Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ The Black Hawke ❯ The Morning After the Night Before ( Chapter 2 )

WARNING: Rated NC/17. Language, sexual talk and adult situations

Chapter Two

The Morning After the Night Before...

It was her 'so-called-weekend-off' so she had stayed in bed nearly all day. Her roommates had been in and out of her room at least a hundred times trying to get her to get up and go out with them, but she had continually refused telling them that she just wanted to vegetate for a while, and after at least a dozen refusals, they finally left her alone. But the truth be known, she was just too afraid to have to answer a bunch of their questions when they all noticed the bruises and bite marks all over her body.

As she stood in front of the mirror, it was difficult for her to deny that she wasn't just a little bit proud of the bruises that were beginning to darken between her thighs, as well as the telltale hand print bruises that were showing up on her outer thighs and buttocks. But the bite marks on her neck and shoulders made her a little bit nervous. They were going to be hard to cover up even with a thick pasting of make-up base, and the one on her breast... well, hopefully the bodice of her uniform went up high enough to cover it.

The sparkling blue eyes in the mirror met her gaze and she had to smile even if it was just a small one. She had learned a few things from her late night tryst with her would be rapist-lover. For one thing, all those things Thad and Alex had told her over the last five years weren't true. She wasn't frigid. She wasn't deformed. She wasn't half a woman, and she wasn't a waste of a good man's time. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her... she had just never been with a man who knew how or what to do with a woman... or had the 'proper tool' to do it with. 'Who'd have thought it would take a guy with a huge...' Blushing furiously she backed away from the mirror and ambled back across the room to set on the edge of her bed. 'What am I going to do now?'

How many guy's were there out there who had one that big? And how many of them would be interested in the likes of her? It wasn't that she was ugly or homely, she was just really shy and preferred to fade back into the woodwork rather than be the kind of girl that went out and got what she wanted. A heavy sigh lifted her slender shoulders and she absently flipped the waist length swathe of her ebony hair back and tucked it behind her ears. She had been alone for so long she wasn't sure she even knew how to go about trying to find someone to put into her life again. Every relationship she had had in the past had been so lonely and unsatisfying, and then had ended so badly that she had all but sworn never to have another one... but...

"Oh grow up, Kaoru... get a grip and just enjoy the memory for what it was... a wild ride in the middle of the night. A fantastic fantasy that is never going to happen again." A light blanket of sadness drifted over her as she listened to her own voice and another long sigh sifted through her lungs while her eyes wondered listless around her small cluttered room. It was filled with so-called memories and fantasies and each one brought a pang of loneliness to her heart as she looked at it.

Old photographs of ex-boyfriends that she should have put in a box long ago were still stuffed into the edges of her vanity mirror, silly stuffed animals that had been good-bye presents lay clustered together on a small wooden wall shelf their colorful fur dulled with layers of dust that had collected on them since she had placed them there, and strings of jewelry and dishes of earrings that she no longer wore because they all seemed to remind her of someone she desperately wanted to forget. Everything... her whole life it seemed was one big sad memory and then she spotted the money setting in an untidy pile among the hated jewelry.

'He' had given her the money with the specific instructions to go buy a new coat, and she had stuffed it all into her pocket without even bothering to count it. She still didn't know how much was there and it had been setting there all day. Getting up, she walked over to her vanity and sat down on the old worn padded stool and stared at the folded wad of bills trying to get up the courage to pick them up and see how much was there. After taking several long deep breaths, she reached out and cautiously picked up the green paper and lifted it over to her. Unfolding it into both of her hands, she began to silently count the bills and lay each one down in her lap.

"Ten... fifteen... twenty-five... forty-five... sixty-five... eighty-five... a hundred and five... two hundred and five... holy shit... three hundred and five... three hundred and twenty-five... three hundred forty-five... three hundred fifty... four hundred... oh my god... five hundred... six hundred... seven hundred... eight hundred... nine hundred... one thou-sand... oh god oh god oh god.... he gave me a thousand dollars... to buy a coat? Is he INSANE?" She thought at first looking at the wad of bills that they were probably a bunch of fives and maybe tens... but all of these hundreds? He couldn't have possibly known what he was giving her... could he? She sat in complete stunned silence for a long time not able to believe what had just happened and not knowing what she was going to do with all that money.

"There isn't a coat in the world that costs a thousand dollars." She said to herself as she looked at the pile of bills in her lap. "He must have made a mistake... he must have..." Looking back up into the mirror, she met her own troubled gaze and tried to decide what she should do. "I have to give it back." She murmured quietly. "Somehow... I have to give it back." Getting up, she got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a long sleeved button down. Combing her mass of unruly black hair up into a pony-tail, she tied it securely with an old faded blue ribbon that she had forever, and then pulled on her old trench and swept out the door.

Finding a new coat was reasonably simple for Kaoru. Her tastes were simple and finding something on sale at the second hand store that was still in pristine condition was just her cup of tea. She had been on her own for far too long learning to pinch pennies and making her money last to allow herself to indulge in any kind of an extravagance even at someone elses expense. So, when all was said and done she had only spent a little over fifteen dollars of the full thousand her strange benefactor had given her leaving over nine-hundred left to give back to him... if she ever saw him again.

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Tuesday Night 1:45 a.m.

Ragwell's

"Come on, Lisa. Move your ass. I don't want to miss the bus again." Kaoru was so frustrated with her co-worker she felt like throwing her mob rag at her, but the other girl just looked at her and shrugged nonchalantly.

"Keep your skirt on, Kay. I'm almost finished... Geez. Don't have a stroke." Lisa was a breezy blonde with frizzy hair that she liked to poof out and sprinkle glitter in. Her lipstick was always too red and her blush to purple, and her false eyelashes were famous for showing up in the soup and salad bar as entrees' and toppings. She was a piece of work and she drove Kaoru insane with her I-don't-give-a-shit attitude.

"Fine... but if you aren't finished in the next five minutes, I swear I'm leaving you in here by yourself tonight. I am not waiting and I am not finishing for you again, do you hear me... Blondie?"

"Yeah, yeah... blow me..."

"Blow yourself... it'll be more fun." Kaoru humphed angrily and turned back to wiping off the tables and cleaning the salt and pepper shakers. "I swear to God I'm gonna kill her... I'm gonna take her frizzy glittered head and twist it right off one of these days..."

"Hmmmm... wouldn't that be a little messy... all the blood and glitter on the floor? That'd have to be hell to mop up after." Kaoru had frozen solid in half swipe on the table she was cleaning at the first sound of that deep clear voice as it floated over her left shoulder. "Now if it was me... a nine right behind the ear and 'pop'... no more frizzy glitter head, and way less messy than your way." Very slowly Kaoru turned around afraid that if she moved too fast he would disappear before she could actually find out if it were really him or not, but as her body moved to face the owner of that voice, she found it was indeed the same young man who had ravished her body and soul the night before.

"Less messy?" She repeated almost dumbly as she stared into his handsome face.

"Quite a bit." He replied as he moved to lean against the table she had been cleaning off. "I mean, head wounds bleed like hell, but nothing like a fully severed head... you know." He winked at her when she grimaced and shuddered envisioning his description. "Yup... not a pretty picture is it?"

"Yuk... No, not really. Thanks for the mental."

"No problem." He smiled and folded his arms across his chest waiting for her to say something else, and when she didn't he lifted one of his thin black eyebrows at her expectantly.

"What?" She asked in a squeaky nervous voice as she turned and moved on to another table. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you don't miss the bus."

"What?" Whirling around in surprise, she stared at him with wide blue eyes and her mouth gapped open in shock. "No one asked you to do that... It's not... It's not like it's your responsibility or anything... I-I can take care of myself."

"Uh-huh... just like you took care of yourself last night." The hard steel edge of his voice tweaked at her temper and her cheeks flushed involuntarily at his crudeness.

"Well, you should know..." She spat viciously. "You were the one who made it unsafe for me... in case you don't remember." The mop rag sailed through the air and landed wetly on the next table as Kaoru tried to vent a little bit of her anger out on the inanimate. "I would have been fine if you had just left me alone..."

"Is that what you really wanted..." There was a sneering quality to his voice as he advanced on her. "For me to leave you alone? That's not exactly the message that I got... baby-doll." His hand lanced out and grabbed her by the elbow jerking her around to face him. "Did I miss read your 'signals'?"

"Let go!" She snarled and tried to yank her arm free, her eyes snapping with fury as she met his seething aqua-blue gaze. "I don't like to be man-handled."

"Oh really... that's not the tune you were singing last night. You liked how I handled you just fine."

"You didn't give me much choice did you?"

"Maybe I didn't, but once we got going you sure weren't fighting me... were you?" Angry tears started to burn in her eyes as she struggled against his furious grip but he was not going to let up an ounce and as their gazes clashed and the sparks began to fly the passion flared between them just as it had before and they were pulled together without even realizing it.

His mouth was molding and parting her tender lips even as his free hand lifted to tangle itself in the mass of her long ebony locks as they tumbled down her back and over her shoulders. A low moan of hunger and need echoed inside her mouth as he pushed his tongue past the barrier of her teeth and wrapped it voraciously around hers. Of their own volition her arms found their way around his neck and shoulders pulling her body upward and inward to press it against his along every inch and plane she could find. Her breasts burned as they flattened out against the hard muscles of his chest and she could feel the long hot length of him pressing against her upper thigh and lower abdomen. 'God, I want... I... want... want you... wantyouwantyou...'

Tearing his mouth away from hers, he buried it against the leaping pulse in her throat. "Tell me again you want me to leave you alone... tell me..." His hands dropped to her slender waist and pulled her hips hard against him making her tremble violently. "Tell me..."

"I..." Her head was swimming and her hands were already fisted back into the thickness of his silky black hair pulling him into her. "I... can't..."

"What in the fuck in going on out here?" Lisa's loud screeching voice forced them apart and brought a very black scowl to his face as he turned to look at her.

"What the fuck does it look like, mouse-face?" He shot back in a nasty snide voice that sent the blonde stumbling back several steps a look of worried self-preservation etched onto her overly made up face. "It looks like I'm saying 'hello' to my girl... so butt out mouse-face it's not a group thing."

"B-but it's against the rules... no boyfriends allowed. Larry says..."

"Go ahead wench. Tell me what 'Larry' says about boyfriends... and then you and me will discuss what a lazy bitch you are and how many times you've left without finishing your half of the clean-up making 'my girl' stay late to catch-up for your lazy ass... and missing her bus." He advanced on the alarmed blonde his voice low and menacing. "Do you know what happens when she misses her bus? Huh? Do you?"

"N-no..."

"She has to walk home... through Hawkin's Park."

"Hawkin's Park?" Lisa's eyes darted over to where Kaoru was standing with her mouth gapping open in shock, and then they were looking back up into the raging aqua inferno's of the angel-demon in front of her. "What's so bad about that? A lot of people walk home through the park?"

"Oh really?" He sneered into her bulging blue eyes. "You ever walk that way... this time of night, mouse-face?"

"No... I don't live that way, besides... everybody knows that..." Suddenly she stopped and clamped a hand over her mouth as she realized what she had been about to say, and a shiver of fear quivered through her vitals as she watched his eyes narrow perceptively.

"Everybody knows 'what'? Tell me what you were about to say, little girl."

"Nothing... I swear. I wasn't going to say nothing." She sounded halfway panicked as she took yet another frightened step back away from him. "I was just..."

"You were just 'what'? Making one of those 'Freudian slips' everyone talks about? Is that it?" He reached out and grabbed her arm in his vice-like grip and yanked her over to him until he was glaring right into her pale frightened face. "Well, I don't think that's it at all... Wanna know what I think... I think you were about to say something really important, but you don't want me to know what it was so your trying to pull some 'dumb-blonde act' on me aren't you? Well, I'm not buying it girly, so you better spill it or we'll find out just how hard it is to make you talk... my way."

"Oh God... Oh shit... don't hurt me... I-I didn't mean anything by it, I swear I didn't... I was just going to say that everybody knows that the 'Black Hawk and his Pack own the park... that's all I was gonna say... really, it was... that's all." Her voice rose shrilly making him wince at the octaves it reached, but he was satisfied with her answer and let her go. Stumbling away from him, Lisa rubbed her aching arm and glared malevolently at him. "You're an asshole." She grumbled.

His features assumed a bland nonchalant look as he walked back toward Kaoru. "Why, yes I am." He tossed haughtily into the air as he took a seat in the booth at one of the tables. "Thanks for noticing... give you something nice to tell 'Larry' about in the morning."

"Shut-up." She snapped as she threw a mutinous gaze at the still silent Kaoru. "You really go out with this ape, Kay?"

"I... ah..."

"We just started seeing each other, mouse-face, as if it is any of your business... now why don't you take your sorry white ass back into the kitchen where you came from and finish your clean-up so 'Kay' can get out of here on time tonight and not miss her bus again because of you." His narrow green-blue crystals pierced her painfully through the chest as he glared at her across the small diner from his setting place and Lisa sucked in sharp silent gasp of air as the fear returned. "I don't think either one of us want her to have to walk through Hawkin's Park again... do we... little-girl?"

"No." It was a small word, but both Kaoru and the stranger heard it.

"That's good... now disappear mouse-face... before I help you disappear." With that thinly veiled threat tossed at her feet, Lisa turned on glittery sneakers with the red lights flashing in the heels and ran through the swinging double doors into the kitchen. A slow satisfied smile of sorts crossed the man's face as he watched her panic-stricken exit. He loved doing that.

"You scared the shit out of her, do you know that?" Kaoru shot him a bland look and caught the semi smile hovering over his thin lips.

"Yes. I do." His gaze shifted and he was looking up at her through the thickness of his black eyelashes. "You got a problem with that, Ragdoll?" Kaoru bent her head and shook it slightly as she thought about the snippy rude blonde and how much she really didn't like her, and how good it was to see her actually get put in her place for once.

"No. I guess I really don't."

"Didn't think you did." She looked back over at him and saw that his gaze had shifted once more and he was looking out of the window watching the empty street in front of the diner. Every so often a car would drive by, but other than that it was pretty dead out there.

"Did you really come by just to make sure I got out of here in time to catch my bus?" She started wiping off another table while trying to keep an eye on him out of the corner of her vision, and was silently pleased when he turned away from the window to watch her.

"Yes. I told you I did didn't I?" Again the flat tones of his voice floated across the room sounding as if he really didn't give a shit, but he was here... wasn't he?

"Why so worried? I mean... it's not like I'm your 'real' girlfriend or anything... or like you owe me anything either..."

"You finished yet?" He asked acidly cutting her off mid sentence causing her to turn around and face him in mild confusion.

"Finished? What do you mean 'am I finished yet?'"

"Well, you're rambling on about a bunch of bullshit that doesn't make any sense or any difference to me... and I was just wondering if you were finished yet because you were boring the hell out of me." Kaoru looked at him indignantly and spun around to finish cleaning the last table.

"I guess I am." She muttered angrily as she slammed the sugar shaker back down onto the cracked white formica surface.

"Thank God..." Her furious face only managed to bring a twinkle to his dark eyes as he watched her 'humph' her way back into the kitchen to get rid of her cleaning supplies. 'Wild animal... oh yeah...' Then she was blowing back into the front like a whirlwind on fire.

"Listen you..." She started as she stomped over to where he was sitting. "I had some important stuff I wanted to say to you, you rotten rude... person, and you just think that all you have to do is flex your macho image and all of us little females are going to go running off into the corners to hide our heads before you chop them off... well, I got news for you buddy, I don't run..."

"You don't?" He sat up and crossed his arms in front of his chest and gave her his undivided attention all the while in his mind he was thinking how good she would look naked and tangled up in the black satin sheets on his bed.

"No... I don't, and another thing... I may enjoy being kissed and held by you, but I still don't like being man-handled or pushed around, you got that?"

"Ok... I got that." 'Magnificent lips... shut-up so I can kiss you again...'

"And another thing... you gave me way too much money last night... and I want you

to take it back, I mean... how much money do you think a coat costs anyway? A thousand dollars for one fucking coat? Get real..." She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips in exasperation. "I spent fifteen dollars for heavens sake... what in the hell did you think I was going to get? A mink stolle or something just as worthless?"

"Mink is far from worthless, ragdoll."

"Whatever, but I didn't need a thousand dollars to but a damn coat!"

"Fine... use the money for something else then, I don't give a shit... buy yourself ten coats or whatever, but don't you even consider giving it back to me... or else." His eyes narrowed again as he met her angry stare. "You don't even want to go there, girl-friend."

"I am not your girlfriend... and I don't want your money. I can pay my own way."

"Yeah, whatever... go get your coat."

"What?" The swift change in subject caught Kaoru off guard and her blue eyes blinked in confusion. "What did you say?"

"I said, go get your coat." He stood up and stepped over to her and lifted his gloved hands to rest them on the rounded curves of her shoulders. Gently he applied the needed pressure it took to turn her around and point her back toward the kitchen doors, and then he gave her a soft shove. "Go get your coat... I told you... you aren't missing the bus again."

"Oh... I..." She stumbled a couple of steps and then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "What?"

"Coat... now... go." He pointed toward the double doors and then crossed his arms in front of his chest again adopting that nonchalant look that she was coming to associate with him. "I'll wait."

"Umm... yeah." As Kaoru walked into the back to retrieve her coat, she couldn't help but feel like she had just been manipulated by a grand master, but she couldn't for the life of her figure how he had done it. One minute she had been giving him a piece of her mind and telling him 'what for', and the next he was sending her toddling off to the kitchen to fetch her coat like a little girl. Confusion filled her mind as she tried to figure out just how he had out maneuvered her, but the only thing she could come up with was he had just refused to argue with her.

Shrugging into the new warmer garment she couldn't help the ironic smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth as she considered the strange young man waiting for her out front. He had tried to rape her and ended up giving her the best sex she had ever had including her first and only orgasm... and what an orgasm it had been. The heat of yet another blush traveled up her neck and settled in her cheeks causing them to burn hotly as the memory flooded through her mind. 'God... I wonder... will it happen again... will it...'

"Nice coat." He said when she walked back out and he carefully inspected the dark-blue woolen trench with its five buttons, belted waist, and knitted scarf. "Much better than the old one... warmer?"

"Much." She replied with a shy look. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Let's go." Placing a hand in the small of her back, he gently urged her towards the front door. "You have a bus to catch."

"Wait a minute..." Lisa's high pitched alarmed voice grated across his nerve endings one more time and he stopped to look at her over his shoulder. She was standing just outside of the kitchen holding a wet mop and looking all but panic-stricken as she watched him leading Kaoru out of the front door.

"What?"

"We aren't finished cleaning up yet... there is still stuff to do. Kay can't leave yet."

"Sure she can."

"Who says?"

"I do." And he pushed her toward the door again.

"And just who the hell do you think you are? God?"

"No... I'm not God." His voice wafted back to the fuming blonde as he opened the door and pushed Kaoru out. "I'm the Black Hawk..." And the door closed with a 'swoosh'.

"Holy shit..."

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