Prompt 6: My roommate's boyfriend is sleeping over, so can I please sleep on your floor?

Part One

It was late and Tessa was just leaving the library after three hours of paper writing, editing, and rewriting. Finals week had been brutal this semester and she was immensely grateful that all she had to do was turn in her paper tomorrow morning and be done with it.

She was nearly to the library doors when someone shouted at her:

"Tess! Tessa, wait up!"

She stopped just and looked over her shoulder, a smile lighting up her face when she saw who was barreling down the hallway towards her.

"I really need to get your phone number," Will said as he coasted to a stop in front of her. "It would save me a whole lot of time and effort when I need to find you."

"Is that why you chased me down?" she asked, unable to keep a smile from spreading across her face. "To get my phone number?"

"Not exactly," he started. "I mean, I probably should get your phone number too, but the reason I'm chasing you down is that my roommate's girlfriend surprised him by showing up today and she's sleeping over tonight." Here, Will cringed visibly and Tessa tried not to laugh out loud. "That part wouldn't so bad if she weren't my little sister." Her eyebrows flew up, but before she could say anything, he rambled on. "You see, the only way I won't kill Gabriel, who I actually like very much, is if I'm not there tonight." Will paused to bite his lower lip, suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable before he continued. "If there was anyone else still on campus and and if finding a decent roommate weren't bloody awful and if I didn't have to turn in this stupid paper in the morning, I wouldn't be asking you. I do know it's incredibly presumptuous, but may I please sleep on your couch?"

Tessa swallowed, hard. Her roommate, Sophie, had taken her last final the day before and was already home. The thought of her and Will spending the night alone in her apartment made a blush creep up the back on her neck. She was suddenly immensely grateful that she was wearing a scarf.

"You should know that my roommate's already gone, so it'd just be us-" Will's mouth quirked and his eyebrows waggled suggestively, making her laugh as she swatted his arm. He grabbed her hand before she could pull away, drawing her closer to him.

"I like the sound of that…" he whispered in a husky voice. She could tell he was joking. Mostly.

Rolling her eyes, she jerked her hand back and said, "I should've known you'd jump to conclusions." She let him know she was joking too with a smile. "But yes, you may stay over. I wouldn't want your roommate to die. His screams could interrupt my own studying."

He grinned and took her book bag from her. "Do you mind if I go home with you now? She's there already and, I swear, if I walk in on them doing anything, I will be out a roommate."

"As per your usual, you've left me without much of a choice," Tessa said, eyeballing her book bag as he slung it over his shoulder. He grinned at her and opened the door for her. She grimaced as a cold blast of winter air hit her face.

"Damn, it's cold!" Will yelped and he suddenly grabbed her hand, dragging her behind him as he took off running. "C'mon!"

By the time they reached her apartment, Tessa's limbs were tingling and every breath of cold air stung her nose and lungs, but she was also laughing as Will tried to keep them both on their feet as they ran over icy sidewalks. He had kept her hand tucked his elbow the whole way, like she were some old fashioned lady in a gown instead of a poor college student in faux leather boots and jeans.

When she unlocked the door, her hands trembled and she told herself it was from the cold and not from nerves. He was going to sleep in her house. They'd spent an entire semester living with only cheap laminate flooring and ceiling tiles between them and now he was going to spend the night on her couch.

The world was a wonderful, wonderful place.

She hung up his coat and made them both mugs of hot tea while he sat on her kitchen counter and made unhelpful suggestions about how she ought to brew it. She ignored him mostly and laughed occasionally, trying to hide the fact that she was incredibly nervous. When the tea was done, she handed him a mug and led him into the living room.

She perched on the arm of the on the faded blue sectional that she and Sophie had inherited from Sophie's parents and watched him take in the room and tried to smother her self-consciousness. He was looking at her bookcases and she wanted to explain to him that she had more at Aunt Harriet's, but she couldn't figure out how to say it without sounding ridiculous, so she sat and drank her tea silently instead. He gently ran his fingers over their spines, pausing here and there to smile at the titles. As she watched him, she found herself imagining those long fingers tangled in her hair and ghosting down her back. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold shook her.

"This one's been on my to-read list forever," he said, setting his mug on down and pulling The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo out and turning it over in his hands.

"Oh, you should! I really enjoyed it," she said, putting her half empty mug of tea on the coffee table and jumping up. "Read it during break and you should take these too…" She searched her shelves for the other two books in the series. "Here!" She pulled the books off two different places, wondering how on earth The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest had ended up on the bottom shelf. She didn't realize that she was kneeling at Will's feet until she stood up and found herself nose to nose with him.

"There's a lot of cliffhangers," she whispered, only half aware of what she was saying. "It would be cruel to send you off with only the first book."

"You're very kind," he said in an equally soft voice, taking the books from her and setting them next to his mug of tea on top of the bookcase without taking his eyes off of her. She thought her bones would melt from the heat in his gaze. "I'm going to kiss you now," he whispered, his lips only millimeters away from hers, one of those long fingered hands finding it's way to cup the back of her head. "Is that alright?"

Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers threaded themselves through the hair at the base of her neck. She had so badly wanted him to kiss her while they were waiting for Dr. Frank. The professor's awful timing had made Tessa want to scream and she'd had gone through the entire discussion of her paper irrationally wanting to bite the good professor's head off. Now, it took her a long moment to stop staring at his pansy blue eyes long enough to realize he was still waiting for some sort of response from her. Without even realizing she was doing it, she licked her lips and bobbed her head in ascent.

At first, the kiss was soft a gentle brush of his lips against hers. And then it was over just as quickly as it'd begun, but his lips lingering on hers for a long moment after. His hands were on her face, the pads of his thumbs brushing against her cheeks and they were both smiling idiotically.

"Surely," she whispered against his lips once she'd caught her breath, "you wanted to kiss me more than that."

He smiled wickedly at her, his lips brushing against hers as they formed the grin. Before she could register what was happening, his lips crashed on hers and one of his arms wrapped itself tightly around her waist and she was pressed between the bookcase and his hard body and all coherent thought fled her mind. He tasted like the sugar and milk he'd dumped into his tea and his mouth was warm, even though the fingers that were in her hair were still cold against her scalp.

One of her hands was tangled in his hair and the other was pulling him closer, closer, closer to her. When his fingers found the skin that lifting her arms to wrap around him had exposed, she shuddered against him and he groaned into her mouth. She hadn't thought they could get any close and then as his fingers splayed across her bare skin, he pulled her flush against him. She could feel every angle of his body against hers and she wanted more. She wanted, no, she needed his skin against hers.

She'd just begun to work at the buttons on his shirt when a loud giggle and thump from the apartment above shocked them both into jumping away from each other. Will looked dazedly up at the ceiling for a long moment before he swore softly.

"You really can hear everything that goes on up there, can't you?"