"You're wrong." Rory smiled mischievously as she said it, glancing over her shoulder to see how he would take it.

"Don't tell me I'm wrong." Jess caught her around the waist from behind and held her to him. She could feel his beating heart against her back.

"But you are." She spun around to face him, never breaking the circle of his arms around her.

"I'm never wrong." His eyes narrowed as he studied her face, flushed slightly from chasing him up the stairs to Luke's apartment.

"You are now." She walked backwards, pulling him with her to sit on his bed.

"Shall we settle this the old-fashioned way?" His face showed only innocence, wide eyes and small smile, but Rory knew better than to trust that face. She decided that two could play his game and wriggled out of his arms. Rory stood, turning to face him, hands on hips and jaw set determinedly.

"Please."

"But this time..." Jess trailed off and leant forward, stroking a strand of hair out of her face to whisper in her ear. His rough hand barely touched her cheek, but the gesture still made her eyes flutter closed at the sensation. His hands lingered longer than strictly necessary at her face, brushing across her skin and making her breathing speed up ever so slightly in anticipation. Rory's eyes widened as she nodded her agreement.

"Only if you -"

She nodded, "I do."

"Only as far -"

"I know."

"I don't want -"

"Jess -"

"Fine...but first, we have to lay down some ground rules..." Jess' darkened eyes sparkled imperceptibly as Rory nodded, grinning most uncharacteristically as she reached for his hand to curl her fingers around his wrist and pull. He slid from his bed to the floor, sitting directly across from her and staring into her eyes.

"Do I light the candle, then?"

"Please."

… … …

"Firstly...no touching..."

The one candle glimmered in the middle of Jess' bedroom, lighting up Jess' face in a way that made the shadows dance across his chin and his eyes glint evilly. It fell softly on the curves of Rory's cheeks and lit up her face as she smiled, as if daring him to challenge her. Everyone knew that Jess couldn't resist a challenge.

Jess chuckled, "And that goes for both of us?"

Rory nodded, "You behave yourself, mister."

"Secondly?"

"Secondly...no cheating."

"Would I ever cheat?" Jess stared straight at her, poker-faced.

"I hope not...would you?"

"Game hasn't started yet," Jess reminded her, drawing another half-smile from Rory.

"And thirdly..." she trailed off.

"Thirdly?"

Rory dropped her eyes, and then flickered them back up to Jess' serious face, "No mercy." Her voice was firm, clear and direct. It was her eyes that gave her away. They glinted in the candlelight, showing Jess a totally new and mischievous side to her. It both amused and amazed him to see her like this. Four days. Had it really only been four days? Four days since he had first sat down opposite her in the diner and heard her talk about Shakespeare. From the first time she had opened her mouth, he's been gone. Head over heels. Crazy for the girl. However one cared to describe it, that'd been it for him. And now here she was, sitting across from him in a cheekily gaping shirt and low-riding jeans, grinning at him as she double-talked, confusing and astounding him into complete silence. Almost complete.

"Do I go first?"

Rory smiled, "Why not?"

Jess bit his lip and looked down, thinking. The stakes were high, for him at least. If he could only...

"Battle of Hastings?"

"1066. Are you insulting my intelligence on purpose?"

"Thought I'd start you off easy, seeing as you're about to be beaten..."

"You wish..."

"You wish."

"Lead singer of the Clash?"

"Joe Strummer. Lead actors in Casablanca?"

"Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Freud's first name?"

"Sigmund. Year that Shakespeare died?"

"1616. States where doctor-assisted suicide is legal in the US?"

Jess swore.

"Ten, nine, eight..."

"I know this, I swear...Maryland...California?"

"Seven, six, five..."

"Rory, I'm warning you...Washington?"

"Four, three..."

"Shut up...I'm thinking...Texas? Michigan?"

"Two...one..."

"Rory...Nebraska?"

"Ha!"

"Fine!" Smiling good-naturedly, Jess pulled his shirt over his head and turned to toss it behind him. Rory gasped out loud when he moved to where he had been sitting opposite her – his muscles glinted and rippled as they moved and Rory caught her breath again. She had to hug both her arms around her to stop her hands reaching out for him. She couldn't help herself – she wanted to touch him, to run her hands all over him until he touched her back. But she couldn't. Rule number one said so – and Rory was nothing if not someone who played by the rules no matter what. Rory closed her eyes firmly. Jess' naked torso was doing its job: distracting her. She needed to not be distracted. She needed to not look at Jess' body. Jess started the game back up in a flash.

"And it's Oregon and Texas. Lead in Almost Famous?"

"Kate Hudson. First five digits of the Golden Ratio?"

"1.6180 - who solved Fermat's Last Theorem?"

"Nobody. Rory. Why are your eyes closed?"

"Concentrating."

"Open them."

"No."

Jess crawled towards her and slipped behind her back, lips tantalisingly close to her neck.

"Rory..." His breath blew across her skin, gentle, making Rory have to fight the urge to turn around and grab him.

"No touching." She reminded him, mentally cursing herself for reminding him.

"I'm not touching..." His words sent shivers across her skin and down her back.

"Name of the Sex Pistols' Greatest Hits album?"

"Kiss This. Country between Austria and France?"

"Switzerland. First two lines of the chorus of Guns of Brixton?"

"The...something..."

"Ten...nine...eight...seven..." He was still behind her, and every number he counted blew cool air across her skin.

"Six...five...four...three..."

"Jess, I know this."

"Two...one..."

"Something...la...la..."

"It's 'You can crush us / You can bruise us'. I expect you to know that, Gilmore." Jess got to his feet and returned to his position across from her, the candle between them. His chest glimmered again as he sat down. Rory pouted at him, lips pink and slightly swollen from the night before, but pulled her shirt over her head, tousling her hair slightly as she did so. Her pale skin shone in the dim light of the candle. Jess swore under his breath. They were even, except he would've betted large amounts of his Walmart money that he was more distracted by the sight of her skin than she was by his. Opposite him, Rory was making the exact same wager in her head. It was going to be about who got distracted faster and they both knew it.

… … …

Rory didn't know how much time had passed, but Jess was sitting in one sock and his boxers across from her. She was clad in her bra and underwear only, and Jess' breathing was getting heavier as he drew on the last remaining shreds of his self-control. He mentally took inventory. He had the capitals of Syria and Kazakhstan to thank for the fact her socks were in one corner, and William Blake's first poem to thank for the fact that her jeans were draped over his bed. And when she hadn't been able to remember the drummer in The Doors, she'd taken off her headband.

"You have more clothes than me," he managed to accuse her.

She smiled, flicking her hair back out of her face. He'd lost his jeans to the middle initial of Lord Byron and his other sock to the year that Australia had been colonised.

"Largest country in Africa?" she asked him.

"Sudan. First colour movie ever made?"

"Wizard of Oz. Hitler's wife's name?"

'Eva Braun. Star of 21 Jump St?"

'Johnny Depp. Turkey's capital city?"

"Ankara. Year of Gone With The Wind?"

"The book or the movie?"

"The movie."

"1939. Gangster's name in Billy Bathgate?"

"Dutch Schultz. Molly Ringwald's character in Pretty in Pink?"

Rory let go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

"Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five..."

"Pass?"

"No passing. Four...three...two..."

"Annie...something?"

"One...It's Andie Walsh. How could you not know that?"

"I did know that! I just couldn't think of it with you – there – all...muscly and glinty...it's your fault!"

"Tough love, baby."

"I knew it!"

"Yes."

"I did!"

"Sure..."

"Jess!"

"I believe you."

"Fine!" Not taking her eyes off his, she reached behind her and unclasped her bra. It fell to the floor by her knees, but Jess didn't notice. He only had eyes for the almost-naked girl in front of him. Her breasts were small, round – perfect. He'd seen them before, but somehow there was something a little different than teasing her in Luke's storeroom and seeing almost all of Rory lit up by candlelight in his bedroom – the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Unknowingly, he reached his hand towards her.

"Rory -"

There was a burning desire in his eyes, so intense that it almost scared her. She dropped her eyes to the floor, and then caught his gaze again. Her clear blue eyes stared unashamedly into his face, his brown eyes darkened with his desire to have her. In that moment, nothing else mattered.

"Jess -" Rory started to say, her hair falling over one shoulder. Everything and anything she did seemed to turn Jess on even more. When she moved her hand self-consciously to her chest, he imagined that it was his hand caressing her.

"Rory – remember what we..." Jess trailed off not trusting himself to go on. Oh God. His voice was deep, husky and rough – and Rory honestly thought that she wasn't going to be able to handle it if he kept talking. Her desire to push her breasts into his hands, to grind herself against him and feel him touch her everywhere was overwhelming her. Never, in anything she had seen, read or previously felt had prepared her for this. Sure, she had missed Jess, she had wanted to be with him, but she had never felt nor imagined this all-consuming need to feel him under her hands, to feel his hands on her. Jess seemed to read everything she felt in her eyes, because he reached for her hungrily, his self-control in tatters.

"Good thing I never cared much for rules..."