Kenshin continued the movements, his arms and chest burning with the force of his thrusts, his calves aching from the demand he had made of them that day. His hair clung to his throat and bare shoulders wetly and he shook his sweat-dampened bangs out of his eyes with a snarl. Standing there in the dojo, with the echoes of her Chi and the faint scent of jasmine and sweat, his lungs breathed in the air gratefully. Yahiko was finishing up the last of the laundry and chores and he had already put the Miso on to slowly simmer so it would be ready for dinner. All that was left for him to cook was the rice and whatever vegetable or fish Kaoru brought home with her. On days she worked at that particular dojo, she would swing by the market and get the tofu, vegetables, and whatever else she wanted. He had been ‘slipping’ money into the bag she kept most of their yen in and he wondered how long until she noticed it.
His mouth curved. If the Rurouni had been around, he would have been horrified to know that he had gone back and done what he had. Shrugging as he sheathed his katana and stretched his shoulders, he thought about his careful horde of both gold and yen notes. He had a family to support and he could care less how he got the money as long as he had it. Once things settled down with Kaoru here, he planned on finding a steady income so she wouldn’t have to work once they started a family.
He closed his eyes and let his senses scan the dojo again. He had been uneasy since the moment she had left the dojo and he couldn’t shake it. It was eating at his stomach lining and he had decided to practice to see if he could distract himself. It hadn’t worked and he had worked himself into a fine sheen of sweat. Tossing his bangs of his eyes he went to get a drink of water while thinking of what could be keeping Kaoru. Yahiko seemed to be thinking the same thing, because his eyes kept darting to the dojo gate from where he was sweeping the front steps. Generally Kaoru reserved that right for herself, but she wasn’t back yet and if she had stayed late teaching she wouldn’t want to sweep anything. She would just want a hot bath, dinner, and her bed. It was getting dark and he was worried about her.
Shaking off his sudden anxiety Yahiko watched as Kenshin went and stacked the logs under the furnace so he could light them when she was ready for them, and he went to gather the laundry and check on the soup. He didn’t dare do much to it but he could make sure it wasn’t burning or boiling over.
Kaoru watched as the stream lazily moved down its path. Her hands were clamped together as she thought about what Eiji had told her. An old woman, possibly gypsy, had been found dead out here. She had sat on the log until the air had started to chill and still didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t so sure why it was important that she say anything at all, but something told her that the old woman she had met that once had done something important and it had possibly cost her in the long run.
Sighing she stood up and made her way home. She had washed her hands clean in the stream, and hopefully it was dark enough that Kenshin wouldn’t notice the blood stains. ‘Bloodstains on white fabric…don’t kid yourself, Kamiya! Not only will he notice, but you will probably be in a load of trouble as well.’ She shook her head and made for the gate that was looming in front of her. Stopping halfway there she swore under her breath. She had forgotten to grab the goods Kenshin had requested for dinner! Fingering her aching temples she felt tears prickle on the back of her lids. This was not her day!
Slumping slightly she headed into the dojo, the scent of the fire Kenshin was building filling her senses. Sighing in relief, she moved towards the bathhouse. Hopefully she still had a clean yukata in there and she wouldn’t have to let Kenshin see her state of dress. But she would have to apologize…”I am so sorry!” Kaoru whispered as she leaned into the shadows of the bathhouse so that she could see where Kenshin was adding wood to the cheerfully flickering flames. “I forgot to grab dinner and I am late…” Even while she was talking she was opening the door and slipping inside the bathhouse in an attempt to avoid his eyes. She heard her name echoing into the room but she shut the door and stood still for a moment before heading into the bathing chamber. He always had extra rinsing water for her and she was thankful as she began to pull at the twisted, bloody knot at her waist so she could strip, her fingers shaking for a moment as she realized exactly how much blood she had on her.
Kenshin had turned with narrowed eyes when she sounded so lost but was completely unprepared for the way Kaoru all but raced into the bathhouse. That was when he caught what had been hovering at the edge of his senses since she entered the yard. Blood. Clenching his jaw, he dusted his hands off and opened the door to go in after her. “Kaoru, my apologies…” He stopped mid sentence and stared at her. She stared right back, wide-eyed and startled.
She had already tugged half of her gi off one shoulder so that it had fallen to her waist and her fingers were tugging on the other. Her pants were only loosely clinging to her waist and had slipped down so that if she shifted her hips at all they would fall to the floor. It was the large, red stain that the lanterns showed on her left shoulder, the dark red of the front of her breast bindings, and the splotches of blood at her temples that had him stock still and furious.
“Kenshin…” Kaoru tried, her voice wavering slightly in uncertainty but he was having none of it. He crossed the distance between them in seconds. His hands grasped along one bare shoulder and the other clothed in bloody gi. His face was so close that his breath was ghosting across her lips and she could feel the heat of his skin against her own.
“Why is there so much blood?” Kenshin quietly asked, fury lining his voice. Kaoru stared at him for long moments.
“It’s not mine!” She blurted out in an attempt to placate him but that just made his eyes flare brighter. “I mean…it’s not the man who…it’s the boys I…damnit, Kenshin, you're not helping!” Kaoru snarled that last bit at him and he gave her a long, lazy look from under his lashes. He was still furious, she could tell, but apparently the knowledge that she wasn’t bleeding to death beneath his nose seemed to have calmed him down.
“Help?” Kenshin drawled his voice lowering until it was almost a purr against her skin. “You want my help?” Kaoru suddenly wondered if she had somehow infuriated him even more and was about to respond scathingly, when he jerked the rest of her gi off her shoulders and left her only in her breast bindings and pants.
“Kenshin!” Kaoru snapped at him, stepping back and almost tripping over the hem of her dangerously low pants. “What are you doing?” She shrieked in protest as he caught and steadied her. Her eyes widened even more when he kissed the ridge of her ear and then bit down lightly. She gasped and shivered, intent on holding her pants up. “Kenshin!”
An amused chuckle as his hands lowered from her elbows to grasp at her hands and to tease her fingers loose. She bit her lip and looked up at him in concern. “You said, Koi, that you wanted my help.” His mouth pressed into hers hotly and she whimpered in the back of her throat as her knees wavered and her hands released her pants to allow his fingers to tug at them, leaving her bare from the waist down. He smiled against her mouth and she could feel the way his body hummed with satisfaction. “You’re covered in blood. I thought I might help you wash it off.” There were dark undertones in his voice that promised they weren’t through with that conversation and then her back was flat against the wall as he nibbled on her jaw and slid his palms up her sides to tug at her breast bindings. “In order for that to happen,” he informed her, his breath warm against the damp skin of her jawline. “You’re going to have to be naked in my arms.”
Kaoru opened her mouth to argue with him but his fingers suddenly met the bare skin of her chest and she found she couldn’t make any noise at all. His thumbs brushed against the pink tips of her breasts and the air was sucked out of her lungs and all she could emit was a squeak. He nipped at her chin and caught her mouth with his as his clever fingers continued to taunt her. “I thought you would like that,” he breathed against her mouth before he let her go, letting the wall support her naked body as he moved to the rinsing water and soap. Kaoru stared at him with wide eyes as she sucked in air and watched as he stripped off his gi and bared the thick muscles of his back before soaping a dripping rag and turning to her with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
Standing, he reached for her body and pulled her stunned form into his side, balancing her before having her stand alone. Then he smoothed the cloth down the heavy fall of her breasts, down the smooth column of her throat, the graceful fall of her shoulders and arms. He would stop and wipe away each stain as he lowered himself down her body, leaving dripping suds in its path before he smoothed it down the line of her belly and inner thighs. She watched as one hand dipped into the warm water and then slid between her thighs…
Kaoru pitched partway forward and hung onto his shoulders as he laughed against the skin of her stomach and did it again. Her nails bit into his shoulder and he placed several open-mouth kisses against the skin closest to his mouth. “I wonder…” he all but purred as he dragged his thumb against something that made her body quake. She wanted to ask him what he wondered. She was having the hardest time holding herself up as it was and his smiled against her skin. “Let’s get you clean.” Then Kenshin was holding her hips as he easily rose and she stared at him with glossy eyes as he nipped at her bottom lip. “I’m not finished yet.” He assured her. “I haven’t bent you over backwards and had you screaming.”
Kaoru gulped as he carefully poured water over her skin and washed away the soap. The rest of the bucked was upended over her thick hair. The water cascaded over sensitive skin and she shivered. Parts of her were throbbing for his attention but he seemed content to work soap into her bangs and hair, his blunt nails scratching against her scalp. Once he was sure that her hair was clean he used the other bucket of warm water to rinse it free. When she was clean, he gave a little sigh. “Finally.”
Kaoru all but jumped out of her skin when she found herself pushed against the wall, his naked chest pressing into her own, one of her legs tossed over his hip as he sucked gently against her collarbone. The hand that wasn’t holding onto her leg was smoothing up her wet, slick skin and tracing feather patterns across her belly and breasts. Taunting her with his almost touch. Once he had her where he wanted her, Kaoru's softness brushed his hard arousal. She gasped in surprise; he gave her a lazy-lidded look that had her breath coming in harsh gasps.
His lips skimmed her ear just before his tongue snaked out to trace the edge, then his teeth grazed it again. Kaoru arched against him and he gave another one of those dark, masculine chuckles that had her shivering in unnamed need. “Tell me, Thistle, do you like this? Being pressed up against a wall at my mercy and completely vulnerable?” As he spoke he touched her core delicately and she tightened her leg around his waist, whimpering. “Do you want that? Do you want me buried deep inside you, completing you as only I can? Tell me, have you thought about what it would be like to be flat on your back and completely under my will?” He dropped kisses along her pulse point. “Tell me.”
Kaoru stared at him in disbelief as he watched her, a covetous expression on his face, and her lips parted as she attempt to articulate something, anything, to return those wicked digits to where he had removed them. “If you want something, Koishii, you can tell me.” He nipped at her eat lobe again, shooting sparks down to the part of her that was a painful ache, and she groaned. “I want to hear it.”
“I…” she managed, her voice strangled.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I…want…you.” She managed. He gave a noise of encouragement but refused to move his fingers.
“Were do you want me?” He dropped kisses along her jaw-line and down her throat, lingering on a spot that made her sob low in her throat and buck against him. Kaoru dug her nails into his shoulder and whimpered. “Kaoru.” He made her name an endearment with the way he drawled it out and in a corner of her mind she wondered at how unfair it was that he could do that to her with his voice.
Her response was so low he almost didn’t catch it. Smiling he kissed his way up to her temple to catch the sweat with this tongue, but didn’t move. She gave another whimpering sob and said it again.
“Inside me,” Kaoru managed to moan. “I want you moving inside me.” Kaoru whimpered when he gave into pleas and gave her what she asked for. Her body writhed against his. “So close….just reach a little harder.” He crooned. “Just…there…” Kaoru stiffened in his arms, a scream tearing from her throat as her world went up in lights and she sobbed in relief as she shook in his arms. “There you go.” He allowed her leg to slide down his body and he scooped her up and carefully set her in the water. Kaoru hung onto the rim and panted as her body remained supersensitive after his assault.
She turned in surprise when his body settled next to hers and he pulled her into his arms to rest. “You did wonderfully.” He assured her in a delighted tone. Kaoru settled her check against his neck and breathed in the scent of him. He smelled like the fire from earlier and the faintest touch of sweat. “However,” he purred against her in a husky voice. “I haven’t fulfilled your wishes yet.”
Kaoru gasped when she suddenly found herself pressed against the back of the tub, the warm water soothing as it crashed around her. Her legs had somehow managed to wrap around his waist and his chest had her pinned to the wall of the tub. “I need you.” He informed her as he dropped kisses along her jaw line, lingering at her mouth. “Let me inside you.” He nuzzled her neck. “Let me take you.” One of his hands slipped down to brace her spin and she sucked in a breath at the knowledge that he had her vulnerable again. She found herself nodding eagerly and he gave her a look that heated her already raging blood-stream.
The tip of him brushed against her entrance and she hissed between her teeth. He caught her eyes with his. “This will hurt at first, but I promise I will make it feel very, very good.”
It did hurt. Kaoru closed her eyes at the stretching, painful sensation as he filled her and gasped between pale lips. His mouth covered hers, his tongue coaxing her to relax and to trust him and eventually their chests were flush, the pain starting to fade. She was thankful for the hand cradling her back and neck as her body lost control, with him moving inside her. Kaoru thought she heard Kenshin grind out her name, a second heat rush streaming into her body. He collapsed into her, panting and exhausted. Kaoru allowed him to rearrange her body against his, content to let them stay that way until the water began to turn cold.
“We need to get some food in you.” Kenshin breathed against her neck as he pulled them out of the water. “Then you're going to tell me why you were covered in blood.” He informed her, picking Kaoru up and setting her onto the floor before grasping the rough towel and drying her off. She let him wrap her up and then set about wringing out her hair while he tied a towel around his waist and headed for the changing room. Handing her a yukata, he belted his own loosely around his waist, allowing the front to show more chest than was strictly polite.
Kaoru flushed at the idea of not binding her breasts and cast him a shy glance. “Yahiko?” She asked quietly.
“Went to get the rest of the groceries and hasn’t come back yet. He had mentioned something about stopping at the Akebeko to see how things were there, and he probably got roped into working. He will probably spend the night there but I will cover the miso and leave it out for him. I have enough vegetables and rice to make something to go with the miso, and he knew that.” He assured her, watching her from dripping bangs. Kaoru nodded and wasn’t overly surprised when he dropped an arm around her shoulders and walked with her into the dojo, refusing to diminish contact. He settled her on the cushions as he went to grill the vegetables and set out the miso. Kaoru watched him work; her body humming pleasantly with the ministrations those same hands had given her only a little while before.
It was there, watching Kenshin chop vegetables and occasionally stir the simmering miso, her body sated, that she realized something. She was falling back in love with him. She was glad the room was dimly lit because her face drained of all color. Her hands fisted into the yukata she was wearing and she stared at him. She was falling in love with him. The way he had growled as she writhed against him, the way he was right behind her with what she needed, the amused quirk to his mouth when she gave into her temper. Blinking rapidly she felt her composure start to crack and she looked away, watching inside the fire that burned under the miso. She had been a fool. She had thought that she could take what he offered, and then let her abused heart keep her secret and survive without it. Now that he had taken away her capability to feel herself past his scent, his touch, his voice…she wasn’t going to be able to do this.
Kaoru turned when he asked her opinion on something and the look he gave her curled her toes. She wouldn’t be able to do it after what happened tonight. She would have to find something to keep this from repeating. If the look on his face had said anything, then he planned on making what had happened in the bathhouse a habit. If she did that her treacherous heart would seal the deal. There was no way she could lay with him enough to create a child and come out unscathed. She wasn’t sure she was unscathed now. She blinked in surprise when he set hot tea in front of her, shooting an assessing look that had her breath stilling. She swore that he could see into her heart, knew her plans, and knew what he was doing to her.
“After dinner, we are going to talk.” Kenshin told her quietly. “You’re not going to teach in the morning; your body needs a chance to recover from earlier this evening. So you can’t tell me that you need to go to bed.” He filled the serving dishes and set out the bowls, then they were eating one of his better vegetarian dishes.
They ate in silence and once they had cleared most of the food Kenshin wrapped up what was savable and covered the rest of the miso in case Yahiko came home hungry that night. Then he motioned for her to lead the way and Kaoru was thankful for the lantern he had set in the hall to her room. She expected for him to follow her in but he set the lantern down and exited, giving her time to braid her waist-length hair and tie it off before he returned with a thicker blanket. “It’s going to be cold tonight.” He informed her as he tossed it over her form. Turning down the covers and settling himself into her blankets he held out on arm. Kaoru stared at him for a long moment before setting her comb down and crawling in with him. She wasn’t ready to tip his suspicions that she was going to end this charade as soon as she could. Besides, she had always wanted to know what it was like to fall asleep in his arms.
There was no way it could be worse than the fact that they had had sex in her bathtub.
“Talk to me, Kaoru.” Kenshin demanded as he threaded one hand into the hair at the base of her neck and his other hand rolled up and down her spine. “I need to know what happened today.”
Kaoru blew on her bangs, the memory of what happened that afternoon driving away her sleepiness. “You’re not going to let that go are you?”
“No.” He drawled, voice echoing under he ear.
Kaoru sighed. “You can’t overreact.” She informed him firmly. “Or I won’t ever tell you anything ever again.” She felt his amusement but he agreed. In quiet, short sentences she describe what had happened (leaving out the part dealing with Eiji by giving him the same story as Saitoh, most of the conversation at the Akebeko, and her reactions) and then waited for his response.
“Saitoh has him in jail?” Kenshin finally asked, his voice the same even tone it had been before she described what had happened, but the hand buried in her hair had tightened fractionally.
“Yes. He said something about getting answers, and you can’t go!” She informed him firmly, thumping his chest for emphasis. “I don’t want you antagonizing him again!” His chest heaved with a sigh and he pulled the covers up to her chin.
“Go to sleep, Thistle.” He ordered quietly. “I promise not to do anything tonight.”
Kaoru huffed against him but he reached over and turned the lantern off and the room was incased in the darkness and all she could do was feel him under her cheek and hands; warm and alive and more than she could keep. She lay there in the darkness, wrapped up in him, and cherished the memory. It was the last thing she felt she could hold onto. There wasn’t going to be a baby after this, there was no chance to keep him here if he decided to go, and she had to start preparing herself for the inevitable. Even if she was cradled in his arms safely now.
She fell asleep to the soft murmurs of his voice whispering beautiful nothings that burned her soul. If she was so wonderful, so beautiful and precious to him, then why was he going to leave?
Remember, Guilty Pleasures will be hoasting the more...detailed version of the lemon above. I don't know when she is going to put it up, probably today or tomorrow, she has already promised she would be watching for it to put up. I would love to email all of you and tell you when it is up, but that is just not possible. My apologies to all of those who have left such requests, but I would check regularly. Leilani is wonderful about getting things like this up. If you don't know how to access Gulty Pleasures, then all you have to do is click my homepage link. Leilani has graciously allowed me to link her in that manner.
Forgot to mention in the last chapter. Kaoru has her reasons for wanting to get pregnante, that does NOT mean I am encouraging that teenagers do the same. Unprotected sex is not something I suggest and having a child when you cannot support it and yourself is not healthy for either of you. On another note, single mothers are very brave people who I admire. I know several and I think there wonderful people. However, having a child to keep a man is not something I would suggest. Kaoru has already been figuring that having Kenshin's child is a going to be a bit more of a complication than she thought, and even though she has her reasons, motherhood is not easy. Please just keep this in mine.
Questions:
When is the Rurouni coming back? To that I say, you will see. I can't promise that some of you will like the way I bring him back (if I do) at all. This story is not about the Rurouni's happy ending. Keep that in mind.
When is Sano coming back? I would say he probably might be mentioned towards the end but won't make a concrete appearnce. He is off wandering...so let him wander.
Who are the mysterious people/bad guy? That would be telling wouldn't it? I hope this chapter gave a few more clues...
I think thats all the questions I have been getting the most. If I failed to answer something that needs to be cleared up, just make sure you leave an email and I will attempt to get back to you.