Tempted

As Shirley Manson's smoke and honey voice faded into silence Ginny found herself gradually becoming aware of her surroundings. The sun had almost completely set...leaving her standing in a room full of gathering shadow, a thin sheen of sweat glazing her overheated flesh. She drew a shaky breath hoping to still the racing of her pulse and smiled wryly at the slowly uncoiling knot of tension that had settled low in her belly. The trouble with abandoning yourself, she had found, was that a body left to its own devices had a tendency to do whatever felt good. Figures, she thought, I just wanted to relax and now I'm so ruddy wound up I can't think straight. She had read once that muggles had a name for what she felt; it was choreophilia, a medical condition causing a person to become aroused by dancing. Perhaps I need medication, she mused. Not that she was aroused exactly; it was just that dancing sometimes left her unsettled. Her body would hum for an hour or so as if she'd been doused with an energizing elixir and all the blood in her brain had vacated for parts south. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear her fogged thoughts, she picked up her discarded summer robes and slid back into the cool, pale-yellow garment. Ginny listened to the voices of her brothers drifting through the open doorway from the front of the shop as she fastened the tiny buttons running down the front of her robe. Stopping to put her CD back in its jewel case and slipping it into a back pocket of her jeans, she made her way to the front room.

When he heard the twins at the front door, Damien had moved closer to the register and casually leaned against the counter as if he hadn't just been having the kind of thoughts about their baby sister that generally resulted in slow and torturously painful deaths administered by older siblings. With a few quick, surreptitious movements he fastened the front of his robes to hide the most damning evidence against him and smiled broadly to greet the heavily-laden men entering the shop.

"Weasleys, pleasure to see you looking so prosperous."

"Thinking about working the register for us Stone? What a positively spiffing idea."

"Yes, George, a little grunt work is just what our friend Stone here needs to better understand the daily demands of running a business. After you're done at the counter, think you could go out back and scrub the floors in the stock room with a toothbrush?" The stocky red head grinned unrepentantly as he set his burdens down on the gleaming counter.

"As tempting as that sounds gentlemen, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to decline. I didn't see anyone when I came in and was just about to check the back, there was music playing," the twins exchanged knowing looks at this, "when you arrived. I wasn't looking for a better understanding of the working class. I do, however, have some tentative plans that I'd like for you to look over, if you have the time of course," he drawled, satisfied that his voice sounded completely normal. Not having naked thoughts about your sister, no, not at all. Damien reached into the pocket of his robes and withdrew his wand and a small manila folder. Laying the shrunken folder on the counter, he tapped it once with his wand and it expanded to roughly the size of an advanced potions text.

"Some plans?" Fred said incredulously.

"I do believe, brother mine, that our good friend Stone has officially mastered the art of the understatement."

That voice belonged to neither Fred nor George, nor any of her other brothers for that matter. It was low and sardonic, with measured pauses between each word as if the speaker was reading poetry. Ginny felt a brief tingle ghost across the base of her spine and shivered. She really needed to get out more. There was no way that the voice of a strange man who she hadn't even clapped eyes on yet was getting her all hot and bothered. Scratch that. She was already hot and bothered. Hell, listening to Snape droning on about potions would probably do it for her right about now. Although, now that she thought about it, the man did have that whole brooding, dark, sinisterly se....she was so not going to finish that thought. Shuddering and trying to push images of the moody professor and some sort of weird Phantom of the Opera romance out of her mind, Ginny stepped through the doorway and into the brightly lit front room. Her brothers, who had been standing on the other side of the counter poring over the contents of a thick file folder, looked up as she entered and flashed her identical conspiratorial grins. Well, that answers that question. I'm not going to be keel-hauled for not rushing up front, but they're cooking up something, subtle as sledgehammers those two. Best keep an eye on them then. Ginny turned to the right, still watching her brothers mutter over the paperwork on the counter, and collided with something rather taller and broader than she was. She stumbled backwards and felt large, warm hands close gently over her elbows.

Leaning negligently against the counter, Damien watched the youngest Weasley greet her brothers with a cheeky grin. He pushed away from the mellowly gleaming wooden surface in one smooth motion just as Ginny took a blind step in his direction. The resultant collision had really been inevitable, he thought later. He wrapped his hands around her arms to keep her from falling and berated himself for the fluttering of his pulse when her small hands came to rest on the front of his robes. She smelled like honeysuckle and sunshine.

"And, who is this lovely creature?" he queried, watching a faint blush steal across her cheeks.

"Ginny," her voice was barely more than a whisper as her eyes came up to meet his, "Ginny Weasley." She had the prettiest eyes he had ever seen. They were wide, and thickly fringed with dark copper lashes, and a velvety chocolate brown. They flashed brightly and every emotion that passed through her could be read there as easily as charting the course of clouds in a summer sky, embarrassment and a healthy dose of self-deprecatory humor. She was no great beauty, her skin too pale and the generous dusting of cinnamon-colored freckles spattered across her cheeks and nose too common, but, he suspected that when moved to anger or passion, she would bring men to their knees. Her eyes would burn, her pale cheeks would flush and the energy he could feel even now would roll off of her in waves. He slid his left hand lightly down her arm to her hand and raised it to his lips, smiling gently as he brushed his mouth over her knuckles.

"It is, of course, a great pleasure to meet you," he murmured his head still bent over her hand, his breath playing over her suddenly sensitized flesh. "My name is Damien Stone."

It was only after Ginny had recovered from the shock of his soft mouth against her skin that she heard them. Her brothers were singing.

"She's a dancin' queen. Young and sweet..." She spun out of Damien's loose embrace to face them, cheeks burning with embarrassment. She slapped her palms down on the counter, the whip-crack of her flesh against the hardwood echoing through the room and cutting her dancing brothers off mid hustle.

"Shut it." Leaning menacingly over the counter, she growled at them, "You'll belt it right now, or I'll tell Mum who charmed Uncle Roger's pants to sing, "God Save the Queen", every time he passed gas last Christmas."

"Shutting it."

"She's quite right George. There's no hope for our musical careers, we should just pack it in now. Though, might I say, you are a lovely dancer." Properly chastened, Fred and George focused their attention on the contents of the massive file folder once again.

"Blackmail? Miss Weasley, I am truly appalled." Damien smiled warmly at her and then his expression shifted to one of puzzled amusement. "You seem to have missed a few buttons."

"What are you..."she began to ask, but he cut her off with a gentle shake of his head. Looking down she saw what he meant. In her haste to get her robe on she had buttoned it all wrong. Ginny didn't think she'd gotten a single one in the right hole. She was about to put herself to rights when his hands (lovely hands, tan and strong, a jagged scar circling the base of his left thumb) entered her field of vision. She looked up, her eyes mutely questioning and he held her gaze. A moment later she felt the tips of his fingers skim over the skin exposed by the v-neck of her robes, a barely there touch like a whisper in an empty room. Ginny didn't know why she was just standing there letting a strange man button her clothes, nor did she know why it should matter. He regarded her evenly, blue eyes focused on her brown ones, the movements of his hands steady and sure. It was nearly hypnotic, familiar somehow, and she felt herself leaning almost imperceptibly closer to him. He didn't say anything; he simply continued to slide the small yellow buttons slowly into order, all the while keeping his eyes locked on hers.

Damien didn't know why he'd done it. It was quite nearly suicidal of him really. Buttoning her robes in full view of her brothers? He must be insane; there was no other plausible explanation. Or, maybe, he had done it because of the way her eyes had flashed at her brothers' teasing, to be closer to something that shone so brightly. She was as lovely as he had thought she would be. When his fingers brushed over her collarbone he had seen the way the pulse at the base of her throat had jumped. He affected her too, perhaps not as much as she was affecting him, but it was something. He saw the wonder in those amazingly expressive eyes and the beginnings of something else, an unfocused desire that suffused her face with light. And, as soon as it had begun, the moment ended. Ginny stiffened; fear swiftly followed by anger passing over her features and she stepped briskly away from him.

"I can get the rest myself, thank you." Her voice was cold and tight, as if she were barely restraining herself from saying a great deal more and none of it complimentary. Damien was at a loss. What had he done to make her react so strongly?

With a supreme effort, he moved to address her brothers.

"Gentlemen, I believe that we have a dinner engagement. Miss Weasley," he said facing her again, "it was truly a pleasure to meet you."

"Too right, Stone. To the Leaky Cauldron then?"

"You can't." Her brothers exchanged stunned looks before rounding on her.

"What do you mean, we can't?" Fred asked with a mutinous expression on his face.

"Just that. You. Can't. Have you forgotten what today is?" The slowly dawning comprehension on their faces was absolutely priceless. "If you skive off Mum's birthday she'll never let you live it down. She'll have enough ammunition to guilt trip you with for the rest of your lives. That, and Bill and Charlie will hunt you down and strangle you with your own intestines." She smiled in a way that was sure to leave them with no doubt that this outcome was not entirely objectionable and turned again to Damien. "Mr. Stone, while I'm sure you have important business to conduct with these two miscreants, it will have to wait. Their family obligations have to come first." Her voice was still as cold and stilted as it had been just moments before.

"I assure you, Miss Weasley, I agree completely. Gentlemen, if you have any questions, please send me an owl. I will try to stop by early in the next week so that we can begin forming our plans. I bid you good evening." Damien lifted the partition in the counter, ducked gracefully under and, setting it gently back in place, made his way to the door. His hand was on the knob when he paused. Turning slowly on his heel, he fixed Ginny with a searching look. She didn't know what he expected to find, and she silently cursed the blush she felt spreading across her face under his scrutiny. Breaking the connection between them, Damien swept her a low bow and walked out into the night, the bell hanging over the door jangling in his wake.