I do not own Naruto.

Note: Sorry for the confusion. When I did a mass edit of my stories it seems I accidently uploaded the wrong one to this title. I apologize to everyone and thank you kurayaminikoorime for pointing it out. Again, I apologize for the confusion.

Shino lay content in observing the young woman next to him. Her eyes had fallen closed near an hour prior, leaving her face with a serene calmness that was only heightened by the faint light that filtered through the tree canopy. His unshaded gaze passed over the succulent fullness of her exposed breast, and he remembered how soft the pale skin felt beneath his fingers followed by the breathless moans that escaped her lips with every touch.

His fingers, which had been slowly caressing her waist, slid over the curve of her hip and along her thigh. The muscle beneath was strong from years of training and fighting, but at the moment remained relaxed and, somehow, vulnerable. She was vulnerable. But now, only to him. To everyone else she had improved. Her timidity, the unrelenting self-deception that tainted her mind had slowly been fading and a new, more self-assured woman had been allowed to step forward.

But when they left the village, left everyone behind; when they stopped being teammates and became lovers, only then would she tremble. Only then did her pale eyes beg him to hold her, protect her, make her live and die all in one moment of forbidden passion. Each stolen night he spent feeling her lips over his skin or tasting the salty sweat that would cover her chest brought them closer to the day it had to end. To the morning they wouldn't leave early enough or the evening one of them was followed in their haste to be with the other.

He drew her close, instinctively . . . protectively. For this moment she was his, surrendering her body, her life, her trust to him completely. And he gave her all of him in return. He let her see him as no other ever had. Her gentle, deadly hands moved, each night they spent together, to remove the dark glasses that hid who he was from the rest of the world. And with her fingers, not her eyes, did she read his face: touching, caressing, loving him for all he was.

He felt her body shift, pulling closer, safer into him. Those pale eyes opened and looked to him with a dream haze still covering them. The woman rested her head against his arm and smiled, gentler than the first fallen snow, yet warmer than a spring sun. He returned the affection before reaching up to brush away a few pieces of hair that had fallen over her cheek.

He asked, though he knew the answer. "A good dream, Hinata?"

"No," she whispered, as she did each time. "A good way to wake up."