Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail.

"Hey Luce?" Natsu stopped in the middle of singing while the two of them were recording in one of the private one on one studios.

The blond quickly pressed a few buttons to stop the recording equipment, and music that was playing through his headset to go along with his singing.

"What?" Lucy asked confused through her control room microphone that played into his sound proof both.

"Do you want to maybe, go on a date with me?" Natsu asked with a toothy grin.

"You seriously stopped an almost perfect recording to ask me that?!" Lucy wanted to practically pull her hair out.

She was both flattered and frustrated with this pink haired nuisance that seemed to know how to push all her buttons. After wiping a frustrated hand over her face and groaning she pressed the talk button on her control board.

"Yes, Natsu, but we have to get this recording stuff done! Stop day dreaming!"

Compared to the developments between the two, a date wasn't not particularly earth shattering to either of them with regards to a revelation about their feelings. If anything, it was long over due. Natsu wanted to smirk at her and tell her the truth though, that daydreaming was how he found his lyrics and inspiration that created the music work he was doing right now. However he just let a triumphant grin find it's way onto his face as he put his headphones back on and sang into the mic with the rhythm of the music being played into his headphones. He saw Lucy holding up one headphone pad to her ear with one hand, bobbing along to the music, while she was looking down at her control board making constant adjustments with the other hand. Natsu inwardly puffed out his chest in pride. The fact that he was able to make great music, and it was good enough for his favorite person to enjoy it with him, caused his ego to inflate even more than it already had. However once he looked down on his sheets of paper that he was given on his way to the recording room, he felt his gut flutter a bit in anticipation. The next song they were supposed to work on was a brand new one that Lucy hadn't heard yet, the one about her being his sexy drug. He'd submitted it to Erik a few weeks ago to run through the producer, but thanks to Natsu's self made demo of it they streamlined it right through. He wanted to slap himself for thinking that writing this was a good idea as if she'd never hear it, when she was his personal assistant who heard every note, every word, every emotionally dripping lyric come out of his mouth.

Lucy's face became redder with every word that left his mouth after the music started playing.

Sexy girl I just fell in love.

You should try it it's a helluva drug.

Like OMG you make me com, com, com-pleeeete!

Lucy felet her breath hitch in her throat at the words, and knowing full well that Natsu was already capsizing himself in this situation he decided to make the most of it and look her directly in the eye while he was singing the rest of it into the microphone for her, hoping that she knew that this song, was in fact, about her. Then when the second verse hit, he felt it resonate with him more than it should've due to the events that had just recently happened. This is what he thought made Lucy have to sit down in the control room after he sang.

Sexy girl come and lay with me

I'm frustrated and it's sexually

Like OMG you make me com, com, com-pleeeeete!

I'm just being honest we're creeping and crawling

I'm kissing the top of your head

We're rocking and rolling and touching and moaning, and making a mess of your bed

Can someone help, she shot me dead

I can't be saved, yeah!

At this point the blond was now covering her face with her hands to hide her embarrassment. Natsu noticed and was trying to get her attention once the song had finished from inside his side of the studio. After watching her keep her face covered with only brief peaks between her fingers to see him still staring at her he realized that he wasn't going to get her to interact with him from between the other side of the glass. After the song was over, Lucy couldn't slap the 'stop recording' button fast enough. After that, she leaned forward and curled up in her office chair, unaware that Natsu had made his way out of the recording room and was standing next to her until he cleared his throat.

After peeking out from behind her hands Natsu knowingly grinned at her, "Wanna tell me why you reacted that way to a song?"

"Wanna tell me why you wrote that song? And how on earthland did you write that in less than 24 hours?" Lucy shot back with her face still burning red from both her arousal and embarrassment at Natsu's words.

"I got news for you" Natsu gave her a predatory smirk as he leaned forward and rested his hands on her chair's arm rests, getting dangerously close to her face, "I wrote that song loooong before last night. I started writing that not too long after you moved in."

Lucy suddenly felt her head spin. Natsu had been watching her and looking at her that way for this long? She had no idea about how he felt since he seemed to be good at keeping his hands to himself where she was concerned. But then she remembered how visibly uncomfortable she'd seemed with his touch at first, and how even when it was evident they both had feelings for each other, she still seemed to pull away. She looked him in the eye with her embarrassment soon turning to wonder and amazement.

"That song was about you, in case you were wondering." Natsu provocatively growled at her with another devilish grin before leaning in slowly, about to steal a kiss, when their recording room door was suddenly opened.

A loud cough resounded at the door before Gajeel's voice cracked like a whip, "It's great and all that you two are together now, but I don't think I need to remind you where you are right now."

Natsu stood up and crossed his arms with a scowl. It wasn't like they were half naked about to do the deed on top of the expensive tech equipment. If anything it would just be a mini make out session with light groping if anything. However he assumed that walking in on anything remotely close to that would make anyone uncomfortable enough to make assumptions about a further intention than kissing. Natsu and Lucy sheepishly smiled at each other before walking out of the recording booth towards the main room where all the band members met at the end of the day with Erik. They were happy the day was over, and Natsu, in his angst, couldn't wait to leave for his own reasons.

"Well it looks like you guys are almost done" Erik gave them a toothy grin, "You've progressed much farther along than I expected. We should be done recording by the end of January at this rate, then we can start all the general practices and rehearsals for your tour and get the press rolling, so that we can push this album as much into the public interest as possible. You're two songs dropped a little on the radio charts, but they stayed up in the top 5 for about a solid two months. They only dipped down just a few places too, so you're still going strong."

"What about us?" The girls pointed to themselves realizing that once the recording work was done they wouldn't have anything at the studio to really do.

"Don't worry" Erik laughed, "We'll have a few of you work with Cana on the sound boards for the rehearsals, and the rest of you who don't do that will have some other jobs around the building helping sort and organize some stuff for the record company. You won't be put out of work."

A few of the girls sighed in relief at the prospect of continued employment while some of the girls sighed in despair at not having a little time off, becoming spoiled by their fortunate circumstances. After Erik explained the deadlines he also let them know that they wouldn't be recording or working again until a few days after New Years. It was less than a week until Christmas and everyone was even more excited for the holidays.

Natsu whined fitfully next to a sleeping Lucy. After they got home Lucy was content to just watch movies and play video games with Natsu until she felt tired and resigned herself to sleep. Natsu tried to follow her example, but felt way too pent up. After that one night with Lucy he felt both satisfied and longing for more. He knew he would lose his mind until he finally went all the way with her. However the problem was that he knew she wasn't ready, and didn't know if she ever would be. After finally giving up on sleep, Natsu woke up and grabbed his laptop, trying to shop for things and Christmas presents last minute online. Did Lucy like games? jewelry? beauty products? was she allergic to anything? He wanted to slam his head on the desk at how he hadn't gotten her anything yet.

Natsu settled on jewelry since he noticed that Lucy's humble circumstances had left her without the luxury of owning something like jewelry, beyond the occasional costume jewelry of simple plastic ornaments on non-precious metal chains. After scrolling for what felt like hours he saw something that caught his eye. Lucy wasn't one for flashy displays of bling and wealth, but he knew she was definitely sentimental. There was this thing that looked like a charm bracelet but was called a "pandora" bracelet which to him just meant "brand name charm bracelet." The price definitely signified that to him, but he knew that women were into this kind of thing and honestly he hadn't been spending much of his paycheck at all and could easily afford to by her armfuls of these bracelets if that's what made her happy. After selecting the bracelet itself and requesting to have her name engraved on the clasp he then clicked through menu's of "beads" and "charms" to pick just a few sentimentally relevant ones to adorn the bracelet so that it wouldn't be empty when he gave it to her. Natsu looked over his shoulder to make sure that the blond was still asleep. She had a bad habit of popping up and being awake whenever he didn't want her to see something.

"You know they're going to know something's up if I stay over here too long?" Gajeel yawned at the blue haired book worm in his lap who incidentally had her nose buried in a new novel while using Gajeel as her personal arm chair while sitting on her bed.

"So what you big lug? You know you like reading over my shoulder" Levy smirked at him, insinuating about their newfound common interest in books.

The two of them had secretly been spending more time together outside of the studio, but they tended to seclude themselves off like the antisocial peas in a pod they were, so no one tended to see them together enough to draw conclusions, yet. So far their relationship wasn't too terribly deep considering that Levy had just barely managed to kiss the man about a week ago. Gajeel was fine with it since he honestly liked the way Levy mentally challenged him, keeping him on his toes. He was more of an intellectual than people tended to give him credit for. Levy didn't even think of him that way until their in depth discussion of literary classics and his hearty opinion on many books that she'd had no idea he'd read.

"Hn" Gajeel grunted as Levy's sassy response before planting a kiss on her shoulder blade, working his way up her neck, "I really do need to get going though shrimp. I haven't done all my christmas shopping and tomorrow's going to be retail hell since it'll be the day before Christmas eve.

"You waited this long to do that?" Levy scowled at him hypocritically.

She too had some last minute present shopping to do and she planned on dragging Lucy with her for opinions as well as helping the blond with her ongoing struggle to find the right gift for Natsu. After pouting for a few minutes once Gajeel had left her rom, Levy closed her book and decided to get some shut-eye, so she could have an early start on last minute shopping tomorrow.

"Luce what do you think of this?" Levy asked to her friend.

They had divulged from their normal Christmas shopping to go do some self-shopping in Victoria's Secret. Lucy looked at the flimsy black lace pra and pantie set and raised a brow at her bold friend.

"Trying to diversify your whitie tighties I see" Lucy sneered mischievously, "No doubt for someone else, right?"

Levy blushed indignantly before retorting, "Can't a girl get something for herself?"

"Sure" Lucy gave her a knowing grin as the blond looked over at a christmas themed lingerie set herself. It was a giant ribbon meant to cover her cleavage then the ribbon dipped down to cover her groin before turning into a g-string in the back.

It was a stretchy one piece but Lucy suddenly blushed at a devious and rather genuine Christmas present idea. She couldn't find a single thing for Natsu, so she bought these for herself and decided that her wearing them would be his gift. A very bold move considering some of their recent barriers being broken.

"Lucy…" Levy gasped as she saw her friend take the themed lingerie off the rack in her size to go try on, "You can't be serious…"

"Why? Can't a girl get something for herself?" Lucy mocked her friend.

"But Luce… you're… you're a…."

"So?" she contorted her mouth in a displeased line at her friend's reservations on her behalf, "it'll just make the gift more special…"

"If you say so" Levy sighed, "You're a grown woman, and I won't lie that you two have been magnetized to each other since day one. This doesn't actually surprise me all that much."

Lucy tried the lingerie on over her own current underwear to make sure it fit without putting her uncovered lady bits on it just yet. After seeing that it hugged her curves and left very little the imagination she couldn't help but fantasize about what Natsu's reaction would be. After a few minutes Levy knocked on her dressing room door and said that she was headed to the checkout counter. Lucy scurried to put her regular clothes back on and slung the provocative present wrapping getup over her arm with a few other purchases of pajama pants and some regular bikini cut underwear to replace some of her more worn out and fraying pieces of underwear. After the two girls left the store they had their pink bags in hand and were headed towards Barnes and Noble for Levy to oogle the book she wanted again to see if it was cheaper at a different store. But as fate would have it, the two girls ran into two people they weren't expecting. Cana and Natsu were walking through the mall with a disgruntled Laxus behind them. At the sight of Lucy, Natsu came bounding over to come see her, unaware that she could potentially have something he wasn't supposed to see.

"Luce!" he called with a wave approaching the two girls, "Whatcha shopping for?"

After asking that question Levy covered her mouth in embarrassment for her friend before Natsu looked at the name on their pink bags and instantly became way more interested in their purchases. He tried to look over and into the bag before Lucy hugged it to her chest defensively and turned to face partially away from him.

"None of your business!" She grumbled with an angry pout.

"Ohhhhhh" Natsu growled a little lower than normal, making sensations crawl under Lucy's skin, "You got that kinda stuff?"

"No!" she shrieked, not noticing Laxus and Cana making their way over to them as well.

Desperate to keep Natsu from prying into the bag, she instantly pulled out a pair of plain bikini cut underwear with hearts all over them, "See?! Nothing interesting!" she blushed furiously.

"No one wants to see that" Laxus scowled at her, "Why on earthland would you show someone else your underwear?"

"Oh boy" Cana smirked lecherously, "Guess you'll see the other stuff she has in that bag later, won't you? But until then we have other things to do."

Lucy was so glad that Cana had dragged the pink haired mess away before she really lost it. Then a realization dawned on her. If she was embarrassed about Natsu being in close proximity to the bag that even held the garment, how the hell was she going to wear it for him? Levy put a comforting hand on Lucy's shoulder, bringing the blond back down to earthland to collect her thoughts, as they both sighed together.

"Maybe we should play it safe and avoid everyone else that we see?" Levy asked sheepishly.

Lucy just nodded as they headed into a few gift stores. There was a glass shop that had an actual glass blower behind a protective window making glassworks. All the beautiful sculptures and ornaments around the store made Lucy awe in wonder. Then suddenly she was filled with dread at the though of bringing Natsu in here with so many breakable objects in such close proximity.

"Wow" Levy breathed, "These are amazing.

The two girls were especially drawn to a display case that held glass dragons. They were every size, shape, color, and position. Some were breathing fire.

"Lovely, aren't they?" A kind old woman smiled behind a counter, "We can do custom pieces too, but sadly they won't be ready till after Christmas since we've got a huge workload already."

Lucy nodded in acknowledgement before asking "What about engravings on the glass? Could that be done before Christmas?"

"That can be done before you leave the store!" the woman smiled enthusiastically, "Engravings are simple, it's the main structure, shape, sculpting, and repeated cooling process with the actual glass objects themselves that takes much longer."

"Can I do an engraving for this dragon?" Lucy pointed in the case.

"Luce I thought you got him a gift already?" Levy smiled coyly.

"One more doesn't hurt" Lucy smiled, "What if he doesn't like the other gift?"

"Oh he'll like the other gift" Levy snorted without a doubt in her mind.

The old woman came and opened the case so Lucy could point to what she wanted. There was a glass red dragon, perched on a giant rock, the whole sculpture as big as a basketball. After walking over the woman held out a note card for Lucy to describe what she wanted done to the sculpture, and the woman read the note over before smiling fondly and taking the structure back to have her son engrave it. Not even twenty minutes later the woman had boxed it up and even wrapped it for Lucy before handing her the heavy object.

"You realize he's going to break that in a week right? Maybe less" Levy chided her.

"Maybe" she was starting to have slight buyers remorse, "But it's worth it."

"What did you have them write on it?" Levy tried to pry.

Lucy looked at her friend with a mocking smile, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Don't make me pry that from your arms and read it myself" she teased in return.

"You'll find out when he does" Lucy sighed with a happy gleam in her eyes.

Levy resigned herself to letting it go and the two girls chattered while finishing up their last minute rounds around the stores before returning home. It was definitely going to be rowdy at the house tonight trying to wrap everything without other people snooping on each other to spoil the surprise. No doubt there were going to be some gag gifts under the tree this year.

"Oh," Laxus cleared his throat so that the current occupants in the living room would hear him while they were shaking things already placed under the tree, "I forgot to mention, Erik called me earlier today and there's a record label Christmas Party tomorrow night for Christmas Eve."

Everyone perked up confused at this, "And Erik didn't think to mention this sooner so we all had formal dresses?" Levy chimed in sardonically.

Laxus pinched the skin between his eyes before explaining, "He's had that taken care of. Mavis gave him all you guys' measurements and your custom tailored dresses will be delivered tomorrow afternoon in just enough time."

The girls all looked at each other wide eyed, "He really footed the bill on that?" Erza asked in disbelief.

"No" Laxus corrected her, "The president did."

Erza blushed at his kindness. No doubt he was trying to get on her good side since she was having dinner at his place that night. In fact, once she looked at the clock she cursed the time. She only had an hour and a half to shower, put make up on, do her hair, and make her way to his penthouse apartment before 7pm. Or was it 6pm? Shit. She couldn't remember. After quickly rushing out the door back to her own house next door, she made short work of removing her yoga pants and long sleeve sweater. Once the water was pouring over her body she felt a little of her anxiety melting away down the drain along with her BO. After putting on a little black dress, some two inch modest heels, and a nice side braid and smokey eyed make up with Mira's help, she looked in the mirror and almost didn't recognize herself.

"Go get em' tiger" Mira winked at her from behind using the reflection of the mirror, "But make sure to let me know if you're coming home or not!" Mira scolded her before making her exit from Erza's room.

After the red head had taken the liberty of borrowing one of the sedan's parked in the girls' house's driveway, she headed towards Jellal's upscale penthouse suite. No doubt a few minutes late. She seemed to have a bad time management habit. Upon stepping in the elevator she felt her nerves jittering. After ringing his doorbell she waited until the intercom came on.

"Hello?" Jellal's familiar voice came through the speaker.

"Yes" Erza's voice squeaked as she cleared her throat to try and regular her pitch, "Yes, it's me."

"Erza!" Jellal said happily, "Come in."

With that the door made a slight buzzing noise as Erza gripped the handle and let herself in. She set her purse down on the entryway table and then made her way to the kitchen where she saw Jellal in a button up shirt and black dress slacks. He seemed to dress up for her as well. He cleaned up nice.

"Sorry I'm late" she smiled nervously.

"Foods not done, so you're right on time" Jellal smiled from over his shoulder going slightly wide eyed after catching an eyeful of her, "Go ahead and have a seat here at the island" he nodded to the little island with bar stools pulled up to it in the middle of his kitchen.

Erza scurried over before sitting sideways on the stool so she could rest an arm on the counter, "So what are you making? Smells delicious."

"That's always a good sign" Jellal laughed, "It's an oven baked chicken stuffed with a ricotta spinach sauce and topped with romano cheese. When it bakes it should have a nice crunchy with a rich gooey-ness to it as well underneath. Then for the sides I'm making a mashed, pan seared cauliflower cakes with some seasonings in it that you can top with some butter if you want. Oh, and of course, I made some nice rigatoni pasta that goes with a family marinara recipe."

"Wow" Erza stared at him wide eyed and rather speechless.

"Here, have some wine" Jellal said the one thing every woman loved to hear.

Erza didn't hesitate to sip the dark brew and instantly enjoying both the fragrance and aftertaste. She felt like one of those wine snobs that visited Tuscany on vacation just to taste that year's vintage.

"How do you like it?" Jellal asked curiously as he was sprinkling some oregano into the marinara.

"It's… tart, but tastes like spiced fruit?" Erza said confused with a confused smirk.

Jellal smiled at her, "Yup. That's the Chateau Cos d'Estournel they bottled… five years ago? I think."

Erza wanted to choke on her own spit, "What?"

"It's part of my vintage collection" Jellal gave her a flirtatious smile as if he were reading her thoughts, "You're worth it, I think" he teased her.

"That winery is like… hundreds of dollars per bottle?!" Erza had to force herself not to shriek.

"So?" Jellal asked, "I got it to use for an occasion like this."

"How many women do you seduce with your snazzy wines then?" Erza crossed her arms across her chest while raising a questioning brow.

"None, yet" Jellal smirked back at her.

He could tell that this evening was panning out to be very interesting. After assembling all the dishes into larger servings bowls he plated both he and Erza's food then put some garnishes on it before carrying the plates over to a smaller table in the nook off to the side of his kitchen. A single window by the table that overlooked the city down below. After gesturing her to come sit, Erza brought herself with her glass of wine over to the dinner table and sat herself down, trying to remember how she was supposed to cross her legs in a dress. Jellal quickly snatched the almost full wine bottle that he'd used to fill Erza's glass and brought it over to pour himself some.

"So" he let out a breath of air after sitting down and making sure the place setting was just right, "How was your day?"

Erza was rather taken aback by all his effort. The small two person table had a very nice embroidered white cloth with a small glass vase that held a few sprigs of lavender in it. It both decorated and perfumed the table. Then beside the vase was a tea candle on each side of it in small decorated glass containers. The dish-ware they were using she could tell was very nice Lenux china, some of the nicest gold rimmed plating she'd seen in a while. After realizing she hadn't answered Jellal she shook her head to bring herself back to the present instead of gawking at everything.

"Lovely" she said with a smile, "Especially since about…" Erza looked at her wrist jokingly as if there was a watch, "About 7pm tonight."

"Is that so?" Jellal chuckled, "Well what made 7pm so special for you?"

"I got to watch a professional chef prepare my food while sipping on expensive wine."

"Oh, that does sound nice" Jellal mocked her, "But really, how have you been?"

"Busy" Erza sighed, finally dropping their little sarcastic charade of a conversation, "Those electronic record conversions are killing me."

Jellal smiled a bit seeing her open up and speak more casually, "Do you need some time off?" he joked since the office was closed till after New Years.

"Yeah I do, but my boss is a slave driver, I'm not sure he'd let me" Erza smirked back, starting up their little sardonic game again.

Jellal leaned back in his chair swirling the wine in his glass before taking a sip, "You sure about that? I heard he was a pretty nice guy."

"Maybe" Erza sighed, "I heard he's got a really nice penthouse sweet and brings all the pretty girls he sees up there."

"Really? I heard he was a social recluse and hadn't dated anyone in almost a decade" He watched her with a calculated glance to gauge her reaction.

Erza choked on her wine a little before breaking their facade and asking, "What?"

"Yea" he tried to chuckle casually, "I haven't dated since back in college. I'm almost 30 Erza, or did you forget that I was a bit older than you?"

Erza blushed as she tried to do math in her head, but found that the wine was making it surprisingly difficult. She was around Mira's age coming in at 25 years old. Jellal was always a bit older than her, but she guessed that way back then it didn't seem to matter much to her.

"Well, that's something I guess I didn't realize about you" she smiled, "And social recluse?"

Jellal scratched his head, "Aside from kinda mandatory company gatherings or business exchanges I don't really 'socialize' much for fun, at least, not until recently."

Erza slightly blushed that she was being told that she was worth breaking his rut of anti-social practices. She realized though that they'd been talking while the food was going cold. Without wasting a moment, Erza immediately went for the pasta first. She was a sucker for carbs. Anything but disappointment flooded her thoughts as the amazing marinara coated her mouth in an array of different flavors, no doubt the family recipe spices. After that she dug into the cauliflower that she realized Jellal had already put butter on, knowing full well that she loved the stuff. She felt the creaminess and the surprisingly rich consistency compare to mashed potatoes, but crispy on the outside since it was pan seared.

"Jellal this is wonderful" Erza had to cover her mouth as she spoke between bites.

Jellal let a gracious and humble smile grace his lips, "I'm really not that good of a cook. If it weren't for some old recipes I found or well, inherited, I wouldn't know what the heck to do. I'm not very original when it comes to cooking."

"Original or not, this is delicious" Erza smiled.

"Wait till you see dessert" Jellal gave her a devilish grin.

He'd done some homework on the red head through her friend to find out what her all-time Achilles heel was with regards to food to make sure he absolutely blew her mind. He wasn't disappointed when he asked Mirajane and the silver haired she-demon was definitely into playing match maker and couldn't stop spewing information about her. After a few minutes of eating and their plates were empty, Jellal sat back and refilled Erza's wine glass along with his own, slowly draining the bottle's contents. Erza wouldn't lie that she felt the wine pulsing through her system like liquid courage. It took more self restraint to keep herself in her seat and out of Jellal's personal space from across the table.

"Think you're ready for dessert?" Jellal asked with a toothy smile after a few more minutes of conversation.

"If I'd known there was dessert I would've eaten that first" Erza almost laughed, giving away her insane love of sweets. Yup, the wine was getting to her.

Jellal shook his head with a bemused smirk before getting out of his chair and heading towards the fridge. He pulled out a beautiful cake that he'd had custom ordered. Erza was under the false impression that he had made this himself as well until he clarified. The immaculate 3 layer cake was like something out of Erza's fantasies. The cream cheese frosting had beautiful identical white colored icing patterns over the top of the base layer of white giving it a three dimensional feel. The strawberries were placed on top in little pools of swirled frosting as well. The bottom was trimmed with a type of red strawberry jam. When Jellal cut into the cake to serve her the first slice her mouth watered. Between each layer of cake was an equal part of cream cheese frosting and strawberry preserves. The white cake looked moist as it almost crumbled onto her plate. The first bite she had she could only describe as clouds of sugar, strawberries, hopes, and dreams. Jellal chuckled at her facial expressions as she slowly chewed the cake with her mouth closed. Little did Erza the know, the aftertaste of the cake would be Jellal's lips.

He was unable to distance himself from the red head any longer due to the wine and her betraying expressions of lust, innocence, and embarrassment the whole dinner he'd made for them. Jellal was able to get small hints of the cake's frosting on her lips as he pinned Erza between the kitchen counter and himself. Due to his swift and rather abrupt movement, he'd expected some kind of reaction, a push, and small shove or whack, but Erza had unconditionally allowed him to gently press his face to hers, with his breath against her skin and his arms slowly snaking around her waste. Despite the wine driving his mind insane, it was obvious that there was no angst and hunger in the kiss beyond an emotional connection and a heightened level of adoration of pure unadulterated affection for the woman in his arms. After their storage room escapade, Erza had half expected a kiss, but leave it to Jellal to surprise her with making it the last course of their meal.

After parting with some slight heavy breaths, the two smiled with stupidity at each other. Neither had words for the other to describe the feeling they both were having. It took Erza a double take at the cake to realize scribbled in strawberry jam that she'd missed before were the cursive letters "Merry Christmas Erza".

To Be Continued...