~A Dangerous Game~

Chapter IX: To Think You Know Someone

(AN) Hey there, it's been awhile. Please read and enjoy, and we can catch up at the end of the chapter.

-o0o-

Sakura was frozen in place.

She had no clue what was going on – one moment Sasuke was seething at her, darkly angry about her inability to follow his instructions and stay put while she'd tried to explain her actions. The next, she'd found herself pressed up against a wall in a dark, dingy corner of the dark, steamy club. His hands framed her head and his body boxed her in. She would have thought to feel claustrophobic had she been in possession of enough of her faculties to feel anything but shock and, unfortunately, the hot tendrils of arousal pooling in her abdomen.

She was so hopelessly attracted to this man. Had she really been foolish enough to think that denial would eventually morph into reality?

Sasuke's thighs were wedged so closely between her legs that she suspected if she went completely slack, she wouldn't move an inch. She decided to test the theory, and couldn't stifle the small gasp that escaped her lips as she slipped down the barest amount, but that was all it took to press her extremely sensitive core against his muscled thigh.

She was completely sure she had forgotten how to use any and every muscle in her body and the only thing keeping her upright was his firm body pressed hard against hers. She had also, were she to have had the benefit of hindsight, completely lost control of her brain. Because up until that moment, she would've sworn she had one.

And she would've sworn she had self-control.

Sasuke Uchiha was kissing her. Sakura gasped in shocked surprise, her hand contracting and clutching his dark shirt tight in a vice grip. How long had his lips been on hers before her brain learned how to reboot itself? She had no clue.

God, she didn't understand why he was kissing her. It was just the smallest, simplest contact of lips, but her body was on fire, the heat of her attraction burning its way low in her tummy, and she couldn't help it. Shamelessly, she pushed herself an inch forward and kissed him back.

Sakura was acutely aware of the tension she felt turn his hard body even more rock solid when she moved her lips against his. She tried to press herself even closer to him, needing to feel more of his body heat, but she was already so flush against him that all her efforts accomplished was a slight brush of her thigh against his.

The brush was enough for her to notice the bulge in his pants, pressed tightly against her abdomen. He was attracted to her. All of his bullshit and he was hard from just the simplest kiss with her.

The thought was shocking and exhilarating.

Sasuke seemed to take her surprised gasp as an open-mouthed invitation to deepen the kiss. His lips moved against hers, capturing her bottom lip in a move that was turning this barely-there kiss into the hottest make-out session she'd had in only God knew how long.

Sakura couldn't help the head-rush that his obvious arousal brought upon her. Neither could she resist acting on the new-found confidence surging through her, now that she knew Sasuke was enjoying this unexpected kiss as much as she was.

She opened her mouth against his lips, wanting more. Wanting to gently tug his soft bottom lip with her teeth; hoping more than a little that he would explore her mouth with his tongue. His grip tightened in her hair. It maybe would have been painful any other day, but at this moment it earned Sasuke a small, pleasured gasp slipping out from between her lips.

Sakura squirmed in his embrace, futilely trying to press herself even closer to him. The heat of his chest against her breasts was like an electric current of arousal shooting through her and charging her whole being. She moaned into his mouth as his tongue slipped into hers, granting her earlier wish. Their tongues battled for dominion of her mouth, but she knew she would lose.

Even in kissing, Sasuke demanded control, and in kissing, she had no qualms in giving it up to him. The man kissed exactly how she had fantasized he would.

His left arm slipped from bracing the wall beside her head, and soon his left hand joined his right in her hair. Swiftly and sensuously, his hand slid down to cup the back of her neck and pull her closer yet to him.

They kissed, long and hard, a tangle of tongues as Sakura let her hands roam what she could touch of his broad chest that she wasn't already firmly pressed against. She could feel his heat, feel the strength of his shoulders and tenseness of his muscles.

Hyperaware of his groin pressed up against her extremely sensitive core, Sakura moved just the tiniest amount, desperate for some friction. She rubbed herself against him, gasping into his mouth, around his tongue, as liquid fire shot through her. She felt Sasuke press himself firmly against her, hot and hard and God, she could practically feel her orgasm building low in her belly just from grinding shamelessly against this man.

But amidst the haze of attraction and arousal that was consuming her, a little, terribly unwanted voice in the back of her head was telling her this wasn't real.

That it couldn't be real.

That Sasuke wouldn't just kiss her without a purpose. Without some sort of utility or strategic gain associated with the action. She at least knew that much about the man.

Reality was a terrible, horrible thing, and it seemed to crash into both her and Sasuke at the exact same, horrifying moment.

Sasuke practically sprang away from her, putting a good foot of distance between him and her heaving chest. She was breathless from his kisses and her arousal; gasping for air so obviously she couldn't manage to hide it. She felt an embarrassed blush burning into her cheeks, and, tragically, pathetically, hoped that he would see only embarrassment and not the remnants of her simmering arousal.

Desperately, she tried to recall what had created this situation in the first place. She closed her eyes, needing to tear herself away from staring into Sasuke's dark gaze. For just a fleeting moment, she'd seen a look of pure shock consume his features. But it was just a moment, before it disappeared as if he had never been anything but composed with an undercurrent of intensely controlled irritation, as per usual.

She had left the bar. He had explicitly asked her not to move, but she had. She'd thrown herself onto the floor in the most undignified way and attempted to flee the club. Why? Why had she done that?

Ino and Ten-Ten.

A rush of mortification creeped up her spine, her neck, and burned her cheeks an even deeper crimson.

Sasuke had pressed her against the wall to hide her from her friends.

His chaste kiss had been for the benefit of unknown onlookers, creating a story of a couple finding a private corner to engage in some physical affection.

It had been nothing more than a means to an end.

And she had gone crazy, rubbing herself against him, kissing him, fisting her hands in the collar of his dress shirt she had been so preoccupied with admiring on him hours before.

She was absolutely, positively, indisputably, horrified.

The cold mortification that came with the realization of Sasuke's intentions and her own reaction was like throwing a buck of ice water inside her very being. Any arousal left in her disappeared in a burst of smoke, leaving only emotional destruction in its wake.

She needed to say something. She needed to be the person to break this silence between them; say something smart or witty to pretend the last however many minutes of extreme personal gratification on her part had never happened.

But when she opened her mouth, no sound came out.

Before she could try again, Sasuke's deep voice, sounding rougher and more gravelly than usual, cut between them.

"They're long gone. We need to go."

Nodding wordlessly, Sakura let Sasuke grab her arm, as she'd later note surprisingly gently, and guide her out of the club and into his car.

-o0o-

"Hey guys, how was the club?" Naruto called out from his office as he heard the distinct sound of his front door being unlocked and pushed open. Stepping out of the room and leaning against the door frame, he watched first with amusement, but that soon enough fell into concern as Sakura first came through the door, a stricken and dazed look on her face, despite her attempts to hide the look.

Quickly, Naruto threw his glance the way of Sasuke, expectantly searching for some sort of silent explanation about what went down in the few hours they had been out. But Sasuke didn't look like he was going to be of any help at all, as he closed and locked the door behind him with deceptive gentility.

The blond darted his gaze back and forth between the two, trying to figure out what was going on. If Sasuke's meet had been a bust, the man would have closed the door with a lot more prejudice.

Without so much as a glance in his direction, the pair trudged, single file, up his staircase and turned down the upper hall in opposite directions.

"Good night out, then," Naruto called out up the stairs after the retreating pair, "my night was pretty eventful, too, thanks for asking."

His cheerful sarcasm was met with the sound of two doors slamming shut – with extreme prejudice.

Naruto scrunched up his face in confusion, continuing to stare up the staircase, as if he hoped the answer to his friends' weird behaviour would come tumbling down to meet him.

Someone was going to have to fill him in on what had happened.

-o0o-

Oh God.

Sakura sat on the edge of her bed, wishing for the life of her that the mattress would suddenly morph into quicksand and gurgle and swallow her whole.

Instead, she had to suffice with burying her head in her hands, her palms pressing against her burning cheeks.

Sasuke had kissed her to shield them from Ino and Ten-Ten.

How could she have been such a fool as to not have gathered at least that much from his sudden, seemingly inexplicable change in behaviour? He had never once shown interest in her. Why would he ever start then and there? Sure, they had been building a rapport of sorts since she'd thrown a few punches in the kitchen several days ago, but that didn't suddenly mean that he wanted her as anything more than an acquaintance.

While impossible, she still tried to bury her face even further into her hands. She had become a maelstrom of awkward situations. The turbulence of that had been growing since she started throwing shoes at Sasuke, a mere week ago.

She was a Goddamn professional. She went through the last nine years of her life being revered as successful and in command of situations. Many in the medical discipline, if she indulged her desperately in-need at the moment ego, called her brilliant. True, she could at times be over-dramatic, and did have to admit that she had a temper fuse the size of something akin to a toothpick, but those traits were neither here nor there.

Her point, in any case, was that she had managed to live a perfectly acceptable, fully functioning life for the last nine years. But then, as soon as Sasuke became involved in her life, everything had gone to hell in a hand basket. Between thinking he was crazy and her incessant, cringe-worthy barrage of questioning that she'd thrown at him, she hadn't thought she could be anymore embarrassed where that man was involved.

But noo.

He'd kissed her, as dark characters like Sasuke had become were wont to do, and she'd completely lost the cool she'd managed to establish over the last few days together in Naruto's house with him.

The way he'd so abruptly pulled back from her in the club... how was she supposed to deal with that? How were they going to deal with what had happened? Sakura attempted to fight the feelings of embarrassment and hopelessness that were swirling through her.

She wasn't fooling herself when she thought that they'd started to form some kind of connection again. She wouldn't call it friendship, per se, but he had definitely warmed up to her presence from his subzero treatment of her back on Day One.

But what now? Now that she'd gone and taken his deceptive kissing move and turned it into something far bigger than it was ever meant to be, was his tolerance for her going to go back to square one?

He's probably regretting right now ever rescuing me back in Konoha, Sakura's evil inner voice sardonically pondered.

Sakura exhaled a deep sigh, trying to release with her breath all the awkward tension building up inside her. She flopped backwards on her bed, bouncing slightly on the bedspread. She brushed her fingers through her hair and lay there, staring at the ceiling for some indeterminate amount of time, simply mulling her entire situation over.

Ever since she and Sasuke had run into each other, they'd been causing nothing but trouble for the other person. Sasuke got her caught up in all this, and he'd been forced to take her on as extra baggage. Ever since she'd learned what his occupation was several days ago, why he'd been shot at... she'd been trying to stay out of his way. Trying to make amends for being so completely off-balance in their first few days of reunion, while she tried to keep her mind off everything that was happening to her.

But she was only human. How much more of this could she possibly endure? She was scared. She knew full well that her personal and professional life was going to suffer immensely because of the wheels that had begun turning. Hadn't she been away from the hospital for over a week now? Her patients couldn't afford to wait for her.

She had to trust Sasuke to keep her physically safe, but who was going to keep her emotionally safe from the man? Foolishly, she'd thought she wasn't at risk. That her old feelings were actually old, and not going to come back, full force, and throw her under the proverbial bus.

But, oh God, as she continued to lie on her bed in Naruto's guestroom, she could just picture the very real bus-load of complication that was attempting to suffocate her.

The pinkette threw herself over onto her stomach and buried her face in a pillow. She knew she had to be practical about this. She couldn't spend the rest of her days, hiding in her room – hiding from Sasuke. She simply had to suck it up, throw back her shoulders, and dispel the elephant she was sure was going to be joining them in the house. She knew she was going to find it practically impossible to revert back to their civil, growing understanding of each other if she didn't clear the air.

And she, having opened the Pandora's box that contained her old feelings for this man, knew that she really wanted to know him. Needed to do her best to keep from losing him in her life again, however melodramatic or hopeless that idea seemed.

So she'd kissed him. Big deal. Being as handsome as he was, she'd bet her shares in her family business that he'd been kissed plenty of times before.

And then... Sasuke had kissed her back, hadn't he? And what did that mean for their tentative relationship?

Sure, his initial kiss had been one hundred percent utility and meant to hide them from her friends. That's why it had been so chaste. That's why it had even happened to begin with. But when she'd kissed him back, hadn't he been the one to take the kiss further still? Hadn't he put his tongue in her mouth? She couldn't have made him do that herself.

And further, Sakura fisted her hands in the abused pillow as her mind whirled, when she'd pushed herself against him, hadn't he slid his hand down to hold the back of her neck in a way that had her igniting even more in his embrace?

It took two to get tangled in something like that, and she was certainly not alone.

That thought did wonders to ease her embarrassment and discomfort over the whole ordeal. So she'd temporarily lost it and become an absolute wanton in his arms. But he'd had some pretty telltale signs that, at least physically, he'd liked it too.

What did that mean? What did that say about them? About him?

Sakura stopped herself before she rode that thought train any further. She refused to become a woman who overanalyzed every single detail and spun attractive tales of fantasy out of thin threads of facts and conjecture. If she was a big girl, she'd go talk to him about what had happened. It would be the mature thing to do.

But she could just imagine it: "So, Sasuke. About tonight, when you had your tongue in my mouth and I was clinging to you desperately... what's the story on that? Are we good?"

On second thought, there was no way she could bring herself to breach that subject. Not yet. She still had the image of Sasuke's disgruntled expression, after he'd jumped away from her as if she was on fire, seared into her memory.

What in the hell was she going to do?

-o0o-

Sasuke sat at his desk in the dark, his room illuminated only by the glow emanating from his laptop screen.

He was unsettled. It was not a feeling he was accustomed too.

He'd lost control back in the club with Sakura, and the thought rattled him more than his actions did.

And his actions were fucking concerning.

What had happened back there? He'd shoved Sakura into a nearby corner and tried to shield her from view as much as possible with his body. He'd made a calculated guess that kissing her would be the most effective tactic if he wanted them to blend in with the crowd. Not surprisingly, he'd been correct, since from the moment he'd pressed his lips against Sakura's, the two women they had been avoiding had disappeared.

The kiss should have stopped there. It had served his purpose. His original plan had been to hold the infuriating women against that wall for the few minutes required until he knew being noticed by Ino and Ten-Ten was no longer a threat. Then, he was going to haul her ass outside, throw her in his car, and have a serious discussion about following orders. That meeting was going to be followed by a long workout, wherein Sasuke tried to expel the adrenaline her disappearance had sent coursing through him.

But he'd deviated. He had expected her incomprehensible temper to make an appearance over his rough handling of her. Instead, she'd surprised him by kissing him back instead of trying to dismember him for grabbing her, and all his adrenaline had been quickly rerouted. And it had resulted in him taking advantage of her. Jesus fuck.

Sasuke's mind didn't go blank. He didn't just check out in the middle of a situation. But it had and he did. When he'd gotten a fucking hold on himself, he'd been kissing Sakura, hard, and holding her in a grip she hadn't had a hope of getting out of.

He should've pulled away then. Put some distance between them and re-assessed the situation.

Sasuke leaned back in his chair, staring sightlessly at his blinking computer screen. His arms, crossed just beneath his chest, were taught and tense. He was tense. His hands were balled into fists.

What he was looking at, introspectively, was the makings of a huge fucking problem. Had he not acknowledged just hours ago, standing in the foyer of this house, that his continuing interest in Sakura was out of his control and concerning enough that it warranted some serious distance needing to be kept going forward?

Kissing her for cover had been a huge mistake. He was attracted to her. Attraction was a weakness. And Sasuke Uchiha didn't have any weaknesses. It was part of what made him such a great operative.

But kissing Sakura had felt good. Too fucking good, and he hadn't been capable of stopping himself. It had been a long time since a woman had had that effect on him. Why Sakura Haruno? Why her? He hardly knew anything about her, other than what he'd learned in the last week and what he remembered from their days as teenagers together.

Uncrossing his arms, Sasuke learned forward and took hold his mouse. He pulled up an encrypted database, entered in his credentials, and furiously began to type. At least there was something useful he could do with his mind right now, instead of replaying that scene from the club, wherein he'd been grinding against her, thinking with his body and not his brain.

She was an attractive woman. She was intelligent. As much as she'd pissed him off profusely during their first few days together, he'd conceded that she was handling this dramatic upheaval of her life better than most. She had calmed down immensely since then. He'd begun to acknowledge a respect for who she was when she wasn't throwing physical and verbal shit at him.

He knew she was attracted to him. Maybe she hadn't known herself, but after the look in her eyes when he left her at the bar earlier, he'd had no doubt. He had considered it an unnecessary complication for her to develop a sexual attraction to him. But then he'd been blindsided by his own physical attraction to her.

Fucking infuriating woman. After he'd come to his senses and pushed himself away from her, he'd been shocked with both himself and the look of her. She'd been dishevelled; her lips bruised from his kisses, hair messy from his hands, her chest rising and falling with her gasps for air. She'd been speechless, but he knew it was only going to be temporary. Sooner or later she was going to realize that he'd kissed the shit out of her and then completely redirected the topic.

Sasuke was tense. Sooner or later, she was going to want to know just what the hell that had been back there, between them. Their relationship prior to that hadn't exactly been sunshine and fucking daisies. But he couldn't tell her shit, because he didn't understand where that had come from, either.

And as far as he was willing to be concerned, it didn't change or mean a thing. It had been a momentary lapse in judgement wherein, like a fucking idiot, he'd been thinking with his dick.

Finally finding what he'd been looking for, Sasuke clicked on the familiar name in the long list of background files the agency kept on everyone that it knew existed.

Name: Sakura Haruno

Birthdate: March 28

Age: 27

Eye Colour: Green

Hair Colour: Pink

Blood Type: O

Marital Status: Single

Current Employment: Attending General Surgeon at Konoha General Hospital

Sakura's file.

Sasuke's eyes rapidly scanned the document, taking in all it had to say about the pink-haired girl. Sasuke, having decided he needed to do a background check on her eventually, figured that there was no better time than the present.

He already knew the basics about her: name, hair colour, eye colour, employment, and family. But it was the other information that he was interested in. Her education was just like she'd said it was the night they'd re-met. She graduated high school on the honour roll, fast-tracked her way through her Bachelor's of Science in Human Physiology, and went on to Medical School. Her performance reports during her internships and residency at Konoha General showed that she had been something of a prodigy, and was quickly promoted and moved up the ranks to where she could be utilized to the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness.

Hn. She was brilliant and good at her job.

Sasuke continued to read the reports, and quickly realized that she was also a workaholic. The hours she worked and the cases she'd worked on left very little time for her to have been anywhere else but at the hospital.

No wonder she had been going stir crazy, being stuck here in Naruto's home. He was beginning to understand exactly what she'd had to walk away from, because of this case. It was a necessity – it could not have gone any other way. But still, he was noting similarities between Sakura and himself: their work was their life, and they were both very good at what they did.

Scrolling down the document, Sasuke continued to take in Sakura's background and known associates. Nothing surprising there. The woman was squeaky clean. She didn't even have a parking ticket.

Sasuke frowned.

What she did have was a controlling interest in a numbered medical supply company, with the elected name of Haruno Medical Incorporated. But she had mentioned this at some point to him too, hadn't she? That her family had a medical supply business?

He remembered part of a conversation of sorts that they had had back at the motel.

"I have access to some drugs and equipment that are only medical issue because my family owns the medical drug company... I have ownership rights over the company, but I don't spend too much time dealing with the corporate end of things."

What she had were 50 Class A Voting Common Shares, and 100 Class A Preferred Shares. She had ownership rights and controlling interests in the company, along with the rest of her family members and a few others. Frowning, Sasuke looked at the net worth of the business.

Shit, she didn't even need to be working. With the amount of ownership she had in her family's business, she could never work another day in her life and live extremely comfortably. So why, then, did she work so many hours at the hospital? Did she choose not to be actively involved with the business?

Technically, she was more than financially well-off. But he'd been in her house - it had been simple, lived in, but only just. It was nothing special, practically barren of anything but furniture staples, as if she was hardly ever there. The only room that had looked as if she had disposable income was her bedroom, because of that deceptively harmless closet.

Again, her living space was like his. He had an apartment, but he was never there. He travelled frequently, but when he was back in the country he usually stayed with Naruto. It was the most efficient and effective way to get going on their next mission if they could meet face to face.

The woman was intelligent and a workaholic. This was not new information to him, but at the same time, the story her file told was... enlightening. She was exactly who she said she was.

Sasuke frowned and closed her file. Had he been hoping that something in her file would cause him to revert back to finding her pervasively irritating? Perhaps. He hadn't expected to find himself drawing similarities between himself and the small woman with the big temper. They couldn't be more different.

Sasuke knew what his official file said about him.

Nothing.

He'd made sure that there was nothing out there about him. That he was a ghost. A terrifying apparition that walked in the shadows of the targets he took down.

But he knew what it would say, if it had existed.

It would say that he was a perfect candidate for espionage and conflict management. No family, no strings tying him to a particular location. No weaknesses.

Sasuke closed the lid to his laptop, and threw a look at the door to his room.

He had no weaknesses.

But Sakura, now, was proving to be a growing distraction.

A distraction that could become a weakness – if he let it go that far.

He needed to figure out what he was going to say, going to do, about what had happened.

What the hell was he going to do about Sakura Haruno?

-o0o-

"Step into my office," Naruto said, accompanying his comment with a grand, sweeping gesture at the room around him.

"What do you want, Naruto?" Sasuke bit out, not moving from his position leaning against the door frame.

Naruto's smiled faded and he turned serious.

"What happened last night, Sasuke?"

"That's none of your business."

"So your pissy mood and Sakura's hiding in her room has nothing to do with the mission then," Naruto said, "and everything to do with you."

Hook, line, and sinker. Naruto had Sasuke caught, right where he wanted him.

-o0o-

(AN) A few things for all of you who have been waiting around for over a year for me to update this story – once again, I'm sorry for the long wait. But it is what it is. I made the decision to try to get back into my fanfiction earlier this week, and there was no better place to start than with ADG. I'm sorry that there wasn't much in the way of plot advancement, after so long a wait. I'd always planned for this chapter to be all about character development, and a look in Sasuke and Sakura's feelings.

I have lots to say but I don't want to bog down this story with info about me and my plans – if you're interested, you can take yourself over to my profile page and hopefully have your questions answered. For returning readers –thanks for sticking with this story, and I hope this story still continues to entertain you! For all new readers – be forewarned, I've disappeared twice on this story already. But we can all dream that that won't happen again, right?

If you're enjoying this story, please leave a review before you go! Reviews are a huge inspiration for me to continue with writing my stories, because I know that there are people who have continued to follow it and want to see what happens next.

A huuuuuge thank you to all my readers for your continued support!

~dancer-me