"Apriiiiillll," Michelangelo whined into the phone. "When you gonna come visit us again? It's been, like, a week."

Guilt lanced through April like a knife as she hustled through Brooklyn, negotiating the heavy pavement traffic hastily with her phone gripped to one ear. "Oh Mikey, I'm sorry. I've just been crazy busy with work."

It wasn't the entire truth and April fervently hoped there wasn't some sort of ninja skill that enabled the detection of falsehoods through telephone lines.

Michelangelo sighed petulantly and again April guiltily squirmed as she reached the lamppost her bike had been chained to and rummaged in her pockets for the padlock key. "Things don't feel right anymore when you're not around," he said in the direct, shameless way he had that could be as sweet and endearing as it was often frustrating. "Everyone misses you."

"Oh Mikey," April sighed as she jammed the phone between her chin and her shoulder, squatting to unlock her bike chain. "I really, really miss you guys too." That, at least, was the whole truth.

She could practically feel Michelangelo brightening to hear it. "So. Great! When are you gonna come by then?"

Caught. April froze awkwardly mid-stand as the teeming life of New York City continued unabated around her. There was no way she was ready to return to the sewer lair just yet – more to the point, no way she was ready to face one particular individual who resided there again just yet – but she also couldn't think of a way to put it off without hurting Michelangelo's feelings.

"Uhhhh – " she began, her mind fumbling for any sort of convincing excuse, and as her hesitation lingered she could sense Michelangelo forlornly deflate and couldn't stand it. "Tonight!" She heard herself say brightly. "How about tonight?"

"Really?" Michelangelo's voice was practically a squeak of excitement. "That'd be frickin' awesome, angelcakes! I will totally make us dinner! I'll whip up my Supreme Sistine Surprise – you'll go crazy for it! Trust me!"

Despite her trepidation, April was giggling as she straightened up, fumbling the bike chain into her messenger bag, Michelangelo's boundless enthusiasm impossible to resist. "Supreme Sistine Surprise? Dare I ask?"

"It's better to be surprised," Michelangelo replied sagely. "See you at seven?"

"You got it," she replied.

"Can't wait!" He said happily and rang off, leaving April to look at the phone in her hand with a sudden and nauseating dread.

It had been a week since April had come within seconds of kissing Raphael and she had been recovering ever since.

It wasn't as though she had sought him out that day with seduction in mind. Something had certainly compelled her to find him, a sudden and fierce determination to delve straight into deciphering the torrent of feeling he evoked in her, rather than just probing the edges then shying away as she had been doing. But going so far as to actually kiss him? That she had not planned.

Weeks – it seemed almost as though from the very moment they had met sometimes – they had been dancing around each other, coming so close to some final resolution before skittering away again. Two steps forward, three steps back. Weeks of enduring a sudden glimpse of his smile in her mind's eye, eliciting a tingling warmth that left her breathless no matter where she was. Weeks of feeling the hair rise pleasantly on the back of her neck when she called to mind his rough laugh, his easy stride, the way he cracked his neck. Weeks of catching herself imagining the textured flesh of his muscular body beneath her touch, provoking a physical response she seemed to have no control over and that left her in distinct consternation. Weeks of pondering the set of those thick lips and hovering on the very cusp of imagining how they might feel when pressed to certain places on her body – before dashing the thought from her mind.

But it was when she had abruptly caught herself staring blankly at a computer screen in the middle of the day for God-knows-how-long, not even seeing the information displayed there as her mind instead traversed in intimate, ravenous detail the long, thick lines of his thigh muscles, up, up, up to where the thongs of his loin cloth concealed tantalising flashes of red that April knew she had to sort this out once and for all. Face it head on, the same way she did everything else.

And she had gone straight to the lair and found him in the gym, a hulking mass of quivering, flexing, sweaty muscle and armour, the guarded, stern face that so disturbingly darted through her dreams contorted with exertion and concentration. And goddamn it, her panties had been soaking within minutes.

Her body might be in no doubt as to what it wanted, but her mind was very much another story. She loved Raphael; she loved all of them as her friends – her family – that was without question. She accepted the miracle and twist of fate of what they were and marvelled at the incredible fluke nature and science had produced. She considered herself blessed to know them, to be a part of their world, privileged to be witness to such extraordinary beings and their lives, trusted as one of their inner circle.

But sudden visions of Raphael ripping her jeans off and ploughing straight into her right there on the bench? There were so many reasons it made her squirm.

He was her friend. Her beloved and dear friend, who at once wore his heart on his sleeve for the world to see yet seemed wrapped in an impenetrable armour of anger and brusqueness. Whose sensitive depths lurked beneath a thin but unbreakable surface of tough swagger. Who had, in such a short time, been there for her in ways more significant than she had experienced in years. Who had literally saved her life.

He was also a mutant turtle. And she was a human.

There was no getting around it.

With her body so aroused and the thrill of endorphins pumping through her after his impressive display, it hadn't seemed to matter so very much though. She'd found herself staring into the brilliant amber of his eyes, their hardened surface seeming to just barely guise a softness deep-set within that made her pulse race, found herself enraptured by the fine striations that patterned those large lips and desperate to know what they would feel like pressed up against hers.

And before she was even fully cognizant of what she was doing, she had been lowering her face to his, and he hadn't been stopping her.

Then Michelangelo and Donatello had broken out into a fight in the den and interrupted them, bringing her crashing back down to earth and wondering just what in hell she was doing.

She'd high-tailed it, her heart racing and her mind in a furious whirl, desperate to get as far away as she possibly could.

Once home, she had been shamefaced at her behaviour and struggling with twinges of regret to boot. She had half-expected him to show up later on – he had come over to hang out a couple of times already – demanding an explanation.

But he hadn't.

Hadn't even called.

And she'd spent the week avoiding them.

It was a cowardly and shitty thing to do, April reflected later as she made her way through the tunnels that led to their secret home, the stench of them once again fresh and raw after a week away. She knew Raphael was interested in her. Despite being a mutant turtle who hadn't had much social interaction, he was subtler than most human guys – but not that subtle. And so absorbed had she been in the conflict of her own emotions, she had forgotten about his.

She had been expecting him to react like a human man would. To confront her, question her, take the initiative – hell, she had half-expected him to kiss her that night he had given her that bone-jellifying massage. She knew he'd wanted to. Had felt him contemplating her lips as surely as she had later contemplated his. She'd waited, anticipating, willing to let it happen if he made the first move. But he hadn't.

What must it be like, for him? To be living in a world populated by humans and faced by the seeming inarguable fact that life would be a solitary one? How could he ever trust or believe that a woman could be interested in him? For all Raphael's swagger and machismo, she perceived the sensitive heart of him as raw as an open wound. And he guarded that heart with a fierce defensiveness borne from a lifetime of preparing for rejection – from the entire world. More than any of his brothers, Raphael expected the world to be hostile and met it with hostility first.

So how must it have felt to have a human woman come so close only for her to freak out on him, scramble off of him like he was diseased, practically run from him? God, what if he thought she had been treating him like an experiment? She knew that notion would spring all too readily to Raphael's secretly insecure mind.

She had burned with shame and remorse.

But still she had stayed away.

Because still the fact remained – she was a human and he was a mutant turtle. And she wasn't ready to deal with it. Not at all.

April hesitated as she drew closer the tunnel that led to the main entrance of the lair, nervously wiping suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans. She hadn't liked staying away. These guys were her family now and she had missed them. She was a single woman, isolated in a massive city of strangers, an outcast in her own little way, and the turtles and their rat father had brought warmth and light into her life she hadn't even realised how desperately she had needed.

What if she had ruined it all with her thoughtless and selfish actions?

A second later the tunnel door swung open and a ball of orange and green muscle burst through, lifting her up and swinging her around before she had a chance to squeak.

"Perimeter breach!" Michelangelo exclaimed joyously, placing her back on her feet and squeezing her tightly, "Babe, you can breach my perimeter anytime!"

April laughed despite herself, resting her cheek against Michelangelo's shoulder and hugging him back, glad to see him even in the midst of her anxiety. "Hey Mikey," she said, her voice soft with feeling. They stood there for a long moment as she found herself clinging to him, relieved and needing his affection to soothe her troubled heart. After a while, he stepped back, his hands on her shoulders and looking into her face with a little moue of concern.

"You okay, angelcakes?"

"I'm fine," she waved a hand dismissively. "I just missed you more than I realised, I think."

His delighted grin effortlessly teased one in kind from her and he gripped her hand and turned towards the lair, leading the way. The feeling of his calloused palm wrapped around her hand suddenly brought Raphael to the forefront of her mind again and once more her anxiety spiked but as they entered the subterranean home all was quiet and still, the air heavy with the aroma of garlic and parmesan.

"Where is everyone?" she queried as Mikey ushered her through the den and to the small alcove they had turned into their kitchen, where the table had been made up with a red and white checked cloth, a mismatched variety of candles in jelly jars flickering in its centre.

"Oh, Leo and Dad are on some reconnaissance thing and Donnie is doing some work on the electricity. I dunno. I texted them all to say you were coming over and they are totally keen to see you but for right now – " and Mikey spun around with a dramatic flourish, holding his arms out to her as he burst into song. " – there's no one in the place except you and meeeee – "

"So set 'em up, Joe," April broke in with a wry grin, placing her weighty backpack on the table so that the bottles inside clinked. Michelangelo's attention was immediately arrested, cocking his head at the bag with interest. April snickered and shook her head, unzipping the backpack. "I dunno, I figured it would be all of us and we might as well make a night of it." One by one she brought out the four bottles of chilled white wine she had brought with her, placing them in a row on the table before Michelangelo's gaping face. Certainly, a relaxed family dinner had appealed, but she also thought sufficient lubrication would ease the nerves that constantly ebbed and flowed at the thought of facing Raphael once more.

Michelangelo was gazing at the wine bottles with a thirsty wonder. "Sensei doesn't let us drink very often," he whispered, like a hesitant child about to sneak one of his parent's cigarettes in the middle of the night on the goading of an older sibling.

April tossed her hair over her shoulder, grinned at him. "You're over twenty-one," she enticed, unwilling to get drunk alone, and Michelangelo's eyes widened as he pondered the implication.

"I so am," he affirmed ecstatically and the next moment he was excitedly producing more jelly jars from a cupboard. "But if Splinter flips, I'm totally saying you said it was grape juice," he thrust a thick finger at her as she twisted the screw cap off the first bottle and began filling the jelly jars to the brim.

"Deal," she laughed, then pushed his glass towards him before moving to put the other bottles in the fridge. "So, what about Raphael?" Her voice sounded too deliberately casual to her own ears but Michelangelo didn't seem to notice, taking a big slug of his wine and rolling his eyes as she rejoined him at the table.

"Oh, trust me, babe, you do not want to know. He has been in "A Mood"," Michelangelo punctuated this with air quotes, "all week."

April flinched but Michelangelo was busily attending to the aromatic pots on the stove, leaving her to gaze guiltily into her wine.

"He's been, like, Raphael as usual, just amplified to the power of a billion," Michelangelo continued, pulling a tray of garlic bread out of the oven and carefully placing it on the benchtop before turning to April with a dramatically raised brow and eyes of desperation. "It's been hell." Then something canny glimmered in his eye before he turned back to the stove, switching the burners off and removing the pots from the heat. "See what happens when you stay away so long?" he threw over his shoulder with nonchalant deliberation.

And April felt a flush course through her.

It hadn't occurred to her that the tension between her and Raphael might have been noticed by anyone else, least of all Michelangelo. She had figured out by now that the younger turtle's crush on her was playful and performative in nature; he obviously adored her but harboured no serious hopes that anything would happen between them, seeming content to simply dote on her and enjoy her company. She hadn't reckoned that Michelangelo's observation skills might be so keenly attuned and she wondered if the rest of the household had noticed the way she and the biggest turtle skirted each other.

"I wish everyone was here," she said, to divert the subject. She truly was more than a little disappointed not to see the others, but after having avoided them for a week she supposed she could hardly expect them to drop what they were doing just to come and see her.

Michelangelo was stirring angel hair pasta through the sauce he had prepared, carefully mixing the two over and over. He glanced at her and there was something a little guarded in his eyes.

"They'll be back," he reassured her. "They all missed you. I guess – well, I think everyone was a little bummed when we didn't hear from you for a bit. You know you're our sunshine." His voice was light but she felt the seriousness behind it and again the enormity of what was going on here struck her. For so long it had been just the five of them, hiding from the world, and then she had come into the picture – with all the weight of the role she had played in their pasts that had permitted their future to evolve – bringing with her a taste of the world above, a new dimension into their lives. Of course this close-knit and outcast little family would be guarded, ready to erect a defensive wall at the first sign of rejection. April sat mired in guilt as Michelangelo doled pasta out into two chipped bowls, sipping too quickly and greedily at her wine, her heart a confusion of tormented emotion. Yet another complication to consider – whatever happened between her and Raphael, how would it end up affecting her relationship with the whole family? If she hurt him, they might never forgive her. If things turned ugly between them, they would naturally take his side. She could lose them all.

"But don't worry, angelcakes," Michelangelo continued cheerily and placing her bowl, heaped high with a mouth-wateringly fragrant mixture, before her with a flourish. "This way it'll be all cosy and romantic, just the two of us." He winked at her then his expression abruptly transformed into one of realisation. "Oh yeah! I forgot! Wait right here!" And he bounded out before she could reply, leaving her to blink and sip her wine, looking down at the pasta that awaited her as a loud growl echoed through her stomach. Whatever she had been expecting from "Supreme Sistine Surprise", it was safe to say she hadn't been expecting this.

A moment later she heard the tread of footsteps approaching and realised instantly they were too heavy to be Michelangelo's and with a gut suddenly twisting in knots, she shifted in her chair to face the door.

Raphael filled the kitchen doorway and drew up short on sight of her, his expression indicating he had been completely ignorant of her presence – right before he carefully masked it with a hard, indifferent stare. April was unprepared for the intense physical reaction she would experience upon seeing him – a giddying rush of anxiety and desire, unable to help drinking in the sight of all that muscle and bony armour, her eyes automatically searching out the gold of his, needing to catch a glimpse of that deep well of emotion that so captivated her. But he'd drawn a veil across them and she squirmed in her chair, a confused mess of nerves, uncertainty and a helpless pleasure to see him, knowing that this discomfort and unease between them was entirely her fault.

Emboldened by the wine, she couldn't help but speak: "Hey!" Her voice sounded both hopeful and apprehensive, ill-concealed behind forced cheeriness.

Raphael simply stared at her in stony silence for an unbearably long moment. Then, he slammed a fist against the door frame, turned and left without a word.

April sat there shaking, and by the time Michelangelo bounded back in a few moments later with a portable stereo and the promise of Elvis' greatest love songs, she had opened the second bottle of wine and was making her steady way through another brimming glass.

"Supreme Sistine Surprise" was an intensely flavoursome dish bursting with roasted garlic and olives, semi-dried tomatoes and marinated artichoke hearts, heaped with generous amounts of shaved parmesan cheese. Michelangelo had clearly put a lot of effort into it so, though her appetite had been left decimated by the encounter with Raphael, April forced herself to eat as much as she could, washing it down with liberal amounts of wine. She was sorry not to be able to enjoy it more, but over and over her thoughts returned to Raphael's face, the shock and dismay so quickly concealed behind cold detachment. And her heart pounded hard against her sternum and she had to keep swallowing the lump in her throat.

Michelangelo was in rare form however, and soon enough she was giggling despite herself, relaxing somewhat as the boisterous younger turtle drew on an impressive well of bad jokes and worse impersonations including a truly scene-chewing Elvis, charming her with his wholehearted enthusiasm and distracting her from dwelling too long on Raphael. She grew steadily lightheaded and giddy, the combination of wine, delicious heavy food and constant giggling at Michelangelo's antics leaving her feeling slightly stupefied. When April finally couldn't force another mouthful of pasta past her lips and nudged the bowl away from her with an apologetic look at Michelangelo, he became suddenly, uncharacteristically sombre and gazed directly into her eyes with his bright blue ones.

"April – " he began and she sensed that the conversation was about to turn serious and sat up with a sudden pattering heart.

Abruptly, all the lights in the lair went out.

The two of them sat in stunned silence for a moment, gaping at each other where they sat illuminated in shadows by the candlelight, and then Michelangelo lifted a fist towards the heavens.

"Donatello!" he yelled.

Only silence replied. Absolute silence, in fact – and Michelangelo leaned over to the fridge to confirm that it wasn't just the lights, but that all the power in the lair had cut.

"Oh Jeeze."

April could just barely see Michelangelo roll his eyes as he turned back to the table.

"What's that lame-brain gone and done now?"

"Cut the power?" April offered helpfully and giggled, awash with relief that whatever he'd been about to say had been interrupted. Michelangelo lifted a brow ridge at her, his lips twisted in an unimpressed quirk.

"Little lady, you are drunk," he informed her and sat back with his arms crossed over his plastron, scanning the room and the pitch-black den beyond the faint outline of the doorway they could scarcely see in the dim light of the candles. "And we're in the dark." Suddenly his eyes glittered with mischief by the flickering glow. "Heeey – wanna play Seven Minutes in Heaven?"

"Mikey!" April laughed and raised her glass to her lips, shaking her head as Michelangelo grinned. Then he sighed in a great gust of exasperation, as though the world and all its weight were upon his shoulders.

"I better go see if Donnie needs a hand," he said resignedly and started to rise before darting a glance over to her. "Will you be okay here on your own for a while?" he queried and she shrugged.

"Sure. I'll just stay here. I've got wine and candlelight, what more could a gal want?" and she giggled again, aware she sounded silly but unable to stop herself.

Michelangelo snickered as he turned away from the table and went rummaging beneath the kitchen sink for a flashlight. "Don't make me answer that. Okay, wish me luck angelcakes – I'm headin' out."

"Be brave," she replied mockingly, smiling as he dropped an affectionate kiss on the crown of her head as he passed by.

Then he was gone, and she was alone with nothing but candlelight and cold pasta for company.

April had honestly thought she would not mind waiting in the lair alone whilst Michelangelo went to assist Donatello, but sitting there in the dead silence somewhere deep below the city, the meagre glow of the candles illuminating nothing but a patch of the table and everything beyond it black as coal, more than a little buzzed on wine, April began to grow nervous.

It was impossible to tell the passage of time in the dark, without even Elvis' crooning to measure it by. Not a single sound could be heard throughout the lair, making April aware for the first time just how profoundly the hum of a refrigerator or the whir of a computer could contribute to an environment. And every time she turned away from the table to look towards where the kitchen door led out into the rest of the home, an inky well of blackness was all that greeted her, disturbing to stare into, disconcerting to turn her back on.

April sipped nervously at her wine, her intoxicated blood stream seeming to roar within her in the silence, firing her imagination with paranoid contemplations.

Her heart nearly stopped when there was an abrupt rumble of noise somewhere in the lair beyond but then relief coursed through her as a familiar voice echoed in the darkness: "What the hell?"

"Raphael?" she called out, rising from the table in gratitude to know she wasn't alone any more, even as the flutter of butterflies took wing in her belly.

There was a pause but he replied, voice edged with barely-concealed concern: "April? What's going on? You okay? Where's Mikey?"

"Donnie's done something to the power and Mikey went to give him a hand," she called back.

He replied with a muffled curse and a grumble about the idiots he was forced to live with. Then his voice carried back to her, gruff and guarded. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Before she could stop herself she was fumbling towards the kitchen door, arms outstretched before her to feel her passage, not wanting to be alone and tipsy in the dark anymore, regardless of how fraught things currently were between them. She felt the air change as she left the smaller space of the kitchen and entered the expansive main room, taking careful, cautious steps and moving her arms all about in anticipation of colliding with something. "Where are y- oh!"

She slammed into a wall of unyielding muscle, just barely registering that it was him and that he must've been moving towards the kitchen to find her as her hands slid up and over the rock hard curves of his biceps, his pebbled flesh patterning her palms, scar tissue raised and silky beneath her touch. His powerful, huge hands had somehow found her waist in order to steady her as the combination of the darkness, the alcohol and the collision with his plastron had almost knocked her off her feet and she could smell him suddenly so strongly in the dark – sweat and leather, masculine and delicious. There, unable to see, anchored by the firm hold he had on her waist and feeling the rippling flow of his impressive figure against her, April found herself reeling, her thoughts a drunken shuffle of his smile, his hands kneading away the aches in her back (he's not human), the determined scowl as he had plunged after her high above the streets of New York, how easily he lifted and carried her (not human), the passion and ferocity with which he went after everything in his path (not) but the sweet uncertainty behind the desire in his eyes (human) when he looked at her –

April found herself stretching up on tippy toes, her hands running up his shoulders to his neck, sensed him holding his breath as she tugged at him, drawing his head down towards hers with only the slightest resistance from him. Then she was reaching out in the dark with parted lips, all other considerations vanishing from her mind.

When her mouth found his, it was like an electric shock coursed through her. She pressed her lips to his, thrilling to find the surface of them rough but beneath that their yielding softness. She kissed him softly but surely, her heart a pounding hammer in her ears, but her belly pooling like molten lava. He seemed frozen for a long, terrible moment, simply permitting her lips upon his, but then finally, blissfully, he responded, his mouth shifting to return the kiss and she felt a tremor run violently through her at the feeling.

His mouth was so much wider than hers, his lips so thick and large. April could feel his tentativeness as their lips parted for an instant and then came back together, could sense him trying to figure out how best to fit his mouth against hers and her body tingled to feel that care. She burned to grasp greedily at him, to coax his mouth open against hers and thrust their tongues together, but in his apprehension he was strong and controlled, being so careful and in so doing teasing her more than he could possibly know, making her thighs press hard together in a tormented squirm. There, in the dark, they clung to each other and gently, shyly experimented in several long, soft kisses that made her sigh and stretch up higher on her toes. His lips beneath that coarse surface were so tender and yet so firm and just the soft, repetitive press of their mouths was enough to make her groin ache, her clit yearn for stimulation. His breath was hot, the nearness of his face in the dark more titillating than she could've expected as his rough cheeks brushed hers and she cupped his strong, squared jaw with both hands, daring to rest her weight against his plastron.

April could taste just the hint of moisture at the back of his lips as their kisses began to slowly grow deeper and it stoked a fire in her loins that only raged harder when his huge hands timidly slid around her waist, arranging themselves gently down her back. She ran her hands back down his thick, muscular neck and over his plastron, reminding herself that this was real, that she was pressed up against a mutant turtle in a dark sewer, kissing him over and over. She scraped her fingertips over the bony armour and he shuddered in response, a reaction that piqued her even as she marvelled to hear the soft scratch of her nails on the hard surface. Nothing, nothing at all like the chest of a human man, not even in the pitch black. Could she really be doing this?

April tilted her head a little and he followed suit before realising the angle was too difficult and tilting his head the other way, his top lip brushing over hers and sending a wash of sensation through her that hardened her nipples. Now, their mouths were beginning to open against each other, Raphael's confidence seeming to grow, his hesitancy lessening as he quickly learned how to manage her comparatively tiny mouth with his own, as he got the hang of replicating actions he had doubtless seen a thousand times in movies. When their tongues first flickered against each other, they both moaned, the sound obscenely loud in the dark quiet of the lair – Raphael's deep and guttural, April's long and hungry. The sound of him inhaling inbetween their lips' tantalising exploration made her hips shift of their own accord and the exhalation of his breath into her mouth, against her cheek and neck, made her shiver and tremble all over.

Time seemed to stop in that perfect darkness. April gripped his shoulders, feeling the raised surface of the kanji branded into his right beneath her palm, the fingers of her other hand stroking his left over and over, feeling the smooth ridges of his scales with wonder. God, she was really doing this. And it was hot as hell. Her body was on fire with desire for him, for discovering what else that enormous mouth could do to pleasure her own and send waves of sensation coursing through the rest of her. She was crazy. She had to be crazy. Everything about this was crazy but nothing then could compel her to stop.

Sensing he was more at ease with what he was doing, she opened her mouth fully to his and darted her tongue forward, teasing him so that he chased hers back into her mouth with his own. She let her neck tip back, her head growing giddy with pleasure as their tongues entwined, as his thick lips encased hers, eliciting a thousand delicious nerve responses. Her calves were beginning to burn from the strain of holding herself extended up to reach him and, as if he sensed it, he suddenly slid his hands down her back, over her ass to cup her thighs, lifting her in a swift easy motion so that she was straddling his hips, her groin suddenly pressed deliriously against him, feeling the hard impression of his belts and with her legs spread like that she became aware of how wet she had grown and she ground against him in a burst of shameless lust, feeling his breath catch and his muscles tense in response.

Lifted like that, she could wrap her arms around his neck, feel her breasts press flat against the unyielding plastron, revel in the strength of him supporting her weight so easily, his large fingertips pressing into her thighs again and again and she wished he would grasp her ass, suspected that he wanted to but was yet too shy, wanted to tell him but found herself unexpectedly shy also, and most of all not wanting to break the kiss that had now become a heated, desperate, deliciously smothering clinch of lips and tongues and gasping breath.

Her clit was burning to be touched and she could scarcely believe how rapidly things were intensifying between them, her senses fogged with desire, her head in an intoxicated whirl, when she felt the unmistakeable press of his huge erection against the sensitive point where her thigh met her body and right then she couldn't give a fuck what she had seen on Google, she wanted it inside her so bad she heard herself gasp raggedly and bit his lower lip in frustration, thrilling when it prompted him to grip her harder and return with a little nip of his own, the potential danger of his huge teeth underscored all the more in what great care he took to only tease.

Their breath came in loud, ragged gasps now, their mouths moving over and over together, his overlapping hers in a tantalising hint of the dominance he could be capable of once confident in his experience, and April shifted a little so his hard cock could press against the very centre of her, the opening of her body only burning with frustration to feel potential satisfaction so close, yet obstructed by her jeans. She thrust against him and he choked 'Oh God' into her mouth and thrust back and she wanted to cry the torment was so exquisite. The fly of her jeans was rubbing against her clit now and with the delicious torture of his obviously massive cock straining to reach her through the barriers of leather and denim that kept them apart, she guessed it wouldn't be long before she came. And if they kept this friction up, he probably would too, would probably explode all over her and she wouldn't even be able to see his face when it happened which was really a goddamn shame –

Then suddenly, the lights came back on.

From pitch black the lair was flooded with a brightness that shocked them into separating, blinking rapidly against the sudden glare, both panting heavily and looking about them in a daze.

They were not in some dark void, separate from all time and space and alone together. They were in the den, not far from the kitchen. Right there in the middle of the enormous room which appeared just as it always did, right down to the pizza box sofas and Michelangelo's ridiculous hat collection.

Donatello's bank of monitors began to flicker to life and the hum of machinery livened the air, punctuating the fact that normalcy was again restored. In the kitchen, Elvis once more began to croon.

Stunned, April came crashing back to reality, still clinging to Raphael's shoulders, and frantically looking around for any sign of witnesses to their indiscretion.

Raphael was doing the same but after a moment their gazes were tugged back to each other, April still held aloft in his arms and all too aware of the dampness between her legs, of how bruised and swollen her lips felt, of the feeling of his scaled flesh beneath her hands, the hardness of his plastron against her and the unmistakeable fact of his non-human face now staring at her with an expression of growing alarm and apprehension.

April had no idea what to do. Resuming where they had left off was out of the question. Not just being in the den, with the lights bright overhead and the potential of being caught at any moment – the mood was irrevocably destroyed and April found herself suddenly stone cold sober, realising only moments ago she'd been grinding up against a mutant turtle in the dark with the full intention of getting herself off and letting him come all over her – and they'd never even been on a date. It was so profoundly, wildly bizarre that she was at a complete loss as to comprehending how they had ever come to that point at all – except that she had started it.

Christ, what was she doing?

They stared into each other's eyes and she knew that the look of confusion and uncertainty he wore was mirrored in her expression, the awkwardness of their position heightening their unease. Neither of them spoke.

Raphael suddenly placed her gently but firmly on the stone floor, his jaw set and his mouth in a hard line, his chest rising and falling with agitated breaths, deliberately not looking at her. His fists clenched by his sides as he dashed a last frantic look around the den and then, once again, he turned away from her and strode rapidly away towards the rear entrance that led into a confused jumble of tunnels, leaving her gaping after him.

It took her a few seconds too long to find her voice. "Raphael – " she called out after him, not having a single idea as to how they could resolve this but not wanting to leave things on that terrible, broken note.

But he was gone.

ooo

I hope, truly hop,e that didn't disappoint. THERE WILL BE MORE.

I know it's "funnier" when Mikey is a bad cook or creates something that only appeals to him but I've always liked Mikey as the momma of the house and the one with the creative flair. I've also always liked Mikey as the one who notices things but doesn't let on that he notices until it becomes necessary and in the meantime takes care of people in ways he thinks they need more… like making them laugh a lot.