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He wasn't tired enough to try to sleep. Hell, his energy level had skyrocketed. Every shift in her sleeping form manifested itself inside of him with an electric chill. Her sweater was shrugged off of her slender shoulder, and her pale skin was almost luminescent. Matt was tentative when he moved to drag a single finger over the curve of her shoulder. Even in dreamless rest, Audrey's skin came alive at the sensation of his touch, and goose bumps formed and spread out over her. She sighed in her sleep; he quickly took away his hand. Mello's face came to mind.
But he hadn't had enough yet. Matt carefully bent his neck to rest his head against hers. The scent of her hair filled his lungs. He turned his head, dropping his nose to her soft skin. Audrey's eyes blinked open, and she was very careful not to move. But the feat itself wasn't all too difficult, as the feeling of the tip of his nose dragging over every single one of her shoulders nerve endings had rendered her motionless as it were.
Something softer met her skin; his lips, barely touching. Chills shot throughout her body from the incredibly affectionate trail of his mouth, dragging gently over her shoulder. Her heart fluttered, her eyes following suit. He wasn't leaving kisses, but to Audrey's imagination, kissing Matt would probably have the same soft affect that would drive her mind away as just his lips trailing over her did. His hands traveled over the small of her back and up her sides in a tauntingly lazy manner. Her body was limp in the most electrified fashion.
Surely if she had lifted her hand, her fingertips would be the equivalent of a small earthquake. How was it that he did not feel the way she trembled? Audrey was thankful for that small miracle, because if Matt knew the extent of just the slightest of his touches, he would surely never venture there again.
Audrey couldn't help but gasp quietly when she felt the extremely tender pressure of his lips to her shoulder. She felt his body stiffen instantaneously. His hands stopped dead where they landed at her shoulder blades, and the embrace suddenly became more than Matt could handle.
"I-I'm sorry," he mumbled against her skin.
Audrey momentarily thought of pretending to be asleep again, but she already knew the battle was futile, if not already lost. Resisting the urge to tighten her hold around his waist, she sat up uncertainly, pushing hair out of her face and looking into her lap. All tenderness that had been in his touch evaporated from his eyes the moment their bodies parted and Audrey was suddenly cold from the lack of warmth that only his figure could provide. She shifted in her seat, trying to put some distance between them even as every piece of her cried out for her to stop. Matt looked away, rubbing at the back of his neck.
"Should I leave?" Audrey said timidly into the desperately still air after a few moments elapsed, beginning to wring her hands together.
"Do you want to leave?"
She didn't know how to answer that. Most definitely, leaving is the farthest thing from my mind right now, Matt. Of course I want to stay here, and I want to lay against you and I want you to touch me the way you did just now and -- Audrey's thoughts ran cold. Maybe she should go. But instead of straightening her sweater and getting to her feet, she watched Matt's profile, hoping for something to come out of his lips that would tell her it was alright. But he remained still in his sitting position, with his arms draped on top of his knees and his back arched in a slump. Audrey found herself wishing he would hold his head up when Matt shoved his hand in the pocket of his jeans, digging for a cigarette.
The way he lit it was nothing short of irritated, and Audrey began to wonder if she should have pulled consciousness together when he had tried to wake her before. But the sound of his voice so close to her… Audrey would be the first to admit it: Hello, my name is Audrey, and I am incredibly selfish. She wouldn't trade what had just bloomed between the two of them for anything in the world, and she didn't know whether or not that was a good thing or not. Matt drew in a long lungful of air on his cigarette, the ashes turning brilliant red before fading to dusty gray when void of his breath. Audrey watched the ashes fall, knowing how they felt when they drifted to the floor.
She pushed herself up from the futon and pulled her sweater around her shoulders, crossing her arms at her waist. She had her hand on the door handle, wracking her brain for the correct combination of turns and hallways that would lead her out, when she heard a heavy sigh and a shuffle of boots from behind her.
Matt was standing amidst swirling smoke, pushing his arms into his vest. When he walked past her and pushed the door open, she half expected him to be simply showing her the way out. But he made his way into the hallway, mumbling "I very well can't let you walk home alone at this time of night," followed with some sarcasm about how she'd probably get lost anyways that Audrey couldn't quite make out. She began to follow suit before he turned the first corner, catching up to him and falling into step with his longs strides after only a fraction of a minute.
The hallways seemed longer than they had before, but Matt didn't seem to realize this in the same way Audrey did. Or maybe she was just pulling any tiny observation she could out of the walls to keep her mind from traveling back to the unbearably tender sensation of his lips over her skin. Audrey felt her face flush, and she looked to the floor, watching her feet step in time to his.
She watched her breath crystallize in the air, exhaling deeply the moment they stepped outside. The puffs of her breathing dissipated into the quiet night, and she watched them do so with the intent of looking anywhere but to the boy at her right. She could hear every drag he took on his cigarette and the mental image of his mouth falling open just enough to push smoke out was barely enough for the blush to sweep over her cheeks again.
Matt had to fight the urge to bite down on his cancer stick out of pure frustration every time he put it to his lips. What the fuck was I even thinking!? His insides were screaming to him. His head was telling him to stop being such a dumbass over some girl; his skin was craving every inch of her, and the most animal of his instincts brought on the slightest, fastest-disappearing shade of pink to even his cheeks. And he was kicking himself, over and over again, for every thought that popped into his head with her name or face attached to it.
Mello would have slapped him over his head with whatever blunt object he could grab if he had seen his friend just then. But somehow, and with a shrug, Matt knew he would take it. He would take it a million times over just to have the opportunity to feel her skin again; to feel the goose bumps rise at the touch of his fingertips, the heat of her breath, the incredible softness that was her entire body twining to his…
He couldn't have been more thankful when they turned a final corner and Near's complex came into view. He watched Audrey say an awkward goodbye and shuffle across the street, thinking he should say something, but not quite getting the words together in his head.