Romione kiss - 1813 edition
From the most recent update to my Regency Muggle AU, The Pride of Burrough House: chapter 23. I love writing Romione kisses and wanted to share this one.
“You’re full of odd questions today,” he remarked curiously.
When she didn’t respond, he decided, “No, I take that back — ” He sent her a sly look. “You’re full of odd questions every day — Hey!”
He laughed as she swatted him with her book.
“Now listen here, miss — ”
Hermione wasn’t expecting it, and the book slipped from her fingers easily when Ron grabbed it, rolling away from her and rising to his knees
“ — that’s no way to treat — ” He paused, appraising the cover. “Now this one I haven’t seen before.
“Pride and Prejudice,” he recited as though reading aloud in class. His eyes glinted wickedly. “Is it about you?”
“Oh!” She lunged, but he was too fast for her, jumping to his feet and tucking it behind his back.
“It’s about a girl who meets a very rude boy,” she informed him pointedly, rising herself and brushing off her skirts. “Now give it here.”
Ron evaded her once again by lifting it high above his own head, feigning indignation. “Well, ask me nicely!”
“Mr Weasley,” she goaded, saccharine and affectedly courteous, “might I please have my book back?”
She punctuated her request by sticking out her tongue.
His laugh was the sort you couldn’t hear but could see, and he obliged her. When she grasped the small tome, though, her fingers closed over his and he didn’t let go, not right away.
Not for the first time she noticed that something about standing so close to him, face-to-face, set her nerves jangling — something inscrutable between them that made it hard to breathe, and not just because they were still breathless from their play.
Perhaps it was because they’d been so deliberately avoiding talking about it, instead talking in circles around it. Perhaps it was because they’d quietly refused to give it a name, that it grew impatient and decided to declare itself.
Whatever the reason, Ron decided to see about something, and Hermione decided to let him. She knew what was going to happen almost the moment the idea formed in his mind, just by his little intake of breath. Even so, at the first (somewhat inartful) clasp of their lips against one another, Hermione inhaled sharply. The book tumbled, abandoned, to the ground.
Ron’s face was flushed when he pulled away, and shyer than she’d ever seen him. He struggled to find his voice, and Hermione realised she couldn’t bear to hear him say he was sorry. Because she wasn’t, not at all.
Hermione solved that problem by kissing him again. She saw his clear blue eyes go wide, saw his hands gesture awkwardly at his sides, afraid in that second to do anything with them. Finally, when her hands rested at his shoulders, his came up to softly frame her face.
Hermione had always thought she was too sensible for this sort of thing. That maybe someday there’d be someone, because that was a nice thought, in its way; but not yet, when she still had so much to learn and do.
The trouble was, from that moment on, every minute of every day, Hermione wanted very little else than to be kissing Ron Weasley.
