AN: I know I told all of you when I posted that this would be a long time between updates, but I never intended for it to be this long. Sorry. I lost several chapters of various stories during the winter storms and it kind of made my muse want to curl up and refuse to come out and play. I will try to update more regularly, though I'm not committing to a schedule. For those of you who sent such encouraging (and in one case, threatening) PMs and reviews…thanks.

Hermione turned over for the fiftieth time that night, unaccountably hot and bothered with a side of achy need that she was well acquainted with.

The sheets smelled like him.

She groaned and decided that if she must take care of herself, she'd better do it in the bathroom. For one, she hoped that it would keep all mental images of herself finding sexual release in his bed out of his mind (it might be too late for that. She had abstained, but the blasted bond was a mental link…thinking about rubbing one out in his six hundred thread count sheets might be enough to alert him).

Merlin. She had no idea it was going to be so hard…

One shouldn't let one's friends know when one was wanking. It just wasn't done.

Especially when it was a constant temptation to wank to him.

Not that she had.

Not to him. Not really.

Maybe once or twice she'd allowed her mind to contemplate his long, artistic fingers when she was rubbing frantically after another boring blind date that was never going to go anywhere.

Perhaps there had been a time or two that she'd had to wear one of his shirts home and things had happened…like things tended to when you were wearing a shirt that smelled like sin.

And now she was sleeping in it. Drenched in that sinfully delicious scent that was quickly mixing with her own…and her own scent was trending more and more toward the particularly musky scent of sex…

She grumbled and poured a little handful of oil. Might as well make it quick. Hopefully the bond wouldn't wake him. She'd felt a tug once or twice from his end, so she was quite positive that the bond was keyed to sexual desire.

Unfortunately, sitting on the edge of the tub (even a tub this size) was not her preferred place to…take care of those thoughts that spring unbidden.

Blame it on having a curtained bed and silencing spells during her formative years…she was most comfortable using a bed.

She sighed, deciding it was late enough so that he would probably be asleep anyway.

She crawled back into the bed and took a deep breath of the pillow. She felt a corresponding tug inside her nether regions. She felt a deep crimson blush spreading across her chest. This wasn't how you treated a friend. Still, she couldn't block out the scent, and it did seem to lend a certain potency to her ministrations that had been somewhat lacking before.

DMDMDM

Draco groaned in the guest bedroom, incredibly glad that there were no smirking portraits to see his obvious discomfort. His blasted potion wasn't helping. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

He stifled another moan and shuddered. What was wrong with it? It worked well enough in mice and even the kneezle in heat he'd brought in to test. Severus had been highly complementary in his cutting, sarcastic way…

But it wasn't doing anything for his little problem…or not so little problem.

He'd woken from a deep sleep with a hard-on of epic proportions.

He knew what must have happened of course. Something had triggered it. He groaned as he put a firm hand on his already weeping cock. She'd been thinking about him when she…Merlin. She was…and then she had an orgasm and fell asleep, leaving him with this monster.

Now he knew how women felt when their partner finished without them. Not that he'd done anything of the kind; at least not after the first few tries (there may or may not have been some appallingly bad fake orgasms from his partners to get him to STOP…he might have been a tad too eager when it came to oral sex…and didn't have the skill that his over enthusiasm had eventually earned him).

Still, the image of her touching her sensitive breasts alone had him as hard as a fourteen year old virgin at a strip club. It only took a few well-placed thoughts and a few hard strokes and he was done.

He sighed, quickly went across the hall to the second bathroom, cleaned himself up and went back to his cold bed.

That was less than satisfying.

Yes, he'd gotten off. He always got off. Nothing new there.

But if one had Hermione Granger in one's bed, one should definitely wake with her hair in one's mouth and her pert bum snuggled into one's morning erection. That should be in a guidebook somewhere…

Unfortunately, Hermione Granger might be in his bed, but he hadn't joined her, so all thoughts of her bum should probably be kept out of his head before she smacked him. Or worse, set a flock of canaries on him. That was still one of her favorite tricks when she was well and truly annoyed…though the Weasel had most often been the recipient of that particular trick.

He pulled his blankets up and managed a smirk.

Sleep eventually found him.

HJGHJG

The next morning was awkward. There was no other word for it.

Draco didn't quite meet her eyes as they sipped their morning coffee on the veranda. And to top matters off, she couldn't claim that she needed to hurry off to the ministry; it wasn't even a weekday. They'd planned to go to an open air market to get ingredients for dinner…no real dish in mind…just picking out the best of whatever was available and fresh from the farm. It was a small thing, but it had been a tradition in the Granger household from the time she was small on beautiful Saturdays. Her parents had not always been solid middle class. They'd grown up on farms…mum on a dairy farm, Da was raised on sheering sheep in the north. They'd made it into the middle class by the sweat of their brows, but even after years away, they missed the tastes of farm life. So the tradition of farmer's markets was born, and young Hermione had been treated to delicious fresh produce from the time she could eat solid food.

Draco generally found the whole thing charming and enjoyed going with her…but today he looked…unsatisfied.

She screwed up her courage to the sticking point (despite her embarrassment) and addressed the elephant in the room.

"So…the bond really does share sexual tension."

Draco choked on his coffee and glared at her for springing that on him so suddenly. She blushed slightly and shrugged.

"It was going to ruin our entire day if we didn't address it."

He shifted in his seat uneasily.

"For Merlin's sake, we are adults. Both of have been sexually active in the past, and we both knew that. The fact that those urges didn't just disappear is normal and healthy."

He glared at her and she firmly tramped down a slight surge of tension. "If you drag out a biology text I swear I will hex you."

She gave him a smile. "As long as you are talking to me, I'll count either as a win."

His cheeks flared pink and she knew, with a certain amount of conviction, that he was secretly pleased that she cared enough about him to broach a subject that made her feel very uncomfortable, despite her brave words about being adults. He knew exactly how many lovers she'd had, and all of her issues.

He sat down his cup. "So what? We just agree to ignore each other whenever…"

She shrugged. "I suppose we could make a schedule and the other partner could take a sleeping potion to give us a little privacy."

Draco groaned. "You do know that this isn't something that's going to go away, correct? You jumped in and saved my life and this is your reward. You'll never be able to feel a moment of sexual release for the rest of your life that I won't know about."

She took his hand. "And I'd do it all over again." The physical link allowed him to sense more from the bond. She was telling the truth, and he knew it.

Unfortunately, that also sent a small jolt of desire through him.

"Bloody hell Granger. We are so screwed."

She leaned in and kissed his freshly-shaved cheek. "I don't think that being screwed is the problem, to be honest."

Draco groaned, but he didn't wallow in self-loathing.

She counted that as a win as well.