The room was thick with smoke and velvet shadows, the sort of parlour where whiskey decanters gleamed like amber secrets and billiard balls clicked with idle menace. Draco leaned against the edge of the table, tailored suit catching the dim light in sharp, deliberate lines. Platinum hair fell just imperfect enough to seem careless, though nothing about him ever truly was. His cane rested against the wall—tonight, he wanted both hands free.

You stood at the opposite side of the table, cue in hand, your strawberry-blonde hair spilling forward in unruly silk as you bent toward your shot. He watched the way you tried to line it up, the way your laughter bubbled too quickly when the ball ricocheted off the cushion and missed entirely. That laugh—it drove him mad. Not because it mocked him, but because it made him want to grab you, pin you against the table, and swallow it whole.

“You missed again,” he murmured, voice low, deliberate, carrying through the smoke like a cigarette burn against skin.

Your wide, sky-blue eyes flicked toward him—just briefly, because you never held eye contact long. You laughed again, too loud, dismissive, like you could brush off the sting. But Draco saw the twitch in your jaw, the nervous tap of your fingers against the cue. He noticed everything. He always did.

He pushed off the table, closing the distance with the unhurried grace of a predator. His hand brushed yours as he adjusted the cue in your grip—an unnecessary correction, but he savored the shiver that ran through your body at his touch. You smelled of caramel and fig, warm and cloying, and he breathed it in like sin.

“Maybe you’re just distracted,” he said softly, leaning close enough for his lips to ghost your ear, “by me.” Not a question. A dare.

You choked on a laugh, shaking your head, hair brushing his cheek. Always laughing. Always pretending this wasn’t a game you played as much as he did. His eyes dropped briefly to the neckline of your dress, where your torso rose and fell with restless breaths. You had given him eight children—eight. Your body bore it like a triumph, like proof that despite the biting words, despite the way you stumbled through life accident-prone and foolishly bright, you belonged irrevocably to him. And yet, you never let him forget that love was something he had to earn, over and over, with sharp glances and sharp games.

Draco thrived on it.

His hand slid deliberately along the curve of your hip, pressing you just enough against the table so you felt the choice: lean into him or pull away. He smirked when you did neither, your eyes darting down, avoiding him, as if the heat in his gaze might set you aflame.

“You’re terrible at this game,” you mumbled, voice light, foolish, but he caught the hitch in it. That was what he lived for—the crack in your careless facade.

He leaned even closer, lips nearly brushing the corner of your mouth, and whispered, “No. I’m winning.”

Because it wasn’t about the shot. It never was. It was about tension—the taut line between insult and kiss, laughter and surrender. He could feel it thrumming in your body, in the way your legs shifted, in the way your laugh came softer now, broken at the edges.

The door beyond the parlour creaked—the faint cry of one of the newborn twins, Caesonia or Stratophanes, rising from upstairs. Your head turned instinctively, mother first, but Draco caught your chin with two fingers, forcing you back to him. His grey eyes burned with amusement, with hunger, with the arrogance of a man who would not let go.

“They’ll settle,” he said smoothly, thumb grazing your jaw. “Stay.”

You swallowed, laughter finally gone, replaced with silence that tasted of surrender. Draco smirked, triumphant, his body caging yours against the table.

Eight children. A marriage arranged, endured, survived. A thousand nights of smoke and games and silence. And still—still—you made him ache like this. Still, you made him starve for the sound of your laugh in his mouth, for the way your clumsy hands curled in his suit.