To Feel Your Lips...

Chapter One:

He ran his fingers through her silky locks before pulling her to him and crushing his mouth on hers, thrusting his tongue between lips that had parted in surprise. She was timid at first, inexperienced as she was, but she learned quickly and soon their tongues were mating ardently as their bodies pressed close together. He pulled her back and they fell onto the couch, their lips parting for a moment in the shock. She looked down at him, her hair forming a curtain around them, her sapphire eyes dark with newly found desire, lips bruised from the force of their kiss.

He couldn't believe she was here with him, but he wasn't going to take the time to think about it. He pulled her face down to his and kissed her again, though not so forcefully as the first time. This time he went slower, teasing her, his hands playing around her waist just under her shirt, tickling the sensitive skin. She twitched involuntarily, pressing herself into him in the most delicious way, making him gasp at the sensation running through his body.

Then his ears began to buzz...

-

No no no! He screamed to himself as his alarm buzzed obnoxiously. Frustrated, he ripped the alarm clock off of the nightstand by his bed and threw it at the wall. Laying back with his hand on his forehead, he cursed at the now quiet–and smashed–alarm clock. He really had to do something about these dreams. It didn't seem to matter what he did–or who, for that matter–she kept haunting his dreams and making him wake in a rather...uncomfortable...state of body.

Looks like another cold shower for me, he thought ruefully as he finally rolled out of bed, somewhat ashamed of the blatantly obvious aroused state he was in. Just as well he lived alone.

As he got ready for his day, he regretted breaking his clock. He'd have to get a new one now, not to mention clean up the mess of sharp bits and pieces on his floor. After he'd sat down to drink his morning cup of coffee, he caught a glimpse of his watch and jumped out of the chair. "Damn it!" he exclaimed aloud, "I'm going to be late!" Grabbing his jacket and keys, he left the small apartment, mug of coffee in hand as he hurried down the stairs, too impatient to wait on the elevator.

Damn Serena, anyway, he thought to himself, not even realizing that his books were still on the kitchen table.

The object of Darien Shields' cursing steadfastly refused to wake up, even though her alarm was insistently batting her head and yowling. Wait, batting her head? Yowling? Confused, she raised her head and blinked blearily at the black cat sitting next to her. Ah, Luna, then. Confusion erased, her head dropped back to the pillow, eyes closed once more. The cat laid her ears back in annoyance. She had hoped that she wouldn't have to resort to this...

"YOW!" Serena shouted, scooting away from the claws digging into her back, falling off the narrow bed in the process. "Luna!" she exclaimed indignantly, rubbing the sore spot.

Luna just stared mildly at the now fully awake blonde, blinking her large eyes once.

Grumbling, Serena stood up and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Later, as she rummaged around in the cupboards for something to eat, she realized that she was, as usual, running late. Cursing, she grabbed a pack of pop tarts and picked her bag up before sweeping out the door. Unfortunately–though not at all unusual–she locked her keys in the apartment.

She slipped into her math class about fifteen minutes late, but the door was thankfully in the back of the huge lecture hall, so she went mostly unnoticed. Setting her bag down by an empty desk and sitting down, she pulled out the math book and opened it to a random page, then pulled out her notebook. She hardly heard the professor rambling on about logarithms when she caught sight of Darien whispering to his friend Andrew a few rows down from her. Her breath caught when he looked right at her and smiled, then whispered something else to Andrew before getting up and coming to sit next to her.

Her face was burning, but she tried to cover it by whispering, "I see you forgot your books."

He grimaced and whispered back, "No matter, I'll get the notes from Andrew later. This stuff is a breeze anyway."

She glared. Math was not her strong suit, and he knew it. Not that he was helping, distracting her from the professor! For all that he had stopped talking, she was made uncomfortable by his very proximity. Did he have to sit so close that she could smell his cologne? Not that it was a bad scent...very much the opposite! He smelled altogether too pleasant, and she found herself wanting to bury her face in his shirt. And the way his hair fell into his face made her itch to brush it back, feeling the texture of that gorgeous black hair. She sighed, tapping a pencil on her desk unconsciously, trying to stop dwelling on Darien.

It was only when he put a hand over hers to make her stop that she realized she was even doing it, and then she blushed again. When she peeked up, he was looking at her with an amused little smile on his face, gorgeous azure eyes reflecting the same emotion and–what else? She looked closer, trying to determine the fleeting emotion she saw in his face, and then looked away again, realizing what she was doing.

Why do I get all flustered around him? It's not like we're dating or anything! We're just friends, albeit friends that have only known each other for a couple weeks! We don't even have each other's phone numbers...Abruptly, the memory of their first meeting flashed through her mind.

-

She had been running, in a hurry to get to the arcade where she would meet up with her friends. She was late because the lecture had taken longer than expected, and she didn't want them to be more irritated with her than they surely already were. At least this time she had a valid excuse!

Unfortunately, her run was brought to an abrupt halt by someone's back, knocking both of them to the ground. "Oh!" she cried out. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to run into you!" Then she had looked down and saw the wry expression on the face of the most handsome man she had ever seen.

She froze, jaw hanging open, until he politely asked, "Do you mind getting off so we can get up?"

Sheepishly, she closed her mouth and moved off of him, watching him gracefully get to his feet. When he held a hand out to help her up, she realized that she hadn't stood up yet. Cheeks brilliantly pink, she pretended to ignore the hand and got up on her own, promptly tripping on a crack in the pavement right into his arms.

He caught her, laughing, while her face burned with embarrassment. When he released her–was that reluctance?–he held on to one of her hands and said, "Hi, I'm Darien Shields."

"Serena Tsukino," she said quietly in return, unable to meet his gaze.

"Nice to meet you, Serena, but I have to run," he said. "Perhaps we'll run into each other again some time?" Grinning wickedly while she gasped in shock, he walked away.

-

She smiled thinking about it. It had, without doubt, been one of her more mortifying experiences, but on the other hand she had met this gorgeous man who was in most of her classes–how had she not noticed before?–and he seemed to like her. At least, she hoped he did. His hand was still resting on hers, she noticed, so that seemed to be a good sign. She looked from his hand to his face and found him still staring at her. He smiled and took the pencil from her limp hand and wrote something on a corner of her notebook page before getting up and going back to sit by Andrew.

She tore her gaze away from him to look down at the page. It said:

Dinner tonight? 567-9036

She smiled and tore the page out, then closed the notebook as the bell rang, resisting looking at him, though she felt that he was looking at her. She ripped off a scrap of paper and wrote the word "yes" on it, then slipped it to him as he walked by on his way out of the lecture hall.

After she had put her books away, she shouldered her bag and left the hall herself, feeling giddy. She was going to have dinner with Darien tonight, and she had his phone number. Maybe he did like her.

Right. Well, just let me know what you think. -.-'

'Twould be much appreciated...