wandering.
“Huh,” she grunted and shook her head at him in exasperation. “Incredible. I go to all this effort to satisfy one of your fantasies. Spent all afternoon in front of the mirror trying to get this bloody hair right, and I get a better reaction from saying ‘fucking’ in a public place! Jim must be thinking I’ve gone mad!”
“No, no,” Remus turned and looked at Jim, who had, in that instant, busied himself with reordering the firewhisky bottles behind the bar. “He’s not even watching.”
She scrunched up her nose and changed her hair back to her more familiar length and shade of bubblegum pink and sighed the sigh that all women at some point in their lives have sighed. “Men!” she scoffed, then added under her breath, “More to the point… werewolves!”
“Shhh!” he hushed her hurriedly, and then tried to distract her with a kiss. He broke away from her resisting body with a slightly undignified smack, and then grinned at her, angling his head backwards. “We don’t want the mummy to know he’s not the only dark creature here tonight.”
Tonks snorted. “I don’t think he’s too bothered, to be honest. He looks like the ground could swallow him up and he’d not notice it.”
Remus nodded his head in agreement. “Well, for the record, I noticed you. You look truly stunning in that dress.”
A smile crept onto her face at that and Remus congratulated himself for salvaging the mood. “You know,” he murmured, “I actually had big plans for tonight.”
“Really?” she said, then added with a touch of sarcasm, “Unsurprisingly, so did I.”
He kissed the look on indignation off her face, took her hand gently and threaded it through his arm. “I think we should go - before he starts to be thankful for the fact that he’s sightless.” He cast a look towards the mummy, and she shook her head in amusement.
“But there’s something you should know, Remus,” she said, walking backwards away from him; she pushed the door open and stepped outside into the alleyway, where a couple of passers by afforded them strange looks. “Now that I know that all I need is a dirty word on the tip of my tongue, I’m not going to play this fantasy game again.” She glanced down at her outfit with unhidden contempt. “I felt like such a prat walking in there dressed like this. I’m never going to wear this stupid dress again.”
“Oh, please do,” he protested lightly, swinging on his cloak. “I think you look more beautiful than ever in it.”
Her expression of surprise was priceless and he filed it away in his head for prosperity’s sake. “I thought you said you preferred me in jeans and a shirt?”
“Well, I do,” he smiled. “But this is… something different. And, well… a little bit bad…”
Eyebrow arched, she ordered, “Get your wand out, Remus.”
“Steady,” he chided lightly, and then received a short right jab in the bicep.
“Your real wand, Remus.”
“Why?” he challenged. She came up to him and grabbed him by the front of his jumper.
“Because however bad you think I can be…” She leaned up and kissed him boldly. “I am not fucking you in the street.”
The End.
Author -
joely_jo
Characters - Remus/Tonks
Rating - R (for language and some adult content)
Word Count - 3,313 words.
Prompts Used - Day of Shocks, Mummy, Humour, Location Pic #25, which I interpreted as a London alleyway outside a pub.
Summary - Someone has a fantasy… (or Remus Lupin has blood in his veins)
Author’s Notes - Forget a Day of Shocks as a prompt, this is so cliché I’m shocked it’s not been done before. Or maybe it has. ;) Personally, I’m just thrilled that I managed to use all my prompts. Spawned by the thought that maybe there was some reason behind Tonks turning her hair blonde for Fleur’s wedding.
The Drunken Duck on Watling Street was the kind of place where people went to indulge in darker pastimes than could be allowed in normal civilised company. And tonight it was living up to its reputation in grand style - not that that was a problem for Remus Lupin, in fact, it was perfect for the way he felt tonight. He shrugged his cloak off and hung it up on the rack by the door, then made a beeline for the bar.
“Good evening there, Mr. Lupin…”
Jim Featherstone, the slightly overweight and freckled Saturday night barman, greeted him with a smile and automatically picked up a pint glass ready to fill it for Remus’ traditional order of bitter. But Remus shook his head. “Actually, I’ll have something a bit stronger tonight, Jim.”
If Jim thought anything was untoward about Remus’ request, he did not show it. Instead, he wordlessly picked up a whisky tumbler and poured a generous measure into the glass. He passed it over the bar and Remus took it from him.
“It’s quiet tonight,” Remus observed, with a glance around the room. There were just three other people in the bar with him: a tall man with a nervous twitch and a fat and extravagantly bearded fellow sat in one of the booths discussing something in low voices, then deep in the furthest corner was what appeared to be a mummy, head down, drinking stout from a pint mug.
“Hm, yeah,” Jim said as he began to sort the bottles of butterbeer on the shelf above his head. “They’ve been here since about lunchtime,” he added, indicating the pair sitting in the booth. “They had a goat on a lead when they walked in, but I told them it had stay outside. I’ve got to have some standards, you know.”
“Of course,” Remus agreed with a serious nod. “I mean, letting a mummy into your bar is nothing compared to a goat on a lead.”
“Hey,” objected Jim. “That’s Derek. He’s depressed, okay, his bandages keep unwrapping.” Remus snorted back a laugh and took another drink. There was a moment of silence, then Jim’s eyes twinkled as he added, “Will your wife be joining you?”
Remus swallowed his mouthful of whisky and looked down at his knees. “No… She’s, er… elsewhere. I’m not sure where…” He cleared his throat. “So it’s just me. I… I was in need of a little company, that’s all.”
“Company? Feeling lonely are we?” Jim asked. “Doesn’t sound like the newly-wed Remus Lupin I know.” He arched his brows teasingly and leaned on the bar. “What’s happened with your wife, then? Left you already, huh?”
“What can I say?” Remus deadpanned. “She discovered the truth about me.”
Slowly, Jim’s smile slipped as he tried to adjudge if Remus was joking or not. It was rare that the ebullient wizard was ever unsure of a situation, and on his own territory, he was practically unsinkable. “And which truth was that?”
Remus stifled a grin. “The biggest secret I’ve ever kept from anybody,” he replied.
“Really?” asked Jim, unable to keep the tone of surprise from his voice as Remus glanced back to him, then nodded in confirmation. Remus tracked the expression on the bartender’s face and did his best to keep his own neutral, even as Jim struggled with the suggestion.
To his credit, though, it wasn’t long before Jim regained some of his trademark nonchalance. “Hm,” he grunted. “Whatever makes her happy, I suppose.” He avoided Remus’ eyes as he reached for his wand and began casting scourgify at the dirty glasses in the sink to the right of him.
Remus smirked and picked up his glass again, considering the amber liquid within. “Well… helloooo…” Mischievous eyes flashed with predatory intent as Jim peered over Remus’ shoulder at a new customer entering and, in an instant, his trademark grin popped back into place.
Recognising the look in the bartender’s eyes, Remus turned and scanned the bar himself. It was difficult to see clearly because the lighting was low, just a few tea-lights in small glass pots flickering on every table. The unusual customers were but shadows in the half-darkness.
“Stone the crows.” Jim’s impressed voice sounded in Remus’ ears, but he could no sooner drag his eyes from the woman who had just entered than cut off a limb.
She was gorgeous.
As he stared, he realised that he couldn’t remember the last woman who had knocked him cold as this one had just done. She was turned slightly away from him, smoothing out her black, almost transparent, silk dress, but he could get a good enough impression. Slim, yet with curves in all the right places, a pair of long legs in high stack heels… And her hair… her hair was something else - razor-straight, ice-blonde and glowing with an inner light all of its own - it fell over her shoulder in a thick, glossy curtain, trailing seductively across her breasts until his eyes found themselves glued to the dress she was wearing and the way it clung to her every inch.
Since he was seventeen and had first encountered Liana Kovac, the beautiful half-blooded Veela from Durmstrang Sirius had charmed into his bed after the Yule Ball, Remus had always had a thing for blonde girls and almost see-through silk dresses. He craned his neck, wishing he could see her fully. Her lips were pink and glassy with some kind of sparkling gloss. Swallowing, he considered her pout thoughtfully, his mind painting a testosterone-fuelled picture of himself sucking that gloss right off and investigating just what lay beneath that wisp of black silk. After all, there had never been anything wrong with Remus Lupin’s imagination.
Just as he’d started to mentally push that silk aside, he realised she was looking at him, and that Jim had slipped out from behind the bar and was making his way toward her with a casually rapacious smile on his lips. Bloody hell, he thought, as he realised he’d been caught staring. He looked away from her gaze and focused his attention on the bottles of firewhiskies that lined the back of the bar, as if he were studying them to make a choice.
It was no good. Something entirely hormonal had gripped him, and he found he couldn’t even read the labels on the bottles coherently. He could see her, smell her perfume… Merlin, he felt like he could practically reach out and touch her. An overwhelming urge was pushing him to turn around and meet her gaze again. “Mr. Lupin?”
At first, Remus heard his name as a breathless whisper, tempting him, enticing him, but as it was repeated, and was followed by the thunk of glass against wood, he shot himself from his indecent fantasy. “Jim,” he said, swallowing sharply and turning to face the barman. “I, erm…”
Jim spun the glass he had set down toward Remus, who caught it expertly and stared at its contents. “25-year-old cask strength Glen Mackenzie,” he said, by way of explanation. His eyes sparkled again. “It’s from the lady.” He inclined his head subtly toward the fascinating blonde, who had taken a seat at a table in one of the dimly lit corners.
Serious flirting was not something that Remus Lupin normally engaged in, but without even really thinking about it, he tossed a crooked smile over his shoulder. He looked at the glass and what it represented and paused. “Something wrong?” Jim asked.
“Wrong?” Remus repeated.
“Yeah… Or is that all you get for a glass of my finest firewhisky these days?”
“You, you don’t think that was enough?” Remus blinked. This was two steps away from getting out of hand, but even as the thought entered his mind, he knew that if Sirius were here, he’d be egging him on with the old adage that you only lived once.
Jim chuckled. “Well, as a general rule, something like this here elegant tipple,” he inclined his head at the glass of amber liquid Remus held in his hand, “solicits a little more than a nod and smile.” He grinned. “But then I’m not a married man. My feeling is this is your call; but in my opinion a little extra sugar never spoilt any puddin’, if you know what I mean.”
“I, um… suppose not,” Remus responded, glancing back to the seductive stranger. “And I suppose it would be polite to thank her in person.”
Jim nodded knowingly. “I think you’d be a fool not to.”
With a nod and a purse of his lips, Remus picked up his glass and headed toward the table in the corner. Glancing up with a set of entrancing eyes, the blonde woman gestured to the chair opposite her. “Thanks for the firewhisky,” he said, taking in a deep breath that caught a waft of her perfume. “I’ve never had something this special.” He could barely pull his eyes from her face to indicate he meant his whisky.
“Glen Mackenzie.” Her voice was soft, and as she spoke her shining lips parted and all the images he had been trying to banish came surging back to accost him once again. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a taste of it.”
“Is that true?” He brought the glass to his mouth and took a slow sip. It had to be fifty-five, maybe even sixty percent proof, he thought as he swallowed - easily enough to cloud his judgement in a couple of measures. She was watching him carefully as he took a second sip.
“How do you like it?” she enquired. Remus jumped as he felt her hand slip itself onto his thigh, and belatedly, he realised the intention behind her seemingly innocent question. He swallowed hard.
“That’s, erm, that’s…” he stammered, glancing at the glass of whisky, willing himself to maintain his concentration and ignore the feather-light fingers that were drawing crazy patterns on his thigh. He looked deeply into her eyes, watching the colours that resided there flicker in the candlelight, feeling distinctly as if he was looking more like an idiot with every second that passed.
“I understand,” she murmured, and her fingers brushed just a shade higher. Remus pulled in a sharp breath and snagged her hand before it found its way any further up his leg, bringing it above the table and turning it over in his own. She smiled sweetly, but then guided his hand to her own thigh, where she encouraged him to copy the movements she’d traced on his. Remus let his hand stay just where she’d put it, on the softer than soft fabric of a silken black dress. He felt her hamstring tense beneath his touch and the strange combination of soft and hard under his fingertips made something surge in his groin. He grabbed up his glass and swiftly downed the remaining firewhisky, partly as a reminder to himself that this was still reality, partly to alleviate the tightness in his throat. It failed in both aspects.
“No,” he said in a voice that was suddenly nothing at all like his own. “I, I’m married. I shouldn’t do this.” He bit his bottom lip as she leaned towards him.
“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for,” she purred.
“What were you hoping for?” he heard himself say, even as he cursed his own foolishness.
“Something…” Her hand left his and swept up to her hair, flicking it in one smooth motion over her shoulder, revealing a familiar brown mole in the hollow above her collarbone. “A little bit bad,” she finished. Remus’ eyes settled on the mole, and then he nodded and smiled.
“Well…” he said, rolling the word around his mouth and still smiling. “How about a dance? I believe this is Celestina Warbeck.” He angled his head toward the gramophone in the corner from where a warbling crooner was singing about cauldrons and hot, strong love. “After all,” he added, “you did buy me a drink.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.”
He regarded her for a moment, enjoying the fact that, in a certain light, the fabric of her black dress became completely transparent and allowed him the intelligence that she was wearing nothing beneath it.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he murmured. He stood up and held out his hand.
His partner smiled slyly and replied, “Obviously, you’re not that difficult to fool.” She paused and her thumb rubbed lazily on the skin of his knuckles. “Or perhaps you wanted to be fooled?”
Remus hummed with amusement at that. “There are many things I want,” he allowed. They stepped away from the table and he pulled her close to him.
“Really? Care to share them with me?”
He shrugged his shoulders slowly and didn’t reply. The truth was that nothing he could think of to say to her was decent enough to risk the chance of it being overheard, and Remus wasn’t in the habit of being indecent in public. “Not in company,” he replied finally in a measured tone.
She laughed lightly and her breasts moved against his chest. The feel of her against him made him tug her still closer, so he could place the side of his face against that gloriously smooth mane of hair. “I can smell something nice,” he murmured. “What perfume are you wearing?” He took a long breath of it, trying to calm his thumping heart as much as inhale her scent. She was moving seductively against him, the fluid motion of her hips brushing rhythmically against him, perfectly aware of what her movement was doing to him.
“It’s called Incantation,” she replied in a whisper. “It was a Christmas gift from someone I know.”
“I know it,” he answered, taking another breath of the rich fragrance. “My wife wears it.” The woman in his arms looked up at him with an interested smile. He took advantage of her surprise and kissed her quickly, before she had a chance to assert her dominance over him again.
Pulling away gently, she regarded him thoughtfully. “She does, hm?” She reached up and captured his lips with her own, kissing him a moment; gently she bit his bottom lip, released it then dragged her mouth across it. “Tell me more… about this wife of yours…?” she asked. He looked into her eyes and smiled.
“My wife,” he said as he mirrored her previous movements, ministration for ministration, “is out of her mind.”
A glint came to her dark eyes. “Out of her mind?” she repeated. She pouted and the lines of her face shifted into a familiar expression. “You told me your fantasy was fucking that blonde girl Sirius once…”
His eyebrows shot upwards and he interrupted her, “What did you just say?”
“That your fantasy was fucking…”
Remus gave a long, tempered for the sake of decency, moan. “You said fuck…” he said in a quietly reverential voice.
“No, I said ‘fucking’.” She grinned at his expression. He was practically melting at her feet. “Well, well, Remus…” She arched her eyebrow curiously and rocked back on her heels.
“Mmm…” His voice was just short of a growl, and he reached up and threaded his fingers through her ice-blonde lengths.
His kiss was passionate. The game and teasing tone vanished as he let himself go and felt a surge rush through him as a familiar fire ignited in his stomach. He broke away, but his hands were still wandering.
“Huh,” she grunted and shook her head at him in exasperation. “Incredible. I go to all this effort to satisfy one of your fantasies. Spent all afternoon in front of the mirror trying to get this bloody hair right, and I get a better reaction from saying ‘fucking’ in a public place! Jim must be thinking I’ve gone mad!”
“No, no,” Remus turned and looked at Jim, who had, in that instant, busied himself with reordering the firewhisky bottles behind the bar. “He’s not even watching.”
She scrunched up her nose and changed her hair back to her more familiar length and shade of bubblegum pink and sighed the sigh that all women at some point in their lives have sighed. “Men!” she scoffed, then added under her breath, “More to the point… werewolves!”
“Shhh!” he hushed her hurriedly, and then tried to distract her with a kiss. He broke away from her resisting body with a slightly undignified smack, and then grinned at her, angling his head backwards. “We don’t want the mummy to know he’s not the only dark creature here tonight.”
Tonks snorted. “I don’t think he’s too bothered, to be honest. He looks like the ground could swallow him up and he’d not notice it.”
Remus nodded his head in agreement. “Well, for the record, I noticed you. You look truly stunning in that dress.”
A smile crept onto her face at that and Remus congratulated himself for salvaging the mood. “You know,” he murmured, “I actually had big plans for tonight.”
“Really?” she said, then added with a touch of sarcasm, “Unsurprisingly, so did I.”
He kissed the look on indignation off her face, took her hand gently and threaded it through his arm. “I think we should go - before he starts to be thankful for the fact that he’s sightless.” He cast a look towards the mummy, and she shook her head in amusement.
“But there’s something you should know, Remus,” she said, walking backwards away from him; she pushed the door open and stepped outside into the alleyway, where a couple of passers by afforded them strange looks. “Now that I know that all I need is a dirty word on the tip of my tongue, I’m not going to play this fantasy game again.” She glanced down at her outfit with unhidden contempt. “I felt like such a prat walking in there dressed like this. I’m never going to wear this stupid dress again.”
“Oh, please do,” he protested lightly, swinging on his cloak. “I think you look more beautiful than ever in it.”
Her expression of surprise was priceless and he filed it away in his head for prosperity’s sake. “I thought you said you preferred me in jeans and a shirt?”
“Well, I do,” he smiled. “But this is… something different. And, well… a little bit bad…”
Eyebrow arched, she ordered, “Get your wand out, Remus.”
“Steady,” he chided lightly, and then received a short right jab in the bicep.
“Your real wand, Remus.”
“Why?” he challenged. She came up to him and grabbed him by the front of his jumper.
“Because however bad you think I can be…” She leaned up and kissed him boldly. “I am not fucking you in the street.”
The End.