Weeks later and the tightness in my chest is still there. It never seems to go away fully now. I lost whatever hope I had left of Vashyron having any other feelings towards me beyond friendship and it seems to have left some kind of a hole in me. I hadn't realised that it meant that much to me but then again he was the first person to show me that level of kindness after my sister.

It gets much worse when he's around and sometimes when he laughs or ruffles my hair or says my name instead of calling me 'sport' or 'kid' it feels like my chest is going to explode. But I know that I have to continue to play the part of the ignorant teenager and act like it doesn't bother me, for the sake of us both. I couldn't bear the thought of him finding out and being uncomfortable around me or worse, feeling sorry for me.

It gets easier to pretend after a while and I can stand to be around him and sometimes I even forget that I want anything more than his friendship. Leanne says that I'm starting to become much more like him and I take it as a compliment.

When I'm sitting on the couch beside him, like tonight and the TV is showing some comedy and we both laugh at all of the same stupid stuff it feels like nothing is wrong.

"Are you sure you don't wanna do anything else for your Birthday?" Comes his voice from beside me suddenly and I feel his eyes on the side of my face.

"No. This is fine." I say it like it's obvious as I watch condensation run down the side of the cold bottle in my hand.

He motions to said bottle with his own and I can hear in the tone of his voice that he's raising his eyebrows, "It's your eighteenth and all you want is one beer? And to sit and watch television? With me?"

"That's right," I take a sip from the bottle, sinking back further into the safety of the couch, "You know I don't like going out places like you and Leanne."

There's a silence before a drawn out 'okay' and I feel him relax, too as the seat shifts beside me.

"Leanne's been gone a long time." He muses.

"She said she was preparing something for my Birthday."

"Right," Another pause. "You and Leanne sure are close, huh?"

"I…I guess so."

"So…there anything…going on between you two?"

"What?"

"I'm just asking. You know you can tell me if there is."

"Well there's nothing to tell."

"Are you sure? Because you two seem awful chummy sometimes and I mean she is a very attractive young woman."

"Would you knock it off? She's like…my best friend."

"I thought I was your best friend." He chuckles, faking a look of disbelief, "I am shocked and hurt!"

I decide to play along, hiding a smirk behind the bottle as I take another sip, "You're not my best friend."

"You take that back. I let you have the big room on the roof while I sleep down here on the couch."

"That was already my room. You let Leanne have yours."

"Well she's a young lady who needs her privacy."

"And I need mine."

"What for exactly? You don't secretly have girly parts, too, do you?"

"Girly parts? How old are you, twelve?" I can't help laughing and it sets him off, too.

We are both cut off and the mood suddenly changes as there's a loud bang, like a gunshot and I'm knocked onto the couch as Vashyron dives to cover me. The bottle from my hand smashes on the floor and there's a brief silence before the lights cut out.

That's when we both realise that the noise came from the generator. It must've blown out. I know that there's no threat but I'm still shaking from the brief adrenaline. Gunshots still make me anxious sometimes.

We stay there without speaking for a long while before the sound of his voice so close makes me jump.

"Are you okay?" His voice is barely a whisper and I find myself whispering, too.

"N…nothing actually happened."

My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness and I can see his face, way too close to mine. His hair is touching my cheek. I cut him off before he can speak again.

"You…jumped in front of me. If someone had actually been shooting at us…"

The adrenaline is really getting to me and his face is so close and before he can speak, before I can stop myself I'm leaning up to press my lips against his. I expect him to pull away, to get up, to do something to stop it but he kisses me back. It must just be the adrenaline for him, too, but I don't care. It's so hard to care when he's kissing me like that. I briefly wonder if this is how he kisses everyone but I push that thought away; he's not kissing anyone else, he's kissing me.

My mind goes fuzzy and time seems to both stop and move extremely quickly in the same moment. Before I can even register it happening, his tongue is in my mouth and this time it isn't weird, it just spurs me to kiss him back even harder, to test how far he will let me go. Briefly, my tongue is in his mouth and it fills me with a strange sense of power as I push the top half of my body off the couch to get closer to him. It gives him a gap to put his hand, palm flat against the small of my back.

We kiss for what feels like hours in the dark, the room silent except for the wet sound of mouths parting and meeting again and the occasional heavy breath. There is an intense heat in my chest and abdomen which seems to gradually be getting worse and worse as time passes. He pulls away and as my eyes stay closed in the afterglow of an amazing kiss I feel the cold of the room as he moves back from me. I'm about to protest, to sit up and pull him back to me but before I can I'm being tugged across the couch by my belt, towards him, until he's between my legs. This time I can't bring myself to care about how far this might go; it's a passing thought that is overshadowed by my growing arousal and as he leans over my body, against me, to kiss me again and this time I find myself gripping his arms to keep him from moving away again.

I can feel the weight of him on top of me, the heat from his body and it's driving me crazy. I want to get my hands in his hair, to press my thighs against his waist and beg him to fuck me right into the couch.

Okay, so puberty hit me pretty hard and my imagination has been running a bit wild lately.

The scenario, a favourite daydream of mine, plays in my head and I feel almost overstimulated as he stops kissing me to latch his lips onto my neck instead. His mouth plays right over the scar there and I want him to stop but it's so damn sensitive that I can't form any words; I think he notices because he has the audacity to bite me, to gently scrape his teeth over the skin and I can't do anything but press my head back into the couch. My breath is coming out shaky –needy- but I can't stop it and as a large hand grips at my waist to pull my body against his in a soft arch I hear myself gasp.

He presses his body closer to mine in response. He's hard too, I can feel it and my head goes cloudy at the thought; I nearly come right in my jeans when his hips suddenly rock against mine and it causes the most amazing friction I've ever felt. Instead of pressing against him I let my thighs fall further open as he does it again and I'm trying desperately to give him more space because fuck if I want him to stop. His lips are still working on the same spot on my neck and I know that it must be leaving a mark but I don't care; his hips are pressing, rubbing against mine over and over and I'm getting so close, I can feel the burning sensation in my abdomen and one of my arms is around his shoulders and my fingers are digging into his back and…

…and I think I hear myself moan out loud.

A split second later the front door handle clicks and we make it to opposite ends of the couch so fast that my head is spinning. I can't bring myself to look at him so I sit there completely still until there's the sound of the door swinging open.

Leanne's voice and the rustling of paper bags cuts through the tension and silence.

"Why are you two sitting in the dark?"