A/N After a bout of serious writer's block...I'm back! Enjoy the next installment!

"Hey," He said in a breath, as if he'd been holding it in all day. She had her arms wrapped around his neck in an instant, her nose pressed against his chest, welcoming his achingly familiar scent with a sigh of relief. Her hand cupped his freshly shaven cheek, smoother than smooth. "Luke," she murmured, as a beautiful smile blossomed across her features. Her smile grew so contagious that he found himself grinning right back at her like an idiot.

Somewhat mindful of their onlookers, she glided her fingers down the front of his fine wool suit jacket, appreciating how it hugged him in all of the right places. She made a mental note to show her immense appreciation for that suit later on that evening.

He was here. He wasn't a mirage. He stood tall and immaculately groomed, his hand finding it's way home at the small of her back. The guys who had clamored around Lorelai now turned their attention to the shiny new Italian-suited toy in front of them. What started out as a small gathering at the far end of the bar quickly turned into a rather large crowd forming around the couple.

If Luke was uncomfortable with all of the attention, he didn't seem to outwardly show it. Save for a 'help me' look when a woman from the DAR approached and squeezed his bicep. At that, Lorelai promptly excused them from the crowd and dragged him off in the opposite direction.

They turned a corner and she led them down a hallway and around another corner. Up a flight of stairs they darted, Lorelai's mischievous giggle bouncing off of the richly papered walls. They entered a darkened room, and she shut the heavy wooden door behind them and clicked the lock. Luke drifted towards the center of the room, his eyes slowly adjusting to the still darkened space, his hand skimming along the surface of an ornately carved dresser.

With her back against the door, Lorelai observed him quietly. Only the silvery moonlight through the sheer curtains illuminated the space. Luke picked up a photo frame. It was heavier than it looked, gleaming silver and thick-framed. He tilted it towards light and squinted at the figures.

Lorelai finally crossed the room and slipped her arm through his elbow, leaning her head against his shoulder. "My 12th birthday party. I wanted to wear pink leg warmers and roller skate to Madonna. My mother threw me a tea party instead. But, at least I got to pick out my outfit." She tapped the frame with her fingernail.

A baby-faced Lorelai stood out from the crowd immediately. For her outfit, sure. She was sporting an off the shoulder t-shirt and jeans while the girls posing on either side were dressed like tiny members of the Kennedy family. All prim and proper with their pastel twinsets and plastered on smiles. But it was that look in her eye, that playful, almost challenging spark that simply made her look so alive compared to the rest of the group.

To put it simply, she was magnetic. Still was.

Luke set the photo down where he found it. He laced his fingers through hers, and gently gave them a squeeze. There was the most magnificent glow on her features from the dim light, and his eyes took their time to scan her up and down for the first real time that evening.

She wore a dress that had his tongue all but wagging.

Crimson in color, the silky material was held up by two straps that seemed to fasten gracefully behind her neck, exposing the barest hint of cleavage down the front, and an even lower dip in the back. It fell to her feet, only revealing the sexiest of footwear as she walked. Her hair, loose, long, and perfectly curled, was pushed behind her ears where she had on a pair of whisper thin silver drop earrings.

"I have to say, I'm a big fan of your outfits."

Lorelai flushed at his appraisal, "Yeah?"

His thumb tenderly rubbed the inside of her wrist, "Yeah."

"Luke, I'm–"

"I know."

She shook her head, "But you didn't let me–"

"I know," he confirmed with another squeeze of her hand.

"Luke, what happened before, in your apartment, I shouldn't have jumped on you like that. You were doing something for me, something huge. Coming to this house. This big giant house. This big giant party. You were coming here for me and I yelled at you. You stood there looking so…" She took a moment to appraise him now, "So goddamn delicious, and I yelled at you. I was–"

"You were jealous."

"I was not jealous!"

"Lorelai," he said in that annoyingly patient tone.

"I was not jealous!" She pushed out her bottom lip in a pout, and Luke let a moment of silence pass between them. "Okay," She sighed shook her head to clear it, "Maybe there was a…little bit of jealousy there."

"Nothing happened. Less than nothing."

"I know," She sighed, "But I still don't have to like it."

"No, you don't," he agreed. "You think I like it when guys stare at you when we're out at dinner, or flirt with you at fancy holiday parties?"

"So that's our problem, huh? We're just too damn hot for our own good?"

"Yeah, that's our problem," he agreed easily. He smiled at her then with that secret smirk reserved just for her.

With a pout still on her lips, Luke wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her close, "You think I looked delicious?" He murmured.

She playfully tried to wrestle of his grasp, "Is that all you heard me say?"

"You said I looked goddamn delicious. Which, can I just say," He kissed her then, before pulling back only enough to whisper, "Ditto." He left a trail of those soft kisses down her neck, gliding along her shoulder and down the length of her arm. His lips soon found the back of her hand and each of her fingers too.

"I just, I knew how important this whole thing was to you. I was supposed to be here, walk in here and meet your parents the right way. Now look at us, hiding up in this room while the rest of 'em are–"

"Luke, Rory is important to me. You're important to me." Lorelai walked him backwards until the back of his legs hit the edge of the canopy bed. She gave him a gentle push, and he fell down easily atop the soft mattress. With a cheeky grin, she hiked up her dress enough to straddle his thighs and make herself nice and comfortable in his lap, "You know, I could have orchestrated this whole fight tonight, just to get you right where I wanted you."

He arched an eyebrow, "Is that so."

Slowly, she wound her hips just enough to make him squirm.

He gripped those silk-clad hips, and she sighed, "I hate fighting with you."

"Not too fond of it myself."

"Let's never do it again."

"I hope you mean fight," he murmured.

She giggled, and pecked his lips once, twice, three times, before going in for her fill. Several long minutes passed before she pulled back again, "Why whatever else could I possibly mean?"

They were horizontal now, splayed across the embroidered silk duvet, embattled in a makeout session to end all makeout sessions. She had his belt unbuckled and first two buttons of his once-crisp shirt undone. Tenderly, she used the pad of her thumb to wipe her lipstick from his full bottom lip. His hands softly stroked a path from the back of her thighs to the curve of her ass.

"You know what they say about making up, don't you?

He answered her with a kiss.

XXXXXX

"It looks fine."

Luke hovered by the door, checking his watch to try and calculate out how much time had elapsed since they'd escaped.

While technically he was pushing 90 minutes inside of the Gilmore residence, he still hadn't exactly met her parents yet.

He had, however, spent 60 of those minutes inside of their daughter's frilly bedroom…where said daughter was frantically making and re-making the bed.

"Fine won't do. It has to be perfect."

"Fine, it's perfect."

Lorelai took another step back to scrutinize her work, channeling her inner Emily to make sure nary a ruffled throw pillow was out of place. With one more tug of the bedskirt, she finally retreated, walking over to the vanity table in the corner to quickly inspect her makeup. Her once ruby-red glossed lips were now–not so glossy.

She jostled open the drawer to see if there was anything in there she could snag that wasn't older than Rory. Unfortunately, only a half-used pan of blue eyeshadow and a tube of pink frosted lipstick was all that remained from her high school stash.

She turned towards Luke with a hand on her hip, "How much sex does it look like I just had?"

He looked her up and down, "What answer would get us closer to the staircase in the next two seconds?" She'd managed to smooth out most of the wrinkles in her dress, but that irresistible pink flush highlighting her dreamy smile gave her away.

Lorelai skipped over and met him by the door with a megawatt grin, "Are you really going to make me go back down there?" She grabbed his hand, "Let's stay up here and make up again."

"After you spent all that time making sure those ruffles on your bed were all facing the right direction?"

She glanced back over her shoulder at the neatly made-up bed and sighed, "Better not press our luck."

They stood at the top of the staircase now, Lorelai's back to his front, his arm draped protectively around her waist. Shrieks of laughter, holiday music and clinking of champagne flutes carried on obliviously down below. They observed the scene for a few silent moments before Luke leaned to whisper in her ear, "There will be more making up, later on tonight."

She smiled back at him with a look that spelled trouble. With locked eyes, she slipped a flash of something red and lacy into his pants pocket, "I'm going to hold you to that mister."

XXXXXX

Luke Danes had pictured this moment many times over the past few weeks. Lorelai had painted the evening with a broad stroke. It started in diner. Over breakfast, she'd scribbled an awfully detailed diagram of the entire property onto a diner napkin, with several escape routes circled. There was a list of 'safe' topics to presented to him too, (golfing, literature, the stock market, foreign policy, Martha's Vineyard, and Yale.)

He'd furrowed his brow at each of the hastily written topics on the other side of the napkin. "What the hell am I supposed to say to him?"

"Um, sit there and look pretty? That's what I try to do," Lorelai had said with a shrug.

After their–interruptus upstairs in Lorelai's childhood bedroom, Luke found himself dragged into Richard Gilmore's mahogany-paneled office, sitting in a tufted leather club chair, surrounded by the pinnacle of Hartford elite. While she had a flair for the dramatics, Lorelai's shortlist of approved topics proved to be right on the money. Currently, a rousing discussion over securing suitable summer rentals on Vineyard was being debated back and forth. Thick puffs of cigar smoke permeated the air, and although he'd politely declined Richard's heavy pours of expensive Scotch, Luke still ended up nursing a glass of Macallan neat.

He took a sip and forced the liquid down his throat as quickly as possible. While it took some getting used to, he was more than happy for the distraction.

"Say, you've spent your fair share of time in Boston, haven't you Luke?"

Luke turned to face the elder Gilmore, who addressed him directly for the first time that evening. He nodded once, "Uh, yeah I lived over in Beacon Hill."

One of Richard's associates, Arthur Roundtree tipped his lit cigar in admiration, "That's right, the baseball star. My firm represents the Red Sox. We've met before, you and me. At a rather…raucous shall we say, '91 charity gala at my home in the Vineyard," He waggled his brow, "Had all of the ladies following you around that night. Some of the men too. You certainly were the life of the party back then. I guess some things never change."

"You must excuse Arthur," Richard said with a grin, "He seems to have forgotten what that's felt like."

Arthur laughed heartily, and took another long pull of his cigar, "So, Luke Danes, you must fill us in. What have you been up to after all this time? If I remember correctly, there was talk of you taking the team all the way. That was quite a career stretch you had there."

Luke spared a glance around the room, the clinking of heavy glassware and laughter had come to a halt on the promise of some gossip. He knew the question was coming sooner or later. He'd be an absolute fool to think he could come here–here of all places, and get away with avoiding ghosts of his past.

"I uh, had certain family obligations that brought me back home."

There, that was certainly vague enough. Obligations.

Arthur's brown eyes sparkled just the tiniest amount behind his thick rimmed glasses. "So I take it the rumors were true then."

Luke polished off the amber liquid in his glass, mentally preparing himself to respond.

Richard's interest was certainly peaked. He leaned forward in his arm chair, "Rumors?"

The door to the study whipped open then. Emily appeared flanked by her closest DAR confidants, "Richard, it's time!" She motioned for the room to empty out and follow her through to the foyer. There, in the center of the space stood the largest Christmas tree Luke had ever seen. So large in fact, he began to wonder how someone–probably a team of people–even managed to fit it through the front door. A dozen carolers stood in front of the tree, each holding a single candle, and began singing so clearly and so perfectly he thought that the music must have been coming from a nearby speaker.

He later found out from Lorelai that her mother had actually outbid a concert house in Chicago in order to get the choir to perform a private concert at the Gilmore residence instead.

Luke searched around the room for her, his eyes darting around the crowd with intense fixation. Rory found him first. She'd darted around the maze of people like a pro, fixing him with a wide grin and a side hug. She rested her sleepy head against his arm and held onto his suit jacket for support against waning tiredness. A small handbag, unable to fasten closed due to the amount of apple tarts procured for later, dangled from her other hand. She looked up at him with a questioning look that dissipated as quickly as it came on, when suddenly she spotted her mother weaving her way over to them.

Like she so often did, Lorelai appeared at Luke's side all at once–like a vision he'd conjured. Sporting a rosy-red tipped nose and flushed cheeks, she slipped her arm through his and gently tugged for his attention. He found himself intoxicated by the cherry flavored whiskey he smelled on her breath as she whispered with unabashed delight, "It's snowing!"