The sharp guitar riff blasted through the paper-thin hotel room walls, causing Rory to pounce up in bed, hands reaching up to protectively cup her sensitive ears from the bellowing harshness of the music. She glared menacingly at the opposite wall, half contemplating barging through the adjoining door and threatening the brainless idiot who dared interrupt her slumber. After chewing on the murderous plot, she abandoned it, chalking it up to the normal illusions that accompany several hours free of coffee, the sweet elixir otherwise known as The Gilmore Blood of Life. Smothering a yawn, she stretched her limbs like a satisfied cat as she glanced at the alarm clock resting silently by her bed.

2:30 A.M.

Would she ever get any sleep? A second squeal of the guitar, accentuated by the staccato of a drum roll was her answer. Emitting a frustrated growl, she snuggled deeper under the covers, kicking mercilessly as they clung to her sweaty skin. She clutched the extra pillow in her hands, tucking it around her head as she buried beneath its recesses. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she prepared to let her mind drift off into the peaceful oblivion of sleep, absent of dreams.

Dreams...

Oh. My. God.

In a mirror of her previous actions, she sat bolt upright in bed, the safety net of the pillow long forgotten as it tumbled helplessly to the floor. She brushed the unruly chocolate tendrils from her face, tucking them behind her ears as the details of her dream hit her in a full onslaught.

Tristan.

Kissing.

The goose bumps prickled on her skin as she remember the way he had gently, seductively, tasted her skin. The way she had wanted... needed... desired him to claim her mouth with his own, making her his, and only his. The way...

Oh. My. God.

She buried her face in her hands, all too aware of the rapid acceleration of her heart beat. She raised a tentative finger to her lips, tracing their outline, almost as if she was expecting to find some evidence of him. But there was none, for it had never happened. It was all a figment of her overactive imagination. Heaving a sigh of relief, she flopped back onto the mattress, calmly toying with a loose string with her fingers. A few silent moments later, she once again popped up in bed like a Jack-in-the-Box, her serene expression replaced with one of mild panic.

But weren’t dreams supposed to reflect one’s real desires; the desires one keeps tucked away in reality but are free to be acted on in the safety of dreams?

Damn that dream analysis book that Lane had brought to a sleepover a few weeks prior to the Chilton school trip to Hawaii. Rory shook her head adamantly, refusing to even dwell on the million different explanations that devil of a book would have for this dream. No, correction, nightmare. Analytically, dreams were a meshed jig-saw puzzle made up of the experiences throughout the day. Tristan was in her face day in and day out, annoyingly torturing her with all the pathetic little insults that his feeble mind could come up with, so it was only natural that his sickeningly charming presence would make itself known in her night time encounters. Right? Right. He was the evil one, spawned from the depths of the lava bed in Hawaii’s most feared volcano. Maybe a sacrifice to appease the Volcano Gods was in order...

The hole of doubt chewed in her stomach as she remembered the tender way Dream Rory had looked at Dream Tristan. Who was she trying to kid? This guy, the one who had her wanting to pull out his blond strands, one by one to use for a voodoo doll, had wormed his way into her life. She didn’t have to like it, but it looked like she would have to accept it. But that was what scared her. Sometimes, heck, the majority of the time, she felt like beating the crap out of him, but then there were those other times...

Those times he tenderly whispered her name in that soft, husky voice.

Those times when he would wait for her at her locker, only to steal her books, granting the slightest hint of contact as his hand brushed hers.

Those times when she would forget anything and everything when he stared at her with those deep as an ocean blue eyes.

Those times she would wake up in the night, thinking of him. Not knowing why and not really caring, but wondering what he was doing at that exact moment. Was he thinking of her?

Lorelai would relentlessly tease her, saying that she was lost to the depths of a hopeless crush. But she wasn’t lost. She was a mere victim of circumstance. It was nothing but a dream, plain and simple. She would not be one of those girls who fell for someone like Tristan DuGrey. And if she felt herself teetering towards the brink, she would fight it and him. That particular battle she considered herself an expert at. After he grew tired of amusing himself with her, he would move on, and she would be none the worse for wear.

But then there were the times when he looked at her in a way in which she felt as if she were drowning. In him. Then that pleased smirk would tarnish his features, bringing her back to her senses. No doubt the same expression he would grace her with if he only knew that she had actually dreamt about him. Oh, the lewd comments he would throw her way, reveling in her discomfort. He would know that he had finally gotten to her, ultimately believing in his twisted mind that she was lusting after him within her subconscious.

And that was precisely why he would never find out. She sure as hell would never tell him. No one would ever have to know that she, Rory Gilmore, had a momentary lapse of sanity. That’s all it was. Right?

That time, she didn’t even bother trying to convince herself.

The red, orange and yellows of the sunset swirled over the Pacific Ocean, cresting the white breakers like a protective shield as the heat of day slowly gave way to cool, brilliant twilight. The fresh breeze lifted the curls of hair off her neck as she was treated to a pleasant whiff of the wild flowers and papaya. The distant chattering from her classmates at the luau was barely audible, having been drowned out by the powerful waves crashing onto the beach before raking back into the seemingly depthless sea. She made her way along the sand, staying close to the dunes as her feet were engulfed by the still sun-baked texture.

His eyes did not drift from their intent gaze of the ocean, but he knew she was there. He could sense her presence a mile away. A pleased smile curved on his lips as he heard her soft, delicate voice call his name. He had known she would come to him. He normally would have teased her, saying she couldn’t resist him, but now wasn’t the time or place for that. She was beside him now, her ankle-length floral print skirt brushing against his bare arm, but he still willed himself not to look at her. He wanted to treasure her presence and revel in the fact that she was there with him, in that moment, for when he looked at her, it would be all over. He often feared that she would suddenly disappear, leaving only a painful memory in her place. Her hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder as her thumb massaged a tense muscle in his neck. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, his hand reaching up to cup hers. She smiled, intertwining her fingers with his as she sat down on the blanket beside him, tucking her bare feet underneath her skirt.

Still without looking at her, he smirked devilishly. "You’re such a tease, Rory."

"God, Tristan! Why do you have to turn every little thing I do into a supposed attempt to have my way with you?"

He chuckled, turning to wink at her, but all lewd remarks dissolved as he devoured the beauty that sat before him. Her arms were defiantly crossed in front of her chest as she stubbornly glared at him, but even that intimidating position did nothing to still his rapid heart rate. Her hair was hanging in loose curls around her shoulders, the thick strands brushing the straps of her deep purple tank top - the same shade as the flimsy material of her skirt. The dark colors accentuated her porcelain skin, and it was obvious she didn’t care about getting a tan. But he found that particularly endearing. Her smooth, creamy complexion was just begging to be caressed. Her eyes, stormy with frustration, were fixed on him as her lips pursed into a pout. How sexy she was when angry, and with him, more often than not, she was. But, yet, in her eyes there was always this glimmer of innocence, a shell she had not shed. And that lured him ever nearer to her, like a moth to a flame. And like that moth, he knew that he would eventually get burned. She had power over him, God help him. That was something he was most certainly not used to. He was always the one controlling the aspects of a relationship, the one calling all the shots. Actually, this wasn’t anything close to bearing even a slight resemblance to a relationship, and she still had the ability to bring him to his knees.

His friends all thought he had lost his mind, or worse yet, lost his touch with girls. This innocent, dark-haired female wasn’t his type. In fact, she wasn’t even close to it. She didn’t look at him with seduction and desire in her eyes. Hell, she didn’t really look at him at all; that is, unless he purposely got in her face. She wasn’t the vixen who would crook her finger, beckoning him to join her in one of the storage closets for a make-out session between classes. She wasn’t any of those things that his friends found attractive. Things he, himself, used to find attractive. Used to. Past tense. Exactly.

She was everything he never knew he wanted. Intelligent, witty with a biting sense of humor, and so beautiful it almost hurt to even look at her. And she had absolutely no idea. She had had a boyfriend. Only one that he knew about, but they had broken up awhile ago. She hadn’t dated anyone else, and he wondered if it was because she just simply didn’t want to. It was a puzzle to him that she couldn’t see how truly desirable she was. How she couldn’t see how much he was affected by her. That shouldn’t have been too surprising. He had become accustomed to hiding it well behind a veil of lewd, lascivious remarks that often came out sounding more harshly than he had intended.

"Thinking about the different ways I could use a bamboo stick to torture you?"

Her sharp remark, but still somehow managing to sound delicate, jerked him back to reality. He ran a hand through his sun-kissed blond locks, which in combination with the salty air tousled it even more. Licking his lips slowly, he turned on the blanket so he was facing her. "I knew you liked it rough."

"If I carry out my plan with the bamboo, you unfortunately won’t be able to find out."

He inched closer to her, one muscular leg rubbing up against her thigh. "Well, then maybe we should get a few things out of the way first. Have you ever had sex on the beach, Rory?" He smirked as her eyes widened to the size of blue china saucers, satisfied that he had once again finally caught her off guard.

"No!" she blurted quickly, instinctively moving away from him.

"Why so disgusted? It could actually be a beautiful experience for you." He was playing with her hair now, his fingers braiding two tendrils.

She batted his hand away, smoothing her hair back behind her ears. "That’s an experience I would like to hold off on for, oh, I don’t know, the next hundred years. Especially if you’re involved."

He leaned back on his elbows in a relaxed position, flashing her a seductive smile. "I can wait. Though it’s a shame you’ll be all shriveled up by then."

She rolled her eyes disdainfully at him. "I’ll be sure to send out a rescue team to find you here, buried somewhere beneath ten layers of hardened lava where you were last seen, searching for your toupee and lost teeth."

"Well, look at it this way. By the time you’re a hundred years old, you’ll be wanting some action. That is, unless you‘re the type that find weekly bridge matches stimulating."

"More stimulating than what you’ll have left by that time." She treated him to an innocent smile when his jaw dropped. She couldn’t stop the little thrill that ran through her at his stupefied expression.

He recovered swiftly, his head dipping down to whisper huskily in her ear. "Feisty. I like that." Those words were practically uttered in a growl as his eyes began their leisurely sampling of her lithe frame, stalling on the curve of her bare shoulders. Tearing his gaze away, he got to his feet, taking her hands in his and giving her a tug.

She stayed put on the blanket, her eyebrows raised as she gazed at him questioningly. "What?"

"Come, on." He pulled on her arms at the same time as she stood up, and the momentous force had him stumbling backwards as she fell, quite ungracefully, into his embrace. She braced herself against him with her hands, feeling the deep contours of his chest muscles beneath the thin material of his white shirt. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that her face was turning a fiery, unflattering shade of red. She hadn’t been this close to him... not since he had kissed her at the piano.

His breathing had deepened as his hands moved across her back, spanning the area of smooth, inviting skin between her top and skirt. It was obvious that she was doing everything possible to keep from looking at him as she focused on one of the buttons on his shirt. He reached his hand up to rest on top of hers, his other trailing the length of her jaw line, marveling at the perfection of her facial structure. She unconsciously bit her lower lip, drawing his attention to the shiny gloss lightly coating her mouth. He stifled a moan, not knowing if he was more affected by her close proximity or by her obliviousness to his precarious situation. The fact that he wanted to kiss her was an understatement, but there would be time for that. Later. He brought his face closer to hers, halting his approach when their lips were mere millimeters apart. "Rory."

"Hmm."

He stifled a chuckle at her dreamy response as her eyelids fluttered halfway between being opened and closed. "Come with me."

Her head whipped up, the spell broken, as she took a step back, searching his eyes with her own. "What? Why?"

His hand dropped to her smaller one, so that they were palm to palm before threading his fingers through hers, creating a sealed bond that neither one had even known was there. "I want to show you something."

Her voice was tinged with doubt. "Tristan, it’s getting late. We should probably be going back..."

"I promise. It’s something you’ll never forget." He turned on his heel and headed down the beach with her in tow, leading them further away from the comforting light of the luau bonfires and into the darkness beyond.

The stars twinkling overhead would serve as their only witness.

And what happens during that dark, mysterious night? Well, isn’t that the eternal question. ;)