Soo sorry this took so long, but believe me this chapter is worth it. A slight warning... if you aren't comfortable reading more... mature themes, you just might want to skip this chapter. But I don't recommend skipping it. This is all I'm going to say, so have a nice read!

When the normal school day was over I had a deep sense of forboding accompanied by a permanent fluttering lodged in my stomach. I was irritated, anxious, nauseas, and just all around not feeling so hot. Not feeling good. I was feeling plenty hot as I entered the Library, scanning the rows of books for the person causing me this deep upset. The air was stifling, suffocating, as if I were in an oven. Sweat perspired on my forehead, cheeks, and upper lip, hair turning into a frizzy mess. I must've whispered something outloud, else I was looking worse than I thought, because next thing I knew the Librarian was explaining to me that the heater was broken and wouldn't turn off, and that I should remove all unneccesary clothing particles. I gladly lost my hoodie over my head and remembered I was wearing a tank-top in one fell swoop. The cool was so refreshing though I left my self-consciousness to fizzle and die. It was nearly December, and hadn't gotten too cool yet, but recently it had gotten down just enough to need a hoodie and some heat. My house hadn't even turned on the heat yet, actually, and this was my first day wearing a hoodie all year, wouldn't you know it. Saturday was Thanksgiving and we had a three day weekend. Probably why Ms. Durrins wanted the paper by Thursday, so she could grade it before the weekend.

I was about halfway through our very large library when I heard the door open, and my name being shouted. "Moze! Wait-- sorry Mrs. Flervie-- Moze!" I stopped and turned, waiting as he ran through the library and caught up to me. As he approached he didn't stop as far away as I thought he would. In fact, I took a step back just so we wouldn't be trying to occupy the same space. He touched my arms, leaning over and breathing heavily. He was so close... I looked him straight in the face, trying to discern what was the matter, or perhaps it was to catch a glimpse of his breathtaking eyes... The expression on his face was all the indicator I needed to tell he was going to make an excuse to get out of this. For some reason I was relieved and exceedingly angry at the same time. I held my tongue, though, and allowed him to speak his piece.

"Moze," he panted, "I am so sorry. Really!" I held up my hand to stop him and took a step back, breaking free of his grasp on my arm. Suddenly I was much more sad and much less relieved for this development. The warmth seemed to escape my body as I turned my back on him and crossed my arms across my stomach. "Won't you forgive me? I'll never do it again!"

I sighed, wishing I hadn't agreed to this stupid idea. Wishing everything would just... go away. I guess I could make everything go away, huh? "Sure. Just don't ask for my help on anything else if you're just going to back out of it all the time!" By the time I got to the end of that statement, I wished I had phrased my words in a shorter sentence. My voice was quavering slightly, and it was getting thick. I was not going to cry over something stupid like this. Something stupid like ending my exceedingly long friendship with the guy I was in... in that with. To my horror, he laughed; a soft breathy laugh that continued into the word, 'what'.

"Hhuhh-huhhwhat?" Like that. "What are you talking about? I'm not backing out of anything. I was apoligizing for being late, not breaking the date, Jennifer," Even though I knew what kind of date he meant, my heart still jolted at the word, and if that hadn't been enough I let out a quiet sigh as he said my name, even though I knew he meant it as a reprimand. It sounded so... amazing, coming out of the lips I so wanted to caress right then. "Jeez, have some faith in me, will ya?" He chuckled more and I let out a trembling laugh, trying to pull myself together. I felt my face with my hands. I was burning up behind a scorching blush, my body had regained all of it's former warmth as well. Again the air was stiflingly hot.

I didn't turn around- what kind of idiot do you think I am?- so Ned decided to walk around me to see my expression I was so desperately trying to hide from him. No doubt I looked as if I was sick or something-- I didn't feel too far from it, actually. Hot, light headed, faint, trembling... maybe I was lucky and I wasn't in love, maybe I had the flu. As Ned came into view and stared at my face I got suddenly very dizzy, and a wave of heat scorched through my body. Nope, definitely not the flu. Damn. I collapsed sideways into a chair, crossing my arms across my chest so it looked like I sat down in a huff. The truth was my knees were so weak I thought they were going to give any second, the weight of his gaze was heavier than anything that could be made up of matter.

I think I startled him when I sat down so suddenly, because he flinched and reached out to me with both hands as if trying to catch me. "Aah- Moze!" He said as it happened, taking stuttering steps towards me and nearly collapsing on me when he ran into my seat-- and me. My arms automatically flung out and caught him, pushing against his chest. I flinched at the contact, and my arms weakened so that my hands slid across his chest to hold him back by his arms. Ned was in the most amazing polo shirt I had ever seen, but right then it needed to go bye-bye so I could touch his bare chest, and not just his bare arms. I looked up from his shirt to his eyes. And let go. His hands (which were so not lightly holding my upper-arms, a mere tickle that sent wave after wave of electricity through me) fell away, and his mouth (which had so not been opened very slightly, oh so slightly, as if asking to be touched) let out but a whisper of the regret I was so not feeling.

A long silence followed, where we were both replaying that scene in our heads to different effects; you could feel it in the air. My current fantasies (which involved the chair toppling over) were so vivid, so enticing, that I had to squeeze my eyes shut and bite my bottom lip so hard that when I stopped, my lip was welling blood. The taste more than the pain brought me back to reality and I continued to lick at the stinging wound. I didn't dare look at Ned... okay, maybe just a peek. As soon as I looked at him, though, I knew I shouldn't have. His eyes held such an intensity in them, and the normally vivid blue of them was replaced by a much darker color, one that I had only seen on other guys who I knew for a fact had only one thing on their minds. I never expected to see such a look on Ned's face, and certainly not one directed at... me. Caught up in his eyes that were all the more enticing for their hidden thoughts, I stopped licking my injured lip, and I could feel my breath hitch in my oh-so-tight chest. It heaved as my breathing strained, and my lips parted in the effort.

The air gushing past stung my lip, and I subconsciously licked it again. Ned stiffened, his gaze not on my eyes anymore. He wasn't breathing. I stopped, myself. I licked my lips again. His eyes looked really close... so close... and they were getting bigger... his hot breath leaked into my mouth as the rest of my breath left my body...

"Ned..." The spoken word startled us both, my heart stopped and he backed up so quickly he fell to the floor. My breathing came back in a harsh and noisy gasp which caught in my throat and burned all the way to my lungs as my heart finally started again with a terribly painful thud on the inside of my chest. In a frighteningly rapid cadence my heart shouted at me its opinion at my abusing it so unkindly. When I caught my breath I finally realized it was me who said his name. I risked a glance at him and he was staring at me with such... feeling that I had to look away. Disappointment, longing, confusion, riddling his features, shattering my pretenses that he didn't want me just as badly as I wanted him... 'But that doesn't make any sense!' I shook my head and looked at Ned again.

His eyes bore a hole through my own, singing, leaving an impression so ingrained that they haunted my dreams and riddled my reality. Unashamedly staring at me as his chest rose and fell, as his elbows kept him inches from the floor, as his eyes started to return to their normal blue, I had never been more self-conscious in my life. Right then I wanted nothing more than to ravish him, to feel his body so soft and warm under mine, to feel my lips crushed with the weight of passion, even the hard, rough texture of cheap school carpet would feel heavenly against my bared back... wait, school? I blinked and suddenly we were back in school, and we weren't the only ones in the world anymore. We weren't even the only ones in the library. Shock ran through me like a shrieking alarm, and I said quite loudly, "Book report!"

My hand rose to cover my lips automatically as Ned's eyebrows drew together, and he asked, "What?"

"You need a book to do your book report!" The right half of my brain reeled as it tried to keep up with the left and my mouth. Why the fuck did I care about a stupid book report?

"Huh...? Oh!" I could tell the moment his brain caught up to mine. His eyes widened and they flicked quickly around the room, never quite making it back to me. "Right..." I stood and looked down at him for a brief moment as I considered helping him up, before hurrying to the back section of the library marked Fiction. There was no way I was touching him right now. The many varied and austere looking books stared at me, there titles a jumble of words and names that wouldn't quite reach my brain, and as Ned appeared around the aisle to stand considerably far away from me, with eyes fixed on my face, all rational thought flew out of my mind. Panicking, I reached for the nearest and brightest colored book and thrust it at Ned.

"This is a good one! You should read this!" My voice was squeaky and laced with panic. Another book caught my attention and I hurriedly grabbed it and thrust it at him again. "Or this one, yeah, this should impress Durrins!" Now I was going faster, books with bright covers, books with no covers, all flew into Ned's arms as I suggested book after book and he got closer and closer. His eyes had a dazed look on them, and he had a veritable mountain by the time I reached the corner I had just trapped myself in. My eyes were wide with fear, and my voice was indistinguishable as I babbled about how any of those books could be good. I was staring at the back of the last book I had handed him, still talking, when they fell. They fell because he dropped them.

We both shot to the floor to pick them up, both babbling about how sorry we were, and started to stacked the books in another pile. I had just grabbed a book when his hand covered mine on the same book. Ned smiled awkwardly and my face, already feeling stiflingly hot again, heated a few more degrees as my smile matched his own. How had I never noticed how amazingly blue his eyes were before? Oh, that's right, I had. The book we had before been so keen on getting fell forgotten to the floor as his eyes slipped down to my lips, fluttering almost closed, his breath fanning hot and moist across my face. Before I could stop myself I had opened my mouth, taking a drag on his intoxicating breath. I breathed him in so deeply I pulled his face closer to mine, or perhaps he had done that. But he wouldn't do that-- he hates me-- no we're friends-- but still, we're only friends! I can't do this! It will ruin our friendship-- 'Oh, just stop thinking, would you!'. What a wonderful idea...

Our hands slid together, fingers entwining, warmth enveloping them, and I felt my eyes flutter shut as another of his breaths slipped into my mouth, as I sighed and heard him moan in response. I could feel the heat radiating from the proximity of his face. My eyes opened a crack to see his closed and heading straight for me. My lips tugged into a lazy but smug smile as a vision of Katie slithered into my mind, and without further hesitation I pounced.

As our lips met, mouths opening, faces changing sides and hands unable to get enough of each other, there weren't just sparks, there was fire. This was so much more than any of my fantasies had ever inspired, so much more heat, so much more... reality. This was kissing like I had never experienced. His hand was near the top of my arm, squeezing and releasing, like a cat, his other on my neck, fingers playing behind my ear and over my cheek. My hands were impatient. They cradled his face, then appeared on his chest, trying to give him a reverse-massage, then slid to his sides, traveling to his arms and around. For so long I had wanted to touch him. It was a hunger of flesh to flesh. I knew if I had gone one day longer my hands would have shriveled up, starved of the warmth and the satisfaction of another's skin-- no, not just another, but of Ned's skin.

My swolen lips ached, ached and starved and needed more, even though they were being gorged. At the next opening I thrust my tongue to his lips, crossing their threshold to his sharp teeth, and finding the thing I wanted meet me with earnest. I moaned in my throat, and heard it echoed by Ned. My hands tightened at his shoulders, squeezing into fists and sliding to what I had saved for last; his oh-so magnificent hair. They sought it out, dissolving into the silken tresses as they savored the feel and were suddenly sated, but my mouth was far from it. My hands aided my mouth by pulling him closer, his hands were now behind me, wrapped tightly, yet gently, around my waist as he struggled for more bodily contact. I was more than happy to oblige him by shifting from my knees to my butt, sitting sideways across his lap when he followed my lead. He held me like a baby, one arm behind me, supporting me, and the other resting securely on my thigh.

Our tongues slid against the other, entwining in the most erotic, and yet the most pure of dances as my heart cried. And then as I cried. Our mouths parted slowly, with increasingly sweet and chaste kisses. Finally he managed huskily, in a voice that made my insides quiver, "Why are you crying?" His voice was so soft, a more caring voice not in existence.

"Because... I realized this must be a dream." His eyebrows tilted upward sadly.

"This isn't a dream... it can't be."

I squeezed my eyes shut and more tears rolled down my cheeks. "Don't say that. At least if it's a dream... it won't hurt as much when you aren't here tomorrow." My voice quavered and my nose started to run. My heart had never felt so much pain before. To be in the arms of everything I wanted, and yet to not be able to have it.

He squeezed me, comforting, reassuring, not painful in the least, physically. "What makes you think I won't be here tomorrow?"

I peeked at his face blurrily through my teary eyes, and laughed sadly, my tears thick in my voice. "Don't kid yourself, Ned. You have the perfect girlfriend." I would have said more if my voice hadn't been strained so badly.

With his next two words my insides tightened into a ball of misery, pain. "You're right," his words were soft, but damned if they weren't the worst words I had ever heard. "I do have the perfect girlfriend, that is, if she'll have me."

I gave another pathetic sob-laugh, and my voice was high-pitched and as near wailing you could get while talking this quietly, "Of course she'll have you, you're already going out with her. And even if she wasn't who in their right mind wouldn't have you?" I was sure my make-up had died a while ago, and that my face looked dreadful to him. I was so pathetic. How could I have been so stupid as to do this? No I wouldn't regret it. I refuse to regret the best moment of my life.

"So is that a yes?" My heart missed a beat and again my breathing stopped.

"What?" I whispered at him. I turned my head still cradled by his arms to look at him.

He laughed lightly. "Does that mean you'll be my girlfriend, then?"

Rawr! So, the amazing chapter is finally done. This was by far the hardest and most fun to write. I. Frickin'. Love. This. Chapter. Don't hate me for leaving on such a cliff hanger. The story is beginning to come to an end, but there is still some stuff left to do. Since I was nice and gave you this long, amazing chapter I expect many many reviews! See ya!

Euphoric Weaver