Gundam Seed Destiny Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction ❯ Play of the Fates ❯ VII: The One With The Dry Cleaning ( Chapter 7 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: PaolaAdara 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Seed Destiny Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 02.17.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 338 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Seed Destiny Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 02.17.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 338 | Status: Work In Progress
Title: Play of the Fates (7 of ?)
Author: Paola
Disclaimer: Play of the Fates is based on characters and situations that belong to Sotsu Agency, Bandai Studios, and TV Asashi (and other production affiliates that have the right of ownership). No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Considerations: Similarities to other stories/events/passages are purely coincidental unless otherwise cited, and beliefs and points of view found in the story do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s.
The idea to make the chapter titles begin with “The One…” is from the TV show, F.R.I.E.N.D.S
This may, in all possible intent, be differently written compared to any of the author’s previous literary ventures.
Rating: Rated M for language and adult situations. You have been warned.
Play of the Fates
Chapter Seven
The first thing that Cagalli noticed upon waking up was the headache that was threatening to split her head in half. The second thing she noticed was that her mouth felt like an unforgiving cotton field, which could only mean that she fell asleep after an unhealthy round of alcohol intake. The third thing she noticed was the unfamiliar ceiling she was staring at.
She blinked.
The last time she checked, her ceiling had a lazy green finish with artistic splashes of gold, just like her old apartment, but this one she was scrutinizing was painted a pristine white. And when she tried to sit up and glimpsed at the shirt she was wearing, she realized she was in another person’s room, wearing another person’s shirt, and suffering from a hangover on another person’s bed. And as if that wasn’t quite bad enough, she couldn’t remember why she was there in the first place, not when the pain in her head made it hard to even think about her whole name.
Cagalli didn’t suppose it would hurt if she found out where exactly she was a little bit later, and with her newfound negligence, she decided to sleep her headache away.
The second time Cagalli woke up, her stomach had mercifully settled and her headache was more cooperative, letting her remember who she had gone home with the night before – Or was it earlier this morning? – and, unfortunately, letting her remember, too, Athrun’s promise, which might as well have been an ultimatum. Maybe she could convince him that in her drunken stupor, she had the intellectual capacity of a bag of chips.
Cagalli groaned, detachedly wondering why she had an old song of some rock band playing non-stop in her head. She direly needed to develop an aversion for alcohol lest she continue being in situations like this.
Swinging her feet off the bed, she slowly stood up, just in case her waning headache reared its ugly head if she made any sudden movements. Then she allowed herself to survey the room. She was tempted to call it non-descript, just out of spite, but that wasn’t really the case: the three walls, like the ceiling, were freshly white, while the last one, the wall the headboard was against, was painted a dark red. The upper side of the red wall was embossed with a royal yellow Corinthian cornice and the sides were with thin, flat columns of the same architectural order with their bases extended to connect both posts. On the opposite wall was a smooth, wooden closet that spanned almost half of the entire wall, with the remaining space filled by a mahogany desk and a rust-finished metal tree lamp. On the other hand, the east side contained a large tinted glass serving as a window. It was a handsome room, and despite the heavy wood, it was spacious. The only thing that put a frown on Cagalli’s face was that there was absolutely no mirror to be found. She was sure that sleeping in the state she was in last night, she wasn’t exactly looking very presentable right now.
Cagalli ran a hand through her hair, wincing at the tangles she encountered. She didn’t want to meet Athrun looking like shit in an oversized t-shirt that she knew was his, but she couldn’t hide in his room forever.
Striding towards his closet, she threw open the first set of doors and was greeted by the sight of impeccable suits.
Wrong door.
Opening the next set led to an array of pressed casual clothes.
Oops.
The last set made her witness to plain shirts, sweaters, and a stack of drawers she knew better than to open.
What? No robe? What the hell!
Her perusal of his clothing, along with her thoughts, was interrupted by an obvious clearing of the throat by the doorway. Cagalli swore her heart stopped beating as seven shades of red siphoned to her cheeks, and she was more than afraid to close the closet doors and address the man who had just gotten her attention.
“This is…interesting.”
At that, Cagalli hurriedly slammed the wooden doors shut and faced Athrun to defend herself. “It’s not like that!”
“Mm-hm.”
“I was just looking for a robe, you jerk!” If there were one thing she was good at, it was being hostile at the face of abject humiliation.
Athrun raised his hands, seemingly in a defensive gesture, but the motion was done quite lazily that Cagalli couldn’t be too sure. Actually, when it came to the guy, Cagalli was unsure of almost everything.
“I wasn’t saying otherwise.”
She glared at him, crossing her arms in front of her. “You sure look like you’re thinking it.”
When she had gotten a good scrutiny of Athrun, she became conscious of her state of undress. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a blue-grey pullover while all she had on was a wrinkled shirt over her underwear. It wasn’t fair that he looked freshly well-dressed when she was trying to ignore her bed hair.
“Not quite. I was thinking about whether you might wanna shower. Though I still find you quite alluring with bed hair.”
If it were possible, Cagalli blushed even harder. Trust Athrun to emphasize her current lack of presentability and attractiveness. “You jerk!” With that, she stomped her way out of the room, bumping into Athrun on purpose and smiling satisfactorily when he stumbled a bit. Took you by surprise, didn’t I? Her victorious smirk, however, was short-lived when she heard him chuckling.
“The bathroom’s down the hall, to your left.”
Cagalli resisted the urge to give him the finger for waiting for her to take the wrong turn before telling her where his bathroom was located, but it was harder to hold on to her dignity as she paused to change directions.
With her face hot from all the blood that had rushed to her cheeks, it was with a sigh of relief when she splashed her face with cold running water from the lavatory faucet. And after retrieving a fluffy white towel from the cabinet to her right, and after glaring at the bathrobes that should have been, in her opinion, kept in his bedroom armoire, she stepped under the rain-like spray of the shower.
She eyed the shampoo bottle with distaste. Her hair wasn’t naturally soft and silky as she wanted it to be, so she usually needed to use the shampoo her stylist prescribed her to use. Of course, she wouldn’t normally be bothered by this, but Damien had conned her into taking a hairstylist, and her hairstylist was a hard shell to crack and a bossy bitch worse than Damien himself. Good thing she liked him right off the bat, gay bitchiness and all.
With no other options presenting themselves, Cagalli grudgingly squeezed a fair amount of shampoo on her palm before lathering up her hair. And if it were her bathroom and she were at home, she’d gladly spend an hour under the spray or run the tub and soak in it until she was pruny. Sadly, though, it wasn’t her bathroom to hog, and the faster she got her shower done, the faster she could scurry away from this apartment.
And from him.
Sure that she was suds-free and that she had washed off the sticky feeling brought about by the obscene intake of alcoholic beverages, she toweled herself dry then wrapped herself up in the bathrobe she retrieved from the cabinet. And without another thought, she grabbed the spare toothbrush from the sink, ripped off its covering, used his toothpaste, then brushed away the cottony feel in her mouth.
When she was convinced that she felt confident enough in her own skin, she steadied herself and took a deep breath. Time to face Athrun and hope that he’d forgotten what he’d told her last night.
“Where are my clothes?” she demanded as soon as she entered his room and found him reclining on the bed and reading a book. That gave her hope. It was too mundane a thing to do that she just had to believe he’d forgotten his promise.
“I sent them to the cleaners.”
“Why would you do that? I need my clothes!” she burst out, now feeling very vulnerable in just his bathrobe with nothing underneath and angry that he had thought of that.
The rakish smile he sent her way alarmed her as much as it sent the hairs on her arms standing on end. Fluidly, he set the book on the bedside table and stood up from the bed, approaching her in that nonchalant manner of his. She knew better than to believe it.
Despite how she braced herself, her breath caught in her throat before she could protest when he reached for the ties of the white robe. She should slug him. Slug him good. But his proximity kept her in place, like a rogue energy she couldn’t fight off, and always losing a battle against him was getting to her nerves. It was too bad that she couldn’t do anything to improve her situation.
Or maybe, on some unconscious level, she didn’t want to?
“I assure you, you wouldn’t be needing them anytime soon.”
Cagalli could avow that he had just purred that out. Purred. And her knees practically trembled in response. Such treachery from her own body caused her to bristle inwardly. She was a grown-up, – not some sex-deprived teenager – and she should have learned to control her own reactions.
“Look,” she started when she found her voice, though she was in danger of losing her tenuous grasp on its edges. “Last…night…last…” She couldn’t pin down her much needed coherence with him looking at her like that.
She cleared her throat and tried again, “I was…too drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing…”
He patiently plucked away at the fingers keeping the robe closed. “Did you know that alcohol chases away inhibitions? Hm?” He stared at her eyes as he kept tugging on her stubborn fingers.
Cagalli might have found something to refute that if he hadn’t started teasing the sensitive flesh of her ear, trailing down her neck and darting out a wandering tongue at the juncture that connected her neck and shoulder. Her addled thoughts grew more scattered when he finally succeeded in opening her robe with a silent whisper – ineffectual – and letting warm fingers feather over slightly damp skin.
“I make good on my promises, Cagalli,” he whispered between small bites on an elegant shoulder, his hand gradually making their way upwards, leaving searing trails in their wake.
Promises. What promise? The haze she was fast being pulled into prohibited her from thinking straight, and the events from last night were pretty far away from her now that if he were referring to any of them, she had no chance of remembering it. Especially since he was tracing lazy patterns on the side of her breast with one hand while the other progressively ran to her shoulder to push away the garment.
He pressed himself more intimately against her. “You want this, too.”
It behooved Cagalli to take a deep, cleansing breath to steady the static in her head, the static that he was evoking from her senses. “It’s…unfair to…to ask me that…now.” And it really was, because the way he was kissing inches of exposed skin rendered her intellectually incapacitated.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling.” He idled at the corner of her mouth, then he inched away just to see what he had reduced her to. The bastard.
Cagalli took that opportunity to herd the remaining sensibilities that were threatening to flee if she didn’t keep a tight rein on them. “Stop.” She wouldn’t be able to find a reason for trying to stop him even if her life depended on it, and she bitterly wondered if she was trying to order him or convince herself that she didn’t want what was happening.
“No. Not even if you beg.”
That was when it clicked, and she remembered about the promise he was alluding to. If she had planned on replying to that, the words died in her throat even before her mind could take a hold of them when he finally shoved the robe off her shoulders and let his hands unabashedly roam over sensitized skin to slide the fabric away. She hissed when fingertips ghosted over her hips with the intent of going farther south.
“No more talking.”
This time, Cagalli eagerly agreed, and she responded in kind when he attacked her mouth, licking her lower lip before letting his tongue explore inside, gliding over blunt teeth and stealing her breath away.
The heat that had begun to curl in her lower abdomen grew and spread, alighting every nerve ending and spurring her careless abandon in trying to get him as naked as she was with one hand while the other was hopelessly entangled with his hair, keeping him in place as if afraid that he would pull away.
Athrun apprehended her wandering hand, closing his fingers around hers, then he laid a kiss on her wrist, teasing, darting his tongue towards the rising pulse, and Cagalli didn’t think such an obscure part could stir her already heightening arousal.
With his free hand sensuously sliding down her outer thigh, he brought the leg up and Cagalli instinctively wrapped it around his hips, and the harsh whisper of the cloth of his pants against her sex when he leaned in to nip at her throat caused her to hiss, arching towards him and closing the gap that was already non-existent.
The only sound Cagalli could hear was the beating of her own blood, rising and pumping and violent against her ears as she felt his warm mouth following a trail from her neck – pausing to lick at the hollow of her throat – to the vale of her breasts. She could feel it. Cagalli could feel how warm and wet she was getting, and he was still fully clothed, and the basest of instincts dictated that she divest him of his clothing, but her limbs were limp, her breathing ragged, her thoughts so scattered, and the only things she could concentrate on were the primal sensations that twisted and fluttered inside her as he swirled his tongue around a puckered bud.
“Ath…run…” She uselessly clutched at his shoulders, as if that alone could steady her wobbliness, and if it weren’t for the fact that Athrun had her against the wall, she would have slumped to the ground in a puddle of hormones.
As if he’d finally considered the pleading in her voice, his left hand skirted down her feverish skin, going farther south until his fingers brushed against the curls and still he didn’t stop, making her gasp. The pressure between her legs made her want to close her thighs, but her right leg was still hitched on his hip, and when she tried to bring it down, he used his free hand to keep it in place. In a slow caress, he slid the same hand up her thigh, to her slim waist, to the side of a breast, until he was cradling her head. He let his lips brush across hers as the fingers of his other hand deftly stroked and teased and flicked.
Cagalli let a breathy sigh escape her lips before she pressed her mouth against his in a demandingly consuming kiss. All passionate, and hot, and raw, but inevitably short because the tension in her belly was being wound tighter and tighter, and his fingers were mercilessly drawing different kinds of emotions and sensations and heat, and she couldn’t breathe.
“Ath…Athrun…” Cagalli moaned, breath coming out in short and harsh pants as Athrun worked her up in an uncontrollable sexual frenzy. She was almost there, clenching as he hit the right spot again and again, and the tingles stayed and spread as she climbed higher and higher.
When he dropped the hand cradling her head to cover her breast, claimed her mouth in another hungry kiss like a man starved, and thrust his fingers once more, Cagalli shivered around him, tearing her mouth free, and arching towards him in a sexually responsive action as he corralled her in a furor of the basest of pleasures. She threw her head back as a satisfied moan whipped out of her throat.
Athrun held her close while she rode wave after wave of her orgasm, favoring her neck and shoulders butterfly kisses and occasionally letting his tongue run over the saline taste of her skin.
When Cagalli felt a semblance of calm return to her, she lowered her hitched leg from his hip, raised her head, and used her hands to make him look at her. She witnessed a strained smile – she could guess why that was – and a cocky glint in his eyes.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
“You bastard.” He looked fairly amused. “What’s the big deal getting me naked as the day I was born while you friggin’ keep your clothes on?” She really was kind of pissed despite what he had just let her experience, and as retribution, she ran her hand over his pants-covered arousal, smirking when he groaned. “Is that a banana in your pants or are you just excited to see me?”
In spite of himself, Athrun allowed a low chuckle, leaning in to nibble the tip of her ear. “Didn’t peg you as a cliché-sort of girl, but you’re too sexy so I’ll let that pass.”
“Bastard,” she half-heartedly jeered, blushing at the obvious compliment. “We’ll see if you’re still laughing if I leave you in that state.” A tongue traced the contour of her earlobe, and something that had just been satiated inside of her stirred.
“I doubt you’re gonna do such thing.”
Cagalli felt the urge to confute his statement, but he started kissing the skin over her pulse, and she could faintly feel the slight stickiness that still covered his fingers, but that paled in comparison to the ghostly touches that were re-igniting the flame that had just been doused. So she moved. Before pleasure rendered her too limp to move again, she gently pushed him off her, her slim fingers darting to the edge of his pullover.
“You know, Athrun, you’re annoying as hell, and if there was one thing that perfectly describes you, it’s annoying,” she glibly voiced out, pushing him back towards the bed while getting rid of his pullover and trying to ignore the wobbly feeling in her legs. “You think you’re God’s gift to women, but guess what? You’re not! And you’re annoying,” she went on, even though her voice pitched higher at the sight of sinewy muscles that responded when she touched his skin. She worked his pants after she was successful in discarding his sweater. “Sexy, yes, but still annoying. Annoying, and arrogant, and a jerk!”
“That’s more than one thing,” he interrupted, smiling that amused smile as he watched her get worked up in her diatribe as much get caught up in undressing him.
She snapped at him, making a biting sound. “Shut up or I’ll bite you.” She roughly pushed him onto the bed as soon as she got his pants and boxers out of the way. “You made me stutter on more than one occasion. You made me catch my breath even if I didn’t want to. And now you’re gonna pay because nobody did that to me before, you bastard! And stop smiling! You’re not supposed to smile, you arrogant jerk!”
Athrun didn’t pay her heed, and when she languidly crawled on top of him, making sure to brush against his erection on her way up, he reached a hand to touch her, which she promptly slapped away. She sat imperiously on his stomach, smirking at him.
“No touching. Just deserts and all that.”
Despite her admonition, his hand crept up her thigh, and she glared at him, seizing the violating appendage and pinning it above his head together with his other hand. Cagalli was now leaning on him, and she fought the hiss that threatened to spill from her lips at the contact of hardened nipples against a defined chest.
“Naughty boy. You see, Zala, we’re gonna do this my way. A payback of sorts.”
“Payback for something I haven’t done?”
Cagalli huffed as Athrun blinked at her too innocently considering his position and what he actually did to her prior their current situation. “No talking. Didn’t you listen?”
Athrun just smirked, ignoring the yellow curtain of her hair that tickled the sides of his face, and without the slightest caveat, he lifted his head and captured her mouth. Cagalli was caught in a whirlwind of sensations, but she remembered what she was supposed to do and she quickly pulled away, scowling at him. When he openly chuckled at her flushed face, she dove back in and kissed him senseless, feeling proud of herself when she felt the soft rumble of a suppressed groan. Spurred on by the satisfied sound, Cagalli nipped her way down his jaw, pausing to lick and tease the pulsing vein in his jugular, then pursuing the defined collarbone and down the hard planes of his chest.
Cagalli was self-indulgently gratified at the feeling of finally being in control. He reacted when she nipped, groaned when she sucked, sighed when she kissed, corded muscles rippling wherever she touched. She was on top, and he was going to pay for his seemingly relentless pursuit of putting her in situations she didn’t want to be in. If he thought she would just let him get his way all the time, she was very willing to do almost anything to disabuse him by leaps and bounds of that notion.
A playful nip on his lower lip garnered Cagalli a repressed groan, and she was managing very well in teasing him when an obnoxious tinkle made its way to her ears. Athrun seemed to have heard it, too, but when her eyes suddenly focused at the interruption, he grabbed her wandering hand and reversed their positions. Cagalli let out a surprised cry before scowling at the man atop her when she realized what happened.
The same tinkle resonated once again inside his apartment, and Cagalli noticed the chime-like quality, that was just a tad darker and deeper, with more clarity now that the fog in her brain dispersed a little at being upended from her previous position. She also noticed the slight furrowing of his brow as the doorbell rang again, his movements becoming a tad more impatient and less considerate than a while ago.
When the doorbell hit another note, lucidity almost fully returned to Cagalli, and that childish imp in her told her to make good of her threat a while ago. Athrun definitely didn’t seem charitable at being interrupted, and even though it was more tempting to ignore the disruption and focus on the warm body atop her, Cagalli wouldn’t be Cagalli if she played by the rules.
Payback time.
With a coy smile that was fast threatening to falter as Athrun continued his assault on her senses, Cagalli placed firm hands against his shoulders to push him back. “The door.” She didn’t mean for that to come out as a moan, but he had pushed his knee towards her sex, and the sensation just about stole her wits.
“Ignore it,” Athrun replied, tone clipped as he rendered her arms incapacitated by securing them above her head, much like what she did to him a while ago.
Cagalli just about gave in, but her stubbornness got in the way, and she squirmed and shifted until she heard Athrun give an exasperated sigh. She didn’t blame him for his short fuse; after all, she could feel just how aroused he was and the ringing of the doorbell wasn’t helping his situation any.
She thought it was perfect.
Being heavily distracted by the incessant ringing, it took Cagalli little effort to reverse their positions and straddle a quite stunned Athrun. She kissed him hard then abruptly withdrew, jumping off the bed and leaving him even more frustrated. “I told you that you wouldn’t be laughing when I leave you in that state,” she taunted then picked up the discarded robe before exiting the room with a smirk on her kiss-swollen lips.
Running a hand through her damp hair and wishing that she looked decent enough, her victorious smirk slipped a little as her body reminded her of its condition. The only thing that still allowed her to keep a semblance of her original smugness was the knowledge that it was easier to ignore raging hormones when one was a woman.
She opened the door after looking through the peephole, and upon receiving her dry cleaning and tipping the guy – who looked like the universal newbie on a job – with a few stray dollars from Athrun’s hallway table, she almost laughed her head off when she heard the bedroom door bang open and the bathroom door slam shut shortly after.
Serves you right, you jerk!
x-x-x-x-x
Author: Paola
Disclaimer: Play of the Fates is based on characters and situations that belong to Sotsu Agency, Bandai Studios, and TV Asashi (and other production affiliates that have the right of ownership). No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Considerations: Similarities to other stories/events/passages are purely coincidental unless otherwise cited, and beliefs and points of view found in the story do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s.
The idea to make the chapter titles begin with “The One…” is from the TV show, F.R.I.E.N.D.S
This may, in all possible intent, be differently written compared to any of the author’s previous literary ventures.
Rating: Rated M for language and adult situations. You have been warned.
Play of the Fates
Chapter Seven
The first thing that Cagalli noticed upon waking up was the headache that was threatening to split her head in half. The second thing she noticed was that her mouth felt like an unforgiving cotton field, which could only mean that she fell asleep after an unhealthy round of alcohol intake. The third thing she noticed was the unfamiliar ceiling she was staring at.
She blinked.
The last time she checked, her ceiling had a lazy green finish with artistic splashes of gold, just like her old apartment, but this one she was scrutinizing was painted a pristine white. And when she tried to sit up and glimpsed at the shirt she was wearing, she realized she was in another person’s room, wearing another person’s shirt, and suffering from a hangover on another person’s bed. And as if that wasn’t quite bad enough, she couldn’t remember why she was there in the first place, not when the pain in her head made it hard to even think about her whole name.
Cagalli didn’t suppose it would hurt if she found out where exactly she was a little bit later, and with her newfound negligence, she decided to sleep her headache away.
The second time Cagalli woke up, her stomach had mercifully settled and her headache was more cooperative, letting her remember who she had gone home with the night before – Or was it earlier this morning? – and, unfortunately, letting her remember, too, Athrun’s promise, which might as well have been an ultimatum. Maybe she could convince him that in her drunken stupor, she had the intellectual capacity of a bag of chips.
Cagalli groaned, detachedly wondering why she had an old song of some rock band playing non-stop in her head. She direly needed to develop an aversion for alcohol lest she continue being in situations like this.
Swinging her feet off the bed, she slowly stood up, just in case her waning headache reared its ugly head if she made any sudden movements. Then she allowed herself to survey the room. She was tempted to call it non-descript, just out of spite, but that wasn’t really the case: the three walls, like the ceiling, were freshly white, while the last one, the wall the headboard was against, was painted a dark red. The upper side of the red wall was embossed with a royal yellow Corinthian cornice and the sides were with thin, flat columns of the same architectural order with their bases extended to connect both posts. On the opposite wall was a smooth, wooden closet that spanned almost half of the entire wall, with the remaining space filled by a mahogany desk and a rust-finished metal tree lamp. On the other hand, the east side contained a large tinted glass serving as a window. It was a handsome room, and despite the heavy wood, it was spacious. The only thing that put a frown on Cagalli’s face was that there was absolutely no mirror to be found. She was sure that sleeping in the state she was in last night, she wasn’t exactly looking very presentable right now.
Cagalli ran a hand through her hair, wincing at the tangles she encountered. She didn’t want to meet Athrun looking like shit in an oversized t-shirt that she knew was his, but she couldn’t hide in his room forever.
Striding towards his closet, she threw open the first set of doors and was greeted by the sight of impeccable suits.
Wrong door.
Opening the next set led to an array of pressed casual clothes.
Oops.
The last set made her witness to plain shirts, sweaters, and a stack of drawers she knew better than to open.
What? No robe? What the hell!
Her perusal of his clothing, along with her thoughts, was interrupted by an obvious clearing of the throat by the doorway. Cagalli swore her heart stopped beating as seven shades of red siphoned to her cheeks, and she was more than afraid to close the closet doors and address the man who had just gotten her attention.
“This is…interesting.”
At that, Cagalli hurriedly slammed the wooden doors shut and faced Athrun to defend herself. “It’s not like that!”
“Mm-hm.”
“I was just looking for a robe, you jerk!” If there were one thing she was good at, it was being hostile at the face of abject humiliation.
Athrun raised his hands, seemingly in a defensive gesture, but the motion was done quite lazily that Cagalli couldn’t be too sure. Actually, when it came to the guy, Cagalli was unsure of almost everything.
“I wasn’t saying otherwise.”
She glared at him, crossing her arms in front of her. “You sure look like you’re thinking it.”
When she had gotten a good scrutiny of Athrun, she became conscious of her state of undress. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a blue-grey pullover while all she had on was a wrinkled shirt over her underwear. It wasn’t fair that he looked freshly well-dressed when she was trying to ignore her bed hair.
“Not quite. I was thinking about whether you might wanna shower. Though I still find you quite alluring with bed hair.”
If it were possible, Cagalli blushed even harder. Trust Athrun to emphasize her current lack of presentability and attractiveness. “You jerk!” With that, she stomped her way out of the room, bumping into Athrun on purpose and smiling satisfactorily when he stumbled a bit. Took you by surprise, didn’t I? Her victorious smirk, however, was short-lived when she heard him chuckling.
“The bathroom’s down the hall, to your left.”
Cagalli resisted the urge to give him the finger for waiting for her to take the wrong turn before telling her where his bathroom was located, but it was harder to hold on to her dignity as she paused to change directions.
With her face hot from all the blood that had rushed to her cheeks, it was with a sigh of relief when she splashed her face with cold running water from the lavatory faucet. And after retrieving a fluffy white towel from the cabinet to her right, and after glaring at the bathrobes that should have been, in her opinion, kept in his bedroom armoire, she stepped under the rain-like spray of the shower.
She eyed the shampoo bottle with distaste. Her hair wasn’t naturally soft and silky as she wanted it to be, so she usually needed to use the shampoo her stylist prescribed her to use. Of course, she wouldn’t normally be bothered by this, but Damien had conned her into taking a hairstylist, and her hairstylist was a hard shell to crack and a bossy bitch worse than Damien himself. Good thing she liked him right off the bat, gay bitchiness and all.
With no other options presenting themselves, Cagalli grudgingly squeezed a fair amount of shampoo on her palm before lathering up her hair. And if it were her bathroom and she were at home, she’d gladly spend an hour under the spray or run the tub and soak in it until she was pruny. Sadly, though, it wasn’t her bathroom to hog, and the faster she got her shower done, the faster she could scurry away from this apartment.
And from him.
Sure that she was suds-free and that she had washed off the sticky feeling brought about by the obscene intake of alcoholic beverages, she toweled herself dry then wrapped herself up in the bathrobe she retrieved from the cabinet. And without another thought, she grabbed the spare toothbrush from the sink, ripped off its covering, used his toothpaste, then brushed away the cottony feel in her mouth.
When she was convinced that she felt confident enough in her own skin, she steadied herself and took a deep breath. Time to face Athrun and hope that he’d forgotten what he’d told her last night.
“Where are my clothes?” she demanded as soon as she entered his room and found him reclining on the bed and reading a book. That gave her hope. It was too mundane a thing to do that she just had to believe he’d forgotten his promise.
“I sent them to the cleaners.”
“Why would you do that? I need my clothes!” she burst out, now feeling very vulnerable in just his bathrobe with nothing underneath and angry that he had thought of that.
The rakish smile he sent her way alarmed her as much as it sent the hairs on her arms standing on end. Fluidly, he set the book on the bedside table and stood up from the bed, approaching her in that nonchalant manner of his. She knew better than to believe it.
Despite how she braced herself, her breath caught in her throat before she could protest when he reached for the ties of the white robe. She should slug him. Slug him good. But his proximity kept her in place, like a rogue energy she couldn’t fight off, and always losing a battle against him was getting to her nerves. It was too bad that she couldn’t do anything to improve her situation.
Or maybe, on some unconscious level, she didn’t want to?
“I assure you, you wouldn’t be needing them anytime soon.”
Cagalli could avow that he had just purred that out. Purred. And her knees practically trembled in response. Such treachery from her own body caused her to bristle inwardly. She was a grown-up, – not some sex-deprived teenager – and she should have learned to control her own reactions.
“Look,” she started when she found her voice, though she was in danger of losing her tenuous grasp on its edges. “Last…night…last…” She couldn’t pin down her much needed coherence with him looking at her like that.
She cleared her throat and tried again, “I was…too drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing…”
He patiently plucked away at the fingers keeping the robe closed. “Did you know that alcohol chases away inhibitions? Hm?” He stared at her eyes as he kept tugging on her stubborn fingers.
Cagalli might have found something to refute that if he hadn’t started teasing the sensitive flesh of her ear, trailing down her neck and darting out a wandering tongue at the juncture that connected her neck and shoulder. Her addled thoughts grew more scattered when he finally succeeded in opening her robe with a silent whisper – ineffectual – and letting warm fingers feather over slightly damp skin.
“I make good on my promises, Cagalli,” he whispered between small bites on an elegant shoulder, his hand gradually making their way upwards, leaving searing trails in their wake.
Promises. What promise? The haze she was fast being pulled into prohibited her from thinking straight, and the events from last night were pretty far away from her now that if he were referring to any of them, she had no chance of remembering it. Especially since he was tracing lazy patterns on the side of her breast with one hand while the other progressively ran to her shoulder to push away the garment.
He pressed himself more intimately against her. “You want this, too.”
It behooved Cagalli to take a deep, cleansing breath to steady the static in her head, the static that he was evoking from her senses. “It’s…unfair to…to ask me that…now.” And it really was, because the way he was kissing inches of exposed skin rendered her intellectually incapacitated.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling.” He idled at the corner of her mouth, then he inched away just to see what he had reduced her to. The bastard.
Cagalli took that opportunity to herd the remaining sensibilities that were threatening to flee if she didn’t keep a tight rein on them. “Stop.” She wouldn’t be able to find a reason for trying to stop him even if her life depended on it, and she bitterly wondered if she was trying to order him or convince herself that she didn’t want what was happening.
“No. Not even if you beg.”
That was when it clicked, and she remembered about the promise he was alluding to. If she had planned on replying to that, the words died in her throat even before her mind could take a hold of them when he finally shoved the robe off her shoulders and let his hands unabashedly roam over sensitized skin to slide the fabric away. She hissed when fingertips ghosted over her hips with the intent of going farther south.
“No more talking.”
This time, Cagalli eagerly agreed, and she responded in kind when he attacked her mouth, licking her lower lip before letting his tongue explore inside, gliding over blunt teeth and stealing her breath away.
The heat that had begun to curl in her lower abdomen grew and spread, alighting every nerve ending and spurring her careless abandon in trying to get him as naked as she was with one hand while the other was hopelessly entangled with his hair, keeping him in place as if afraid that he would pull away.
Athrun apprehended her wandering hand, closing his fingers around hers, then he laid a kiss on her wrist, teasing, darting his tongue towards the rising pulse, and Cagalli didn’t think such an obscure part could stir her already heightening arousal.
With his free hand sensuously sliding down her outer thigh, he brought the leg up and Cagalli instinctively wrapped it around his hips, and the harsh whisper of the cloth of his pants against her sex when he leaned in to nip at her throat caused her to hiss, arching towards him and closing the gap that was already non-existent.
The only sound Cagalli could hear was the beating of her own blood, rising and pumping and violent against her ears as she felt his warm mouth following a trail from her neck – pausing to lick at the hollow of her throat – to the vale of her breasts. She could feel it. Cagalli could feel how warm and wet she was getting, and he was still fully clothed, and the basest of instincts dictated that she divest him of his clothing, but her limbs were limp, her breathing ragged, her thoughts so scattered, and the only things she could concentrate on were the primal sensations that twisted and fluttered inside her as he swirled his tongue around a puckered bud.
“Ath…run…” She uselessly clutched at his shoulders, as if that alone could steady her wobbliness, and if it weren’t for the fact that Athrun had her against the wall, she would have slumped to the ground in a puddle of hormones.
As if he’d finally considered the pleading in her voice, his left hand skirted down her feverish skin, going farther south until his fingers brushed against the curls and still he didn’t stop, making her gasp. The pressure between her legs made her want to close her thighs, but her right leg was still hitched on his hip, and when she tried to bring it down, he used his free hand to keep it in place. In a slow caress, he slid the same hand up her thigh, to her slim waist, to the side of a breast, until he was cradling her head. He let his lips brush across hers as the fingers of his other hand deftly stroked and teased and flicked.
Cagalli let a breathy sigh escape her lips before she pressed her mouth against his in a demandingly consuming kiss. All passionate, and hot, and raw, but inevitably short because the tension in her belly was being wound tighter and tighter, and his fingers were mercilessly drawing different kinds of emotions and sensations and heat, and she couldn’t breathe.
“Ath…Athrun…” Cagalli moaned, breath coming out in short and harsh pants as Athrun worked her up in an uncontrollable sexual frenzy. She was almost there, clenching as he hit the right spot again and again, and the tingles stayed and spread as she climbed higher and higher.
When he dropped the hand cradling her head to cover her breast, claimed her mouth in another hungry kiss like a man starved, and thrust his fingers once more, Cagalli shivered around him, tearing her mouth free, and arching towards him in a sexually responsive action as he corralled her in a furor of the basest of pleasures. She threw her head back as a satisfied moan whipped out of her throat.
Athrun held her close while she rode wave after wave of her orgasm, favoring her neck and shoulders butterfly kisses and occasionally letting his tongue run over the saline taste of her skin.
When Cagalli felt a semblance of calm return to her, she lowered her hitched leg from his hip, raised her head, and used her hands to make him look at her. She witnessed a strained smile – she could guess why that was – and a cocky glint in his eyes.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
“You bastard.” He looked fairly amused. “What’s the big deal getting me naked as the day I was born while you friggin’ keep your clothes on?” She really was kind of pissed despite what he had just let her experience, and as retribution, she ran her hand over his pants-covered arousal, smirking when he groaned. “Is that a banana in your pants or are you just excited to see me?”
In spite of himself, Athrun allowed a low chuckle, leaning in to nibble the tip of her ear. “Didn’t peg you as a cliché-sort of girl, but you’re too sexy so I’ll let that pass.”
“Bastard,” she half-heartedly jeered, blushing at the obvious compliment. “We’ll see if you’re still laughing if I leave you in that state.” A tongue traced the contour of her earlobe, and something that had just been satiated inside of her stirred.
“I doubt you’re gonna do such thing.”
Cagalli felt the urge to confute his statement, but he started kissing the skin over her pulse, and she could faintly feel the slight stickiness that still covered his fingers, but that paled in comparison to the ghostly touches that were re-igniting the flame that had just been doused. So she moved. Before pleasure rendered her too limp to move again, she gently pushed him off her, her slim fingers darting to the edge of his pullover.
“You know, Athrun, you’re annoying as hell, and if there was one thing that perfectly describes you, it’s annoying,” she glibly voiced out, pushing him back towards the bed while getting rid of his pullover and trying to ignore the wobbly feeling in her legs. “You think you’re God’s gift to women, but guess what? You’re not! And you’re annoying,” she went on, even though her voice pitched higher at the sight of sinewy muscles that responded when she touched his skin. She worked his pants after she was successful in discarding his sweater. “Sexy, yes, but still annoying. Annoying, and arrogant, and a jerk!”
“That’s more than one thing,” he interrupted, smiling that amused smile as he watched her get worked up in her diatribe as much get caught up in undressing him.
She snapped at him, making a biting sound. “Shut up or I’ll bite you.” She roughly pushed him onto the bed as soon as she got his pants and boxers out of the way. “You made me stutter on more than one occasion. You made me catch my breath even if I didn’t want to. And now you’re gonna pay because nobody did that to me before, you bastard! And stop smiling! You’re not supposed to smile, you arrogant jerk!”
Athrun didn’t pay her heed, and when she languidly crawled on top of him, making sure to brush against his erection on her way up, he reached a hand to touch her, which she promptly slapped away. She sat imperiously on his stomach, smirking at him.
“No touching. Just deserts and all that.”
Despite her admonition, his hand crept up her thigh, and she glared at him, seizing the violating appendage and pinning it above his head together with his other hand. Cagalli was now leaning on him, and she fought the hiss that threatened to spill from her lips at the contact of hardened nipples against a defined chest.
“Naughty boy. You see, Zala, we’re gonna do this my way. A payback of sorts.”
“Payback for something I haven’t done?”
Cagalli huffed as Athrun blinked at her too innocently considering his position and what he actually did to her prior their current situation. “No talking. Didn’t you listen?”
Athrun just smirked, ignoring the yellow curtain of her hair that tickled the sides of his face, and without the slightest caveat, he lifted his head and captured her mouth. Cagalli was caught in a whirlwind of sensations, but she remembered what she was supposed to do and she quickly pulled away, scowling at him. When he openly chuckled at her flushed face, she dove back in and kissed him senseless, feeling proud of herself when she felt the soft rumble of a suppressed groan. Spurred on by the satisfied sound, Cagalli nipped her way down his jaw, pausing to lick and tease the pulsing vein in his jugular, then pursuing the defined collarbone and down the hard planes of his chest.
Cagalli was self-indulgently gratified at the feeling of finally being in control. He reacted when she nipped, groaned when she sucked, sighed when she kissed, corded muscles rippling wherever she touched. She was on top, and he was going to pay for his seemingly relentless pursuit of putting her in situations she didn’t want to be in. If he thought she would just let him get his way all the time, she was very willing to do almost anything to disabuse him by leaps and bounds of that notion.
A playful nip on his lower lip garnered Cagalli a repressed groan, and she was managing very well in teasing him when an obnoxious tinkle made its way to her ears. Athrun seemed to have heard it, too, but when her eyes suddenly focused at the interruption, he grabbed her wandering hand and reversed their positions. Cagalli let out a surprised cry before scowling at the man atop her when she realized what happened.
The same tinkle resonated once again inside his apartment, and Cagalli noticed the chime-like quality, that was just a tad darker and deeper, with more clarity now that the fog in her brain dispersed a little at being upended from her previous position. She also noticed the slight furrowing of his brow as the doorbell rang again, his movements becoming a tad more impatient and less considerate than a while ago.
When the doorbell hit another note, lucidity almost fully returned to Cagalli, and that childish imp in her told her to make good of her threat a while ago. Athrun definitely didn’t seem charitable at being interrupted, and even though it was more tempting to ignore the disruption and focus on the warm body atop her, Cagalli wouldn’t be Cagalli if she played by the rules.
Payback time.
With a coy smile that was fast threatening to falter as Athrun continued his assault on her senses, Cagalli placed firm hands against his shoulders to push him back. “The door.” She didn’t mean for that to come out as a moan, but he had pushed his knee towards her sex, and the sensation just about stole her wits.
“Ignore it,” Athrun replied, tone clipped as he rendered her arms incapacitated by securing them above her head, much like what she did to him a while ago.
Cagalli just about gave in, but her stubbornness got in the way, and she squirmed and shifted until she heard Athrun give an exasperated sigh. She didn’t blame him for his short fuse; after all, she could feel just how aroused he was and the ringing of the doorbell wasn’t helping his situation any.
She thought it was perfect.
Being heavily distracted by the incessant ringing, it took Cagalli little effort to reverse their positions and straddle a quite stunned Athrun. She kissed him hard then abruptly withdrew, jumping off the bed and leaving him even more frustrated. “I told you that you wouldn’t be laughing when I leave you in that state,” she taunted then picked up the discarded robe before exiting the room with a smirk on her kiss-swollen lips.
Running a hand through her damp hair and wishing that she looked decent enough, her victorious smirk slipped a little as her body reminded her of its condition. The only thing that still allowed her to keep a semblance of her original smugness was the knowledge that it was easier to ignore raging hormones when one was a woman.
She opened the door after looking through the peephole, and upon receiving her dry cleaning and tipping the guy – who looked like the universal newbie on a job – with a few stray dollars from Athrun’s hallway table, she almost laughed her head off when she heard the bedroom door bang open and the bathroom door slam shut shortly after.
Serves you right, you jerk!
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