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

Will's attention was torn between Tessa, who had pulled away from him and had the good graces to look embarrassed and whatever it was that Gabriel Lightwood was doing to his litter sister in the apartment above them. Tessa must've saw murderous intent in his eyes, because she grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the kitchen and away from the muffled sounds in the living room.

"So...um...What did Dr. Frank think of your paper?" she asked as she deposited him in the middle of the kitchen and started searching through the cabinets. It was much quieter in here and Will was incredibly grateful for her presence of mind. He wondered if Gabriel would ever truly appreciate how lucky he was that Will had managed to find Tessa before he'd walked in on whatever was currently happening in his living room. He somehow doubted it. It took him a moment to realize that Tessa had asked him a question.

"My paper?" he asked, frowning as he tried to figure out what the question had been.

"Yeah." Her face was blocked by the cabinet door, but whatever she was grabbing off of top shelf had exposed a strip of skin between the hem of her purple henley and the waistband of her jeans just above her hip and suddenly Will was distracted for a whole new reason. "The one you were waiting to discuss with Dr. Frank the other day."

"Oh, that…" He'd never imagined that an inch of bare skin could look so enticing. But she'd found whatever she was digging in the cabinet for and her shirt had settled back to its appropriate place, leaving him a little dazed. "Um, she, uh, she didn't really like it much, actually. Said it lacked focus."

"Did you get it shaped up for tomorrow?" She'd closed the cabinet and set a box of popcorn on the counter. "I could take a look at it if you want a second set of eyes. Also, would you like some popcorn? We could watch a movie and turn the volume up very high."

"I'd like that," he muttered, shooting a glare at the ceiling. "On both counts."

"Great," she said with a smile. "Why don't you stay in here and get the popcorn started while I set the TV up?"

"I don't get to pick the movie?" he asked with a mock pout.

"Do you really want to go back into the living room without something to distract you?" she asked, arching one eyebrow elegantly.

"Good point," Will said with a cringe and grabbed the popcorn off the counter. He waited till she was in the other room and then swore again as he punched buttons on her microwave. "I'm going to kill Gabriel and then I'm going to bring him back and kill him again."

"What's that?" Tessa called from the living room.

"Nothing!" he called back. "Your microwave's just different from mine."

Two minutes later, the popcorn was done and the sounds of previews were coming from the living room. He was just emptying the bag into the mixing bowl she'd left on the counter when she returned to the kitchen. She had taken off her shoes and sweater, leaving her feet and arms bare. For some reason, her bare feet were incredibly sexy to him.

"Oh good! You're done. Do you want to grab anything else to drink before the movie starts?" She opened the fridge and began pushing things around. "I think we've got some finals week soda left in here."

"Finals week soda?" he asked with a quirk of his lips.

She pulled two cans of Coke out of the fridge. "You know, lots of sugar, lots of caffeine. Very helpful when trying to write three different final papers, but terrible if you want to get any sort of decent sleep."

"Ah." Will had drank nothing but Redbull and absurdly strong coffee for the last week and found it adorable that she considered Coke to be a finals week-only beverage. "That'd be great. Thank you."

He followed her back into the living room, where the volume on the TV was turned up to nearly deafening levels, and sat next to her on the ridiculously ugly, but shockingly comfortable sofa. She'd turned off most of the lights, so the TV was the brightest thing in the room. On the screen, cars were crashing into each other and things were exploding in huge bursts of flames.

"What are we watching?" he asked, and he had to lean in close to Tessa in order for her to hear him over the soundtrack of the home screen and he managed to catch the lavender scent of her hair as he did so.

"It's, um, actually Sophie's boyfriend's…" she replied, leaning into him without actually looking at him as she hit 'Play' on the remote. "He left it here last time he visited and I thought you might like it more than one of our movies."

"I see." She hadn't moved away and neither had he. Her eyes shone in the light from the TV screen and he had to restrain himself from grabbing her and kissing her again. "Well, thank you for the consideration."

"You are my guest," she said after a beat. She slowly sat back, carefully placing the popcorn bowl between them. "It seemed like something a gracious hostess would do."

"Ah," was all he could manage as he forced himself to relax into the couch. He wasn't sure how to proceed from here. Was he supposed to try to hold her hand now? Or pull one of those stunts from the movies and pretend to stretch so he could slip his arm around her shoulders? He immediately dismissed the later as ludicrous and holding hands in a popcorn bowl seemed like a bad strategy, so he dismissed that too and settled for being happy they were still sitting on the same piece of furniture.

He tried to pay attention to the movie, but found himself distracted every time he reached for popcorn and brushed her fingers instead. When the popcorn was gone, Tessa moved the empty bowl to the coffee table and nestled herself against his side like it was the most natural thing in the world.

His arm wrapped itself around her shoulders before he could register what was happening. Her feet were tucked beneath her and one of her hands rested lightly on his leg. "Is this okay?" she whispered, her voice almost inaudible beneath the movie's soundtrack.

"Yeah," he breathed. She laid her head on his chest and he was certain she'd be able to hear how his heart leaped. "Definitely."

"Good."

After that Will had no idea what happened in the movie. He was completely and totally transfixed by the girl tucked into his side. At one point, he found himself running his fingers through her dark hair and was horrified to realize he didn't know how long he'd been doing so. He stopped immediately and forced himself to take a drink his soda with his free hand, hoping the sugar and caffeine would make him more alert.

"You wanna know something?" she whispered, turning away from where a helicopter was exploding on the screen and tipping her face up towards him.

"Sure," he whispered back.

She bit her lip and looked up at him through long lashes. After a long moment, she said "This movie's really boring."

"Yeah it is," he replied immediately and she licked her lower lip, a quick brush of her tongue that made his mind short circuit. "Is there, uh, something you'd rather-"

She cut off his words with a kiss. Unlike the beginning of the kiss earlier, this kiss was not tentative at all. This kiss was not a gentle brush of lips against each other like the tide reaching for the shore, but a wave of passion that threatened to drown him. Her fingers were wrapped around his neck and she held him tight, her fingers splayed along his skin and her thumb against where his pulse pounded in his throat.

His free hand came up to rest on her hip and the arm that was already around her tightened so that he could reach up and tangle his fingers into her hair to deepen kiss. When he did, she made a little sound somewhere between a whimper and moan and he had to struggle to maintain some semblance of control. But then her fingers knotted themselves in his hair and she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue and it all shattered. Before he could quite register what he was doing, he'd pulled her into his across his lap so that she was straddling him and let her tongue have access to his mouth.

She hooked on of her arms around his back so that one of her hands could twine itself back into his hair, using her grip on him to pull him closer until his mouth was crushed against hers. His hands were everywhere, running along her thighs, down her arms, through her hair, along the hem of her shirt. The skin of her back was soft and warm and he couldn't help but run his fingers over the base of her spine.

And then she was arched against him, her lips tearing away from his and a soft moan escaping her as his other hand grabbed at her hip and his lips were against her throat as she ran her hands up and down his sides, his arms, his chest. Her touch was light and quick until she found the buttons on his shirt and this time nothing distracted her as she pulled at them until she was able to push his shirt off his shoulders. A moment later her shirt was over her head and on the floor and he was shocked to realize that she'd been the one to pull it off. And then she stopped.

They were both panting. Will stared at her wide eyed and open mouthed and Tessa was sure that her face matched his. He'd held her hips to steady her as she pulled off her shirt and now his fingers were brushing along her skin and distracting her to the point of madness. His face was lit by the TV screen and the explosions on the screen gilded him in shades of gold, making his skin glow.

"Bedroom?" she blurted out at the same time as he said "Well, that escalated quickly."

His eyebrows shot up and her heart stopped. When he didn't reply right away, she did the bravest thing she'd possibly ever done in her life and stood up. She didn't take her eyes off him as she grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He didn't protest when she drew herself close to him and ran her fingers along the bare skin of his chest. He didn't say a word when she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, only wrapped his arms around her, holding her so tightly that her feet came off the ground. She couldn't help the little sigh that escaped her when their torsos connected and she'd felt all the hard, flat planes of his stomach smash against her belly and he took the opportunity to explore her mouth with his tongue.

Tessa registered that they were moving, but didn't realize that he probably knew the general idea of where her room was because his apartment was laid out exactly like hers. When he reached the end of the short hallway, he paused and set her down. His teeth grazed her ears and she felt her knees buckled as he whispered "Which one's yours?"

She it took her a moment to understand what he was asking. She didn't trust herself to speak, only inclined her head towards her bedroom door and then pulled him down for another searing kiss. He pressed her into the wall, one hand in her hair, one hand fumbling for the doorknob. And then, once again, she was off her feet and in his arms. Before she could quite comprehend what had happened, he'd set her down just inside her room and he had disentangled himself from her arms and was staring at her, his forehead the only thing touching her.

"Tess," he breathed, gently gathering her hands up in his and cradling them between their bodies. "Tessa." His hands, wrapped tightly around hers, were shaking. "I want this. You have no idea how much I want this, but-"

"But?" she drew away from him, and his eyes searched her face desperately. She was suddenly hyper conscious of the fact that she stood before him in on her bra and jeans.

"I'd like to date you properly." She felt her eyebrows try to arch themselves right off her forehead and tried very hard to arrange her face into a less shocked expression. He let go of one her hands to drag his hand over his face. "That is to say...in a...normal relationship, I wouldn't spend the night for a while. I don't want to fast forward through all those important steps between our first date and sleeping together."

"Ah…" It wasn't so much a word as it was the sound of her exhalation. She blinked and tried again. "I think I understand."

"So," he bit his lip and took her hands again. "I'm going to go back into the living room now and sleep on the couch and tomorrow I will make you breakfast and walk with you to drop our papers off, okay?"

She blinked and made herself nod.

"Alright. Good night, Tess," he whispered, kissing her lightly and stepping back into the hallway without another word.

She stared after him in a sort of daze as he went back into the living room. A minute later, she heard the TV shut off and the light from the kitchen went out. It took her another full minute to understand that he wasn't coming back. She stared into the darkness for a long time before her heartbeat returned to normal. Then, there was nothing left to do but shake her head in amusement and go to bed alone.