Okay, my sister (AikoYamarashi) read this and kept badgering me to update it…plus most of my reviewers seem to really like this story and I thank you all for your support! Enjoy this next installment!

XXX

Okay…I could do this.

It's not a big deal.

All I have to do is get in, shower, and get out.

My mission is set….okay I am so not ready for this.

I've never even been in a boy's room before! This was like traveling to a foreign planet!!

I vaguely remembered Ino saying something about "Men are from Mars and women are from Venus." So, yes, this was like going to Mars. And, frankly, I wasn't interested in seeing what Mars had to offer.

I clutched my towels and my clothes to my chest with one arm, and hesitantly brought my other one up to knock on Sasuke's door.

Knock

Knock

Knock

I took a step back and waited patiently.

I heard some shuffling coming from inside, followed by a loud banging and, what sounded like, a muffled curse.

In the next second the door opened to reveal Sasuke pulling on a black Kurt Cobain t-shirt (he already had it most of the way on, so I didn't really see any of his skin, much to my gratitude). He was wearing some faded jeans and was shaking out his hair that was wet.

I just stood there blinking, so he raised an eyebrow at me and stared back.

After a few minutes he pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said, "You needed to take a shower, right?"

I nodded dumbly and walked past him, into his room, when he stepped out of the way.

He closed the door behind me and I took the opportunity to look around his room.

It wasn't messy, like I expected it to be. It was actually really clean; even cleaner than my room. His bed was pretty big with a large, black headboard. His sheets and pillows were an assortment of black and navy colors (he even made his bed, he is way neater then I am). The carpet was white like all of the carpeting in the house. There was a door on the far left that was open and revealed all of his closet space. To the right of his closet door, in the corner, was a black bookcase filled with albums, books, and picture frames. To the left of his closet door was a cushioned, black chair. On both walls that were on either side of his bed there was a window with the navy curtains pulled closed. I looked to the far right wall and saw another door, but it was closed. Next to the door was a desk with a laptop set up on it and a small stack of albums (like the ones on his bookcase), an iPod, an alarm clock, and a wrench (apparently he worked out in the garage a lot). Next to the desk was a black dresser with a large stereo set up on top of it.

I heard Sasuke clear his throat and I turned around to face him, finding him watching me.

"The bathroom is right over there," He said, pointing to the closed door that was next to the desk.

I nodded and walked over to the door, pulling it open and stepping inside. I turned to look at him and saw that he was still watching me.

My eyes widened and I pulled the door closed, making sure to lock it for good measure.

XXX

Man, it felt good to have all of that gunk off of me.

I took my towel and wiped all of the fog off of the large mirror that hung over the sink.

I tossed my towel on the floor in a pile with my dirty clothes, and looked at my new, clean, attire in the mirror.

I was straightening out my shirt when I heard knocking on the door.

"Sakura let me in." It was Sasuke.

I rolled my eyes and said, "It's not polite to interrupt a lady when she's dolling herself up for the day."

He was probably rolling his eyes too as he said, "One: you don't look like the type to 'doll up'," I could almost see his hands forming air quotes around that. "And two: it's also rude to lock someone out of the bathroom when it's their bathroom that they're graciously allowing you to use."

Damn it…he had a good point. I unlocked the door and he came in.

I gave him a lazy glare and he returned it with a smug smirk.

I turned back to the mirror, twisting my hair and pulling it up against my scalp. I took the hair clip that was on the counter and clipped it into place, shaking my head a little to make sure that it wouldn't fall out.

Sasuke was giving me a weird look.

"What?" I asked.

He leaned his head closer to mine. My eyes widened and I said, "What are you doing?"

I leaned away but his hands came up to grab my upper arms, holding me into place. I closed my eyes, waiting for the worst…when I felt him sniffing my hair.

My eyes popped back open and I looked up at him as he pulled away and relinquished his grip on me.

I blinked as he stared at me with a confused expression. After a few seconds, I asked, "Do you always sniff the girls you meet?"

He gave me a deadpanned look while I just grinned.

"You smell like me." He said.

I tilted my head and he said, "Your hair," as if that would clarify things. This guy obviously didn't spend much of his time with a dictionary growing up, did he?

Figuring that questioning him wouldn't get me anywhere, I tried to piece it together myself.

A light bulb went off, I swear it did.

I motioned to his shampoo bottle sitting on the side of the bathtub, saying, "I had to use your soap and shampoo; your mom is supposed to take me shopping for all of that stuff today."

Sasuke just shrugged and turned to the sink, taking the toothpaste that was sitting in a small soap dish. I grabbed my toothbrush and said, "I'm also supposed to go with Itachi to find the stuff to fix up the guest house out back."

He paused in taking his toothbrush to look at me.

I squirmed a little under his gaze. "I mean…I can tell Itachi not to worry about it…it seems to be a place that you spend time in pretty often…" I thought back to yesterday (it seemed like forever ago now) and remembered how much he fought me on her idea of turning the small guest house into a studio.

Sasuke turned back to his toothbrush, picking it up. "Its fine, you can turn it into a studio if you want. I only ever sat out there on that couch."

He handed the tube of toothpaste to me after he squirted some on his toothbrush, knowing that I didn't have any of my own to use yet. I took it and squirted some on my own toothbrush.

"Well, I kind of wanted to keep the couch out there anyway. Just because I'll be painting out there doesn't mean it has to be just my space. You're more than welcome to go out there whenever you'd like." I said.

I handed the tube back to him and he placed it back on the soap dish.

He nodded and said, "Thanks…I appreciate it."

I smiled at him and he gave me that weird look again from yesterday. I seriously needed to figure out what that look meant, because he seemed to be giving it to me more and more.

I turned away shyly, flipping the water on to run my brush under it before turning it back off.

"And, if you want," I started again, still not looking at him but feeling his eyes on me, "You can come with me and Itachi to get the supplies and everything. Since it's not just mine, you should have a say in what we do to it too. Maybe you could help us fix it up, if you're up for it."

I put the brush in my mouth and started scrubbing away at my teeth, focusing on the faucet. I saw his hands reach out and wet his brush before turning the faucet back off.

He said, "Sure," and started brushing his teeth. I just assumed that he meant, yes, he would go with us, and yes, he would help us fix it up.

We brushed our teeth in silence for a few minutes. Sasuke leaned over after a while to spit in the sink and continue brushing. I repeated his movement, causing him to look over at me.

I smiled around my brush, feeling stupid.

He leaned over to spit again and after a little bit of time I had to spit too, but he had to spit yet again. This resulted in us bumping heads. I groaned, rubbing my head. Sasuke didn't say anything and just spit the contents of his mouth into the sink.

After another minute, I rinsed my brush and mouth out and Sasuke mimicked what I did.

I bent down to retrieve my dirty clothes and Sasuke took my toothbrush from me, placing it in the cup next to his own. I looked at him and he just shrugged, dismissing my look. He also took my clothes and used towels from me, tossing them in his dirty clothes hamper.

"Aren't the maids going to think that that's suspicious when they wash the laundry? I mean, it's pretty obvious that those aren't your clothes…"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and said, "They don't really care too much about what goes on in this house."

I shrugged and walked past him, but not before I had an evil comment set to tease Sasuke with. Really…you think I would've learned by now to keep my mouth shut, but no.

I turned back to Sasuke and said, "You know Sasuke…you're pretty hard headed. The sink thing is probably going to leave a lump on my head."

I dove out of the way because, as I expected, Sasuke jumped forward to attack me. After he took off after me in the hallway an hour ago, I was pretty much paranoid about him randomly attacking me now.

I landed on the bed, bouncing a little. Sasuke had jumped a little too far and landed next to me before I could move out of the way. The sudden extra weight caused the bed to shift so that Sasuke settled into the bed while I was bounced off. Reaching out without thinking, I grabbed onto Sasuke's shirt to keep myself from falling off. Apparently the momentum only brought him down with me.

I expected to hit the hard floor, but wound up hitting Sasuke's hard chest instead. He flipped us at the last second so that he hit the floor instead of me.

To keep me from getting hurt…?

I felt my face heat up when I felt his arms around my waist. I heard him groan from underneath me.

I fought to sit up, but he was still holding his grip on me, so I couldn't put much distance between us. Now I was just kind of laying there, my head rising and falling with every breath that he took.

When he was quiet I wondered if he was hurt and asked, "Sasuke…are you okay?"

I felt him shrug and he said, "Yeah….you're pretty heavy though, Princess."

I twitched and smacked his chest. He only chuckled at my attempt to cause him bodily harm.

We laid there for a few minutes before I cleared my throat and asked, "Umm…are we going to get up anytime soon?"

I expected him to shove me off of him and glare at me, or do something mean of that nature. I was shocked when his grip tightened and he muttered, "No…I like it right here."

I turned my head to look at him and his smoldering eyes were looking down at me (smoldering…I've been reading too many of Ino's romance novels).

It felt like he was moving closer to me, but I didn't do anything about it. I wasn't blushing, or stuttering, or squirming, or anything. I could feel my eyelids getting heavier and I was pretty sure that it was my voice whispering, "Sasuke…"

I could feel his breath fanning out over my mouth when a loud slam made me jolt and whip mine, and Sasuke's heads toward the sound.

It was Sasuke's bedroom door that slammed open. And Itachi was standing there, a smirk slowly growing on his face and an eyebrow raised.

"Should I come back in a few minutes?" He asked teasingly.

Okay, now my face was heating up. I jumped up, off of Sasuke, feeling his grip slackened by the sudden interruption.

"Itachi, we weren't- I mean we fell and he just – we weren't-"I couldn't form any of my thoughts into words.

Itachi just raised a hand in a motion for me to stop talking. It worked, to say the least.

"My mom told me to come and get you; we're going to get all of your…necessities, first, then she will take us to the hardware store so that we can get the supplies that we need."

I nodded my head dumbly.

"I'm coming with you," I heard from behind me. I turned to look, only to whip my head back around. Sasuke was standing directly behind me.

Itachi chuckled and said, "The more the merrier," before winking at me in a way that said 'of-course-he's-coming-since-you-were-just-doing-god-knows-what-with-him'.

I wanted to stick my tongue out but couldn't before he took the opportunity to leave.

Sasuke coughed from behind me, causing my body to stiffen. I laughed nervously and mumbled, "Guess we should get going."

I started to power-walk my way to the door when I felt his hand on my shoulder. I squeaked when he forced me to turn around to face him.

I squeezed my eyes shut, an apology already sitting on my tongue (whether I knew what to apologize for or not), but it stayed trapped in my mouth when I felt his hand move under my chin.

My eyes quickly popped open when I felt something warm touch my forehead.

His lips…

Sasuke kissed my forehead.

When I looked up at him he was smirking at me.

Blood pooled into my cheeks and I could only stare at him as he walked past me and out into the hallway, calling back to me, "You coming or what?"

I quickly collected myself and moved my body to the door, not being able to stop the smile that played on my lips.

Yeah, it's short and kinda suckish, but hey! They're making some progress!