Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ In the Forests of the Night ❯ kimono my house ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

This piece is basically a spinoff from my Edodale premise, which is why Rurouni
Kenshin characters are (kind of) talking and acting as if they were modern-day characters
from Buffy. If you really need to know more about the setup, hey, "Edodale" is here on
ff.n too. This may possibly end up being an optional chapter for that story, but possibly
not.

In the Forests of the Night
By wombat


"You're a right mess, aren't you?" The man studied Kaoru as she lay in a heap where he'd
set her down. When she made a feeble attempt at sitting up, her hair left a broad
brushstroke of blood-streaked grime on the floor beneath her cheek. She already felt
pretty awful, but felt even worse about making such a mess on the polished marble tiles
of his entrance hallway. "Jineh never was much of a sport. Bloke never seems to
understand that hostages are only useful when you keep them alive. You all right, then?"

"I-- I think so," Kaoru said uncertainly, but when she tried to stand, her knees went all
wobbly and she fell down again. "Maybe I twisted an ankle, but it'll be okay."

"Look, why don't you wash up while I brew a cuppa to get you warm. Make you feel a bit
better, hey?"

She looked down at herself: jeans caked with half-frozen mud, torn-sleeved jacket soaked
with zombie slush, hair trailing raggedly out of her ponytail and sodden with both. "Um.
If you have some clothes I could borrow, that would be great. Can I call my friends first
to tell them I'm okay?"

"Let them wait a bit. Look at you, you're shivering so hard that mud is flaking off you in
pieces. Get on with you into the tub, second door around the corner. Plenty of soap and
towels in there, and I'll see what else I can find."

Plenty of hot water too, and a good thing. She wasn't used to washing in just a tub instead
of a shower, and she had to drain and refill it several times before the water stayed clean.
The cake of soap had a nice, solid feel against her skin, and a pleasant scent of
sandalwood and bergamot. Once she felt clean, she settled down into the water,
submerging her head nearly up to the level of her nose and watching the ripples from her
breath. With her ears underwater, she didn't hear his knock at the door, but she was both
too exhausted and too drowsy to be terribly startled when he poked his head in. He
must've had a clear view of her body through the water, but he didn't show much interest
beyond a cursory glance. He left a bundle of clothing on the counter beside the sink and
disappeared again.

She supposed that was a hint. She wasn't sure how long she'd been soaking, but her
fingers and toes had the slightly wrinkled, bright pink look of umeboshi. Still a little
dizzy, she braced herself slowly up on the edge of the tub and climbed over it onto the
bathmat. His towels were nice too: thick and velvety, in a deep shade of teal. When she'd
dried herself enough that her hair was only damp, not dripping, she shook out the
clothing and boggled slightly.

It was a formal kimono set. It was a pretty nice kimono, too-- it felt like real silk, in a
pale shade of rose like winter dawn. She didn't know how to put on a kimono by herself,
and she wasn't even sure when was the last time her mother had dressed her up in one for
a festival. Well, he'd taken her own clothing, probably to go stress out his washing
machine, so she'd just have to make do for now.

She didn't feel like bothering with the three different cotton undergarments, or even all of
the belty things, so she just pulled on the tabi socks, wrapped the kimono around her, and
tied it closed with the crimson gauze undersash. The kimono trailed beyond her feet, but
she held the hem up out of her way as she walked out, the rest of the bundle tucked under
her arm.

He was pouring out some tea at the low table in the corner, but when he looked up at her,
he actually laughed. "Crikey, they don't teach girls how to wear things proper any more,
do they?" He set the teapot down and got to his feet to take the bundle from her and
spread it out on a sideboard.

"That's all wrong, you know. Might as well look decent while you're at it. Don't you
worry, I helped my sister for years with the same set you're wearing. Or at least wearing
bits of." He set aside the underkimono as well as the camisole and half-slip that should've
wrapped around her waist beneath it. "Don't even want to bother with the susoyoke? Oh
well. Not like she'll be worrying about water spots on the silk where she is now."

"Was she--" Kaoru faltered. "Did something happen to her?"

His face was carefully expressionless. "She was taken away from me untimely, let's say."

"I'm sorry."

"'Tisn't your fault, pet. Turn your back and hike up your hem so I can tie your waist up."
Once she had a good grip on the front panels of the kimono, he whipped the crimson
undersash back off, then tied a braided cord around her waist. "Drop the overlap to fall
over the cord, now, and hold onto these bits of padding so I can fasten the waistband over
them. Should ought go under the kimono, but too late for that. All right then, here comes
the obi, so round and round we go." The dark blue brocade looped around her several
times.

"Right, hang onto this end and I'll pop in the padding for the bow, and trade you
that obi end while you hold onto both ends of the undersash again. Bow's all tied up
around the padding back here, lovely red cord around the obi, and now all we have to do
is tuck the undersash into your front. That's better, innit? Here, might as well tie your hair
up, too."

Embarrassed by all this attention, she snatched the ribbon, his fingers brushing the back
of her neck as she sidestepped him to tie up her damp hair herself. The ribbon was a
darker shade of rose than the kimono and too narrow to make the kind of big floppy bow
she liked, but there was certainly enough of it to manage her usual ponytail. As a last
touch, he dropped a long shawl around her shoulders, a pale blue-violet like the ghost of
iris petals. "That'll help keep the chill off. Ready for that cuppa now?"

She followed him to the cushions at the table and surreptitiously wiggled around to find a
way to kneel on hers that wouldn't put too much weight on her ankle. The motion made
her uncomfortably aware of the kimono, if that was the right adverb. Its pale silk was
maddeningly smooth against her bare skin, caressing every slight motion she made, and
its liquid flow was accentuated by the stricture of the wide obi, all the way from her hips
over her lower ribs.

"Well then," he said, handing her some tea. "You're tidied up, and I've had a chance to
send more of my blokes after Jineh, so let's have a chat. He's a right bugger and no
mistake, but why was he after you?"

"He wasn't," Kaoru said. "I went after him. Didn't expect him to have that many helpers
around, though, or I would've brought my friends."

"Fierce little bird, aren't you? What do you want with the likes of him?"

She hesitated, but this man had saved her from Jineh, after all, and he hadn't seemed very
surprised by the zombies. His accent and his little wire glasses kind of reminded her of
Hiko, so maybe he was another guy from Okusofodo who'd come to help track down the
hellblades. "He killed my dad and took his sword. It's a special one, made of silver, and I
want to get it back."

"You don't say." He did seem slightly surprised now, but not completely confused, so he
already knew about at least some of what she was talking about. "Seems we skipped the
introductions in all the rush. What's your name, pet?"

"I'm Kaoru Kamiya-Summers."

"You don't say," he repeated thoughtfully. He raised his cup to his face and took a long
sip, letting the steam fog up his glasses to the same pale silver as his hair. He set down
the cup, fanned the steam away, and took her hand. "Think we already know each other
by reputation, then. You're Battousai's little bluebird, not that it's kept him from being too
hungry to take my dove away from me. And you know who I am, don't you?"

She tried to pull away, but while his grip wasn't cruel, it was firm enough to prevent
casual escape. The same was true of his turquoise gaze. "You're Yukishiro Enishi.
Tomoe's brother."

"Too right I am." With an ironic smile, he raised her hand to his lips for a kiss. "So, little
bluebird, what should I do with you now?"

---

She really was a fierce little thing, Enishi thought, smaller than Tomoe or even Battousai.
Easy enough to see where her nickname had come from, too, with those deep blue eyes
blazing out at him from her face, still pink from her bath. After trying to tug free, she
reached for the hot tea with her other hand. Lazily, he leaned across the table to whisk it
out of range. "You weren't thinking of throwing that at me, now were you? Coz that just
might make me cross, and you don't want that to happen."

"Let go of me." Her voice was perfectly calm. No panic or pleading from her, at least not
yet. Oh, this really would be a pleasure.

"So you can go back to being one of Battousai's girls? Does he still play the knife game?
I came up with that for Yumi, you know. Used it on your mum to make your dad give us
the sakabatou." He traced the curve of her cheekbone. "You've your mother's lovely skin,
you know. Didn't scar at all, did it?"

She bit him. In his moment of surprise, Kaoru scrambled up and around him, limping for
the door. Shaking his head, he simply drew his sheathed watou out from under the table
and tripped her with it, then smacked it back down over her body to keep her pinned. He
stood back up with his foot on the hilt, weighting it down.

"My friends know where I went," she said, glaring at him over her shoulder. She still
didn't look afraid, which disappointed him. "They're going to come look for me. That
includes Kenshin."

"Blimey, you're right. Too bad they won't have anything leading them from Jineh's place
to here. Likely enough even you don't even know where we are, unless you sat up to look
through the car window after all."

Now that was a really luscious little growl in her throat. "They'll find some way to figure
out where I am. Eventually."

"Oh, eventually, and then Bob's your uncle. But I just wonder, whatever shall we do until
then?" She squirmed very prettily under the watou, too, enough to blunt his guard with
enjoyment. Just as he was wondering how far she was willing to kick the kimono's hem
up, she got her arms free and shoved the watou sideways into his ankle, knocking him to
the floor as well.

This was even better than he'd hoped. He didn't even bother to get up, leaning back on his
elbows as he watched her stagger to her feet. She was holding his watou, even though it
was slightly taller than she was. He grinned up at her. "Now, what's a little thing like you
going to do with that?"

She loosened the hilt. "Take a guess," she said.

"I guess you're going to have trouble unsheathing that."

Although the balance of the long blade was clearly difficult for her, she whipped it to the
side and sent the sheath flying off. "Guess again."

"Oh, let me think. Ceiling's too low for you to get a really nice overhead swing. Walls are
a bit too close too, unless you're good with your off side."

She wrapped the iris-petal shawl around her hand to protect it before gripping the blade
about halfway down and bringing its point to his neck. "Well?"

"Third time's the charm, they say. I guess you want to kill me." She drove the blade down
through his throat, and he sprawled back onto the floor..

---

Her clothes. She had to get out of this distractingly clingy kimono, find her own clothes
and get out of here, wherever here was. But they'd taken a long elevator ride up and that
should mean they were on top of a tall building. There weren't that many tall buildings in
Edodale. She'd better still be in Edodale.

She left Enishi on the floor with the sword still skewered through him and started to limp
around looking for his laundry machines before a horrible thought occurred to her. This
was a nice place he had, with lots of gleaming woodwork, plush elaborate carpets, and
weird art things scattered around. A really nice place. The sort of place where maids
come in to do all the dusting and polishing, and take away the laundry to be dry-cleaned.
But he hadn't known who she was when he brought her back here, and he'd seemed
sincere enough about helping her, so what would he have done with her clothes?

Finally, she found them further down the hall, in another bathroom. It looked like he'd
rinsed them out in the sink before hanging them up over the shower curtain. He wasn't
nearly as good at it as Kenshin. Well, fine, she'd just bring them with her wrapped up in a
towel and find something else to wear. Maybe she could just cover up the kimono with
the long leather coat Enishi had left by the front door; that might keep her warm enough
while she tried to get away. What about shoes?

A wardrobe in the bedroom outside had more folded kimono visible through the half-
open door. That must be where he kept Tomoe's things, so maybe some of her shoes were
still there. She rummaged around, hoping to find something warmer than geta. And then
she heard a throat being cleared behind her.

Enishi was leaning back against the closed bedroom door, barring the way back to the
hallway. He looked exceptionally pleased with himself, not even with the decency to still
have a hole in his neck. "Forgot about something, pet, didn't you? I've seen the trick you
lot played on my little dove, stabbing her with her own knife to make her mortal again.
But her knife was blooded. My watou isn't. Won't do you a bit of good to poke at me with
it, nor not much else besides the sakabatou."

He caught the geta she threw at him, then simply tossed it aside to pull her away from her
mad rush at the doorknob. His grip around her ribs kept sliding the kimono silk all over
her body, for what felt like forever. Her hair shook loose from the ribbon, falling into her
face. When she stopped struggling against him, it was almost as much to stop the
unwanted arousal as to acknowledge that she couldn't get away. He turned her around by
the shoulders, but she ducked her head, folding her arms tightly around herself. He saw
anyway.

"So that's how it is, is it?" Enishi sounded almost amused, but not quite, and slid a hand
from her shoulder against the side of her throat, and across the slope of her breasts to a
sharply outlined tip, nudging aside the elbow she'd tried to cover it with.

She made a half-hearted sound of indignation, swaying on her feet. "Don't do that."

"Why not? Got 'Property of Battousai' stamped on your girly bits?"

"No," she whispered. "No, he never-- Kenshin's never done anything like this."

"Kenshin." He snorted. "Little bluebird, the only reason Battousai won't kill you is
because of how much he wants you. You telling me there's no reason for that?" Despite
his rough words, his fingers were gentle, pressing and sliding the silk against her in
drowning waves of sensation. She was barely able to wrench free, huddling away from
him in rejection, but he simply tsked. "Not good enough." He pulled her back, crushing
her obi's bow against his body as he held her fast, first to keep her from struggling away
again, and then to keep her from falling faint with desire as he resumed his attentions.

But she didn't want him, did she? She didn't know; she just wanted him to keep touching
her, each silken stroke against her breasts as tender and soft as any caress Kenshin had
ever given her hair, or her wrist, or at most, the hollow of her throat. She choked back
another gasp, but his fingers pressed a little harder. "Come on and sing for me, little
bird," he coaxed.

She couldn't help it; she leaned into his hand, moaning and sobbing for breath. The curve
of his fingers, the sword calluses on his palm, even the rounded ridge of his knuckles
running lightly against the silk-- oh, she didn't care any more whose hands were making
her feel this way, as long as they didn't stop.

When they did, she sagged back limply against him. His chest vibrated with a chuckle
against her head, and she felt her feet trail against the floor as he took a few steps
backward with her and sat down on the bed, perching her on his lap and waiting until she
opened her eyes again.

He was studying her again, a bit more broodingly this time. "You look a bit dazed," he
said. "More than Tomoe whenever Battousai did that to her. Either he's lost the knack or
I'm better at it now, though she'd never let me try it on her, and Yumi usually didn't have
the patience. Or maybe this is new to you after all. Did he just do you the way Yumi liked
it, hard and fast?"

"I told you, he never--" She shook her head, unable to say anything else.

"Hm." Enishi's eyes narrowed. "You know, Battousai's taken Tomoe from me twice now.
First he changed her before I could follow, and now he's changed her back. And she
never would with me, you know. Never seemed fair to me that Battousai had his pick of
them both. Not that I ever went wanting with Yumi, but a bloke likes a change once in a
while. And he took back Yumi first anyway, so now I've got no choice at all, have I?"

"What kind of choice?" Maybe she shouldn't have asked that.

"I think I ought to take you away from him, little bluebird."

"What--" She had to moisten her lips. His eyes flicked down to watch her tongue's
nervous flash. "What are you going to do?"

With an easy motion, he stood up, sliding her off his lap, and then sat down again,
nudging her knees onto the bed with his hip and leaning to pin her shoulders down. "Oh,
nothing you need worry about," he said. "Won't hurt you, except for the traditional
twinge. I'll make it as nice as you like, even. But he'll never have your first time now. If
he ever gets around to it, you'll be comparing him to me." Before she could protest-- did
she even want to protest?-- his hands were inside the kimono's neckline, warmer and
more immediate than through the silk. She cried out, arching her throat back.

"None of that, now. You're not closing your eyes to pretend it's him, are you?" His touch
was just skimming against her now, dipping and circling like dragonflies over a pond.
"You keep your eyes open and look at me, bluebird, or else."

Obediently, she opened her eyes, or tried to. Her lashes kept fluttering as wildly as her
heartbeat. "Or else... or else what?"

He raised an eyebrow at her challenge, and then peeled open one side of the kimono,
pulling it up from the top of the obi to tuck behind her back. His head dipped
down, and his warm tongue curled around her nipple. She could feel his lips smile at her
surge of response, and their more complex movements when he spoke. "Or I'll stop."

"Oh," she breathed. "I-- oh, I can't, please--" She twisted her body up toward his mouth,
but he pressed her flat down with a hand against her chest, waiting for her to look at him
again.

When she could, he seemed oddly pensive. His eyes had darkened, no longer pale
turquoise but nearly deep ultramarine. "Hungry little bird. Been starving you on crumbs,
has he? You don't even know what to do with your arms, flopping around like a baby
chick dropped out of the nest." Self-consciously, she let him nudge his elbows under her
fingers.

"Have to take things more slowly on you, then, or you won't know what's happening. And
I want you to know every bit, so you'll remember, and he'll know every time he touches
you that I did it for you first. Easy then, love," he said softly, and returned to the
dragonfly glide he'd used before, running his fingertips up the slope of the bared breast
with only the faintest hint of pressure, stopping just short of the peak and sliding down
again at a slight angle, as if he were tracing chrysanthemum petals all around. Every so
often, he glanced up to make sure she was still watching him, then rewarded her with a
soft puff of breath against her nipple, a cloud of warmth disappearing almost as soon as
she felt it. Every time he did that, she made a little moan in her throat, the sort of sound a
flute might have made from the same slight gust.

He seemed prepared to do this for hours, never speeding up or increasing the intensity,
and after a while, her hands moved up to his shoulders as she pulled at him, wordlessly
urging him to press harder and faster, to bring his mouth back to her body. By the time
her fingers had slid up into his pale hair, she was writhing blindly again, and this time he
didn't stop the wonderful velvet wave of his tongue, wet and alive against her flesh.
Crazily, she thought that it was mirroring her heart on the other side of her skin, pulsing
hard against it as if to melt into that thin barrier. He was murmuring something to her
now, but she was past understanding, and the low throb of his voice sent her over the
edge.

Shuddering uncontrollably, she arched up again, holding him tight against her. His arms
went behind her, cushioning her fall back into the sheets. As she collapsed in a boneless
heap, he rolled both of them over to nestle her head against his shoulder. His breath
seemed unsteady too, his chest rising and falling against her in short bursts. His voice still
had that detached note, though. "I said, you have very strong hands for such a little bird."

"Oh," she said. Even that short word seemed to take a ridiculous amount of effort right
now. Maybe she could get more mileage by fueling words with the yawn that was
bubbling up. "Sorry 'bout that."

He snorted. "And here you are apologizing to me, too. Next thing you'll be telling me
how grateful you are to me for ravishing you. Better you should be telling that to
Battousai once I'm done."

Kaoru tensed very slightly. She certainly hadn't been thinking about Kenshin at all just
now. But she did remember something Yumi had said when Kaoru had gone to her for
advice, increasingly frustrated by Kenshin's refusal to advance his courtship. "Sex and
love ain't the same thing, but they're not opposites, either. If you can get them both
together, sure, that's wicked keen. But if you can only get one, might as well enjoy it by
itself instead of ruining it by wishing or pretending you had them both." Kaoru hadn't
agreed with this at the time. But she knew that despite the tender ministrations Enishi was
giving her body, he wasn't doing it out of love for her. He was doing it to ruin her own
love for Kenshin, and she wasn't going to let that happen. She was going to accept the
pleasure Enishi gave her, and afterward, let it cleanly wash away.

She tilted her head to see Enishi caressing her bare shoulder, tracing the kimono's edge as
it draped down over her arm. The dark turquoise eyes were half-lidded, absently staring
off into space. "This was Tomoe's favorite outfit," he said. "Still has a bit of her perfume.
I remember when I was just a wee tyke, and she left home wearing this to find Battousai
and get rid of him. Didn't see her again for years, and by then I was older than her, and
she'd been his for all that time. She must've been wearing this the first time he took her,
or just had it stripped off. He ever talk about those years with you, little bluebird?"

"Don't call me that," she said. "It's Battousai's name for me, not Kenshin's."

As she expected, that simply goaded him back into action. He sat up, dumping her head
off his shoulder, and dropped to lie over her crosswise, with her obi pressed flat beneath
his chest. "Battousai, Kenshin, it's all the same," he said conversationally, propped up on
his near elbow. He moved the other one up from the same side of her waist to rest against
his hip and over hers, and began to casually spread open the kimono's bottom half to
expose her legs. "What's important is that I've got a fair trade with him now, dove for
bluebird. Bird in the hand, hey?"

He chuckled again at her startled gasp when his fingers began to trace their way up her
bare thighs. Again, he was using only enough pressure to let her feel it, relying on her
own yearning to make her legs slide apart from each other. He didn't have to tell her to
sing for him again, her soft moans sounding like an entire flock of sleepy doves. She was
vaguely nonplussed that he didn't bother to watch his own work, keeping his eyes fixed
on hers instead. Whenever her lids closed or her head whipped away for more than a few
seconds, he'd stop again.

When his hand reached the top, he didn't even try to probe into her, simply stroking the
tender cleavage of her labia, up and back and over and down. If she wanted different or
more intense sensations, the only way she could get them was by moving her hips into
that maddeningly light touch, straining them up and around beneath his weight. But he
still wouldn't press deeply enough to part those increasingly sensitive folds, no matter
how much she twisted or cried out. Of course, when she collapsed back onto the pillow
with her head lolling to the side to break their locked gaze, his hand pulled away.

"What-- what are you waiting for?" she gasped.

"Hungry little bird," he said again. His voice sounded strained too, though. "I don't think
you're ready yet, that's all." He reached up to stroke her hair. She'd accidentally pinned
herself down by falling back onto it, and he gently tugged it free to spread across the
pillow.

A little crossly, she asked, "And when is that supposed to be?"

"Oh, just a bit more, I think." When his hand returned to its former place, her eyes flew
back open, shocked at a new sensation. His touch was wetly slippery now, as warm and
slick as his tongue, and his fingers dipped easily between her parted lips.

"Ah," he said. "There we go. Lined your snug warm nest for me now, haven't you? And
there should be a lovely pink egg here, ready to hatch." His fingers moved forward, and
she had no idea what happened for the next few minutes except for a delirious blur of
sound and motion.

By the time she was even remotely conscious again, he was lying beside her, idly licking
his fingers. He was wearing fewer clothes than she remembered, and her kimono was all
bunched up around her waist from above and below, held on only by the still tightly-
wrapped obi. On observing her recovery, he rolled to lie over her again, this time with his
knees between hers. "All right then, bluebird. Spread your wings for me and I'll show you
how to fly."

Despite her resolve, she started to panic as he moved into position, not exactly fighting
him but freezing into wide-eyed tension. He actually sighed, though she could feel his
rigid tip already poised in place, pulsing with the same hard heartbeat she could see at his
throat. Laying his silver head down against her breasts, he carefully reached between
their bodies and slid his thumb against the same spot he'd touched before, this time in
short jolts. Whenever she relaxed between spasms, he pushed into her a bit deeper, until
despite her frantic attempts to help pull him in, there was obviously no further progress.
He took a deep breath, flexed his whole hand around that little pearl in a wild flow, and
drove his hips all the way down into her as she pressed up to meet him, screaming.

"Little bird," he breathed, resting his forehead against her cheek before leaning back to
meet her eyes again. His entire weight was pinning her down now, making it nearly
impossible for her to move, though she was still trying anyway. "Sweet little bird. Didn't
hurt you, did I? Here now, stop flapping your poor arms around like that. Think of it like
dancing. Hold my hand up here by your shoulder, and your other arm goes around my
neck. That's it. Now, away we go." His other arm slid down beneath the obi, pulling her
waist up toward him.

Though trying to absorb the strange new mechanics in play-- where should her feet go
now, behind his knees?-- she was soon too overwhelmed to understand any of it. Her
breasts were pressed against the texture of his shirt, the braided loops and knots of the
fasteners rubbing up between them as he nipped little kisses at the base and side of
her throat. His hair was soft against her mouth, with his soap's scent underlaid with a
rising note of clean male animal. He reached back to scoop up her knee into his elbow
before slipping that arm back under her waist, and the deep sliding friction kept driving
sounds up out of her that she never knew she could make.

She twisted in a certain direction and felt him tense, with a low groan of forced restraint.
Ooh, that was interesting. It was almost like the yoga exercise from gym class that some
of the girls kept giggling about. Did that really work the way they said it did? She flexed
experimentally. Oh good, she could get him to make funny noises too. Not only that, but
it felt very nice indeed. She flexed harder and got a coughing growl like a tiger on the
hunt, followed by a deeper lunge that made her struggle for breath, involuntarily tensing
around him again. A certain pattern developed along these lines, destroying any lingering
formality to their posture.

His back was so warm and smooth beneath his shirt, except where her nails bit through
his skin. She had a more difficult time establishing a foothold behind him, with his bare
flesh slick with exertion, and she had to keep tipping her chin up above his shoulder to
breathe, which arched her body up against his chest. Not that this was a bad thing.
She could get used to this, she thought. Seeming to sense her burgeoning complacence,
he shifted his angle slightly, and suddenly everything changed.

She'd felt the same hard shudders before, but now they were even stronger. Instead of just
his thumb or his hand, the full force of his body was rubbing and pressing against her
now, parting every fold wide open, and he'd found a place deep inside that was just as
sensitive. The shudders kept sweeping through her, more and faster, tumbling into each
other until suddenly the river of sensation shot off a cliff, leaving her suspended in free-
fall for a few seconds, a dizzying, breathless drop back to earth.

Sprawled inelegantly beneath him, she had a weird impression of being stuck in a coyote-
shaped crater. He'd stopped again, still joined to her and lying motionless, with every
muscle tensed. Feebly, she spat some of her hair out of her mouth and had to cough a
little before she could produce actual words again. "Are-- does that mean we're done
now?"

"Ready to be rid of me, then?" His expression had gone a bit prickly.

"No, I just--" She looked aside, embarrassed. "Can you do that again?"

At her question, his hips twitched forward, making her squeak. His voice was low and
strained. "Not for much longer, bluebird. Maybe for you it's been since never, but it's
been a while for me as well. Just thought I'd make sure you're still all right before I'm
done."

"I'm fine, thanks," she said, immediately appalling herself with the sheer banality of that
answer. "But-- "

She squeaked again as he adjusted his weight. "But what? Hurry up, haven't got all day
here."

"Don't call me bluebird any more. At least use my name." He didn't say anything
immediately, so she looked back up at him. His eyes were half-lidded into turquoise
crescents, and his hair had been ruffled up into a silver storm by her own hands.
"Please?"

"All right," he finally said. "But I want you to say mine first. Right now, while I'm
moving inside you." And he was again, slowly.

"Oh," she whispered. "Oh, Enishi."

"Kaoru. Tell me you want me, love. Come on, say it for me."

She smiled a little. "No. I don't think you could stop now anyway," she said, and gave
him that delicate inner squeeze again. As it turned out, she was right.

-----

(I just had to get a smut biscuit off my chest after trying so hard to keep the rest of the
Edodale project around PG-level. That feels much better now. Ahhh. I should probably
note that after I started to develop this plotbunny but before I'd written much of it down, I
decided to check what other E/K lemons were already around, and realized that Gracey's
marvelous "Jinchuu" has a similar premise, though much more firmly anchored in RK
canon and characterization. All I can say is I guess there're a limited number of obvious
setups for this sort of thing, and go read "Jinchuu" too ^_^ )