InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Return Again ❯ Nourishment ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Warnings: Lime and cliffie, anyone?

V. Nourishment

Dinner passed relatively quietly despite his earlier words. Kagome initially protested that she wasn't very hungry, but the suckling boar was a rare treat that she couldn't refuse. Inuyasha was pleased. It was his responsibility to provide and care for her, and his chest swelled with pride to hear her contented sigh over their meal.

They cooked and ate outside, enjoying the soft breeze as it whispered through the trees - a sure sign that autumn was on its way. Well-nourished, Kagome yawned and stretched, signaling her imminent retirement for the night. Inuyasha banked the firepit before heading into the hut, while Kagome saw to clearing the scraps from dinner.

Her eyes slowly adjusted to the pitch-black dark as she entered their dwelling. Inuyasha was already settled in his customary place next to her futon, cross-legged with his back to the wall and Tessaiga resting against his shoulder. She smiled. He must have been tired, and it reassured her to think that perhaps he hadn't slept well either during the last few nights.

She readied for bed as quietly as she could, settling in on her side under the thin summer duvet. But as her consciousness began to ebb, Inuyasha's voice drew her attention.

"We don't have to if you don't want to."

Her breath stilled as his statement tumbled through her mind. She sat up with alarm. Please, she prayed silently, please don't back out on me now.

"Don't you want to?"

It took him a moment to reflect on that question. Before the monk's visit a few days ago he had never really thought about coupling, had never dared hope to find a mate of his own. Kikyou... Kikyou had been a companion, the first willing friend he had ever encountered. Inuyasha had understood her loneliness, the shared need for affection resonating between their souls. But he had never really thought beyond the day they would formally promise themselves to one another, about what it would have meant to become her mate.

Kagome was different. Her scent had curled around him and had tickled his senses from the first moment he awakened on Goshinboku. She seemed familiar, easily confused for the miko who had angered him half a century earlier with her seemingly cold betrayal. The initial anger dwindled as realization had dawned that this young woman couldn't possibly be the same one. Yet a certain something had continued to smoulder in his blood, flaring up regularly but never quenched with their frequent bickering.

Something deep within Inuyasha's mind had unconsciously blocked awareness of his own desires before Miroku's visit, but that barrier had been destroyed three nights ago as surely as if it had been shattered by Tessaiga. He looked at Kagome now, her scent no less enticing to his diminished human senses, and he realized that he had wanted her that way from the very first moment he had laid eyes on her. He could almost taste her. The depth of his burning desire to rut on this untried woman almost consumed him.

Focused as he was on Kagome, Inuyasha became aware of the utter stillness of her form. She was afraid. How could he possibly speak to her of the depth of his desires? If she knew the delicious thoughts running through his mind of ravishing her young body, his confession would surely send her fleeing.

"I... I don't want... to make you do anything that you're not ready for," he said at last.

Kagome was in his arms in an instant, tucking her head under his chin as she nuzzled against his chest. His human ears could barely hear the words mumbled against his rough haori.

"Inuyasha, I want to marry you more than anything else in this world. Please don't ever doubt that." His brow furrowed.

"Of course we're getting married, Kagome. We just won't mate before you're ready."

Kagome stilled. Had he just said what she thought he did? Her face flushed scarlet as realization dawned. He knew? He knew the source of her anxiety? That was what he had meant?

"Why are you afraid, Kagome?" His voice was soft. "What is it you fear?"

What did she fear? Resting here, in his strong but gentle arms, the sound of his heartbeat lulling her, calming her.

"I don't..." she whispered, "well, I've never... I'm not really sure. I know that it will hurt, but…"

Inuyasha's movement cut her off. He pulled back gently, his hand cupping her cheek as he drew her face up to look at him, their eyes meeting as he searched her soul. He leaned forward slowly, his lips gliding gently over hers once, twice. His tongue slipped softly into her mouth, questing tentatively, retreating. Catching her lower lip between his teeth, he tugged lightly before letting the soft flesh go.

She was stunned. After a moment, she drew in a shuddering breath, her lips still parted. He watched her carefully.

"That didn't hurt, did it?"

"No. It didn't." She leaned in again, initiating their second kiss. This one was less tentative, more heated. Her arms wrapped around him as his hands smoothed over her tiny waist, around her lower back, up the side of her chest. His lips and teeth and tongue trailed over her jaw, nipping his way gently down her neck, suckling and nuzzling and humming to her softly. Desire pooled in her core. She broke away from him suddenly.

"Inuyasha... please... kissing, it isn't the same..."

"No?" He grinned. "How so?"

She struggled to find the words, to think how best to explain to him. How much would he know about female anatomy? How could she make him understand?

Her hand trailed up over his face, brushing back his thick, black hair. Her fingers slipped down, lightly tracing over his human ear, tangling in the locks at his neck.

"It's different for a woman."

His smile softened. "I know."

"The first time, a woman has to be opened her first time. There may be blood. It's supposed to hurt a little."

He drew her close, nuzzled her hair. "Kagome, what makes you believe it's going to hurt? I swear I won't hurt you." He sounded so sure. But all of the things she had read, the stories she had heard...

"Inuyasha, there are books about this, we have to read them at school. And some girls I know who have tried, they said that it did."

Inuyasha thought back to the day that he had found the "human health" textbook in her room, while waiting for her to come home from school. The book had confused him initially - the pictures didn't look much like anything he recognized, at least not at first. The words had been detached and strange. He became upset, however, when he realized what exactly the book was about. Why the hell was she learning that in school? Who was she planning to practice with? He had dragged her back through the well as soon as she got home, threatening never to let her return. That had caused a spectacular fight and an especially painful sitting session. It had taken over a week to get her to agree to come back.

As he thought back to that textbook now, he remembered why it had seemed so strange. It really was no wonder that she was upset, that other girls had been anxious and had suffered as a result. For all of the wonders of Kagome's world, the people in her time could sometimes do the most amazingly stupid things.

"Kagome, forget the books. This is not something you need to think about." His hand slipped down over her waist as he kissed her senseless once again. Panting softly, he glanced down at her red, swollen lips, his heated breath mingling with her own. "You just need to feel."

She settled against him for another reassuring hug, hiding her reddened face against his chest. His mouth ran dry with her next shy words, as her hands slipped under his shirt.

"Show me."

Goshinboku - the ancient and mysterious sacred tree to which Inuyasha was sealed for fifty years by Kikyou's arrow. The tree's existence spans from before the Sengoku Jidai well into the modern age, linking Inuyasha's time with Kagome's.