The dark-haired witch glanced up, her eyes twitching behind the heavy lids and long, curling lashes still damp from the shower. Her lips, newly left pink and clean having been bereft of the scarlet wax that they’d donned, slid into a wry smile as one of her hands slid up from his arms to his neck before she drew her index finger down through the cleft she’d made in the fabric as she’d popped free the buttons. Her tongue slid out, wetting her lower lip absently, and her eyes danced first from his before beginning to follow the line she was drawing until she was forced to stop, halted by the buttons she’d not strayed after. She let her hand drop between them and fixed her eyes back upon his.
“You’re a clever boy,” she whispered again, “and you have me all figured out. Too clever, I think. You’re going to completely foil my disguise,” she playfully admonished, “and then I’ll be sacked, won’t I?” She rubbed her lips together in mock thoughtfulness as her tongue began to run away with the wine. “Tell you what,” she continued, her Scottish lilt unfolding her words like they were her secrets, rather than merely throwaway syllables, “we’ll have it as our secret, shall we? Because if you tell, I’d simply have to tickle you to death and that would be a shame because you’d be dead and I quite like you. You know a lot about wine.”
Tempting him to figure it out was frivolous and it was dangerous, she knew, to be as well read as she was being. The auror in her did recognise that she was treading on thin ice and that it didn’t matter whether the owner of the pub was another face in the crowd or not, he knew that something was amiss and though he couldn’t quite decide upon what that was, he knew that there was and if she hadn’t have been in equal parts drunk and miserable then she would have left as soon as she had noticed. She wasn’t leaving, though. She was enticing him in, begging him, almost, to get her figured. She’d regret it, too, she knew. In the light of the morning, she’d remember to harbour some regret.
Being touched. She’d forgotten what it had felt like. Any regret that had threatened to prematurely bite at her relative happiness was chased away as his fingers stretched across her back. It disappeared somewhere into the flickering yellow light of the room to hide in the corners. She arched into his touch, her breath hitching as her eyes came to a close, petty, wanton pleasure beginning its course through her. Being touched. It felt like ecstasy. When his lips came up, over her skin, she felt as though she was going to crack and disappear into dust in his grasp, or at least lose the strength in her legs to stand. So this was what it was like to be human again, was it? Lust. To feel lust. To be felt.
She met his gaze with equal measure and laughed a little as he paused. Tease, she thought, as she reached back for the buttons on his shirt. They came out of their holes upon the twitch of her fingers against them and his shirt fell open. She wondered if this would make him hate her – if the yet was subject to the morning when the wine had settled to a dull ache in their heads and while she wondered if she was going to make it to her next pay cycle he could nurse some resentment towards her for lying to him and then, secondarily, for stealing a room and a few bottles of wine off of him for a base sort of reward. It wasn’t particularly classy – but then class didn’t come with fishnet tights, did it?
“My move,” she replied in the same undertone, leaning forward to press her lips to his chest. “Are we playing chess, Declan?” She inquired, her breath whispering against his skin. If so,” she continued, her hands straying down to his belt, “I think I might have to say ‘check.’” Her fingers found the clasp and in one fell sloop freed his belt from the loops on his trousers, tossing it onto the floor behind them, barely registering the bang it made.
“Your move,” she retorted finally as she unbuttoned his trousers. “I should think you’ve worked out the game by now, haven’t you?”
Beth released her hold on him and slid out of his arms, a cheeky smirk lifting across her face. She turned away and pulled at the hem of her shirt, bringing it up over her head as she moved back towards the bed. The shirt hit the floor next to the belt and she turned, glancing at Declan interestedly over her shoulder before extending her hand to him.
“Your move,” she repeated teasingly.
by 
