Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I want a hero: an uncommon want,” Tom murmured, his index finger tracing beneath the finely printed words. Lord Byron’s work was a favorite of his, and his wife’s, “when every year and month sends forth a new one, till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, the age discovers he is not the true one – “

His wife curled in his arms, warm and sated with his spend dripping from her thighs. She made for a decadent sight; her chignon askew and her cheeks flushed pink, while Tom held her closer to him. She was the only one he desired close, the only one he had never considered pushing away.

Nor did he desire the afternoons they spent at the manor to end when they made love freely throughout every wing of the manor and every sunny place outside. The garden was well tended, while the apple orchard stretched throughout countless acres, ensuring they would never be caught en dishabille unless they wished it. It was their private paradise, or their ‘Eden,’ as they called it.

One that others would never know of.

Truly, there was nothing that Tom enjoyed more than spending time with his wife. She was softer than he and unyielding in her loyalty to her family and childhood friends. He rarely allowed himself to wonder what would have happened had he been raised by a similar family to the Grangers, a family that prized compassion and charity. It was foreign to him, no matter how much he played pretend.

He went through life alone and had never expected marrying would change that for him. 

After two years of matrimony, he knew that his wife yearned for a child, yet he found himself unable to picture it. The only family that he had was his wife, and he saw little reason to expand it. They were never far from the other's company, as they shared a study and his beloved only retired to separate quarters to dress or receive a rare houseguest in private. Otherwise, they shared their meals as they did their thoughts, often arguing about a bill that parliament passed or news from across the channel. There was little that neither had an opinion about, and their staff often scattered when they heard their lively discussions.

There were other times too when Hermione lay with her head in his lap while he stroked her thick curls and read letters aloud to her. The ton was ever a source of gossip, one that Tom kept himself immersed in. They both knew the power of whispers, regardless of whether it was true or not. The court was a hotbed of scandal, as was lesser society, and Tom kept himself apprised of it all.

He would do as he wished and keep his wife safe.

Tom had little desire to share his wife with anyone, barely tolerating her constant projects when resident in London.  There, Hermione tended to her pet projects, among them a charity to care and educate orphans, alongside providing older girls with dowries, and finding employment for able and ambitious young men There were constant social calls as well, and fêtes to attend to; ones that his wife tolerated solely because of the rewards he promised afterward.

Though if Tom were a more honest man, he would admit they were as much a reward for his wife as they were for himself; when he guided her into an empty drawing-room, or an abandoned servant's corridor, and made love to her there. They were little more than debased creatures then, as they fucked with heated kisses and barely smothered noises. Afterward, he would willingly sink to his knees and sup between her legs; his fingers and his tongue making her clean once more.

There was an enormous thrill afterward when they returned to the party afterward. Hickeys and cherished bruises barely concealed from sight, whilst the taste of his wife’s’ cunt lingered on his tongue. Sweeter than anything else Tom might dain to sip…the same as he knew Hermione delighted in the feel of his seed soaking her small clothes, beneath her fine skirts. 

They shared every secret, and every delightful sin, as they’d promised on their wedding night.

Yet there was more too. A shared love for learning that often saw them spending hours lost in their famed library. Their collection of rare and beloved work was known throughout the country, though they allowed few outside of their circle to see it. It was one of the few places they could be themselves, as Hermione immersed herself in classical texts, with her cat, Crookshanks, curled on her lap, Tom relaxed beside her.

He wasn’t exact and harsh then, but soft and knowing, as he indulged her by playing her maid, and bathing her in decadent oils and luxurious silks. He liked to see her smile and cherished her laughter, while he lived too, for the feel of her lips against his and her hand curled about his straining cock. She could tease and excite him as no one else could, and her jealousy pleased him when she learned that he’d patronized brothels as an unmarried lord.

He bore the scars of her fury still, ones that he never wished to cover.

Only they were never alone for long, given the constant flurry of letters and guests that pressed against the manor doors. Tom had his ‘knights’ as he called them, his circle filled with the debauched and the amusing, as well as the staid and solid who funded the charity projects his wife adored.

And it was Tom’s first knight, his most famed knight, they discussed then. Abraxas Malfoy had adopted Don Juan as a tribute to himself, one that placed him well above other men. The ton was divided on the subject, most knowing that the Malfoy heir had never even read the book, except for its lauded highlights. It was fitting, then, that the heiress Abraxas married was flaunted the fact she had never read a book nor a poem before.

Hermione pressed a chaste kiss to his jawline, “After all, who could compare to Lord Malfoy?”

“No one,” Tom replied smoothly, “Except, perhaps me, sweetheart.”

They both laughed at that, a pretty, sweet sound that sent the birds soaring from the branches above them. They were no strangers to the Malfoy family, as Tom had been raised as a ward alongside Abraxas, and later, both had vied for Hermione’s hand. 

It hadn’t come as a surprise to Tom, as his good brother had always craved whatever he had. Once, they were friends and near brothers, as they saw each other often and their mothers were close friends. Tom's father was never mentioned, and his grandfather and uncle treated him as they did his mother: as if they were invisible, unlike Abraxas, the sole Malfoy heir. Everything changed when Tom’s mother passed, and the Malfoys had offered a place for him as their ward. 

“I always wished for another son,” Abraxas’s mother confessed. 

From the very night of his arrival until he became a man, Tom shared the same wing as his good brother. They shared the same tutor and lesson plans and soon adopted the same circle of peers. Neither lacked for company as they attended hunting parties around the countryside and had countless races on horseback that their mother would never know of.

Their lives were decadent and free and utterly dull for Tom, as he knew he was meant for another world by far. It was too easy to make Abraxas fall into debt with him, as often as he lost at their childish bets. Nor was it challenging to make their tutor favor him, as he encouraged his dalliance with a servant and often was found at his good mother's side when she visited the sick and crippled in the nearby village. Abraxas had little idea how Tom was taking apart his world and rebuilding it as his own. That was until Abraxas found that his father had invited his good brother to London for months, while attending Parliament, without a word for him.

Then Abraxas saw Tom as he was: smarter and driven where Abraxas was clumsy and pleasure-loving. Tom had an easy appeal, as he chose his words carefully and his actions even more so, while Abraxas's charm was heavy-handed, more suited to tittering heiresses at a fete than his mother and her titled company in the drawing-room. The mistakes that Abraxas made with his parents and his tutors and later, toward the ton with his pompousness and his loose behavior were ones that Tom never would have made.

Never.

For Tom knew, as Abraxas never would, that one had to make their place in society. A self-made man was never capable of losing everything, if it came from within, while a man who inherited the world would never be able to make things the same again. The things that he had, the man that he was, his uncle and grandfather had no claim to, nor would they ever have an opportunity to, after abandoning him to the Malfoy’s care.

Truthfully, Tom rarely thought of his blood relations. They meant nothing to him, the same as he knew they felt toward him. His solicitor worked on his behalf to seize his Uncle’s debts from Lord Worthington, and Tom had begun to collect what was owed to him. He’d begun to surprise his lover only weeks after their honeymoon with pieces of Gaunt family jewels, and other, priceless trinkets that Hermione adored.

"Impossible," Hermione murmured, turning in his hold so she could face him. She ran her fingers through her husband's dark curls while tucking her amusement away. He was too easy to tease when he was like this; open and relaxed, as if he cared for nothing but spending time with her. Truly. "Abraxas is one of the ton’s most esteemed – “

“Foolish – “

“Honorable – “

Tom scowled, “Detestable – “

“And respected lords,” she finished, her pulse skipping at the look her husband gave her.

He held her impossibly close then, allowing her to feel every inch of him. His member pressed against her stomach, and she felt desire bloom inside her. She knew that her husband wasn’t a kind or gentle man – he was possessive and demanding, the exact sort of lord her parents had never wanted her to marry.

His brother wanted her first, claiming every dance with her at her debut, as the crowd whispered about the sight. The Granger heiress was known for her scholarly pride, and her wide, caramel-colored eyes. Yet she wasn’t a traditional English rose, with her dark hair and spirited laughter. She was rarely seen without a book in her hand or her cat on a leash, as it strolled alongside her.

“It’s a wonder she brought neither with her,” one matron whispered to her charge, “She simply isn’t seemly, not at all.”

Nor was Hermione ignorant of the whispers swirling around her, her governess having warned her before coming to London. She was there to catch a husband, and little more; there was no true friendship among members of the ton, as it thrived on malicious gossip and beautiful decorum.

It was a world she never wanted to be a part of –

Though she knew her duty well.

Hermione had known as she looked up toward Abraxas’s smug expression that he wasn’t the man she wanted, despite seeing every dance through.

As a child, her dreams were her reality, as she studied every subject imaginable and was raised with every pet underfoot. She was an only child and was as close to her parents as she was her childhood nurse, their closeness a rarity among their titled peers. She rarely thought of whom she would marry, sketching the library she would build and noting the charities she would support instead.

She dreamed of the world outside of a husband and the children that would follow and embraced being ‘odd’ as other children often called her. Never, had Hermione dreamed that she could be and do as she wished. 

Everything changed when she met Tom.

Her Tom.

“Careful,” Tom hummed, brushing his lips across her cheekbones, before kissing the tip of her nose, “Are you trying to make me jealous, Hermione?”

“Perhaps.”

Her lips curved upward, as she remembered the last time, she'd made him feel so. She'd met his dark gaze while she danced with his brother, feeling fiery warmth spread within, as she never had before. He excited her, and later when she followed him into their host's abandoned study –

She’d fallen to his open-mouthed and hungry kisses, and his wandering hands. He’d lifted her skirts and stroked the place between her legs, his fingers long and elegant, and his touch knowing. She’d shattered when he’d pushed her smallclothes aside and delved his fingers inside her; pumping them rapidly, while slick dripped from her folds.

It was unimaginable how sweetly, how rapidly she’d fallen –

It was nothing like the time she’d slipped her hand between her legs, parting her folds with her fingers. She was clumsy and uncertain then, thrusting her finger inside her to the hilt. It felt unpracticed and rough, the same as a colt learning to trot. She’d rolled her hips against her finger before abandoning it completely; a vague sense of emptiness within her. It was nothing like how Tom touched her, it was nothing like she wanted -

She’d crested with fevered moans and reddened cheeks and thought he would stop then.

Only they hadn’t, they never would as Tom drew his fingers to his mouth and lapped at her glistening slick. The sight made her falter, the same as when he descended to his knees and bunched up her skirts. “W-What are you doing?” she’d whispered, and he hadn’t replied –

Not until he drew his tongue across her ruined smallclothes in one long, greedy strip.

“Tasting you, Hermione.”

Only later would she realize she’d never told him her name –

Nothing had mattered then but the feel of his tongue, as he drew her folds aside and ruthlessly pleasured her with his tongue. He drank mouthfuls of her release; her come dripping down his chin, as eagerly as a man would his drink. She held her hands across her mouth attempting to stifle her cries while bucking her hips against his greedy mouth.

She'd never imagined how delightful sin could be, she'd never imagined how incredible how much fucking could be – it was unlike anything she’d read, let alone dreamed. She choked on the sound of her lover’s name, for there was no other word for him. Her body was his to do as he wished, and she knew that if anyone had come in, they would have seen her utterly debauched. Her nipples strained against her corset, her breasts aching for his touch.

“Please,” she whispered, “Please, Tom – “

What was she asking for? Everything, and more.

“Shh,” Tom cooed, his breath warm against her clit, “Be patient, sweetheart, or I'll stop.”

His voice made her tremble in ways that no one else's had. He wasn’t gentle and kind as he thrust his tongue inside her. He wasn’t gentle at all, as he lapped at her sopping folds and nuzzled her dark curls with his nose, nor was he kind. He was devouring her whole, the feel of his mouth upon her all she could think of.

Everything she thought, everything she felt –

She never wanted to forget.

And she found afterward when he held her against him and she'd licked her release from his cheeks, that she wanted to lay with him without end. Her parents hadn’t mattered then, nor her reputation. Her knees trembled, her blood alight with desire as her senses sang with want of him. 

“Can we do it again?” she’d asked, and he laughed, a beautiful, knowing sound.

“We can,” he said, “We will, my Lady,” for he knew from the moment he saw her, that she belonged with him and not his good brother. It was why he would spank her later, while she was bent over his knee with her skirts pulled up and her bottom wonderfully tender. She came keening, losing count of how many times he’d spanked her.

It was why, too, he wrote to his good parents that Abraxas had sired an illegitimate child with an actress, of all things. It was unacceptable behavior for any member of the peer, let alone a Malfoy –

And Hermione found that Abraxas wasn't waiting for her in the park, as his calling card suggested, but Tom was. He welcomed her chaperone, Minerva, as warmly as he did her, as his servant helped them on to the carriage. It took little conversation for Tom and Hermione to know that Minerva was charmed by him, and thought him fitting for her charge, one that she had loved and considered her daughter. He would make her happy, Minerva thought, more so than the Nott or Zabini heir.

It was fortunate then, that only a fortnight later their engagement was announced to the ton.

“You want everything from me, don’t you, Tom?” Hermione said, her touch gentle as she cradled his face. She knew the man she had married, the same as she knew herself. He was harsh and demanding, the same as he was courteous and always planning for what lay ahead. There were few uncertainties with him, something she gravitated to.

Their wedding was far from a private affair, with her in-laws hosting it in London and inviting nearly all the ton. Hermione felt like a china doll on display, as she wore her mother in law’s famed emerald choker, and had white petals woven through her hair. Yet when she saw Tom in the chapel, she felt her heart skip, and her dreams entwined around his.

Tom held her hands in his as he swore his vows to her, and somehow, she knew he would never break them. Their honeymoon was spent abroad in Nice, where they sunbathed and played in the water, before making love as often as they wished. In her lover’s arms, Hermione found she could understand her childhood friends that she’d thought silly, for there was nothing that compared to laying with him. ‘Lavender was right after all…’

Tom was the one she wanted, and the only one that she would have.

“Everything and more,” Tom agreed, his hand covering hers.

She didn’t say that he already did –

For there was no part of her that she hadn’t shared with him, there was no part of her that she wanted to keep from him. She was his, and he was hers.