Disclaimer: I don't own The Infernal Devices.

Summary: Ashamed, Tessa knew one thing clearly - she wanted to do vulgar, unladylike things to Gabriel Lightwood. GabrielTessa, set during CP, oneshot

Um, okay. I've read Clockwork Prince - got the book for Christmas, after all - and I'm kind of worried about where Cassie Clare is taking it. But I have faith and all. Anyway, I really wanted to write another GabrielTessa because I think they have so much potential. There might be spoilers for Clockwork Prince in here, but they are very light. Please enjoy!

Improperly His

There was something about him.

Tessa Gray just couldn't put her finger on it.

Everything about him should warn her to stay away. His thin, strong build, and his intelligent green eyes. The way he talked and the way he moved and the way he held himself. Everything should tell her to stay away from him, but she just couldn't find the willpower to.

She was actually glad that she had this little excuse to be around him - the training they had been issued. At least this wouldn't make her look completely mad for wanting to be around him. It gave her a reason to want him around. So he could teach her how to defend herself without using her gift.

She watched him as he stretched out his long muscles and talked with his serious brother.

She watched him as he sparred, slick and languid, liquid like a cat.

She watched him as he traded verbal barbs with Will.

She watched him when he talked with Sophie - and felt slightly jealous over it.

She watched him too much, to be frank.

She felt too much as well.

Everything was just so confusing. She couldn't place a finger on it, to be precise. So many things had happened to her in the span of time it too her to travel from her home to England. She can't count on her fingers the times she'd been shocked by what had happened to her. Her kidnapping, her gift, the Shadowhunters, her brother's betrayal, Will and Jem and Gabriel. Blue and silver and green…

Her head hurt.

She sighed as she sat on the floor. The brevity of their lunch break was always something that grated on Tessa's nerves. If there was one thing she didn't like, it was having to be rushed to eat and then exercise with a full stomach. But at least she had the company of Sophie.

And the show being put on by the Lightwood brothers.

She bit into the sandwiches brought to the training session by Sophie and pointedly looked away from Will. He was perched across from them and she had found his gaze trained on her once. Only once and she was paranoid about it. Still, she willed herself from looking at him. It would do no good to dwell on him, since he thought so little of her to begin with.

But then, that didn't explain the way she was staring at him.

The taller of the Lightwood boys dodged a particularly nasty looking blow dealt to him by his brother. Gabriel jumped higher than what was physically possible for Tessa and twirled in the air, landing on the other side of his sparring partner and looking particularly smug, his arms crossed, smirking.

She found herself wanting to wipe that smirk off his face - in more ways than one.

Frankly, that frightened her.

Tessa was unused to the idea of wanting someone; it was a new feeling as of late. When concerning Will and Jem, she found that she felt that certain feeling more than once, and now to throw Gabriel into the mix as well.

She sighed as she swallowed a bit of her sandwich. It was sticky against her throat, and took quite some effort to get down. Sophie offered her water, which she gratefully took.

"Thanks," she said, smiling.

Sophie nodded and started to eat her own sandwich as well. Tessa could tell that she felt strange, not eating in the dining room, but this was just a short break, and that felt unnecessary to cause such a fuss…

And there goes Gabriel again, twirling around his brother. The two of them were so similar, yet so different at the same time. Gabriel, with his tall and wiry frame, muscled leanly, and those eyes. His hair, tousled and yet perfect at the same time. His arrogant smirk, his attractive mouth, his words - so cruel, and yet voiced so eloquently.

Tessa felt her heart start to race.

She had often been prisoner to her imagination. Through books she was allowed to escape, to put herself in someone else's world and imagine herself there.

So it was no far stretch to imagine him, with his fingers brushing aside her wavy, chocolate hair and pressing his lips to the skin of her neck. It wasn't difficult to think of how he would press himself against her, and how his long fingers would delicately unlace the back of her corset…

She felt the blush creep on her face, the blood rush through her veins…

But her mind wouldn't let up. She could picture it so clearly. Could see how everything would go. She knew that Gabriel wasn't the jerk everyone claimed him to be, she could feel it. She knew that he would look at her tenderly - and almost moaned aloud when she saw the hard emeralds of his eyes soften when he looked at her. She could picture Gabriel backing her up, pressing himself flush against her, her back hitting a wall as she gasped his name.

She could imagine the way his hands would feel on her, the way he would say her name, "Tessa."

Everything was so vivid in her mind, she could almost feel how he would feel as she would wrap her legs around his waist and he would breathe in her ear. She felt the resounding reactions in her body then, the tight and uncomfortable feeling she got when thinking like this, and vowed herself to stop.

She had to.

So immersed in her daydream, she jumped when the real Gabriel said her name.

"Tessa."

And it was almost like torture, the way he said her name, harder and not as intimate as the way he had said in her imagination. He was staring at her with those hard, jewel like eyes, and she could almost feel his fingers like a residual touch on her skin, lingering on from her most embarrassing of fantasies.

She had registered that he said her name, but found that she couldn't respond, so distracted by…other things. She found a rather interesting spot to stare at - his knee, of all things. She didn't dare look up at his face, for to do that would be…

Suddenly, his face was at her level, staring at her with the precision of a hawk. She felt as if those eyes were searching her very soul, as clichéd as that sounded. Her heart skipped and then started up again, hammering away at the bony cage of her chest.

"You're flushed," he observed. "Are you ill? Or are you as weak physically as you are mentally?"

This got her attention, as well as her blood flowing in anger. The whole thing was slightly exciting - her verbal sparring sessions with Gabriel were…something she looked forward to, something that she enjoyed. She loved proving him wrong, loved seeing the look on his face when he was bested for a moment, before coming back with a retort as equally awful as the first.

She started to rise to her feet, causing Gabriel to step back a pace or two to compensate. For a minute, she though she saw concern in his eyes, but quickly dismissed it. Someone like Gabriel could never feel concern for her…

Something happened then, something that not even Tessa's imagination could conjure up.

Gabriel took her hand, helping her to her feet. She could feel the calluses on his hands as they brushed against her softer ones. Her heart was being a traitorous thing, and skipped several times before pounding so loudly that she was certain it would give her feelings away.

He appraised her for a moment, and she realized that he was actually checking her over, worried that something might have happened because of her lack of comeback to his earlier insult. Tessa found that her hand stayed in his longer than usual. She didn't mind.

"I am quite fine," she told him, tilting her head upwards. "It would be just like you to mistake a woman's reactions."

Will snickered in the background, something that Tessa found herself ignoring rather easily.

Gabriel smirked at her and dropped her hand, almost as if to say, "That's my girl."

Tessa gave him a smirk of her own as she followed him out to the middle of the training ground, her eyes secretly appraising his figure as he walked.

The blush was back, and with it, a new realization.

She wasn't sure why - or how, for that matter - but Tessa Gray learned something, at least, from these sessions.

Ashamed, Tessa knew one thing clearly - she wanted to do vulgar, unladylike things to Gabriel Lightwood.

But beyond all that, she'd actually started to care for him.

That, Tessa mused as he turned and gave her one of his smug smiles - the one that made her heart feel particularly large, is the most frightening thing of all.

End.