It's now edited!! Yaaaay!! I'd been meaning to rewrite this but =P it was the reviews that really made me get my butt into gear. It's now written with the party scene included, and also has my second ItaSaku kiss ever ^^ the first happened in Gesture. Um...I'm glad I rated the story T? It didn't actually need it but I'm beginning to think differently now that the kiss scene is there. Or I could be delusional...who knows....

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine and belongs to Kishimoto (don't i wish i was him...) nor do I own rights to White Hot Chocolates which are delicious (as are their mocha counterparts). If you've never had one, you should really try it. They are like heaven in hot coffee mugs.

Summary: It's late and Sakura's missed the last bus leaving campus, so she braves the campus coffee shop in the middle of the night and meets someone whom she finds herself unexpectedly attracted to...but what are the chances she'll find him again when she doesn't even know his name?

Considering it's an ItaSaku, the chances were about 100% because it's me ^^;

Enjoy!


Sweeter Than White Hot Chocolate

"I hate finals!" Sakura chanted to herself. "Hate them, hate them, hate them!"

The backpack slung over her shoulders was heavy, weighing her down as she jogged across the campus quad, hoping against hope.

"Wait up!"

Her sneakers pounded over grass, then concrete, and finally skidded to a stop as the last campus shuttle pulled around the street corner and disappeared out of sight.

She heaved a sigh, breath coming out in a steamy cloud.

"Of course…."

Defeated, she trudged over to the bus stop bench and plopped down, breathless and exhausted, to take stock of her situation.

She had maybe twelve hours, max, before her last and hardest final of the semester. But here she was, stuck on campus at half past midnight with no possible bus ride home, a cell phone that had died two hours ago, and too many books to comfortably carry had she wished to attempt walking.

Which she didn't.

Her best friend, Ino, had spent the better part of their freshman year drilling a lesson of caution into the pink-haired girl's head. She could not now comfortably shrug it off and make her way home through the streets so late.

All those times Ino-pig refused to let me leave the dorm after nine without a friend really paid off, Sakura thought with a wry twist of her lips. Unfortunately, this only leaves me with a few options.

She shivered in the chill of the late December night, certain she was slowly freezing to death in her winter jacket and jeans, considering what she might do.

She could return to the library; it wasn't unheard of for students to take catnaps in the reading armchairs, though Sakura wasn't sure if she was entirely comfortable doing so. She coul check the study spots her friends liked to use during finals week in the hopes of finding someone to bum a ride off of. Or…

A cheery jingle, like a Christmas sleigh bell, interrupted her thoughts.

Vibrant green eyes flickered to the noise and lit up.

Or, she could keep warm in the campus coffee shop with a hot beverage and request the use of another patron's phone to call her roommate for a ride. The end of the quad nearest to her housed a cute little student-run coffee shop that was still open at this utterly unholy hour, its bell above the door jingling eerily loud in the quiet winter air, and while she wasn't looking to get a caffeine high when she was dead tired and in serious need of a good solid eight hours of rest, they would probably have hot chocolate, her favorite wintertime drink, to keep her from getting frostbite in the icy weather.

"Hot chocolate," Sakura murmured to herself with a little grin as she started across the quad.

The coffee shop was deliciously warm, thawing her freezing extremities as she worked the numbness out of them and decided what to get from the menu. Aside from the usual coffee, the establishment also sold three types of hot chocolate, chai, and seasonal spiced cider. The interior was quiet except for some soft, slow Christmas music playing at the edge of hearing, loud enough to give a festive air to the shop while not loud enough to bother any of the two customers already seated inside.

Looking from the harried-looking girl with long dark hair that shone violet under the coffee shop lights typing away rapidly at her laptop, to the sleeping male across from her, his face obscured by a fur-lined coat hood, Sakura wondered if she ought to ask the bored looking barista for his phone instead. The other patrons of the coffee house looked too busy to trouble.

Or I could always ask whoever sits over there…

An open laptop, a briefcase, and several research papers lay scattered over a corner table, no owner in sight. The title of one of the essays, a treatise on optometric biotechnology, caught her eye.

I wonder…what kind of a person….

"What'll you have?" the barista asked, yawning tiredly as his fingers paused over the register keys.

Startled, Sakura turned away from the corner table, dismayed to find she was blushing. "I…I'm not sure yet," she stammered. "Give me a minute?"

"Whatever works for you," the barista replied with an air of utter boredom, turning his attention back to the marked up psychology textbook behind the counter.

Turning her mind away from the person who might have been sitting in the corner booth, Sakura tried to think instead of what she wanted to have.

Itachi watched in amusement as the vibrantly colored girl – who could miss the bright, unbound, rose-hued hair that swirled around her pale face in the dark winter night – sprinted across the quad's dead grass to the shuttle stop. From the way she ran, weighed down by a heavy-looking bag, he already knew she wouldn't reach the stop in time to catch the last bus.

Sparing a moment to feel a small twinge of sympathy for the rosy-haired girl, he turned back to the reason why he'd left the warmth of the campus café.

He flipped his phone open and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hell, nii-san."

"Sasuke," Itachi greeted his younger sibling, brows coming together in concern. Sasuke rarely called late at night, especially when Itachi told him beforehand that he would be working on his dissertation. "What is it?"

A sigh hissed through the receiver.

"Ino's putting together a Christmas party this weekend…"

"I don't know why you bring this up every year, Sasuke," Itachi said with a sigh of his own. "I always decline."

"Mom always nags me that you seem to have no social life," Sasuke's voice crackled over the phone line. "And Ino can be plenty persistent too."

"I'm not her childhood friend; you are. Isn't it enough that you go?" Itachi asked, running a hand through his hair. His fingers caught, dislodging the tie that held his sable locks away from his face. "And I still don't see how that required you to call me this late. I was working on my dissertation."

"You would do the same if Blondie had been pestering you about it for half an hour straight," Sasuke bit out irritably.

"Well tell Ino no thanks and Mother that I honestly don't have time to socialize," Itachi said, trying to massage away an oncoming headache.

I need a coffee, he thought as his mind calculated how many more hours of work he could put into his dissertation that night.

The chime of the coffee shop doorbell brought him from his thoughts, reminding him how chilly it was out of doors.

"I'm going to get back to work, otouto," Itachi informed his younger brother curtly. "I'll see you at home for Christmas."

"Yeah, I know," Sasuke said, making a noise that would have been a sarcastic snort if he hadn't broken it with a yawn in the middle.

"Because in spite of living in the same city and going to the same university, you'll be holed up in your apartment with that dissertation until Mom drags you home by your ear."

"Goodbye, Sasuke," Itachi said blandly, hanging up the phone. Mom never did that, she only yelled at me that one time two years ago.

With a sigh on his lips and coffee on his mind, the older Uchiha brother slipped back into the welcoming warmth of the coffee shop.

Decisions, decisions, Sakura mused as she tried to decide between her favorite plain hot chocolate topped with mint-flavored whipped cream and the café's newest offering. Shrugging, she decided it couldn't hurt to be adventurous.

"You ready?" the barista asked tiredly.

"Yeah," Sakura replied, "I'll have a white, hot chocolate with whipped cream and caramel, please?"

"And a tall mocha latte, no whip, with a doubleshot of espresso," a smooth male voice behind her added, not missing a beat.

A topcoat-clad arm appeared in her stunned field of vision, credit card in hand. She gawked as the piece of plastic exchanged hands and the drinks were paid for.

"I…what…I'm sorry, there was no…" she floundered, feeling her temperature rise with embarrassment. Trying to somehow put together a non-insulting sentence to communicate to whoever it was that had just paid for her drink that his action was completely unnecessary; she turned around…and promptly lost her train of thought.

Oh…wow…

She should have been immune to the effect of good-looking men by now. Her best friend and roommate, Ino, was a fashion business major and always trotting out pictures of shirtless male models to shove under her nose for inspection. Ino took running the business section of her mother's popular clothing line very seriously and would only use the best of the best, aka any model that made I've-been-studying-physiology-for-two-years-now-and-can-only-think-of-people-in-terms-of-organ-systems-and-tissue-transplants Sakura blush. But the man behind her, in Sakura's opinion, blew every single half-clothed male model she'd seen that year completely out of the water.

He was that striking.

He was dressed in muted tones, warm in a deep navy topcoat reaching almost to his knees over a dark grey turtleneck sweater and black slacks. A scarf of even darker navy was wrapped around his neck, the ends stitched with a white-and-red fan pattern. Sakura's cheeks flushed, a darker pink counterpoint to her cherry blossom locks, as her eyes finally met his even gaze. Dark obsidian eyes looked back, observing her as thoroughly as she had been him, full lips curving just a tiny bit in what might have been amusement. The reading glasses perched on the end of his nose were dark-framed and scholarly. His hair, whatever didn't frame his face in sable tendrils, was pulled back into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck.

"One white hot chocolate, whipped cream and caramel, and a mocha latte, no whip, with doubleshot espresso."

Sakura jerked back, away from the other man, startled by the barista.

"Th-thanks for the hot chocolate and, sorry about earlier. I'm not used to people buying me drinks," she mumbled, turning away from the dark-haired man to distractedly sprinkle cinnamon on top of the cream on her drink.

"Don't worry about it," he answered easily. "It was my pleasure."

"Um, well, thanks anyway," Sakura told him. "You didn't have to."

His lips curved in a self-assured expression, and somehow, without a single instant of physical contact or verbal communication, Sakura found herself being escorted to the corner table she had been eyeing earlier.

Sliding into the seat across from the mess of papers he'd spread over the tabletop, Sakura sipped her drink, letting it melt the cold in her fingers and fill her with sweet, soporific calm. The hot liquid warmed her, relaxing her until she found that she could say without stammering, "So, I take it you're not an undergrad here; I've never seen any class that requires reading in…biometrics," she read off one of the papers.

"Yes, I'm a grad student; this is my dissertation on possible biotechnological advances to benefit people who suffer from optometric degenerative disease," he replied.

"Did you choose this topic for…personal reasons?" Sakura asked, her eyes flickering to his glasses, and the obsidian orbs beneath them, and back down to her drink, hoping he didn't think her rude for being so nosy.

"I'm not offended," he told her, correctly interpreting her behavior. "Optometric degenerative disease runs in my family," he explained, "So you're right, I do have a sort of vested interest in the subject."

"I'm sorry…."

"Don't; I'm very careful about my eyesight and no one has gone completely blind in my family for generations."

Not sure what to say to this remark, Sakura took another long sip of her hot chocolate to fill the silence that descended.

"So, what is an undergrad student doing on campus so late during finals week?" he asked her when the quiet got uncomfortable.

Sakura gasped, recalling her mission to borrow someone's cell phone to place a call in a sudden flash.

"I-I'm really sorry," she stammered; the calming effects of her drink were fading now that she'd reached the bottom of her mug and nervousness was beginning to swamp her again, "But could I borrow your cell phone? My phone died a few hours ago and I need to call my friend for a ride home."

The man glanced at her over the tops of his glasses and, after a moment's pause, pulled out a sleek black cell phone out of his pocket. One of the newest models on the market.

Sakura suppressed the urge to raise an eyebrow. I knew his clothes were pretty nice looking…but man he really must be loaded; I couldn't afford one of these things even if I paid three months of my part-time job salary, her mind snarked as she punched in Ino's phone number.

"If it is too much trouble for your friend to come pick you up this late, I can easily take you home."

The hairs on the back of Sakura's neck rose, her body unconsciously tensing. She wasn't shy around guys, she had plenty of male friends, but that didn't mean she was comfortable with jumping into a stranger's car. Even if the stranger had paid for her hot chocolate, was breathtakingly attractive, and wealthy from the looks of it.

"I…I'm good, thanks," Sakura declined, trying for a self-assured smile as she pressed the phone to her ear. "My friend and I do this for each other all the time." The phone rang…and rang…each one making Sakura more nervous than the last.

"My offer still stands," he said, the same moment that, with a click, a very familiar voice echoed in Sakura's ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey! My phone died, I missed the bus, and I'm stuck on campus. Can you pick me up?"

"Forehead!" Ino yelped from the other end of the phone. "Do you know what time it is?! I've been trying to reach you for the last hour!"

Sakura winced. "I'm sorry! I would have come home sooner but I had to finish the last of the practice final and the last question took a little longer than I thought!"

"Nevermind," Ino said, calmer now that she'd had a chance to yell at her friend. "Where are you? I'll come pick you up."

"I'm at the coffee shop next to the quad but I'll meet you where we usually meet up? By the monument?"

Ino huffed into the phone. "Sure, sure, I'll be there in ten minutes." With a click the conversation ended.

"Well…goodbye to you too," she muttered, flipping the phone shut.

"I take it your friend is coming to pick you up."

She blushed; handing the phone back to the mysterious young man she'd met that night. "Y-yeah, I need to go. Thank you again for the hot chocolate."

"Would you like me to walk you to the monument?" he asked. He was surprising himself; he didn't usually offer to walk girls anywhere, even so late at night. But the girl had caught his attention since she'd sprinted across the quad with a bursting-at-the-seams backpack half an hour ago, and he was finding himself unwilling to let her go just yet. He caught himself hoping – when was the last time he'd actually hoped for anything like this he wondered vaguely to himself – that she'd agree, though on the outside he remained in control as he calmly began to collect up his things. It was the work of a few moments to grab the scattered papers and his laptop and put them away in the briefcase.

Sakura's pink blush deepened to cherry red as he tidied up.

He doesn't…I mean that's nice and all but… her mind whirled, floundering for any excuse not to have her unknown benefactor following her to Ino. It wasn't that she felt uncomfortably nervous around him, at least not in a bad way, but Ino's reaction to him was something Sakura wanted to avoid. The blonde had a keenly annoying way of pestering Sakura with questions she didn't want to have to answer whenever boys happened to be the topic of conversation.

"I…I'm sure you need to get back to working on your dissertation," Sakura blurted out, wincing internally as the words left her mouth. Good going, she groaned to herself, he probably thinks you're just dying to get rid of him now.

"Well it's rather too late to keep working now," he said reasonably. "I have to thank you; I have a tendency to overwork when I'm wrapped up in this report of mine but you pleasantly diverted my attention this evening. It would be rude of me not to thank you by escorting you to your friend."

"Th-thank you, but I c-couldn't, I've been…been taking up too much of your time as it is! Thank you, really," Sakura stammered, blushing and trying to smile and failing miserably and hating it before she gave up altogether and fled out the door.

Yawning, the coffee shop's barista straightened out the last of the tables as he shot the abandoned man a tired grin. "Smooth moves there man," he laughed, not unkindly. "But that's one girl that doesn't want to get involved, looks like. She got away like a pro, no offense."

Itachi glanced blandly at the sleepy barista then down at the cell phone in his hand. The phone number the pink-haired girl had used was on the top of the call logs, and to his surprise it wasn't an unknown.

His lips curved into the smallest of smiles. "I don't think so," he said to himself softly. "I don't think so at all."

And at the other side of the quad near the monument, Sakura collapsed into the passenger seat of her roommate's car and muttered, "I don't want to talk about it, Ino-pig," in answer to her friend's quizzical glance.

"Sa-ku-ra!"

The roseate-haired girl jumped, dropping the sweater she'd been in the process of folding. "Wh-what?"

"Geez, what is wrong with you?" Ino teased, plopping down on the bed across from her friend's. "You've been spacing since you came home two nights ago! Did missing the bus traumatize you that much?"

Sakura glared, scooping up her sweater as she stuck her tongue childishly out at her best friend, cheeks furiously red. "I have not! I'm just…worried about my grades," she finished lamely.

It wasn't true; Sakura was an exceptional student, and had been since high school. And both of them knew it. The girl blushed as her blonde friend gave her a disbelieving look.

"Just…leave it alone will you?" Sakura groaned. "It's nothing, really. After finals it's been organizing my parents' vacation cruise in the Caribbean and I'm just a little frazzled okay? Nothing major."

Really…I don't want to tell you that I've been thinking almost constantly about some random guy I met at the quad coffee shop who bought me hot chocolate and whose name I don't even know!

She quashed the urge to shake her head in an attempt to dislodge the thought. She had had the mysterious person on her mind. It was strange how that single encounter had lingered in her thoughts so persistently, the whole night somehow fogged with a hint of the surreal. She could almost imagine that the dark-haired man hadn't truly existed; that he was merely a construct of her mind. He had been too unsettling, the whole encounter almost something from a story.

And yet the glimpses of notes and reading material she had observed in his possession were too down-to-earth to be imagined.

The blend of unrealistic to pragmatic had drawn her, and while at times she blushed at the memory of his voice, she also wondered what he might have thought of her choice in career, her coursework, and the research she wished to pursue after college.

"Hey, earth to Sakura!" Ino called, laughing at the other girl's sudden blushing. "You sure you've got nothing on your mind?" Catching sight of Sakura's glare, she raised her hands in a placating gesture, lips still curved into a grin. "Alright, Forehead, I'll drop the issue…."

A small, mischievous smile played about her lips as Sakura turned away from her to put away the laundry she'd been folding. Ino was pretty certain she already knew what was eating at Sakura…and had had the hunch since a certain phone call she'd gotten yesterday.

"Hey, Sakura, since your parents are going on that cruise, I know you don't need to pack for the plane trip home like you usually do around this time of year…why not come with me to the end-of-semester Christmas celebration I'm having tonight?" Ino asked offhandedly, her words facetiously casual.

Sakura glanced over her shoulder, doing her best to give her friend the puppy-dog eyes. "Please Ino, you know I don't go in for that kind of thing…"

"Over the semester," Ino corrected tartly. "You're always saying you're too busy for parties and now that finals are over you should unwind! Come on, it's just a dinner and dessert buffet and a little dancing. Nothing wild."

"You're going to nag me until I say yes aren't you."

"Without a doubt."

The rose-haired girl groaned and sighed. "Okay fine. Have it your way, but I swear if I go I'd better have a way of getting home when I want to leave. You always stay out until three in the morning and I can't afford all that lost sleep during break."

Ino grinned triumphantly, feeling that Sakura would have absolutely no problem getting her ride wherever she wanted that night. "Done. Now come on, we need to pick you out an outfit!"

Several hours later, Sakura was grudgingly admiring Ino's fashion expertise. For all that the girl was a business major, her mother's fashion industry had left some very obvious marks on the trendy blonde.

She had picked out a crimson spaghetti strap dress that Sakura had all but forgotten she owned. The gown clung to Sakura's curves, sweet but not too demure, with just the right touch of playfulness in the ruffle-edged dress hem and the slit that came up a few inches above her knee. Strappy black heels that laced around her ankles finished the outfit. Her rose-blush hair was swept back in a half updo, leaving the rest to spill down her back to rest in pink softness across the back of her bare shoulders.

"I'm going to freeze in this, you realize."

"Beauty is pain," Ino laughed, tossing her friend a shimmering length of crimson silk for a shawl. "That should be enough, now we don't look unacceptable."

"If this is just acceptable, I don't think I want to know what looking good entails," Sakura muttered to herself, glancing at her friend enviously.

Ino could unconsciously make anything look good. The blonde was dressed in a strapless navy gown that accented her eyes, back crisscrossed with thin strips of silk. The slit of the dress was high on one side and held closed by another set of crisscrossed silk-strips and a bow. Her blond hair was gathered up and piled into a mass of becoming curls and tendrils. The shawl she wrapped around her shoulders was sheer and silvery; she looked like the night wrapped in a mist of frost.

The blonde waved off the compliment at her outfitting skills. "Nevermind that," she admonished mock-sternly. "Shika and the others are going to be here any minute-,"

The doorbell rang.

Ino flashed Sakura grin that made the pink-haired girl strangely nervous.

"Coming!"

Most of the arrivals were their friends, Tenten, Hinata, Hinata's cousin Neji, Naruto, Kiba, and Shino, or Ino's; her boyfriend Shikamaru and his friend Chouji, her childhood playmate Sasuke, and-

The blood drained from her, leaving Sakura numb and breathless as she recognized the handsome man from three nights ago, even more handsomely dressed today in an ebony suit, crisp white dress shirt, and blood-red tie. The same one who had haunted her thoughts constantly since they'd parted ways. He was smiling at her now, a slow, almost predatory look over the tops of his glasses that made her realize in a flash that he had probably been thinking about her quite a bit too during the last few days. Might even have somehow manipulated this particular event into occurring.

The thought was utterly breathtaking.

"This is Sasuke's older brother, Itachi," Ino introduced, seemingly unconcerned. "He's a grad student crashing an undergrad party but I figured we could let him off the hook for today; he's Sasuke's brother after all, and it's my party," Ino added with a smirk.

"Hello, Sakura," Itachi greeted her silkily.

Sakura swallowed nervously, feeling like captive prey. "Hello…Itachi."

I'm going to have them put 'Yamanaka Ino, Mistress of Manipulation; she went one step too far,' on her gravestone, Sakura groaned, restlessly nibbling her bottom lip.

Somehow, thanks to a certain blonde's machinations, when they had divided up their group for rides, Neji had taken charge of his younger cousin and his girlfriend Tenten, Naruto was driving the single boys: Kiba, Shino, Sasuke, and himself, Shikamaru was had Ino and Chouji, and Sakura had been left in Itachi's care.

Alone.

She was going to kill her best friend for putting her into this situation.

The tension in this car's so thick you'd blunt a chainsaw trying to cut it, Sakura's acidly sarcastic mind quipped as she tried to ease her nervousness. I miss...how it was at the coffee shop. At least we could talk…she sighed inaudibly, trying to loosen her death grip on her purse. The deep crimson satin was going to be permanently wrinkled if she didn't let go soon.

A warm hand covered one of hers, electrifying her with its touch.

"Sakura."

Uchiha, the legality of that voice of yours in currently under review by the board of Things-That-Studybug-Sakura-Cannot-Handle, Sakura's mind babbled as she let Itachi gently pry her fingers from her purse.

"I'm glad to see you got home safely," he said evenly, as he worked free her hands from the pretty satin purse.

"Y-yes, tha-," he hadn't let go of her hand. "Um…."

Cheeks rapidly darkening to match the color of her dress and purse, she tried to pull away.

His only reaction was to tighten his grip and entwine his fingers between hers.

"I-Itachi…uh…"

She felt him stiffen rather than saw it, and glanced up to see dark eyes flicker to her face, their ebony depths heated. With a muffled squeak, she stopped trying to extricate her fingers from his. It was only a short car ride after all….

And he would have to let go when they got out of the car anyway.

Still, by the time they arrived at the hotel where Ino – with the help of her mother and certain members of Uchiha Financial – was holding the Christmas party, Sakura was flushed with embarrassment, her mind steadily concentrating on the warm, firm grip of Itachi's hand. His palm was surprisingly callused, like he studied kendo or something, and, every so often, his thumb would gently sweep over her knuckles in a caress.

From his calm nonchalance, she was pretty certain he wasn't even aware he was doing it.

Which made it all the more worrying….

"Th-thanks for the ride," Sakura said quickly, tugging her hand away as soon as his grip loosened. The valet opening her door gave her an exit, and she slipped into the crowd of her friends, leaving a silently amused Itachi behind.

"Ino can I have a word with you," Sakura hissed, not even bothering to phrase the words as a question as soon as they were inside.

"Let's at least get food; I get the feeling this little conversation of ours is going to take a while," Ino said cheerfully, tucking Sakura's arm in hers and dragging her off with a smile.

Behind them, Shikamaru shook his head and sighed his trademark word, "Troublesome…"

"So what was it you wanted to talk about?" Ino asked conversationally as she debated spring rolls or gyoza.

"This! Him! Everything!" Sakura snapped. "Ino, what…"

"What am I doing?" the blonde finished calmly. "Helping you out."

"Why do I need help?" the emerald-eyed girl ground out, feeling her patience fray.

"Oh please. You've been all muddled since you first met him three days ago," Ino said, her eyes serious in spite of the little grin that curled her lips. "I figured this would be good for you."

"I see. And how would you know when I met him?" Sakura bit out.

"He told me."

Ino flashed the other girl her phone.

"When Itachi first got his new phone, I put my number in it. When you called me, that number was logged into his phone. So two days ago, he called me up and asked me to persuade you to come to this event. Surprised me," Ino added, tone thoughtful. "Itachi never comes to these things, and he never acts like this about a girl." Her smile was warm. "Sakura, I don't know Itachi as well as I do Sasuke, but I do know enough about him that I was comfortable setting this up on you."

Sakura sighed, feeling defeated. Ino was trustworthy in that respect. She had never tried to set Sakura up with anyone who she hadn't known to be undependable.

"But he…Ino…you know I don't…date casually," Sakura mumbled. "I can't just…."

"I don't think you'll have to," Ino replied pleasantly. "He looks like he wants to ask you himself."

"Sakura."

Yup, the board of Things-That-Studybug-Sakura-Cannot-Handle has definitely outlawed that voice of yours, Uchiha Itachi.

"Well Sakura, I really should get back to the rest of the party," Ino said calmly, giving the dark-haired man standing behind her best friend a nod in greeting. "I'll see you both later." Or perhaps not, her mind supplied with a wicked chuckle as she caught sight of Sakura's expression.

Blatantly ignoring the please-don't-leave-me look in Sakura's eyes, Ino smiled and excused herself to go search for her boyfriend.

So going to kill her… Sakura thought grimly.

"Sakura."

"That is my name," she replied tartly, shoulders tense as she slowly turned to face him, steeling herself.

He was gazing back at her, eyes appreciative as they took in her appearance. A faint look of amusement played about his lips, he reached out for her half-eaten plate of buffet foods, gently extricating it from her grasp. Holding the plate in one hand, he gently took control of Sakura's elbow and steered her easily to a more secluded corner of the room.

Yup, kill her. Definitely. No way Ino-pig is going to survive this....

She halfheartedly tried to pull away from the soft pressure of his warm fingers against her bare skin, not too surprised when their grip tightened slightly in warning. "Please, Itachi…let,"

"How was your final?" he interrupted, voice lightly conversational. "Ino said you were worried about it."

Sakura blinked, completely derailed from her previous train of thought by his words. "Um…I won't know until grades are posted but I think I did okay? How is your dissertation?" she asked. "I thought you'd be too busy to come here. Not," she added hastily, cursing the blush that once again rose to her cheeks, "that I thought you'd be here to begin with; I didn't think I'd see you again. I mean! Oh god I should just stop talking," she groaned into her hands.

A soft chuckle made her look up.

"Sakura, I'm sure Ino has told you already that I am not prone to attending these things," he said, eyes searching her face for…something.

"She mentioned it," Sakura mumbled under her breath, pale cheeks still flushed.

The warmth on her arm disappeared, leaving her strangely bereft, only to wrap around her wrists in a way that made Sakura feel cornered and shy. Her mind vaguely wondered what had happened to her plate that allowed Itachi to hold her with both hands, but it was only a stray thought against the thunderous pounding of her own heart.

"I-Itachi…."

"I don't go to these events; I don't try to track down people I meet in cafés. So why," Itachi asked, almost to himself.

Sakura shook her head mutely. She didn't know the answer to that either.

Warm fingers feathered over a flushed cheek, sable eyes finding her green ones, filled with a strange mixture of emotion so frightening that Sakura shut her eyes against it. His breath brushed her lips.

"W-wait!"

The rose-haired girl pulled away, eyes like two aspen leaves fearful. "Itachi…I can't do this. I'm not…I'm not feeling well!" she told him, wincing mentally at the lame excuse.

"Then, let me take you home," he offered, the small smirk on his face telling her that she hadn't fooled him.

"I-I'm fine, I can get a ride with one of my friends," she said quickly, feeling a rush of déjà vu as her mind recalled a similar conversation that had taken place a few days ago.

He recalled it too, she was sure, for he merely murmured, "I let you get away once like this, I won't do it again," and gently took her wrist.

Dumbfounded, she let him lead her out of the room.

"Ino…do you really think this is a good idea?"

The blonde smiled triumphantly as she turned and regarded her boyfriend. "Shikamaru, you are a brilliant man, but sometimes you need to let me do the thinking," she told him, grinning. "They'll be fine. Besides," she added with a mischievous quirk of her lips, "now that Sakura's gone, I'm free to spend time with you."

Her boyfriend responded with a wry grin of his own. "You really are a troublesome woman," he told her affectionately as she wrapped her arms around his neck and turned her face up to his kiss.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Hmmm?" Sakura asked, turning her eyes away from the dark streets that rushed by the silver sedan's window. "What?"

"I thought I was escorting you home because you weren't feeling well," he teased gently. "Were you…lying?"

"N-no! I…the…the fresh air is making me feel better," Sakura stammered

"Is it," was Itachi's only response.

Well this is uncomfortable, Sakura thought sadly.

Itachi, seated beside her, flicked dark eyes to her still form and felt a silent thrill of triumph. Though she didn't know it, Sakura was his. He had decided it, without realizing, when he had bought her hot chocolate, something within him drawn to the vibrant girl that night. And he knew it know, in the way that her warmth lingered as if she was still in his arms and the very nearness of her felt…right.

He wondered if, deep down, he was really a romantic…and then pushed the thought away, labeling it as ridiculous. It was merely Sakura that made him like this.

Sakura.

He let the drive back to her place finish in silence, punctured only by her softly spoken directions. Though she was trying to push him away, he would persuade her that she wanted him as much as he did her. It was merely a matter of making her realize the truth.

"Let me walk you up," he said when they arrived and pulled into an available parking spot. The tone brooked no argument, and she didn't give one. Letting a little grin flicker over his features, he followed her up the stairs to her place.

"Thank you for driving me back, Itachi," she said as they neared her door. "It was…very nice of you." Her fingers searched her purse for the keys, finding them and hurriedly jamming them in the lock as she tried to put space between herself and the curious, beguilingly handsome man.

"Sakura, look at me," he ordered quietly, stilling her movements. "Turn around and look at me."

She swallowed, hard. Breath shallow and heart pounding, she closed her eyes and obeyed his soft command, afraid of the consequences.

"I'm not…like this," he said silkily as her eyes fluttered open. "My mind is wrapped up in my studies; I've spent the last year and a half writing my dissertation. And somehow you walked into the café three nights ago and now…" a self-assured smile tugged his lips, "I can't seem to concentrate."

"I…." He was invading her personal space, backing her up against the door of her apartment until there wasn't even a handbreadth between them, the warmth of him contrasting the icy metal at back and the winter chill that swept her cheeks. "I'm…Itachi…."

"Yes?" he asked, dragging the single syllable out deliciously, the word warm against her temple.

"I…."

"Go out with me."

Her mind ground to a standstill, emerald eyes going wide in the darkness as her lips parted in surprise. "E-excuse me? Itachi…I don't date casually…."

"You are someone I would like to know better, Sakura," he said with warm frankness. "I…am attracted to you as you are to me," his lips curled in masculine satisfaction as her cheeks flushed even darker, "and I…" he leaned in closer until their bodies were almost touching and his lips brushed the shell of her ear, "I want to make you mine."

"Itachi…."

"Say yes," he ordered.

Her thoughts were melting away in the face of his nearness, the soft caress of his words coursing pleasant shivers down her spine. And put that way…she didn't know how she could refuse. She was curious; wanted to know him, learn about him, and be near him, as much as he seemed to reciprocate those emotions. And he was willing to see where that would take them. She couldn't deny him; she could only acquiesce.

"Say yes."

Her eyes fluttered closed.

"Yes…."

His lips burned, surprisingly gentle as he sealed her promise to him with the gesture. Pressed back against her apartment door, she let herself be devoured by him, his lips as soft as she had imagined, as they sealed her own. Her gasp as his warm hands gently trailed across her cheeks, gave him the moment he needed to taste her sweetness.

It was his undoing.

Innocently, her tongue mimicked his actions, darting past his lips as her arms wrapped around his neck, hands disappearing into his dark hair. Groaning his pleasure against her softness, he slanted his lips across hers and fiercely took control. The girl in his arms squeaked in alarm, growing breathless as their tongues mingled and his hands drifted down to her hips.

She was crimson and panting when he pulled away.

"Mine," he told her, his lips brushing hers as they shaped the word. He smirked as she nodded absentmindedly, too kiss-dazed to speak. "I'm glad you know it, but it is getting late," he told her, the tone of his voice teasing.

"Hmm?"

"Goodnight, Sakura," he whispered in her ear as an explanation. And then he was pulling away and nonchalantly walking off.

The rose-haired girl blinked, befuddled, then mechanically walked inside, locked the door behind her, and slid to the floor a blushing mess, fancy dress and all.

I'm now dating a guy I just met three days ago…and she wasn't creeped out in the least. In spite of the predatory manner in which he'd stalked her, she felt surprisingly at ease. He makes me feel…protected, she realized, loved. She sighed softly; fingertips coming up to gingerly touch kiss-bruised lips.

"I hate finals; hate them, hate them, hate them," Sakura chanted as she sprinted across the quad, fully stuffed backpack weighing her down. The crisp winter air chilled her lungs as she hurried across the dead grass in the last rays of sunset.

A sleek silver sedan waited for her near the bus stop.

Without preamble, she tossed her bag into the back and collapsed into the passenger seat with a sigh of relief.

"How was your final?"

Sakura grinned as she brushed rose-hued hair out of her eyes, turning to face her boyfriend. "I'm pretty sure I nailed it."

Itachi chuckled softly as he slipped a cup from the quad coffee shop into Sakura's chilled hands.

"Oooh warm!" the emerald-eyed girl sighed happily before taking a sip and humming in appreciation. "White hot chocolate with whipped cream and caramel! My favorite," she declared with an impish grin.

"Aa," Itachi agreed. "It's been a year since the first time hasn't it."

"Mmm," Sakura replied, answering in the affirmative. "I knew I'd been craving something sweet all day."

"You know what I think is sweeter?" Itachi asked her in a low whisper, amusement tugging his lips.

Sakura shook her head, aspen-leaf eyes shining with affectionate mischief.

Itachi smirked. "You," he told her, pulling her into his arms for a kiss.

The silver sedan idled against the curb as Itachi plucked the cup of hot chocolate from his girlfriend's hands and settled it into a cup holder, leaving it to grow cold as he savored the sweetness of Sakura's lips.

Mmmm I like Modern!Itachi and Sakura XD Perhaps I'll write about them more again later...depending...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the fic and if you did, please review the authoress so that her happy ItaSaku muse will help her write more! ^^

And thanks for all the support and those reviewers who told me I should write the party scene ^^ you know who you guys are =P