Ben scoffed with a wide smile and leaned forward to touch the tip of his nose against hers. "Oh, yes, you're very scary," he teased before turning his head to kiss her again. He let the hand he'd just used to push her hair out of the way trail lightly down the edge of her neck to the bottom of the neckline on her dress, lightly teasing the soft skin just at the top of her cleavage. There were a lot of layers of clothing between him and her breasts, which Ben thought was a shame, but he was hardly going to start undressing her in an alleyway — even an alleyway in a Muggle town in what was technically a foreign country. He did have some standards, even if those standards were really just the bare minimum required to keep him off of Aldous and Roman's radars.

"All the same," he said when he pulled away from the most recent kiss. "I think I ought to walk you to the nearest floo. I can't let you apparate like this." Ben was a firm believer that no one should apparate under the influence, because Aldous had managed to permanently cripple himself while apparating sober and that was just needlessly reckless — particularly when Ben knew where the nearest floo was. It only cost a knut to use a public floo in most places, and in a real pinch there was always still the Knight Bus. The latter was hardly ideal for two people who were taking pains not to be seen together, but rumors were preferred over losing a finger any day.

"The floo's not far — maybe a twenty minute walk," he explained. "But you never know who you might meet on the way. And not everyone is as much as a gentleman as I am," he teased boastfully. "Some men might see a beautiful girl like you walking alone and try to take advantage."

Ben let his hand wander over her breast momentarily before moving back down to her waist; the unspoken invitation was that twenty minutes of walking time was plenty of time and space to find a convenient location to take advantage, if she was feeling it.