Oh, boy, so much happening this update. Warning, sexual content ahead. Also, I apologize in advance for torturing you with the "will they say it" plot device.

This was becoming second nature, waking up to next to her as the delicate morning light started to glow across the bedspread and the aching knowledge that this would end was already starting to eat at him. In a few weeks, school would start again, he would go back to his apartment and her to her dorm, and they would have to go back to scheduling each other in their lives. Staying here forever seemed like a far superior alternative.

From the moment they woke up, he followed her around like a lost puppy, trying to soak up every last ounce of just being in her presence. Maka had definitely noticed this development but had refrained from bringing it to attention because, other than the way he'd not so subtly interrupt her reading, none of it was really a bother. It was simply him being better at asking for what he wanted, needed than she was.

Soul was blatantly waiting for her when she came out of the shower, sitting at the bed and staring hard at the door until she came through it. Maka was tousling her hair, her mouth curving into a smile at the positioning. "What is it?" she laughed.

"Don't get dressed," he murmured, hands reaching out for her.

"Oh," even with all that had happened, this still managed to bring a blush to her cheeks. "My hair's all wet." It was the weakest of protests and the fact that she moved her body into his hands negated it instantly.

"I don't care." He made quick work of removing her towel, tossing it to the floor, before tugging on the one in her hand and forcing it to join its mate. His firm hands on her hips guided her forward, pulling her to straddle him. He was usually full of little quips or murmurs at this part but he was decidedly quiet, not leaving time in between kisses for colloquy. It would have been worrisome if not for the longing she felt from him in each touch, the way he lingered over every part of her.

To Soul, his hands were nothing more than greedy, stealing away warmth and muted but still delightful sounds from her mouth. He had one breast in hand, his fingers pinching at its peak while the other breast was met with his lips, latching on with only the faintest graze of teeth. After he'd switched, insisting that both get the same treatment and attention, he clasped at the base of her thighs and pushed her to roll, moving Maka to her back.

"Take it off," Maka murmured, hands helping him to unbutton his pants.

Soul started with his shirt as she got his pants over his hips. Naked, Soul stood at the edge of the bed, his eyes looking over her before his voice finally seemed to snap back into place. "I bought condoms."

Maka willed herself not to laugh, the way he was instantly so intensely nervous, as if they hadn't discussed this at all. It was clear now why he hadn't been able to produce his usual chatter, his head probably so loud with all the screaming about this moment. "Give me one."

He nodded in reply, all other words shriveling up in his mouth before following her order and reaching into the nightstand drawer to take one out. He'd painfully examined and finally opened the box while she was in the shower, trying to talk himself into it and out of it at the same time. He handed her the package and with not an ounce of anxiety or second thought she ripped it open, taking out the condom. Maka beckoned him forward and he obeyed.

Soul braced himself with a breath as she gently rolled the latex over his tip, bringing it down his shaft. The air came out as a grunt and he ran his fingers along her shoulder, clearing her hair back. "I should have… Lay down, I'll just… because you should cum first, right?"

Maka did lay down but shook her head. She grabbed one of the extra pillows, slipping in the curve of her lower back and let her legs open. "Come here, Soul."

"Maka…"

She could tell he was revving up an argument, some kind of naysay, and she reached for him. "Don't think about it, come here."

Soul sighed, kneeling on the bed before moving between her legs, his hands planted at her sides. "Maka, I…" I love you reverberated in his mind, but it still felt locked tight.

"Kiss me," she murmured.

At least that was a command that he could listen to, mouth hungry against hers as he freed a hand to search along her body, clutching at her breast. The rough touch made her moan and to his surprise she pressed against it, letting him pinch at her nipple again.

Her hand grasped him then, gliding his tip along her opening as Soul did everything he could not to buck his hips against the new sensation. She did that a few times, rubbing him against her before angling him to her opening, legs pinning him with nowhere to go but forward. "It's alright," she coaxed but didn't push, waiting for him. "Go slow."

He clenched both hands into the bed, bringing his hips forward as if the movement itself ached. It did, in beautiful, needing kind of way, his body telling him if he didn't do that again he would most certainly die. Even being buried in her felt barely close enough and he wondered what more was left to have, what else would fill that incessant need. He hovered over her, his eyes looking over every inch of her, lingering on where he was now sunken inside of her.

With his eyes there, she crept her fingers down her stomach, watching as he looked from them to her face, gauging the moment. "Keep going," she whispered just as her fingers reached her clit, applying a pressure that she knew well.

"Oh, fuck," Soul was sure he'd thought that but it spilled from his lips instead. He was sure he'd feel - what? - insecure when she started touching herself like this wasn't enough or he wasn't enough or fuck. But as he rocked in and out of her again, watching those fingers work he had to bite back a groan. He didn't care, not in the least, his sole motivation to feel her, to have her be overcome the way he was right now.

Neither of them was in the place to kiss, to tenderly enjoy, at this point overtaken by desire. Maka's fingers pressed into herself, speeding up as she felt another wave of ecstasy as he lost himself in her again. "Harder," the words had no strength behind them, a breathy whisper that Soul could barely obey. He thrust into her again and felt the climax start before he heard her, the groan starting as she seemed to grab at him with every part of her.

There wasn't any stopping and he rode out her soft cry until the shockwave hit him, starting from his tip and blazed down into his legs, freezing him buried inside her, a panting sigh escaping his lips as the last of his euphoria took him. "Maka…" He nuzzled his nose to hers, catching a kiss between ragged breaths. "I really… I swear, I just… I care so much… about you, and…"

"That meant a lot to me, too, Soul." Maka was lucky that he wasn't looking at her face, his eyes closed tightly against all of the thoughts in his head because she had to silently laugh, to let a huge smile break across her face. It's genetic, it's an Evans thing.

Being the cruel and insensitive woman that she was, Maka refused to let Soul see her in the dress. She dressed in the bathroom and insisted on putting her jacket on immediately, covering the sight of any curves and trying her best to hide the slit most of all. It was devious, but she secretly enjoyed the reveal, the way he tried to best to remain composed but always lost it at the unveiling.

He was already dressed back in his charcoal grey suit which had amazingly been revived thanks to some expert dry cleaning, something that both agreed they would never tell his mother since she'd think the act was a crime in itself. Soul was obviously pouting, a forced grimace tight against his face as he grabbed at her jacket. "I think there's something about this in the Geneva Conventions."

She grabbed his hand playfully, leading him towards the door. "Take it up with the UN."

"Can't we just stay?" he groaned, giving full resistance to her pulling.

"Impossible. I already have the dress on. Wes is waiting downstairs. We're going." Maka punctuated each sentence with a tug until he finally gave in, stomping after her out the door and down the hallway.

"I'm going long enough to see the dress," he grumbled. "After that, I'm climbing the roof, or maybe Marina will spare me, sneak me out."

"You'd desert me like that?" She raised her eyebrows in mock shock.

"Every man for themselves when it comes to Catherine Evans," Soul answered back gravely, bracing himself as he knew that playful batting was coming his way. Maka didn't disappoint, nudging him until he apologized under his breath, a smile finally overtaking his face.

"Ah, the other love birds." Wes broke through their reverie.

Soul was glad Maka's attention was forward, already starting to chat with Wes, as the color rose on his cheeks. The more he held it off, the more it felt like an understatement. He hadn't been wrong; sex had been an act that welded shut the what-ifs, but with it came this strange feeling of wanting to shout it from the rooftops, an elation that was far beyond anything he'd ever had to deal before. Of course, dealing with anything was never his specialty, so he found himself quiet and blushy, like a schoolgirl with a secret.

He let his hand fall to its designated spot on her lower back and he followed her out to the car that Wes had waiting, Lizzie already lounging inside. The ride was short and uneventful, the party quieter than usual in order to save up strength for the myriad of people they'd have to amuse during the evening. Lizzie explained that her parents would be there, information that Soul was sure had created a knot in Wes's stomach as well as his own. Catherine had tact and could play nice, but the question always fell on would she.

There wasn't any entering through the kitchen or sneaking for this occasion, Wes bringing them directly to the front and affording his brother no ability to hide. Maka had noticed a drastic difference in Soul as soon as they entered: that to replace the usual blank apathy Soul had somehow managed to keep an amused smirk on his lips. It definitely wasn't anything like his usual that broke to both sides of his cheeks, but a modest start that with the right joke or interesting anecdote had the possibility of growing. Seeing it made her own smile radiate and when their eyes met as he helped her out of the car, that overwhelmed blush came back to his cheeks.

Soul was holding his breath, not just for the entry but for what he could assume would be his only favorite part of the evening. He didn't get to take her coat, one of the doormen taking that pleasure away from him almost instantly, but his attention was still glued to her as he watched the slow reveal. The cut around her neck and back were demure, only a hint of skin there but as she turned to him, part of the dress seemed to stay put, a divide rising up her leg so dangerously to the point he thought he'd have a stroke before seeing the end.

He came close to her, knowing where he was but not letting that create even a moment's thought of propriety. The dress was like liquid under his fingers and he let one glide just along the separation, feeling both skin and fabric. "This is unfair."

"I think you've said that before." Maka had to bat his hand away as it came perilously close to lifting the dress. "Now you're being unfair."

"Me?" He pretended to nurse his hand which easily turned into holding out his elbow to her, letting her hand slip into the crux of his arm.

Maka used the elbow to pull him a little closer, turning her head so that her voice was only meant for his ear. "You shouldn't touch me like that when you can't do anything about it." Soul's knees felt alarmingly close to buckling and he was sure his face was about as red as his tie. To make matters worse, Maka was laughing, giggling at him as her hand momentarily smoothed down his shirt. "Maybe later."

"Maka," he hissed. "Later, you're going to get-"

"Soul!" For now, it was a playful tone that overrode Soul's threat, a tittering call from Catherine.

Soul bristled, but Maka noticed the half-smile still remained. It was slow, but they moved together to where his parents stood, greeting each guest as they came in. "Mom," he offered as a greeting, getting kissed twice on the cheeks by her.

"I'm glad your face is looking better." Catherine's eyes still focused intently on her son.

He was flustered, unsure if that fell into a Catherine compliment or not. "Thanks, I-"

"There are so many people waiting to talk to you tonight," she ran over his words with amusement still saturating her voice, "Please, make sure you make the rounds. Don't hide in a corner." It was only then that Catherine let an eye flit over Maka. "Oh, hello, Maka."

"Hello, Mrs. Evans," every ounce of pleasantness oozed from Maka's voice.

Having spent his entire childhood avoiding the wrath of Catherine, Soul had become adept at reading the signs of an imminent comment. The little twitch above Catherine's eye told him it was time to move and he pulled Maka along, throwing a mundane goodbye over his shoulder and wondering if his father even noticed the absence of a hello.

"She actual said hi to me," Maka offered with a truncated laugh.

"Oh, yeah, you're practically best friends," Soul muttered. "If I know more than two people here tonight I'll be shocked. That woman…"

Maka allowed herself to be led around while he grumbled. The room was adorned as a winteresque scene, blue spruce bows and smaller potted trees dotted the room, each one sporting gossamer threads that sparkled like preserved snow. While she was too busy looking around, Soul had already waved down a waiter, putting a glass of champagne in her hand to bring her back to reality. "Thank you."

"Cheers," he clicked his glass to hers. His smile wasn't waning but she could see something else that he tried to hide from his face, an extra shift of his eye here and there. Soul was obviously watching the crowds a little too closely and she could simply blame it on the anxiety of so many people to please but there was something else to it. Maka couldn't help but think there was a spark of fury starting in him.

"So, anyone here you actually know?" Maka tried to follow his eyes around the room, tried to see some kind of pattern. The only common feature seemed to be luxury but there were a surprising number of people their own age there, milling around people who could be their parents, exchanging looks of boredom.

"Too many," Soul murmured back, running a hand through his hair. He did another look around before downing his champagne, depositing the glass on the tray of the next server to walk by.

Maka took a sip of hers, instantly realizing this was the kind you savored not swallowed back. "Anyone here you actually want to talk to?"

He grunted a reply, hand grabbing another glass from another tray before moving her forward. Soul did his duty, stopping at person after person, making small talk in that appealing fashion the Soul from the first day of Bio class had embodied. He was hard to keep up with, this suave social Soul, and Maka found herself suddenly too aware of how much of a mask he could put on. She hated it, loathed seeing him parading a false side of himself but all she could do was wear her own veil of interest.

It seemed like hours before they completed a circuit of the room, names and faces all blending into one as Maka worked on sipping her third champagne. She hadn't counted Soul's glasses, but she was fairly sure he had passed her mark a while ago, though he was still composed, sleek, with a little more apathy blended into his features. A strange churning started in her gut, worsened by the way Soul leaned into Wes when he saw him, whispering a question in Wes's ear.

Soul was purposeful in keeping the words from Maka's ears but he had attempted to make it look natural, innocuous. As soon as the words left Soul's lips and he pulled away, Wes shook his head, his mouth resting in a bitterly thin line. The combination of the whispering and reactions didn't settle Maka's stomach and she found herself leaning into him, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Just paranoid," he grumbled. He brought a hand to her cheek, caressing it softly. "Really, Maka, don't worry about it, OK?"

"We'll talk about it later," it was far from a question or a request.

Soul smile regardless of the order, giving her cheek one more rub of his thumb. "After I pay you back for the dress, yeah."

Maka grabbed his hand as it trailed from her face, carefully putting her champagne glass in his fingers. "I'll be right back, OK?"

"Don't get lost." There was a fight in his mind between being terrified and relieved she was going. She was keeping him safe in this room, but at the same time, he wasn't doing a great job of keeping his mask on tonight. Soul had maybe taken five or six steps from Wes before he felt a soft hand touch his shoulder. For a second, he thought maybe Maka had lost her way, maybe needed him to guide her to whatever she wandered off for, but the hand was all wrong.

"Soul, right?"

Soul turned to the young woman, bobbed blond hair shaped perfectly around a heart-shaped face. "Right, but I don't think we've met." He took a firm step back, out of the reach of that hand that had so casual ran across his shoulder.

"Claire. Your father and my father play golf most Sundays…" Her smile was wide, bright, and telling him that she swore this was interesting information.

Soul tried to turn on his heels. "Nice to meet you, but-"

"Your mother said you'd be here tonight but she seemed to have forgotten to make good on the offer to introduce me. She said I just couldn't let you get away." That playful hand tried to come back to his shoulder and without a moment's consideration, he swatted it away, narrowly avoiding spilling what was left of Maka's champagne onto Claire.

Soul dropped the glass on the nearest surface, shaking his hand to get rid of the droplets. "And what else did Catherine tell you about me?"

Claire's amusement seemed was waning, her eyes playing over him as if to encourage herself again with the full picture. "That you're a good catch, that you shouldn't go to waste. Not in those words, of course, you know your mother, but…"

He had suspected it the moment he walked into the room. It wasn't until he asked Wes about whether or not the girls here were Lizzie's friends or his that an inkling became a full-blown truth. "Excuse me," squeezed through his teeth, all of the sincerity torn away from it. Soul dodged Claire, his mind far past her, far past keeping his cool and waiting for Maka, and on to singling out his mother.

Catherine was on the opposite side of the room, now both clearly in his sights and his path. There wasn't time for her to smile at him, to play cool, calm Catherine because she did in some ways know her son and knew at this point he was beyond the point of reasoning, his face only a few shades lighter than his eyes from the rage. "Soul…"

"Hallway, now," he hissed.

"Don't make a scene," she whispered back.

Soul grasped for her elbow, careful to be firm without being vicious. "I'm trying. In the hallway, now."

"Honestly." Catherine wrenched her arm from him, not allowing herself to be herded by her own son. She walked slowly and deliberately to the hallway, the steady din of the party hitting them in surround sound.

"How dare you." All of him wanted to shout, to scream at the top of his lungs and ruin her in front of all her debutant friends, but this was Wes's night. He had to try to speak.

"Soul, honestly, I told you not to bring her here," Catherine's voice was reasonable as if each explanation was nothing more than the facts of life.

"Why, because this was supposed to be an opportunity to prance me around like some piece of meat for the daughters of dad's friends?" Soul was only allowing the words to hiss through his teeth, keeping the volume at a level that he hoped wouldn't reach the crowd.

Catherine crossed her arms, eyes rolling in reply. "Why you have to frame it as some crass show, I'll never know, but tonight was supposed to be an opportunity for you to see the kind of women-"

"Fuck your opportunities, Mom." He couldn't scream and the urge to punctuate brought his fist harshly to the wall. "Do you realize how much it would have hurt her? What it would have done to her just to think for a second that I was talking to another woman?"

"Her feelings aren't necessarily my concern, Soul, it's you who-"

"You better make them your concern," Soul spat back. "This is what I want, Mom, Maka is what I want and no bullshit party tricks are going to change that."

It shouldn't have surprised him, shouldn't have hurt him as much as it did, the flippant way that she rolled her eyes again, as if he was a toddler and having an outburst over naptime. "You have to realize how she doesn't fit with us, Soul, that she's just not good enough."

"What?" His fist connected again and he knocked it two more times before he could even bring himself to speak again. "You know jackshit about her, and if you did you'd realize that she's better than any of us. For fuck's sake, Mom, half the time I wonder how she even figures I'm good enough for her."

Catherine's eyes were darting behind him. "Soul-"

"No, I don't give a shit if I'm causing a scene!" Regardless of the progress he'd made, Soul felt the temptation of losing his temper tugging him in, his voice rising. "This relationship I have with Wes? She started it. And she's never once judged me or doubted me, she's only-"

"Soul!" Catherine attempted to walk past him, to cut the conversation where it was, but he grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back towards him.

"Mom, I love her!" It was a smooth yell, the words coming from his mouth without a hitch. It was so simple until the tunnel vision he'd had screaming at his mother ebbed away, the way he'd turned to grab her bringing the rest of the hallway into his periphery, the rest of the hallway that contained Maka Albarn.

"Oh, fuck," Soul moaned. "Maka, please, wait."

But Maka was turning on her heels, rushing back down the hallway she came from. It wasn't possible to duck back into the bathroom, but she had sworn she'd seen an office off to the right so she pushed herself as fast as the dress would let her go. Soul had deliberated for a moment, giving her the time to actually get in the room and make a full turn before he busted breathlessly through the doorway, slamming the door behind him.

She couldn't hold the smile back for a second longer, the bewildered look on his face only adding to the will for it to grow.

"Maka, please," he started again but her fingers reached up and silenced him. Maka closed the space between them, his back settling against the door as first her body and then her lips pressed against his. There was a complete disconnect in Soul's brain, the incongruity of the moment freezing him in place until she finally relinquished ownership of his mouth. "You're not… upset?"

"No," she laughed.

"But you ran…"

"Because I really doubted you'd let me do that in front of your mother," Maka teased. "Are you OK?"

"Ask me again in ten minutes when my heart's not about to jump out of my throat." He grasped her by the shoulders, giving her a light shake as a trembling laugh came from his mouth. "How much did you hear?"

"I turned the corner at 'for fuck's sake' and, in the future, don't give me that much credit for you and Wes, I only listened." She smoothed his hair back but he was too on edge to really enjoy it, his eyes not even going half-lidded from the sensation. "Sometimes I think you exaggerate."

Soul took another shaky breath, his fingers pressing into her shoulders. "I meant what I said, Maka. I wasn't just screaming at her, I wasn't just trying to piss her off. I meant it, all of it." This should be the easiest part, the word already out in the air, drifting around them, but he stumbled, having to swallow as the muscles in his stomach flitted around. "I love you."

Pink came to her cheeks, "I love you." The hands on her shoulders glided up her neck to rest on her jaw and cheeks, bringing her lips back to his for a slow, trembling kiss. She waited for him to catch his breath, to come back to himself as he lingered.

"You're sure?" he murmured finally.

"Yes," she couldn't help but laugh, "And I care for you, and I feel a certain way about you."

"Maka," he groaned. "Don't tease me."

Maka drifted her lips over his again. "Sorry, I shouldn't. I know it was hard."

"It wasn't hard to decide," Soul rubbed his thumb across her cheek. "Just hard for me to spit it out. What else is new?" He let out a languishing sigh, "Still not a hundred percent sure why you bother putting up with me."

"Maybe I'll give you a list later when we don't have a party to get back to." Maka started to fix his face and hair, erasing the stray lipstick that he'd adopted after kissing her.

"You really want to go back?" Soul swallowed hard before bringing his eyes back to hers, hating to kill the amusement shining in those green orbs. "All those girls in there, Maka, they're not Lizzie's friends. Or Wes's. Or mine." He watched the recognition creep across her face, the smile on her lips faltering.

"So, Catherine… well, I knew she didn't like me, but…" Maka blew out a mouthful of air, her eyes threatening to swim with tears.

"Maka, don't." Soul pressed his forehead to hers, moving his hands from her face to wrap around her waist, pulling her tightly to him. "I told you what she thinks doesn't matter to me. Wes loves you. Lizzie loves you. I love you. That's the family that matters, OK?"

Her fingers played at his tie as she took deep breaths. "We still have to go back out."

Soul shook his head. "Don't have to. If it's going to hurt you, we won't."

"You love me," she murmured.

"Just you. Only you." He pulled her closer, letting his lips fall to the nape of her neck. His voice came back as a whisper against her ear. "And you're the first. You have all of me and no one else in that room or any other room is going to change that."

"Kiss me, then we'll go back."

Part of him had wished she'd cave, let him take her back to the hotel, away from all of the prying eyes and expectations, but that was greedy, something Maka would never and could never be. He did as he was told, kissed her until she was breathless and smiling again, before leading her back out into the fray.