Shino could hear the two girls argue loudly outside his apartment door. He put on a shirt before he hesitated on the door handle. He could hear his roommate, Nara Shikamaru, still blaring the Frey's version of "Heartless" over and over again in his room from across the apartment. He shook his head. Thank Kame their rooms were on opposite ends of the apartment. He used the moment to eves drop on the two girls if only to find out the reason for their visit.

"I'm freezing!" the brunette argued with authority, "You can't stay mad at him forever! And we can't die of hypothermia before I properly kill you later!"

"I'm not talking to him!" Shino could almost hear Temari cross her arms and turn up her nose with disapproval.

"You can, you know why? Because you can't argue with him if you are dead!" He could almost see her roommate, Tenten, stomp up and down yelling this statement. She was fuming and it put just a slight smile on his face thinking about how her face got all flushed when she yelled. "You pissed off the landlord and now I'm going to be a konoichi popsicle if you don't make good with your boyfriend so we can go inside and get warm!" She had gotten louder with each phrase.

Temari eventually mumbled a sassy; "Fine" and Shino used the opportunity to open the door.

"Hi, Shino," Tenten smiled brightly at him changing from her pissed off demeanor to utter politeness within an instant.

Shino had whipped the amusement off his face and replaced it with annoyance. The two girls were in proximity of each other only for the purpose of sharing what little body heat they had between them. They sported heavy quilts and blankets over their shoulders and shivered like wet animals. Temari's lips had turned a light blue and Tenten's hands had turned completely purple. Their teeth chattered uncontrollably as Tenten smiled up at him and Temari looked away indignantly. The wind blew viciously outside causing the two girls to shudder closer together.

"May we come in?" It was a simple enough statement. Shino couldn't resist making them squirm.

"Nara is in no mood to entertain guests," he stated with an undertone of noncompliance.

"Serves him right," Temari muttered under her breath as she turned away. Tenten slammed a shoulder in her roommate's back as if to say "behave" as she kept her smile and gaze towards Shino.

"Certainly you wouldn't mind letting us in for a while," Tenten nearly batted her eyes. "Please." Her smile widened, adding extra sugar on top for good measure.

Shino frowned if only to hide a smile. "She is loud," Shino motioned towards Temari with his chin. Tenten's smile faltered momentarily and her eyes did not blink with the recognition that her plan had failed. She recovered quickly taking her roommates shoulders with her hands and shaking them with emphasis as she spoke.

"But tonight we will be on our very best behavior," Tenten said all this through smiled gritted teeth with forced conviction. Temari rolled her eyes as if to comply.

Shino felt he had toyed with the women shinobi long enough and opened the door to the apartment reluctantly.

Tenten sang out with sheer delight as she practically leapt through the front door.

"Humph," Temari said as she gracefully entered the foyer giving Shino a snotty look as she did. Shino turned an eyebrow up in disapproval. His roommate had picked a very strange woman to pick as his girlfriend- or whatever you would call her in their relationship at the moment.

Tenten wasted no time finding a heat register to practically worship as she rubbed her hands in front of it muttering words like, "glorious heat," and "sweet merciful warmth."

Then Shikamaru came out of his room.

Tenten instinctively bit her lip and hunched ever so slightly as if waiting for someone to throw something.

"Nara," Temari stated flatly folding her blanket firmly around her shoulders.

"Troublesome woman," the Nara replied narrowing his eyes at her. He cocked his head to the side and noted Tenten. "What's going on?" It wasn't that uncommon to see her there- after all she and Shino were friends. It was the blankets around them that threw him off- and Tenten's behavior.

At the moment it looked like Tenten was trying to pry the heat register out of the floor and make a quick getaway with it. That or she was trying to make love to it.

"What do you think we are doing here, baka!" Temari's eyes flashed with anger, "the heat is out in our apartment and we didn't want to freeze to death!" she tried to contain a shiver to look dignified but failed.

"Temari, your lips are blue," he stated with a tone of aggravation and worry, he pulled her closer taking her hands inside his, "you should have come over sooner."

With that the two disappeared into his room.

"Kame, if it were only that easy every time," Tenten rolled her eyes in exasperation. The two could not seem to stop fighting and Shino shared in her frustration.

"Maybe you should offer to buy my heat register a drink first before you violate it like that."

Tenten blushed and sheepishly looked around.

"Wait, was that a joke I just heard from the cool and stoic Aburame Shino?" she questioned with great surprise. She had come to expect banter like this from him. It was a side of him that only she and a few others were privy to.

Shino raised an eyebrow with a smirk twisting on the corner of his mouth. He knew he looked smug sitting on one end of the couch wrapping his arms around it like a throne. It was his castle after all. And he was taking quite a bit of pleasure watching Tenten try to what appeared to be find the g-spot on the radiator.

The sudden noise from the other room made Tenten roll her eyes again, but this time with disgust. Apparently Shikamaru and Temari had made up, or were making up, or were having break up sex again. He never really wanted to find out. Ever.

"Boy, you weren't kidding she is loud," Tenten said over the banging and moaning coming from the other room.

"My room?" Shino offered. Tenten swiftly bunched up her quilt around her legs with both hands like a skirt and a quickly followed Shino down the hall.

"You don't have to ask me twice."

"The heater in here is busted, I thought you knew that." Shino tried to explain as Tenten nearly hopped out of her blanket from the shock of it being cold to her touch instead of warm like she had thought.

"That's okay, I always wanted frostbite," she smiled up at him as she rubbed her hands against one another. "How do you sleep at night? Do the kakkai keep you warm?"

In truth he liked it cold, perhaps the kakkai kept his temperature regulated. He never really thought about it, it was just how he preferred sleeping. They had gotten a discount on the rather large apartment because of it and seemed to work out well that Shino didn't mind the lack of heat coming off the small room.

"Here," Shino said motioning her to come over to him so he could warm her hands up.

Tenten jumped at the opportunity. Heat was heat and she was still shivering and chattering her teeth.

Shino's warming up her hands opened a can of worms he wasn't sure he was ready for. At first he sat innocently rubbing her hands with his which quickly turned into a game of her placing her hands on body parts like his forearms to find more warmth as she moved closer to his torso realizing the heat potential. She ended up with her face snuggled to his chest and her hands desperately grasping all of Shino's heat from his back.

Now he knew how the heat register felt.

"Oh baby," she sighed blissfully as she leached what seemed every ounce of warmth from his back. Shino shivered and not just from her cold hands. She wasn't kidding when she threw words around like hypothermia. He grabbed her wrists unable to plead for her to stop. Shino looked down at the short konoichi who had decided to bring out her puppy dog brown eyes look up at him with a pout. She made a face like he had just taken away her favorite toy.

"Tenten,"

"What?" she looked around innocently as if she had not just invaded his personal space. Her twin buns had come loose and strands of hair began to emancipate themselves and frame her face.

"You are freezing," Shino simply stated.

"Thus the me molesting you for heat," she offered smiling trying her best to break free and resume running her ice cold hands up and down his back. Shino resisted the urge to acquiesce. She was as relentless as she was cute. She took a step back as if to start to apologize for making him uncomfortable.

"Get under the covers," Shino released her wrists and waved off the large layer of blankets from the bed like a bullfighter.

She nearly squeaked with delight leaping into his bed and Shino had to sternly begin to scold his hormones into place.

He wrapped his warm hands around her torso and pulled her closer to him with possessiveness. She in return grabbed at his forearms with icy claws trying desperately to pull him and his warmth closer. He dramatically spat hair out of his mouth to see if it would have the intended effect he was hoping for.

"Sorry, I will take them out," Tenten broke contact to take out her hair ties as to not annoy the Aburame. Her hair felt like a piece of silk floating between them and Shino eagerly pulled her closer when she had finished.

He had began to try to warm up her arm with a vigorous rubbing up and down her shoulders towards her elbow, but it had digressed into a lazy and sensual stroke that made her sigh with content instead.

"Mmmmm," she purred sleepily into Shino's pillow. Shino could not help but be smug and he nuzzled closer into her, gently caressing her neck with the tip of his nose. She purred louder. He boldly traced her delicate collar bone as well, resisting the urge to plant kisses while he traced her soft features. Her scent was not just intoxicating, it was maddening. He was sure she was liable to turn around and smack him at any given moment. He was never quite sure what to predict when it came to this particular female. Instead he tried to hold on to one of her hands. She greedily took it and used her thumb to gently reciprocate a gentle stroke on the side of his hand. Shino gulped, he was half afraid, half totally stoked that this would happen. They had grown close over the last few months and he was sure that he was doomed to die in the "friendship territory." Tonight's events spoke otherwise. He daringly nibbled softly at her ear and traced the outside of it with is nose again. He waited for her reaction. He held his breath as he realized that she was turning over to face him.

A moment of panic struck him until he realized with as much of his brain would allow him to think that she was kissing the side of his neck.

She was reciprocating the affection. He interrupted her at the angle of his jaw to capture her mouth with his. She eagerly shifted her weight to move closer to assert her intention. Shino realized that she wanted more from their friendship as he had. For so long he had wished for this, he never thought that this would happen. In his bed, with the woman he had held above any other.

"Tenten," he couldn't help but breathe lovingly after their kiss.

"Yes," she said in a seductive whisper, tracing his clavicle with kisses and moving her hands in places that drove him to the brink of desperation.

He lost his train of thought.

She continued to trail kiss after kiss long his sternum and back to his clavicles. She nuzzled lovingly into his shoulder.

She moved his hand to rest firmly on her butt as if to signal for him to not hold back. He eagerly manifested her request and soon the two were upright on the bed in a full make out session. Tenten seemed to be under a mound of 5 sets of clothes that he could not rip off her tiny frame quickly enough. She had removed his shirt at some point because he was not longer wearing it, and she decided to trail kisses to his treasure trail until he thought he was going to lose it if she weren't completely naked soon. His actions were not as frantic as they were intense as this had been a long time coming. He had admired her for so long and now, she finally seemed to be reciprocating something that he never allowed himself to dwell upon, for what he was experiencing now was only wishful thinking.

She boldly forced him against the wall straddling him with her now uncovered legs. He moaned with a husky voice as if to signal to proceed.

Layer after layer she uncovered until she was wearing nothing but a white see-through wife beater tank top and a lacy pair of black panties.

Shino stared uncontrollably for a second until he forcefully took her mouth with his. She eagerly penetrated his mouth, showing him how daring she could be as she brushed her chest up against his in a telling way. He was only too quick to catch on. He traced her ribs and came increasingly close to the destination that she was hoping he would land on but went no further.

"Shino," she took his face in his hands and then rested her forehead against his, "I want you to know," she stumbled, "all this time," she closed her eyes to confess, "I wanted you."

"Not as much as I have wanted you," he confessed nuzzling her check with his.

He would soon come to love the fact that his room remained cold, and the fact that she would be over frequently to stay warm underneath the covers.