Chapter 7:Somewhere Along the Line

Tomoyo cleared her throat. "Oh c'mon, Ice Blue Eyes! Not now! I'm dead tired!"

Eriol ascended the stairs and stood in front of her. "Answer me. Where have you been?"

"I came frm the Midnight Sale from the mall," she admitted, lifting her shopping bags for him to see.

"And you call that a valid excuse?" he said scornfully. "A decent woman does not go home at this time!"

She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise."

"You better make sure you do just that," he barked. "I was ready to call the police had you arrived 10 seconds later."

The lady couldn't resist one last remark. "So Hiragizawa Eriol does care for a woman. He's not really a gay after all."

He turned around, cheeks crimson with fury. "What did you say?"

"H-Hey, I was just kidding.." She laughed awkwardly, but her laughter stopped when he suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him forcefully.

"A gay?" he whispered, eyes blazing, his face mere inches away from hers. His grip tightened.

"Y-You're hurting me. P-Please let me go.."

"Damn it! I am not a gay and I can prove it," he murmured, deaf to her pleas.

Tomoyo's heart hammered as his lips started to descend. She shut her eyes tight and waited.

Minutes later, nothing happened. She opened her eyes and saw him gazing at her with swirling emotions in his eyes. Those ice blue eyes burning, melting and liquidifying her every cell and bone in the body.

"You're a heartbreakingly beautiful temptess, Daidouji Tomoyo," he whispered hoarsely. "And I hate you for that."

She smelled the scent of brandy. "Eriol, you're drunk."

"I know what I'm doing, Tomoyo," he said, laughing morosely. "I'm aware we just called each other in first names. I like that."

"Oh shut up, Wonder Boy. You're drunk," she snapped as she marched upstairs, leaving Eriol looking at her with an unknown emotion in his eyes.



Tomoyo threw the shopping bags down the floor and accidentally caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was still blushing furiously and her body was still trembling from his romantically electrifying electrifying touch.

She sat down weakly in front of the mirror and ran a brush through her hair while thinking about what happened back at the stairs.

"He told me I was beautiful, and that he liked me calling him by his first name. A-And he nearly kissed me," she mused. "All because of the effect of the alcohol."

He was drunk, but she wasn't. Ans she responded to his advances in a shamefully submissive way. Had he not restrained himself, he could have kissed her, and she could not have resisted. She was rendered utterly defenseless by those ice blue eyes, those strong arms, and the intoxicating breath spiced by the scent of wine.

She had written more than a hundred kissing scenes in her novels, but she had never realized the real meaning of the words she used to describe those scenes.

So this is what "forgetting about everythig else but the moment" means.

So this is "losing yourself in the delicious sensation of his mere closeness".

And she wasn't even kissed yet. What more if Eriol did it?

She was confused by the strange new emotions swimming inside her. Is this attraction, or something else? She had never felt this way, not even with Sakura.

She tried to recall all what she had written in her novels- the signs of falling in love and all that stuff.

"C-Could it be.. that he's in love with me and he just won't admit it?" she thought. She shook her head. "Nah. What a crazy notion. That happening is as probable as Syaoran and Kero-chan declaring a truce. Eriol Hiragizwa was just drunk. He would forget about the incident in the morning."

He would, but would she?

She switched her computer on and started to type the continuation of the third chapter.



Eriol was staring at the unfinished chapter of the file he copied from Tomoyo's computer.

In the novel, the heroine Tamara was fond of Rosemary, the young mistress of the house, but not of Earl Harrison, the elder brother of the girl. She didn't like his aloofness and coldness, and his lack of concern for others. Tamara then decided to agree to the idea of Nadine, the

It stopped there.

He wanted to know what will happen next because the novel was strangely like what was happening right now.

He was about to shut his computer down when he heard someone busily typing in the next room.

His heart hammered. Tomoyo.

He wanted to go to the next room and apologize for his rough behavior but he was shy to do that. Knowing Tomoyo's astonishing talent to come up with on-the spot quips, he might just end up looking like a dunce. It was really hard to act his usual normal authorative self when he's faced by an intelligent writer who can drop a few well-chosen one-liners to shut him up and make him crawl back to his hole.

He decided to forget about his plan and just go to sleep. A thought remained in his mind though.

"I should have kissed her," he said to himself. "At least I would have something wonderful to dream about in my sleep."

continue